Erik heard giggling as soon as he hit the door. His need for warmth and affection led him to the living room where he saw Aly’sha and Henny in the middle of the floor, a fort of pillows behind each of them. Each clutching cards in their hands, a stack of them was in the center of them as well as glasses filled halfway with an electric blue liquid. The smell of weed knocked him out of the trance he was in, it was that loud.
“Well hello to you too, Mister.” Henny said. Her deep brown eyes were barely visible through her inebriated induced slits. When he looked in the face of Mini, hers matched. They were gone.
“Wassup?” He kicked off his heavy boots roaming over to Ally’s side. He collapsed onto the pillows on the floor and the ones attached to her and let out a groan. Comfort.
“Long day?” She rubbed at the faded side of his head her nails dragging lightly across his ear.
“Yeah, just wanna be surrounded by my women.” He sat up all of a sudden causing Aly to drop her cards. Henny didn’t miss the opportunity to take a look at her cards. She was far from sober and stupid. “Aye, where’s Ryley?”
“In her room.” Henny stated. “She’s been in there all day.”
“Something she does a lot.” Aly chimed in.
“Yep. And it’s not like we don’t try to make her feel welcomed. I mean it’s been a month since the wedding and I’m not used to someone else calling you husband but we’ve been doing our best to include her in things.” Henny had placed her cards to the side to release all energy she’d been feeling from the new Stevens-Udaku. She thought when Erik jumped the broom with another women who wasn’t her mini me it would anger her, cause heartache. It actually made her feel empty. She didn’t feel a thing and it was odd. Something was off about this woman.
“She doesn’t even call me husband though.” Erik began to rub over his beard. “Shit with her just feel like we homies. We only had sex like twice at that. She didn’t even look me in my eyes.”
Erik knew that coming into this relationship his connection with each woman would remain between them. That meant no gossiping, no pillow talking. He’d broken his rule number one. But it was only to get a handle on this situation.
“You think she’s a spy or something?” Aly quipped. Her question caught Erik and Henny off guard.
“So you know she was married before?” Henny pressed.
Erik starred in her eyes. “Who am I?”
“Killmonger.” She muttered.
“So you know that I know all that shit.”
“Well, I just know that you better figure out what kind of woman you have in our house and in our marriage.”
A thunderous knock jolted Ryley from her slumber. Instinctual habit made her reach under her pillow before her eyes even opened the safety had clicked off. She brought her hand up to aim at the door.
Unfazed, Erik stood in the door. It was dark in her room, the full moon out shining muted light through the window. She could see his face blank of expression, his dreads braided back.
“Get dressed. Wear some comfortable shit. I’ll be waiting in the car.” Just as quickly as he came, he left leaving her with no choice.
Black legging. Black oversized t-shirt. Black motorcycle jacket, Black beanie. Black combat boots. She blended into the night before slipping into the white interior or Erik’s sportscar.
Trees and houses a blur as she leaned on her hand zoned out at the view before her. He was the first to speak up after a twenty minute ride of silence.
“You’re not even gonna ask where we going?”
Erik stared at her, eyes boring a hole in her temple.
“You didn’t care until I brought it up so keep it that way.” He turned his focus back on the road. A million and one thoughts invaded his mind. He couldn’t understand her nonchalance. It was apparent Ryley was different the moment he met her and when he got to know her he fell in love with it. A rose grown through the cracks of concrete in the middle of the ghetto. Her beauty was appreciated yet she wasn’t immune to abuse. Something about her felt familiar. He recognized in her himself. Him before he took a chance with love. He wanted to save her in a way. Keep her fro meeting the same fate he did. He wanted to keep her from getting to a point where rage ruled her life just like him. But she was making it hard.
“Sometimes you act like you don’t even fuck wit’ a nigga.”
The car stopped. More focused on her surroundings Ryley took in the rising sun trying to peak over the hillside neighborhood. The expansive houses evenly spaced between the others, each house as extravagant as the next, she knew money when she saw it. They weren’t in Inglewood anymore.
“What are we doing here?” She countered, totally ignoring his question.
Erik reached over. His intention was to gently grab her face but with the underlying anger and his calloused fingers that didn’t convey. He roughly turned her head to him.
“You’re more like me than any woman I’ve met, which makes it hard to face you. It’s like I’m facing myself. You’re so closed up, so guarded. You don’t want to be vulnerable and I know why. But if you’re like me in the ways that I know you are then I know you show your heart in other ways. Come with me.”
They both got of the car. After Erik opened the door for her he led her to the the sidewalk in front of a Tudor style mansion. Without a doubt it had to be the biggest house in the swanky neighborhood. With its craftsmanship and distinct features it looked like it was shipped straight from England and dropped in the Beverly Hills.
“In this house sleeping is the second biggest arms dealer on the West coast, only second to yours truly. Although he is second best in revenue, he has better connections than I do, the only one mattering to me is to my past. I asked this nigga for a meeting to discuss this and he laughed in my face. Said I wasn’t worthy. So, now we’re going to show him.”
