A Kingpin's Obsession: Ajoni's Story (2 page)

When she moves to the front door on my left and closes it behind her, I spin around, race back to my bed, and tunnel my fingers under the pillow for the phone.

“
Leek
,” I shriek quietly into the receiver and look back over my shoulder at the door, completely paranoid.

“Girl, chill. I’m here and peeping out your mama. Wait until you know she has caught the bus before you come out. I don’t want her doubling back and catching you getting into my car. The last thing I need to do is go down for jailbait.”

“Jailbait? Man, I’ll be legally grown tomorrow and old enough to consent now in Georgia. It takes about seven and a half minutes for her to get to the bus stop.” I begin to pace the length of my twin bed and grow edgy like I am detoxing off something, but drugs are something that I will never do. They have taken me through enough already without the benefit of ever getting high.

I plop down on the bed to watch the neon red numbers on the clock sitting on a cheap, plywood nightstand next to me. Two minutes tick by excruciatingly slow, as we wait in the complete silence that is grating on my already frayed nerves.

“Screw this! I’m coming out.”

“Ajoni, wait! She’s about to bend the corner,” he yells as I bounce off the bed and rush out of my room into the living room, while patting the right pocket of my thin red jacket to make sure I have my house key.

“I can’t wait, Leek. I have to take care of my mama and get her out of this neighborhood before this dope kills her. She’s all I got.” I open the front door that is in the same condition as my bedroom door, turn the tiny lock on the knob, and walk out onto the front porch before running down three cracked concrete steps.

The front yard, consisting of two tiny dead patches of grass on each side of a sidewalk leading to the street, runs out fast. The dying November sun reflects off the tinted sunroof of Leek’s customized, champagne, two-door Cutlass sitting on twenty-inch Assassins two houses down, parked at the curb. I take as long a stride as I can up the sidewalk that has more uneven pieces waiting to trip me up than smooth spots.

Leek reaches over and opens the passenger’s side door. I dive inside the car head first, right myself in the leather seat, and reach for the hand grip of the door, slamming it shut. I then notice the hole in the door panel that should have the electric controls for the door and window; there are not any. He cranks the car. The tiny knob that manually locks the door slides down into its hole in the top of the door and vanishes.

CHAPTER Two

Ajoni

“Remind me to never take you on a run,” Leek says, while shaking his head. “You draw too much attention and have no patience, little girl.”

“I know you just didn’t accuse me of not having patience. Pot meet kettle,” I snap back then reach back for the seatbelt with my heart in my throat. When I bow my head to find the buckle, the car does a U-turn in the middle of the street, going in the opposite direction of King’s closest drop house. I assumed my jump in would take place there like every other eastside Blue Kings’ did, including my father’s. I look over at Leek and toss my thumb over my shoulder.

“King is in the other direction, Leek,” I inform dryly, hoping he is not taking me on a run right now of all times.

“No he’s not. We’re going to where King wants to do your jump in so he won’t be disturbed. Don’t worry. I’ll bring you back as soon as he’s done. If you want to turn up for your new position in the crew and your birthday afterwards, we’ll cop something on the way back.” His eyes cut to me, wondering why only King will be doing my initiation. That is not the way the Blue Kings’ jump-ins usually work, and this one is suspect as hell.

“What do you like to drink on, Ajoni?”

I hear him talking, but I cannot give the question serious consideration. I am more concerned about where we are going.

“Ajoni, answer me. What do you like to drink?” he asks again.

“N
—
n
othing but soda,” I stutter then swallow deeply, determined to put my big girl panties on and handle whatever is about to come my way.

“I’m not old enough to drink yet,” I add then realize that statement contradicts the grown woman front I was trying to put up; but I am feeling like the scared seventeen-year-old that I truly am, and looking around me nervously.

We are driving toward the rural part of Mecca where mostly rich people live miles apart from each other. Between those houses are thick woods where local kingpins are known to have warehouses for various reasons; killing, torturing, cutting up dope, and concealing grow ops for hydro marijuana. My father told me a lot of things about what dealers do, and that most of them cannot be trusted to do what is right. Immediately, I think,
this ain’t right either
, and then glance back at my house getting farther and farther away in the distance.

“Where exactly are we going?” I ask as nonchalantly as I can, then ball my hands in the pockets of my jacket to hide the shake developing in them.

When he does not answer, I become damn sure that someone else is up to something besides me.

