The Circle: Rain's Story (11 page)

Rain
gave her sister twenty-five thousand dollars in cash, and as promised, she gave Erin her split of twenty thousand, which she was so appreciative of because that would be used as her bail money. Rain was forced to trust her because her sister needed protection and her help, but assured her that if she ever crossed her, she would have a contract placed on her and her entire family head. Erin had no reason to doubt her after what she witnessed less than twenty four hours ago. The only thing she asked her to do for her sister was as soon as she got to St. Louis asks her fraud connection to get her sister some fake identification so she could travel. For her help, she gave her an additional five thousand dollars.

Rain took
Autumn by the arm and gave her a tight hug, wanting badly to shed a tear. She whispered in her ear and reiterated. “Keep your eyes and ears open. Pay attention to everything. Live it up while you out there and God willing, we will all meet up in Mexico at our spot just like we planned, okay?” She hugged her even harder.

“Okay,”
Autumn nodded, trying her best to hold back the tears that were brimming in her eyes.

Rain parted the hair from her sister eyes, and lifted her chin up gently and assured her
,               “You’re gonna be fine. Now get on the bus.” She watched her sister walk towards the bus and shouted to lift her spirit.

“Show them slow muthafucka’s in St. Louis how u
s Porters get down,” she joked.

Autumn was
too sad to respond. Rain studied her face and knew she was worried about her, Dayvid and Fallon’s well-being, and instead, watched her give her a faint smile and board the bus. She watched her through the window as she walked towards the back of the bus, finding a seat next to Erin.

As Rain watched the bus drive off, the level of her frustration and tension increased ten folds. Another war had started and it was a dead man walking, and he didn’t even know it, and just like nature,
‘you can’t stop nothing that can’t be stopped.’

CHAPTER 17

Rain
was back in Virginia by midafternoon. She drove a rented non-descriptive Ford, and left the car she was driving in a long term parking lot and paid up on it for one month ensuring her tracks would be well covered. She hurried to Mr. Morganstein’s office, carrying the uncomfortable Gucci bag, unsteadily walking in her heels that she had yet to grow accustom to.

             
The FBI launched a nationwide search. The hotline was flooded with Rain Porter sightings as photos of Rain were flashed over the front page of the Baltimore Chronicles and national magazines as public enemy number one. T.V networks and cable news ran documentary specials on the Porter’s family doomed and shadowed life. 

When she got to his secretary’s desk, she was relieved to know that he was in his office and hadn’t left
, busy talking to one of his clients. Rain sat for a painful twenty minutes, then was given the okay that she could see him now.

As soon as she got inside the office, she was greeted by Mr. Morganstein in a jovial mood. “
Miss Porter, sit down, sit down.” he repeated. “You’re right on time. I have some…” He cleared his throat “… well, some good news.”

Rain was caught off guard
and feeling edgy, because she had nothing but bad news over the past week and couldn’t imagine what could possibly change within five short days?

“It appears that your sister
, Fallon, have managed to escape from federal custody yesterday sometime in the afternoon.” Rain was totally stunned by the revelation, entirely unexpected. Shaking her head as she squinted her eyes, she needed further explanation.

“Wha…what… are you saying?” Rain stuttered.

Still smiling, Mr. Morganstein repeated. “According to a very reliable source of mine, your sister escaped yesterday, with the help of a correctional officer. It’s my understanding that she walked right out of solitary confinement and apparently, right out the door.  Nobody knows yet, they are still doing a high alert investigation.”

Slowly, yet deliberately, her jaw dropped as reality set it.

“Oh, good God!” Rain gripped the chair and asked in astonishment of joy. “Are you serious Mr. Morganstein?”

He proudly answered
, “Believe it”

Rain sprang
from her chair with the unbridled enthusiasm of a child opening presents on Christmas, and ran around his huge oak desk and hugged him tightly. When Rain gained control again, beyond elated, her mind automatically began to reassess her entire situation. Mr. Morganstein was talking but she could not hear him, too busy processing and calculating her next move. Rain knew Fallon. She knew that she was well-equipped and smart enough to handle her own without worry. Only thing that irked her is her weakness for a dick, by the name of a lame nigga named Linx – her on and off again boyfriend. Her sister’s only softness, and prayed that she don’t go near him and make it to the meet up spot, as planned in Mexico.

A huge burden lifted from her shoulders, now she could concentrate solely on
her final two concerns; her brother Dayvid and her now worst enemy—Smitty. Both would be dealt with soon.

Her funds had already dwindled down to less than half, at about $1.4 million dollars, in a secret account that Mr. Morganstein had set up himself for her. Rain signed the papers giving
him power of attorney to handle and distribute her funds as needed and per her instructions, even in the case of her demise. In all the years she did business with Mr. Morganstein, he never questioned her. He only followed instructions and delivered each and every time, and was paid handsomely off the books, tax free money, for his services.

