Page 3 of Dope Boys: Most Wanted
Gingerly, Reign patted her tender face. By now, she should’ve been used to the beating, the degrading, the mental abuse. The more she found herself conditioned, the more she was disgusted by it. She leaned her body into the side of the wall and plotted her escape. It had to be tonight, once he’d passed out, once he’d come down, once the security changed shifts.
“Don’t fall asleep,” she muttered to herself, feeling her heavy lids close. She forced them back open, tried shaking her hands to keep herself awake, but there wasn’t much use. The beating, along with whatever Javier had the staff put in her drink, was taking full effect.
The more she fought to stay awake, the more it deemed a losing battle. Her head dropped against the wall she leaned on, the pounding continued as her body pleaded for relief. And for a little under thirty minutes, she had it. Before the door was pulled open and Javier’s frame took up the entryway of the closet. His presence a looming darkness. A demon with gnashing teeth, ready to pull her from the slice of solace back into hell.
“Wake the fuck up,” he hissed. A cup of ice-cold water hitting her face in tandem with his words.
Blocks of ice hit her face like fists, shocking her from trauma-induced slumber. Reign gasped, filling her lungs with air and erratically looking around the space that once was dark. All the dreams she had of peace – gone.
“Javi, no,” she pleaded. “Just leave me alone, please.”
Her pleas fell on deaf ears. With a fist full of her hair, he yanked her out of the closet and pulled her into the hall.
“Shut the fuck up and crawl back to the room like a good bitch,” Javi spat as he dropped her to the ground and kicked her forward.
Reign started to hiss, her knees raw from the constant carpet burn. She swallowed the pain, recalling the plan she half-formed in the hall closet. No fighting back, no pleading, just on her knees half-dressed and crawling back to the bedroom. What was next, she knew, felt the disgust and shame course through her being. The images of Javier and the woman and man he chose for the night having their way with her caused her stomach to quail. Sweat popping out of the pores on her body as she quaked with fear.
Unable to control it, she halted her crawling to throw up.
“Bitch, you throwing up on my fuckin’ floor?” Javier barked, rushing over to grab her hair and push her face into the puddle of puke. Cruelty at its finest.
Reign threw up the contents of her stomach over and over again. All of the food, cake, and alcohol he presented to her before luring her to the room to be his slave. Her body was weak from retching.
“You sick?” he gritted, as if she’d gotten this way on her own doing. He drugged her, he beat and raped her. The result of his evilness was spewed across the floor in puddles of foul-smelling,chunky liquid. “KC, get this bitch out of my fucking face! She ain’t worth half the shit I give her.”
Reign’s head was spinning – the whole hall was spinning as she dropped to her side, still puking. The only thing that stopped it was Javier’s slide-covered foot to her face, sending her world from spinning to black.
“I don’t understandwhy you have to keep leaving me every time they call.” Niveah’s voice was whinier and nasally than it was seductive. She kneeled in the center of the bed in nothing but a lingerie set she hoped to turn Markus on with. “I was in here all night waiting on you. You didn’t answer my calls. I could’ve been out with my girls.”
No avail. As of late, connecting with him had been far and few between.
Without looking up from his phone, he muttered. “I got shit to handle. Getting my dick wet ain’t on the top of my list of things to do.”
Even after a night of ignoring calls, he wasn’t going to leave his aunt on read anymore. Especially if he wanted to go to sleep with a clear conscience. He’d been out all night and only came home to wash and change his clothes. After taking his product back, his head was on a swivel for whatever Rock thought he was cooking up next.
“So I’m just supposed to sit here with a wet pussy while you take your ass to the trap?”
Markus curled his lip and furrowed his brows. “Niveah, whatever you do with your pussy when I’m working really don’t have shit to do with me. I got to go. Lock up.”
“So I can go fuck another nigga?” Niveah posed, testing Markus’ reaction.
His body didn’t tense. His shoulders didn’t square and he never took his eyes off his phone. His long legs strode toward the door of their bedroom. “You ain’t fuckin’ stupid.”
She scoffed and dropped down to the bed like a child, crossing her arms and poking her lip out in protest of the rejection. “You passing up my pussy like this is pissing me the fuck off, Money.”
“You got toys in that drawer, do something with them and calm the fuck down. Better yet, take yo ass down to the shop before I find someone else to run that shit,” he huffed, earning the pillow launched in his direction.
He dodged it and allowed her the temper tantrum, proceeding down the stairs of his modest, Blair Point brownstone. The goal had always been to move him and his boys into the mansions of Crystal Bay, but the climb to thetop of the food chain had been slower than he anticipated. To anyone watching, Markus Money Grant was getting money hand over fist. From a snotty-nosed paper boy to a nappy-headed ruthless jack boy to small-time dope boy to the connect. Markus, alongside with his boys, Brantley and Svyn, made a name for themselves. Feared yet respected and making their presence known one block at a time.
In his blacked out BMW M8, he sped out of the neighborhood and toward the source of his contention, his aunt’s house.
“Auntie,” Markus’s voice moved through the renovated brownstone like a calm breeze. Sudden noises had always given his aunt Lucille a jolt. And with her current condition, he didn’t want to do or say anything that was going to send her into distress.
Markus’s athletically built six foot, six frame roamed through the home that served as his safe haven growing up. He and his sister, Nia, landed here when his mother tragically chose an abusive father over them. They say children don’t remember, but his brain recorded everything to later torment him when the nights were too quiet to bear. Aunt Lucille and the home full of love she created had given Markus warmth and comfort. Although it was her all, it wasn’t enough to keep him from the streets.
78thand Lynnwood.
Every step deeper into the home smelling of amber oud was accompanied by the memories of how the newness of the place came to be. And then back to what used to be. Three nappy-headed little boys and a very sassy girl driving their aunt insane. The brownstone represented resilience to Markus. It represented his evolution. Alone, angry, and lacking the love he needed to mold his nine-year-old self. Now, he had some senseof self, wasn’t alone, and he had his anger in check – for the most part.