“Leek, this does not feel right. I know King uses the drop house on my street to jump in his runners for the eastside. They come out busted up and bloody, sometimes toothless, but always on the block they’ll be working. What makes me so special that I need to be taken out of the city?”

He turns his head, to smile with one side of his lips before looking at the road again. I do not like how the look on his face makes me feel, but if I have to deal with it for a minute to get my mother away from Mecca after I graduate high school in a year, so be it.

I sit back in my seat, feeling uneasy as hell. The feeling gets worse when we shoot through two yellow lights a block apart and barely stop at the stop sign, where he takes a left onto the straightaway that leads into the back of the beyond. At least, that is what city people call it.

Leek’s hands begin to clench and release the steering wheel like he has bad nerves too, but he should not. I begin to fear the unknown and wonder if I should fear the Blue Kings too.

“What are the Kings planning for my jump in?” I ask again.

He takes a deep breath, blows it out through his thin lips which are unnaturally dark from smoking weed, and begins to grin.

“What we promised we’d do, make you a part of our family just like your father is, but I have to confess. Since you’ll be the first female King makes a member, he is doing it another way. That says nothing about you. King knows you’ll be loyal to us like your father is. It doesn’t hurt that your father taught you how to protect yourself and is already in with us. But when you came to the house a week ago and asked about getting your colors for your birthday, King was impressed.” Leek’s smile widens before he adds, “So were the rest of the goons.”

He seems proud of me, but something still feels off about this jump in. I turn in my seat, putting my back against the door.

“Listen, Leek. I just want to take care of Seeri. I don’t know how long we have before we lose everything because of her habit,” I explain, hoping to manipulate his compassion and him. I will need his guns on my side if something goes left at King’s warehouse.

Leek nods his understanding. The smirk on his lips widens.

“I respect you for that Ajoni, and King will too. He takes care of his people and will take care of Seeri too…
if
you take care of him, do what he says, and keep your mouth shut.”

I swallow anxiously, not feeling any comfort in his words that make joining King’s crew sound like a one-sided contract that requires a lot more of me than King.

“I can handle that, Leek, as long as what he wants me to do is within reason and he pays me on time, but killing someone for the family is not going to happen.” I know enough about other crews to know some new recruits have to carry out a senseless murder to join. I have never heard of King making anyone do that, but that does not mean he will not want me to do it, and there is every chance that he will if he and his soldiers are not going to jump me in the old-fashion way. I start to feel as if I may have just gotten in over my head.

“Leek, be honest with me. What is about to happen in the county?”

The small smile on his face morphs to completely disturbing.

“You’ll see,” he says evasively. Pure dread rolls through me. I realize trusting the Kings is a mistake and my plans for helping my mother already feel like they are going left. All I want to do now is get out of this car
—
petrified of what will happen if I don’t.

I start to tremble in my seat and fumble beside it with my hands, to find the catch for my seatbelt. Leek’s hand flies off the wheel and lands on my nerveless fingers making it hard to feel anything.

I look up, worried that he is not going to let me go.

“I’ve changed my mind, Leek. Stop the car. I’ll get out and walk back home from here.”

He crushes my fingers together in his. The sensation comes back in mine, just in time to feel the massive amount of pressure that he is applying to them.

“You’re hurting me. Let me fucking go,” I hiss, trying to come off as hard like my father taught me to when I am scared out of my mind. Usually, it is enough to make most people back down, but I am not sure if that will work with a grown man that has me trapped in a car with him.

“I’ll hurt you even more, Ajoni, if you don’t sit back and shut the hell up,” he says between clenched teeth. “Nobody goes back on their word to us.”

“I haven’t committed to the Kings yet. You can still take me back home and tell King I couldn’t get out of the house,” I plead as my fingers begin to throb, making my eyes burn with unshed tears. I try yanking my fingers out of his hold. He squeezes them even harder.

“It’s too late to change your mind, Ajoni. Every one of the Kings has waited for this day. Now are you going to sit back and shut up?”

I nod my head, hoping he will loosen his grip if I say I will do as he says. When he does, I jerk my hand back then slide towards the door, wishing I could get out of it.

“Waited for what?” I ask in a terrified whisper, forgetting to appear strong. He turns onto a graveled road which vanishes into the woods that seem like a dark pit waiting to swallow the car.

