Beginning of an Eclipse (SIN CITY HEAT SERIES PREQUEL) (16 page)

    
Luther stepped over the wino sprawled in the narrow hallway that led to his rat trap of a room. Even now, damn near broke and hiding out, he looked down his nose at the conditions he was forced to live in. As he inserted the key into the door, he wondered again:
How had he gotten to this place in his life?
    
He had only been trying to protect Roni, to get that thug Monroe out of her life once and for all. It wasn’t his fault that idiot had killed Roni by mistake. If it had been Monroe, no one would’ve blinked an eye. As it was,
his
face was plastered everywhere. Television, posters in Vegas airports and bus stations…he was practically a prisoner in the city. He couldn’t use his credit cards or ATM card because he knew it would lead the authorities directly to him. He’d rented a room in a filthy motel right outside of town with what little money he’d been able to get his hands on - and it was running out fast.
    
He stepped into the room and quickly bolted the door. He hated this place! He hated the pathetic occupants even more, but the crime ridden neighborhood was the only place he could afford. He had to get the hell out of here.
    
There had to be a way out!
    
Luther threw himself down on the dirty sofa and looked around in disgust. The bedroom in his house was bigger than this entire room. He couldn’t believe his life had come to this.
    
His stomach let out a loud growl, reminding him that he hadn’t had a meal since breakfast. However, he would hardly call the bologna and stale bread sandwich he’d consumed breakfast. His stomach roared again as he thought about his favorite meal of succulent lobster tails with garlic butter, meat so tender it melted in his mouth, followed by a dessert of creamy chocolate mousse cheesecake and the best wine money could buy...
    
“‘Sup Thorpe…”
    
Luther jumped up off the sofa and looked around in shock at hearing that voice. Monroe! He must’ve been hiding in the bathroom. Luther backed up to the other side of the tiny room, which was nowhere near far enough away.
    
“What are you…? How did you…?” He desperately looked around for some means of escape but the only exit was the front door, and Darrell was casually leaning against it smoking a cigarette.
    
“How did I find you? See, that was always your problem. You underestimated me from the very beginning.” Darrell blew out a puff of smoke. “I guess we underestimated each other, though, huh?”
    
“What do you want?” Luther’s voice cracked in fear. As soon as he asked the question, he could’ve bitten his tongue off. Of course he knew what Monroe wanted, had seen it in his eyes the day Roni got shot. “Monroe, Roni’s death was an accident. A tragic, misfortunate accident.”
    
Darrell’s body tensed. “If you say her name again, I’ll shove my fist so far down your throat you’ll be shittin’ it for days.”
    
Luther held his hands up. “Alright, alright. I only meant to say it wasn’t supposed to happen. Ro-” He bit off Roni’s name when Darrell took a step towards him. “
She
wasn’t supposed to die.”
    
Darrell’s laugh was bone chillingly cold. “No. I was, right?”
    
“She was always too good for you! She would’ve eventually seen that. You didn’t deserve her!” he spat out.
    
Darrell took another step, then stopped and nodded. “I have a feeling you’re gonna get what you deserve. Real soon. I‘ve called the police and they‘re on the way.”
    
Luther tried to hide his terror. Keeping one eye on Darrell, he opened the blinds behind him and looked at the window that was nailed shut. Darrell glanced around the filthy room. Roaches were crawling on top of the tiny table by the wall. A mouse ran up to him, stopped, then kept it moving.
    
“Nice accommodations you got here, Thorpe. But then again, where you’re going it’s gonna make this place look like Caesar’s Palace. See, Roni had a lot of friends. A lot of
important
friends. Why do you think you can barely take a piss without looking over your shoulder?”
    
“It wasn’t my fault! Your old buddy ‘from da hood’, Rakeem, jumped the gun. He saw your truck and just started firing! I tried to get his attention, but….”
    
“Don’t worry about him. He’s gonna see me next.”
 
   
“I…I want to make a deal! I’ll testify against him. He’s really the one you want. He pulled the trigger. I’ll cooperate with the police….”
    
Darrell’s laughter was full of genuine amusement. “Luther, don’t worry about it. I got it covered. No, you’re goin' somewhere that’s gonna welcome you with open arms.”
    
Luther could feel his heart pounding in his chest. “Wh-what are you talking about?”
    
“They’ll love you in prison. And I do mean
love
you. Pretty ass muthafucka like
you
? Shiiittt. They’ll have you on the prison block in no time and have you sold to the highest bidder by the end of your first day there.” Darrell cocked his head to the side and looked Luther up and down. “You should go for two, maybe three cartons of smokes.
 
