Motown Breakdown (Motown Down #4) (46 page)

“You push the boundaries with me – ”

“Sun’s in trouble.” Three words and my heart seized up. “She’s got a fan stalking her, threatening all kinds of shit, only she ain’t doing nothing about it, but I am. Just letting you know in case you want in.”

“Explain,” I order him and he did. Not only had my heart seized up, my blood also ran cold while my fingers itched to kill the threat. But above all these riotous feelings, I was also hurt.
She never told me
… For months this has been going on and she hadn’t said a word. During our time apart, not once did she call and ask me to kill for her. I was pissed. When I saw Luna and Crews pull up, I cut Razor short. “I’ll contact you shortly and we’ll discuss this further.”

“Why ain’t we discussing this now?” he counters, which any other time would not bode well for him.

“Because a complication just arrived.” Looking at the door, he gets seriously pissed when they stroll in.

“We ain’t got time for this,” he says backing away. “Fuck.” Like a ghost, he exits while they enter.

“Wow,” Luna says frowning. “Someone’s not happy to see me.”

“It’s not a good time,” I mumble.

“We aren’t staying,” Crews says. “Just left Sun’s place, your mood must be contagious because she’s bitchy too.”

“I’m worried about her,” she says softly. “She misses you, Shade, but she’s stubborn and heartbroken.”

“While I appreciate your concern, I have an issue that Razor just brought to my attention and it takes priority over this unexpected visit.”

“Was it the same issue that brought him to Sun’s place?”

“Yes,” I grate.

“How is he still breathing right now?”

“He and Sun have a…friendship.”

“And you
allow
it?” she asks shocked.

“Barely,” I mumble.

“I think he knows her,” she says biting her lip. “It’s bad, Shade, whoever this is really wants to hurt her.”

“She told you too?”
And not me
…

“Well no, okay yes, kinda. I’m rich and unemployed with a lot of time on my hands. I might have followed her and brought it to her attention but she brushed it off. The more she does, the more violent the threats get. You haven’t looked?”

Too afraid of seeing her happy
… “No, I haven’t.”

“Then you should – ” she tries, but I cut her off.

“I’ll handle it,” I snap. “See your way out.”

“Come on, Luna,” Crews says taking her by the shoulders.

“She’s my first real friend,” she whispers. “She’s your true love. Kill whatever stands in your way, but don’t let anything happen to her, Shade.”

Once they drive off, I take a moment to let myself cool down and almost grin at Luna encouraging violence. But when calm wasn’t happening and I logged on to YouTube and read the threats, I redlined.

You don’t survive in this business by not staying ahead of your clients. He was blatant in his desire to hurt my woman, put it out there for the world to see, for her to see and thereby mocked me.

His death belonged to me.

I could already taste it.

I couldn’t sleep for shit.

The last three nights have been like this. All of the images of him and his torture that I had managed to block out assaulted me. I had no means of keeping the images away either.
Why now?
Each time I woke from another nightmare, I was covered in a cold sweat and checked myself for injuries that had long ago healed.

The skin may have healed, but the scars still remain
…

Then once I fell back asleep, my dreams would shift to
them
. Parents who preferred shooting heroin to packing me a lunch. Refused to wash my clothes, sending me to school in the same outfit day after day… Wishing they were dead but the universe doing me one better by coming home to an eviction sign on the door, with them in the breeze. Having a concerned neighbor call social services and while I was curled up outside the door, some guy from the state showing up and telling me to come with him. That concerned neighbor unbeknownst to him, started a chain reaction a pre-teen could never escape.

Always passed around
…

Being placed in homes that were hell wishing someone would love me. Then I realized that I didn’t conceive what hell truly was until, I was placed with
him
. He showed me what a living hell could be. Men showing up at odd times, asking if we were ‘ready’, whatever that had meant. The beatings, the verbal assaults, and the fucking touching. I was the oldest, the strongest and for them I would prevail, I had to. Once my mind comprehended the danger I was in, us girls were in, my fight renewed. Whatever he was readying us for, we sure as shit weren’t sticking around for it.

I knew to survive I would have to kill.

And I did.

But I suppressed it for so long, only looking forward, to making something of myself that this was an emotional assault I couldn’t handle. And once I regulated my breathing, my thoughts would shift to Shade wondering why I had to fall in love with him only to be left out in the cold again.
Will never be good enough, sick of being cold
…

A hand over my mouth causes me to panic. Struggling in earnest but unable to see, I feel weight on me but I’m not strong enough to buck it off.
Not again
… my mind screams.
It’s a nightmare, has to be
…

I had almost convinced myself of it until I was punched upside the temple. Dazed and in pain the ability to fight back waned.
Had to fight
…
Then my mouth was covered again and having no choice but to breathe I inhaled tasting the sharp tang of chemical. 