“To find out what is in those jeans that makes a grown man fucking drool every time you walk by.” Then he shrugs. “Well, at least King will find out tonight. But if he gives the word, the rest of us will too.” Suddenly, it all makes sense. They are not going to jump me into the gang the usual way because they want to gangbang me into it. All the air rushes out of my lungs, allowing paralyzing terror to take its place.

“I thought the Kings were better than raping teenagers,” I utter breathlessly, finding it even more difficult to breathe as Leek travels further into the forest that is getting thicker and darker the deeper we go.

He snorts.

“Maybe you should stop thinking Ajoni, and just go with the flow. I promise it won’t hurt if you let it happen.”

“Are you fucking serious,”
I shriek, growing hysterical, but that emotion never helps when you need to think clearly—or so my father says. “Leek, would you want someone to tell you to bend over, take it, and smile while holding your ass prisoner? Do you even care that I’m a virgin?” He does not respond, which only ignites my fury.

I begin to scream at him, “You know my father, Leek! Why would you do this to me? I won’t just let a bunch of thugs rape me! Take me home!”

He throws his head back and laughs loudly, shattering my nerves, then returns his eyes to the road.

“You didn’t think we were just a bunch of thugs when you asked to join us to get this paper.”

“That’s all I want to do is make money for the work I’ll do for you. Nothing else.”

He harrumphs.

“I think you just want Jordan to be your first piece. Trust me; your crush sees you as what you are, a little girl in a grown woman’s body that does not know what to do with it.”

“Well, I guess that makes you and the rest of the Kings child molesters then,” I mumble under my breath and believe Leek about Jordan’s opinion of me. It stings like hell, but since Jordan never acted like he was feeling me and probably never will, I accept that he won’t and focus on the deep shit that I am in.

It feels like a setup that I probably will not find my way out of until I am let out of it. No one that really loves me knows where I am. No one else will test King to save me if they do.

“Olease, don’t take me to King.” I beg. “I won’t tell anyone about this.”

His right hand balls up on the steering wheel. The newly formed fist then takes flight before I can blink, colliding with the left side of my cheek just as a tin building with cars parked in front of it appears.

“Shut the fuck up, Ajoni!” he yells as the power behind his punch snaps my neck to the opposite side.

Everything goes out of focus. My face crashes into the window. I lean even harder against the glass as bright lights swirl around the eye socket he landed the blow near. Excruciating pain swells under it, taking my breath away. My tongue begins to swell in my mouth as if I have bitten it, but the pain in my face is overwhelming my senses and making it impossible to concentrate on anything else that might be damaged.

I reach up with both hands and touch my face, wondering if he just broke a bone in it. My mind starts to spin as it tries to accept that the gravity of my situation has just escalated and will probably only get worse from here. I start to cry quietly, not wanting to get hit again for making noise; I am not sure if I will survive this ride, or the jump in. How could wanting to put my family on top before things get any worse for us actually make things so much more worse for me?

Leek begins yelling again, “This is happening! I don’t see what the problem is! You and King will be getting what you want! Do yourself a favor, calm down, and go with it!”

I decide to take some of his advice and calm down, shutting the crying down to just sniffles.

“Leek, I don’t want King and you don’t have to take me to him,” I plead around my thickening tongue, from behind my trembling hands. “You’ve already jumped me in with that sucker punch. Street laws say I’m family now, so take me to the hospital. I think you’ve broken my jaw.”

The car stops moving. I hear the gear slide into park and keys rattle as he takes them out of the ignition. I move my hands from my eyes to look up. We are sitting behind King’s pearl white Escalade on twenty-two inch rims with black inserts. Leek pushes the unlock button on his door. The lock pops up on my door and my stomach bottoms out. Getting out of the car may be the worst thing I do.

He turns sideways in his seat, facing me.

“Do I look like I care about your damn jaw?” he sneers with a vicious smile on his too thin lips that makes his beady black eyes shrink in his head, which is wearing the same wavy cut as Jordan’s.

“Yeah, I get now that you don’t care about anything,” I sneer right back. “I just wish I knew that before I thought about joining the Kings and being under your protection. Looks like you’re ones I need to be protected from.”

He lifts one side of his mouth. “Now you get it. Now get the fuck out of the car,” he demands coldly.
I become conflicted with giving in and making whatever is about to happen to me easier on myself, or fighting for what belongs to me—my body.

“No,” I say simply. I will always fight. The side of his mouth falls back down. His eyes widen as he cocks his head to the side.