And come nighttime - I’m sure your new husband will consummate the union over. And over. And over….”
    
“Wh-wh-wh-what?”
Luther was horrified. His entire body trembled at the thought. He knew all about the horror stories of prison, and knew Vegas had some of the most brutal ones in the country. He had no doubt, with Bryan’s connections he’d make sure he was assigned to the worst one possible.
    
There had to be a way out!
  

    
He vehemently shook his head. “I-I-I-I’m not going to prison.” He jumped when a siren sounded from the streets below. “Oh, God. I have to get out of here.” He looked out the window and saw a police car pull up with lights flashing. “They won’t take me in alive. I’ll kill myself first.”
    
Darrell studied Luther intensely. Luther shivered at the cold gleam in his eye. “Funny you should say that.”
    
“Wh-wh-wh-what are you t-t-talking about…” He quickly glanced out the window again. The policemen were getting out of the cruiser.
    
Without answering, Darrell pulled out a clear plastic zip lock bag with a 45mm inside. He walked over to Luther and threw it on the table beside him.
    
“I thought you might feel that way.”
   
Luther eyed the pistol suspiciously. “What’s that for?!”
    
Darrell shrugged. “I really don’t give a damn what you do with it. The choice is yours. Only you know what you can endure. And if it’s being passed around from convict to killer for the rest of your life….” Again Darrell shrugged. “’Sup to you.”
    
When Darrell turned and walked towards the door, he heard the rattling of the bag as Luther picked up the gun. Opening the door, he paused, keeping his back to Luther. “There’s only one bullet. Make it count.”
    
Then he walked out. Luther’s hands shook so violently, he could barely open the bag. Then he looked at the door. Maybe he still had a chance to escape before…
    
Bang! Bang! Bang!
    
“Luther Thorpe! This is the police! Open up!”

    
Panicked, Luther froze. Once they took him into custody, it would be all over.
    
But he didn’t have to let them take him alive.
    
There was a way out!
    
He stared at the gun. As the police thumped on the door again, he put the gun in his mouth before he changed his mind. Closing his eyes, he squeezed the trigger.
    
Darrell walked past the clerk, and barely slowing down, slid an envelope full of cash towards him for the final payoff. The clerk reached for the envelope and stuffed it in his pocket.
    
Stepping outside, Darrell waited. Minutes later, two police officers walked out of the motel. They looked at Darrell and nodded before getting into the police car and driving away. Without a word, Darrell got into his truck.
    
One down. One to go.

    
Rakeem was in heaven as he watched Precious suck, swallow, and slob his knob. When she'd approached him at the club and whispered in his ear what she wanted to do to him, he hadn’t wasted any time. She'd given him a preview of things to come in the car when she massaged and choked his meat until he forgot his own name.
    
The minute they’d stepped into the motel room, Precious had him out of his clothes before he was aware of it. This freak even had a set of handcuffs in her purse. Rakeem had been a little leery of letting a bitch he didn’t know handcuff him, but before he was aware of what happened, he was buck naked and restrained on the bed.
    
Trick betta be worth my time or I'mma beat her mu’fuckin’ ass!

    
Rakeem writhed on the bed in anticipation as he eyed Precious. “That’s right, bitch. Look at that python. You ain’t neva seen nothin’ like that, have ya?"

    
Rakeem was so busy talking shit that it was a minute before he noticed Precious was preparing to leave instead of taking her clothes off and crawling in the bed with him.
 
    
“Hey. Hey, what you doin’….” Precious ignored him and opened the door to the room. She stuck her head out and looked around as if searching for someone. “Bitch, what the fuck is you doin’!” Rakeem looked up at the headboard and pulled at the cuffs. "This some kinda joke?!”

    
Precious gestured for somebody to come inside. “Bitch, come here! You don’t know who you fuckin’ wit!” By now, Rakeem was furious and struggling hard enough to break the headboard. “I will kick yo' got damn ass...”
    
“Shut the fuck up. You ain’t gon’ do shit.”
    
Rakeem raised his head to see who the deep voice belonged to. He laughed when he spied Darrell standing in the doorway, casually taking a pull from his cigarette and calmly observing him.

    
“Well if it ain’t pretty boy Monroe! This one o' yo' bitches?”
    
The same as he'd done with the clerk at the motel, Darrell slipped Precious a wad of cash, then held the door open for her to leave.

    
“You’s a dead bitch when I catch you! You betta pray I don’t find you!” Rakeem yelled after her.
    
Darrel closed and locked the door. “Nah. You the one who needs to start prayin’.”
    
