Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“You might want to back up, Mr. Stone.” Rage blazed in Sherman’s eyes. “You got my sister in some bullshit.”
“You let Lucy die? We may be even.”
“I didn’t think Benny would do her like that. She’s dead. Let’s move on.” He gestured to my guard. “Tell this motherfucker to let me go. I’m not going back to prison.”
“You sure about that? You’ve caused enough trouble. Don’t you think?” I folded my arms around my chest. “In fact, maybe I’ll tell the cops that you’re the one that killed Lucy. It won’t be hard to blame you. I have people in high places as you know. Those people freed you. Those same people will lock you up, and this time it’ll be a rich white girl’s death. What do you think the headlines will say?”
“I don’t think you want to threaten me.”
“Now’s the time to be a good boy.”
“Watch the boy talk. I’m not your boy.”
“But you are a boy in my world, where big men keep judges in their pockets.” I sneered at him like a fucking animal.
Men were wild creatures after all. We loved to fuck, but most of all, we loved to fight and shove out our aggression on others. We relished in measuring each other’s cocks to figure out who was the baddest and the meanest. With the liquor, Jasmine’s missing status, and these new upsetting details that had been storming down on me with each minute that passed in this depression-stricken hood, it was time to pull out my big cock and slap them all with it. Show them who the boss was. Point to who really held the cards at the table.
Someone had lied. Someone killed. Someone plotted. And all of this resulted in Jasmine being yanked from my safe hands. Regardless of it being her family or not, someone would pay for it all.
“Why did you tell Benny?” I asked through clenched teeth. “Troy said he could trust you.”
“Yeah, he could, but he never said anything about Mom being in the mix.”
I slanted my head to the side. “Your mom?”
“Yeah, she told me to give the information to Benny.”
“Why?”
“I never ask Mom why. I never want to know. I just do what she say sometimes.” He tapped the side of his head. “I don’t ever try to understand her. That shit makes my brain hurt.”
“So she told you to tell Benny where Lucy was, you did, and now what?”
He targeted me with a weird gaze. “Now I’m trying to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Something’s happening and I want to make sure Jazz and Troy don’t get hurt.”
“Jasmine is with Benny now,” I said.
He nodded. “After the news about Lucy’s murder and the ball, I sat outside of your property all night. I didn’t think I would see Benny’s car. It rolled through the gates early this morning and then two hours later drove back out. I wasn’t sure if that was Jazz or not in the backseat with him, but I figured it was her. I was about to follow Benny. I’d been sitting in my car the whole time, and had to duck down behind the steering wheel, when they rounded the corner.”
“Why didn’t you follow them?”
“The next thing I know, I put the key in the ignition to start the car, and Mom rolls up. I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“So you followed us instead?” I backed up.
“Yeah, and imagine my surprise that you both head to South End. First of all, I couldn’t figure out why Mom would help Benny kill Lucy. The chick never done anything to us. Troy told me that she never hurt Jasmine. All I knew was that Benny was being Benny. He got a thing about revenge.” Sherman rubbed the scars on his neck. “I never fucked with him. Although I’d love to get in his ass just once. I watched him hurt a lot of people though. Motherfucker that did this to my neck ... well, you should see what Benny did to his neck. A cop did it one night, when I was walking home. Thought the shit was funny. Got a knife out. Burnt the blade, and then cut me up. Told me to remember his name.”
Sherman gave me a wicked grin. “I did and gave that name to Benny. That crazy man took me with him. I wasn’t even ten years old. The shit I saw that night changed me forever. Benny used an ice pick and he put so many holes into that pig’s neck, the shit looked like Swiss cheese.”
I rubbed my face. Since I’d been learning about Benny, I couldn’t get the grime and blood off of my skin. Even though no one could see the muck, the guilt, it clung to my flesh. Benny’s evil spilled over me, whether I yearned for it or not.