She looked up at him her eyes widened. It was the most emotion she’d shown in the past hour. He grinned.
“I know you’re wit’ the shits, Ryley. If you fuck with me the way you said you do then you’ll help me.” He took her hand into his. “I need your help. I have unanswered questions about my past that I can’t go on living not knowing the answer to.”
Ryley looked into his eyes. It was easy to recognize a void there. Maybe because she too felt it deep inside of her. Since they met he’d done nothing but try to help her fill it, which was useless because she knew it was her who had to help herself. That’s the funny thing about trauma. We look to everyone but yourself to heal it when the power lays right inside of us. She knew that but she accepted his help either way. Erik has never asked her and from what she knew, he’d never asked the other wives to heal him. In his own way he worked on it. This was him asking for her help. It made her feel something she hadn’t in forever. Her body burn and her soul awakened.
People like her made up less than one percent of the population. On personality tests they were dubbed INFJ. The advocates. People who saw helping as their purpose in the world. They weren’t fools though. They only held a helping hand out to those they saw as helpless and those they loved. Sometimes it was one in the same. This time it was one in the same. Erik needed her. The one man in her entire life who stared at her with the most genuine gaze. He saw the beauty inside of her, not the outside. He saw what she could be, not who she was. The earth rocking love she could give if only she would open up….
“I wanna help you Erik.” She said.
Like Overture 1812 they moved through the house in symphony. Erik the conductor. He led the way. Every bullet he fired, she followed. If he directed this orchestra then she was the first chair violinist, most important in this song. They moved with the precision and skill of hundreds. The duo dropped a total of ten by the time they made it to the master suite.
The man sat up in the bed with a shotgun in his hand but it was futile. Ryley popped him in the shoulder the second Erik opened the door.
“GOD!” He screamed grabbing his arm in pain.
“He’s not here right now.” Ryley said.
Erik smiled glaring down at the 5’7 assassin’s before he walked in lifting his ski mask.
The man’s eyes widened. Oh he remembered him alright.
“What the fuck do you want?” He asked still seething in pain.
“Klaus.” Erik said. Ryley stood behind him, her gaze steel but her ears opened, she wanted to hear this exchange. “Give me his contact or give me your life.”
“Fuck you.” The man mustered as much energy he could to send a loogie flying over to Erik. The attempt was weak and landed on his shirt. Erik heard a gun cock behind him and held his hand up to halt his third wife. Swiftly he lifted his own gun to fire at the man’s leg. Right in the thigh, he bled out painting the eggshell hued throw.
“Nah, fuck you. Easy way or the hard way. I could just take all of your electronics and look for it my damn self but that would be harder on me…and definitely hard for you.”
“So what’s it gonna be. Because I’m really itching to drop you for spitting on my man.”
Erik looked back at her, his lips spread in a small smile.
The man let out a gruff sigh, a sign of defeat. He dropped his head.
“I only contact him once every few months and it’s always on a burner with a different number but I know this club they frequent in South Korea. It’s where he does most of his deals.”
“Have you been there before?” Erik asked.
“Yes. It’s where we had our initial meeting.”
Erik stood and turned. His heavy boots collided with the ashen oak wood. “Then it’s where I’ll be meeting him.” He nodded to Ryley giving her the permission she’d been waiting for.
Chicken and waffles seemed like the perfect breakfast to have after the mayhem of the early morning. The sun had decided to bare itself for another day. Erik and Ryley sat eating quietly, both consumed with their thoughts.
“So what do we do now?” She broke the silence after a while.
“He has a private jet out in the valley. We go there, get the GPS off of it and we go from there. Won’t be hard to find out where all the danger resides in whatever city this is.”
Ryley smiled, a wide one, her pearly whites gleaming. Erik’s heart swelled.
“You have this all figured out huh? You get a deal with this and what?”
Erik let a moment pass before he spoke. “Avenge my father. This is just the beginning.”
“Sounds like your father was a great man.” She said. It was more of a statement than a question. Erik had amazing qualities, he was intelligent and had solid morals. Only a great man could produce another great man.
“He was. Made me who I am.”
“I can tell….I say the same about my dad. He passed when I was in 3rd grade. He was serving a bid for selling drugs.”
Erik’s eyes widened. Not that her father had passed, no he assumed that when he saw her side of the church empty when it came time for their nuptials. He was shocked that their similarities ran this deep.
“And I was mad at him for so long.” She continued. “Mad that he would throw his life away. Mad that he would be a dumbass and fall into the trap that they set for black men. I thought he was selfish….but then the older I got the more I realized he just wanted to survive. He wanted more than the scraps they give. He wanted to help himself and others.”
Erik reached over to wipe her tears, tears that had fallen without her even realizing.
“He really just made me who I am. His presence and his absence.”
Erik smiled understanding just what she meant. “He created a G. A dangerous one.” He said.
“And your father created a real one, that stays armed.” She countered.
“Armed & dangerous.” Erik raised his glass of water to her mimosa.
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