“Guess I'm supposed to be scared now.”
    
Darrell threw a duffel bag on the chair and unzipped it. Ignoring Rakeem, he started taking out different items and placing them on the table. Rakeem continued to struggle with the cuffs, all the while taunting Darrell.
 
    
“Oh yeah, I hear condolences are in order. Sorry about ya girl.”
    
Darrell’s hand paused while pulling out the next item. He slowly turned his head to look at Rakeem. The grin dropped off Rakeem’s mouth when he saw the hammer in Darrell's hand.
    
“What tha….” He finally noticed the rest of the items on the table. Tape. A large, sharp hunting
 
knife. Cigarettes and cigarette lighter. Pliers.…a gun. “What the fuck is that shit?”
    
Ignoring the dumb ass question, Darrell grabbed the gun and tape. He walked over to the television and changed the channel to a horror show where a woman was screaming as a man in a mask chased her with a chainsaw. He turned the volume up extra loud then picked up a chair and placed it beside the bed before straddling it. Crossing his arms over the back,
 
he stared at Rakeem in silence. Rakeem glared back.
    
“What, muthafucka?! You gon’ kill me, then kill me! Don’t be playin’ no li’l bitchass games! Either handle yo' bidness or git the fuck out!”
    
“It's gon’ be handled, Rakeem. Trust. Only one of us gonna walk up outta here tonight, and I think we both know who it ain't gon’ be.”
    
Rakeem laughed. “Guess you think you a ‘G’ now, huh? Bitch please! This is a man’s game. Takin’ your clothes off in Vegas made you soft.” When Darrell still didn’t respond, Rakeem sneered. “See, if it had been my woman who got popped, I woulda brushed it off. Part o' the game. I wouldn’ta been screamin’ and cryin’ in the middle of the street like some li’l bitch.” His face expressed satisfaction when he saw Darrell’s jaw tightly clench. “You fucked my bitch. I fucked up yours. I say we even now.”
    
Darrell’s eyes narrowed when he heard what Rakeem wasn’t saying. “You knew. You knew it was Roni and not me in the car…”
    
Rakeem laughed. “I’ll give you this. She was a
baaad
bitch. I just wish I’d had a chance to get wit her and show her how a real man fucks a ho’ instead of having to kill….”
    
Darrell sprang from the chair and knocked the rest of Rakeem’s words down his throat with the butt of his gun. Blood and teeth flew from Rakeem's mouth as he screamed in pain.
    
Darrell grabbed the tape and began taping it over Rakeem’s mouth then under his neck and back across his mouth to mute Rakeem’s agonizing moans. His hands shook from rage. He paced the length of the small room, trying to get his mind right to deal with Rakeem.
    
“You sick, crazy fuck….”
    
Darrell's expression was one of pure hatred as he took a couple of steps towards Rakeem, then stopped and began pacing again. In his mind, he remembered how Roni had looked when he’d opened the door of the truck. There had been so much blood until her clothes were saturated and sticking to her body. A need to avenge her death burned hot in Darrell's veins.
 
    
While in the ambulance, the paramedics had cut her clothes away then worked to try and stop the flow of Roni’s life’s blood from spilling like running water. His baby’s beautiful smooth body had been a mass of torn, gaping flesh, marred and punctured from bullet holes.
    
Still holding the gun, he brought the heels of his hands up to his face and pushed them down over his eyes as he tried to block out the images. He didn’t want to remember Roni like that. He wanted to remember her as the strong, sexy woman she had been - but he couldn’t.
    
Darrell thought about how Bryan had tried to convince him to let the authorities handle everything, that Roni wouldn’t want him resulting to vigilante justice. He brought his hands down and moved his head from side to side. His lips silently moved as he talked to himself. That sounded just like something she would say. With no effort at all, he could hear her voice as clear as day telling him that he was better than this.
    
Suddenly, he felt calmer and more at peace than he had been in a long while. Darrell took a deep breath. “Know what? My baby wouldn’t have wanted me to do this. I never met a person with more goodness and integrity than her. I know that I’ll never, ever meet another woman like that.” He punched his chest with his fist. “She knew my heart.” Darrell smiled and nodded as he stared off into space. “I loved the hell outta her. She knew that, too.”
    
Rakeem’s eyes blinked furiously and some of the fear he tried to hide left his face when he heard the quiet tone of Darrell’s tone.
    
“In my entire life, she’s one of the few people who actually believed in me. Believed that I was a good man, that I had the potential to actually make somethin' out of myself…”
    
In the blink of an eye, the expression on Darrell’s face changed. His eyes turned cold and unfeeling as he turned to Rakeem and shook his head.

