“Good.” I clicked my teeth.
Josie flew off of Dre’s head and landed on my shoulder.
“This place is called Hell Cage because you will rot here. The smell, the heat mixed with the silence will eat away at your sanity until your fuckin’ mind drips out of your ears. My men will drag Smack in here to sit right across from you in that chair right there.” I pointed to the metal chair that I just occupied.
“I don’t kill people for betraying me, I kill them for thinking that they could hide their true intentions. I have no other words for you now, Dre. By the time I lay eyes on your body, it’ll just be bones.” I chuckled walking towards the door.
Soon as the doors slid open, Dre started to cry and beg for forgiveness.
“I don’t need you in the Red Room with me. When I come out, you inform the men to turn the heat up inside of hell cage. I want Dre and Smack alive for forty-eight hours then the end game.” I said to Tone just as the double door closed behind him shutting out Dre’s screams.
“Don’t ever let Mira see this version of you, bro. She got light…don’t make her carry your darkness.” Tone stated lowly.
“She’ll never carry my darkness.” I faced him fully.
“What’s your endgame, Kenric?” Tone asked with a face full of worry.
His question hit me harder than I expected.
“I really want to know,” he continued, voice steady. “You the only one that see a board better than any of us. I always wonder what’s your final move? You gone keep cleaning up the streets until you’re the only piece left standing? Keep locking crackheads down to force them to get clean while losing track of yourself?” He cocked his head to the side.
My fists tightened as rage seeped into my bones. Tone was in his feelings, and this was the wrong place to enter a feeling zone with me. I locked eyes with him and hated what I saw in them…reflection.
“I’ll always do what needs to be done, Tone…I told you if this was too much for you then it would be best for you to leave.”
“For what though, Kenric?!” he snapped.
“Control? Legacy? Is this justice for you, the Grand fuckin’ Master?” His eyes misted over.
“I don’t want to kill you, Tone.” I stated flatly.
“You won’t need to, but you will hear me as your brother!” He shouted.
My jaw tightened as Josie shifted on my shoulder. Tone walked close into my personal space not blinking his eyes.
“You saved me, pulled me out of shit that most men like me drown in. That’s why I look at you and see a hood Robin hood with a death grip. You punish people like it’ll make you whole…I just worry about what will happen when your so-called board is clear and there’s no more pawns left to kill? What will be left for you then?” His voice cracked with raw emotion.
His words didn’t echo against the walls they landed on me like bricks. I looked down at the ground then back up at Tone.
“If I stop, the noise in my head, will start to get the best of me. I need this, it gives me a purpose that I won’t explain to no one because I understand that only I get it.” I spat out angrily.
“I get it,” he said lips pressed into a line. “Just make sure that you don’t lose yourself while trying to own a kingdom that nobody, but you asked for. You can easily let it all go and focus on chemistry?—”
“I won’t! All these fuckin’ fiends!! I hate them!! Their families despise them! Their selfish and deserve a fuckin’ cold cell until their forced to their senses! No one will make them see how their decision affects the people that love them! I will though Tone! I don’t give a fuck if it makes me look crazy, and if you no longer want to be here you can go because no one will fucking stop me! Not you, not Mira!! No one will change me or guilt trip me intostopping!” I yelled, feeling the vein in the center of my forehead pop out.
“I understood that all of this,” I motioned with my hands. “Would be farfetched to the average person. I see the beauty in it…I see the what if’s as well. I wish I had all of this at my fingertips when I was a kid because I damn sure would have locked my parents away and forced them to do right by me.”
I swiftly turned around and gave Tone my back as a lone painful tear dropped down my right cheek.
I desperately searched for something inside of me that would comfort the pain that raised inside of me. The air between us crackled with the truth we’d both been dancing around for years, our pain, our rage, our twisted justifications. Josie whimpered quietly, sensing the electricity, her small fists grasped tighter at my shirt.
“I get it now…I fully understand and see you, Kenric.” Tone stated lowly behind me.
“Good…and as far as Mira goes…You are right. I would never force my darkness upon her. Track her phone for her location and deliver her violin to her. She will never be able to understand me fully; she deserves more than me. I want her to heal and become the woman that she’s destined to be. I’ll watch her from afar…and if she comes here, it’ll be because she’s ready for me to own her fully.” I said quietly.
It was twisted and sick, but I was not in the business of denying myself of how I truly felt. I wanted Mira, craved her in ways that was unhealthy as fuck. If I didn’t let her be, then I would surely break her until she wouldn’t be recognizable to her own self.
It felt like I was lying to myself as soon as the words left my mouth. I wouldn’t be able to stay away from Mira for too long, but I wanted to try it. A part of me wanted her to crave for me, to want to come after me…because no one ever did.