“I knew I remembered you,” he says grabbing my chin. “A man doesn’t forget this face, this body.” Pinning my arms above my head, he bites my nipple but I refused to scream. “So you like pain too,” he says flipping me over. “Good to know.”

Arching up didn’t work, no more than thrashing did. In that moment, I was well and truly defeated in every sense of the word. I was getting weaker by the second and I hated it. The intruder rips my underwear down to my knees and I hear him struggle with his own clothing.
Not rape, anything but rape
… His dick is prodding me now, trying to find a way in but I refuse to sit still for this. With a growl of frustration, he uses his free hand to punch me in the head, which slows me but doesn’t stop me.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t stopping him either. Forcefully, he thrusts hoping to slide inside of me.
No fucking chance asshole
… “Open your legs like you did for him, little whore.” That voice. I knew that voice. Didn’t I? Fuck. I did. His face had aged but his voice hadn’t changed. How could I have been so stupid? How did I not know his name?

And the hits just keep on coming
…

A punch to my side steals my air and I couldn’t curl into myself, I couldn’t fucking move an inch. “You ignored me,” he says biting my shoulder but I had no air to scream. “I don’t like being ignored.”

“I’ll kill you!” I promise but it sounded pitiful even to me.

“Where is he, hmm? Not here to save you now, is he?” he taunts while trying to gain access. “You cost me money, business. Now you pay up and when I’m finished tearing you apart, I’ll kill him too.”

“You were so close to being ready,” he says angrily. “Ready for
me
. But you killed him,” he yells in my ear. How was he everywhere? Invading my senses, overwhelming me. This wasn’t right.
Think Sun, think!

“Hand me a screwdriver and I’ll kill you too, asshole.”

Punch.

“Sunshine,” he purrs. “Or do you prefer Calamity? Always causing trouble, you were.”

“Fuck you, Yoda!”

Punch.

Trying to force a finger inside sets me right off. With an unholy roar, I fought. Kicking, scratching, biting, didn’t matter. I couldn’t fucking see and even that couldn’t stop me. Sadly, he hit much harder than I did and I couldn’t recover fast enough. Moaning in agony, he pulls me from my bed by my ankles straight into my living room. Soft light from the kitchen illuminates his face.

And here I thought
he
was the devil.

I was wrong, Armand was. Or rather, Raymond, as I remembered him. Yes, his name came back to me. Just like all the looks he’d give me, the promises he’d make. Only I had been young and scared, so when I saw him in Shade’s office I knew something was familiar but couldn’t place what.

That realization that my past came calling should have shocked me but it didn’t. No more than when he jabbed me in the neck with a needle and my body started to revolt. Wrapping my fingers around his throat I squeezed with everything I had. When his face started to distort and I could no longer feel anything, I hoped that if one day someone decided to write my story; they’d do me a solid and leave this part out.

Sleep refused to come.

I lost track of the time I spent staring at my phone typing messages I was too chicken shit to send. Watching videos of Sun being Sun, loving life and creating art. Wondering if she missed me even a fraction of how I missed her. Hoping that she could forgive me for lying to her. Basically, I sat in my office wide awake as a man I hardly recognized. Sun wasn’t business, she wasn’t my property and she didn’t need me for survival. But fuck, I needed her.

None of my calls to Armand were returned either and that pissed me off. Razor and I had planned to visit the cocksucker personally and kill him, but he was in the fucking wind.
I was one hell of a tracker, but even I couldn’t find a ghost. And if my anxiety was an indicator, something was wrong.  Time wasn’t on my side; I could feel it. Pushing out of my chair, I grab my phone again and no sooner than I look at it to see if Sun had reached out, Razor calls.

“Found Armand, I’m in the car.”

Running from the bedroom in only my boxers, I fly out the front door and into the sedan. Before I can get my bearings or a word out, Razor starts talking. “Rolled one of his boys, bitch sang like a canary. Said he was going to get the female owed to him. Also said he’s been looking for her since she was a kid. Something about her killing her foster dad before he could sell her off to Marco.”

“Sun,” I growl tasting his blood on my tongue. That’s why the bastard thought she looked familiar.
Son of a bitch
!

“I thanked him before I slit his throat,” he says flying down Washington. “You ain’t armed but I prepared, we’ll be at her place in two minutes.”

“Make it in one,” I order him.

He did and in perfect synch, we descend on the stairs to her floor. Without considering the danger behind the door, I kicked that fucker in and found Armand.

He was on top of her and
thrusting
...

An unholy roar filled the air as I tackled him and proceeded to beat him with my fists. Every fear I have ever known was driven into him, purging my system until one thought remained;
kill for Sun
. Blood, I needed his blood.