    
“But know what? I ain’t that man.”
    
Noticing the lightning quick change, Rakeem anxiously pulled at the handcuffs again, trying to get loose. A second later, Darrell grabbed the gun by the barrel. Wielding it like a club, he commenced to whipping Rakeem’s ass. The growling noises coming from him as he rained blow after blow were raw, tortured. Rakeem squealed and jerked like a gutted pig as blood covered his face and the bed. Darrell wanted to kill him right then and there but he stopped. That would be too easy.
    
Breathing hard, he staggered back and wiped the back of his hand over his cheek, smearing the blood that had splattered from the deep, open wounds on Rakeem’s face. He looked down at Rakeem with a since of detachment and felt not a shred of remorse. Barely conscious, Rakeem whimpered and peered up at Darrell through black, swollen eyes.
    
“What’s wrong?" Darrell asked. "Shit not so funny now? Got anymore jokes you wanna tell….?” When Rakeem continued to moan in pain, Darrell swung the gun in the air as if he was getting ready to hit him again. “Answer me!” Rakeem quickly shook his head.

    
“That’s what I thought.” Darrell looked at Rakeem’s hands cuffed together and grabbed his right index finger. “Is this the one you used to pull the trigger?”

    
Without waiting for a reply, he slowly pulled Rakeem’s finger towards the back of his wrist until a sickening
pop
sounded amid Rakeem’s muffled screams. When Rakeem’s body trembled from his sobs, Darrell shook his head. He took out his cell and dialed a number. After it rang once, he hung up and mocked Rakeem.
   
“Come on, now? Is that the way a
real G
handles pain? By cryin’ like a li’l bitch?” Tears and snot mingled with Rakeem’s blood. “Punk ass muthafucka….”

    
Hearing a knock at the door, Darrell smiled at Rakeem as he went to open it. “Aw yeah. Now we
really
gettin’ ready to have some fun.”
    
Rakeem’s eyes fearfully shot at the door. He had any number of enemies who would love to partake in the torture Darrell was dishing out. Unable to control his bladder, urine leaked from the tip of his limp ass dick and puddled down on the bed. When he saw who walked into the room, his bowels loosened as well.
    
Jade paused and stared at Rakeem with all the hostility and hatred she felt for so long. She had suffered through years of abuse at his hands, and he had made her life a living hell. After the last beating when he found out about Darrell, she hadn’t been the same. If it wasn't for fear of leaving her kids with a monster like Rakeem, she would’ve ended it all a long time ago.
    
But tonight…it was payback time.
    
She hadn’t hesitated when Darrell contacted her a couple of weeks ago with a proposition which include reporting Rakeem’s comings and goings. In return, Darrell had given her enough money to start a new life, a chance to give her kids something she’d never had: a normal life. But first - she had some unfinished business to take care of. Then she would pick her kids up from her aunt’s house and leave Philly far behind.
    
Jade walked over to the table and picked up the knife and hammer. Her hands tightened around the handle of the knife as she eyed Rakeem’s dick.
    
“I think I can take it from here,” she told Darrell.
    
Rakeem’s bowels lost their battle when he saw her approaching the bed. Her intentions were clear when she snatched his dick in her hand and curled her fingers around it. His legs kicked and wildly splayed about as he tried to escape from her tight grasp.

    
Pissed off, Jade picked up the hammer and swung it down on his left knee cap with all her might. “Keep yo’ funky ass still.”
    
Unbearable pain almost rendered Rakeem unconscious and too out of it to move. Choking his dick again, Jade brought the sharpened blade to the base. She briefly sawed at the spongy tissue before cutting it off in one clean slice.
    
Satisfied, Darrell pushed away from the wall and walked out the door just before Jade shoved Rakeem’s dick up his ass. As he got in his car, Darrell knew he should be worried about his lack of feeling for what just happened. But he wasn’t. Rakeem - and Luther - had gotten everything they both deserved. He knew there was no way he would be able to live and breathe in a world knowing the men responsible for Roni’s death were living and breathing that same air as well, even if they were incarcerated. Driving off, he gave neither of them a second thought.
    
After Roni died, everyone told him he needed to let his grief out. He was so tired of hearing that in time, it would get easier. How the fuck was it supposed to get easier? The only way things could get easier is if Roni were here. But she wasn't coming back, and he knew he had to come to grips with that fact.

    
Feeling numb and empty inside, he turned the radio on and sat back to go wherever the highway took him.