After squaring up on the paperwork, and as an
afterthought, she asked him was there any new information on the murder of her lover, Laura.

“Oh, yes. So glad you reminded me.” He shuffled through some folders and paperwork on his desk until he found what he looking for and said. “Ah, here it
is.” He hiked his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.  “I have the report of the evidence at the crime scene, but it’s not much. Whoever did it knew what they were doing and left the place spotless. A cigarette butt collected from the ashtray. A bloody acrylic tip,” flipping through the papers, skimming the notes, he added, “and the autopsy said she has a splinter in one of her defensive wounds.” A soft hunch of his shoulders, he said, “says here it came from a toothpick.”

“Tooth
pick?”

Morganstein nodded and confirmed. “Yes, the victim apparently put up a tremendous fight, according to the reports, and possibly could have ripped the suspect
’s clothing during the struggle, because the same fibers, silk, was found on several of the toothpicks. Just a theory on the report.”

Rain’s mind went amuck with confirmed rage. Adrenaline was firing on all cylinders. At th
at moment, her wrath scared her because she knew that her old mentor and friend would regret the day he was born for crossing the Porters.

CHAPTER 18

It was Rain’s one true talent – the art of the hunt – a cold and calculated one. Her whole life, every victory had come down to singleness of purpose, her ability to focus on the mission at hand, to leave out everything but her mind. That night, she was focused more than she ever remembered, and the object of her burning desire was on
one thing and one thing only—Smitty, who she had kidnapped, bound and delivered to her in a desolate section of DC.

When Rain was led inside, she felt the
adrenaline surge through her pulse at the sight of him.

Smitt
y just wanted to die, as he hung upside down from a dark, dank warehouse ceiling. With the help of some out of town goons, from south west DC, they were Rain and Dayvid’s longtime associates when they needed a clean, contract killing, had Smitty delivered to her on a silver platter. He looked like death: naked, bloodied and bleeding all over, with his hands cuffed securely behind his back, he was in and out of consciousness from the excruciating pain and the blood that was rushing to his head.

When Rain walked in the warehouse, a little past one am in the morning, she dapped it
up with the man who awaited her, and watched two steely-eyed, hardened and no-nonsense looking men walk off to play their position, allowing the two to converse.

“Sup, Rain. What
it do Slim?” said the youngest of the three, in his mid-30’s, that she’s known for years only as Face. Whenever she had a job, usually a murder that was absolute and critical, with zero mistakes, she called on him. He proved to be the best most deadly each time.

Rain noticed the bloodied lead pipe in his equally blood
y saturated fist.

“Ain’t shit.
” Rain said in her normal gruff monotone voice, never taking her eyes off of Smitty.

The other two
men, much older in their late 40’s or early 50’s, sat idly by on two rusted folding chairs simply acknowledging her with a nod. Rain walked closer towards her one-time friend Smitty, she was expressionless. Devoid of any emotions or feelings, she stared at Smitty as he hung upside down.

Smitty’s chest heaved in and out.
He was gagged with a wool sock, not for silence, but to grit on to absorb the pain. Rain immediately smelled the sour, pungent odor of his urine and bowels, staring at him with disgust. 

T
hrough the cascade of blood that caked his now widen and alert eyes, he started breathing extra rapid when he saw Rain he spit out the sock and started pleading.

“Rain….Rain, what’s going on, man.” 

Rain remained silent and feeling less—circling his broken, bloodied body, observing her associates handy work. She was more than pleased. She then whispered in the Face’s ear and he threw the other two men a head chuck. Both huge, bearded men stood up and worked in unison as the untied the rope, releasing Smitty from his precarious position.

The leader of the group
, Face, had a constant sadistic permanent smirk riddled across his face, as if he was either receiving pleasure from it, psychotic, or both. He again ordered a message to one of his men in silence with a simple head shake, and one of the men retrieved two chairs, and sat Smitty in one and positioned the other nearby in front of him. That was Rain’s cue, and she walked slowly over to him, and spoke in a soft, measured tone. She walked in methodical circles around Smitty as he shivered in fear.

“I remember this one time, about three or four years ago. We had a bitch ass, talking shit ass nigga, who thought he could fuck over a Porter.”

Smitty started to make pleas. “Rain, I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever it is, you got it all wrong. If you give me a chance to just talk to you, I’m sure we can work this fuck shit out, you will……”

B
efore he could get the rest of his words out, Face threw a powerful, sickening blow to Smitty’s head and spewed. “Nigga, shut the fuck up and don’t open your mouth again until you told to.”

Smitty let out an almost pig-like squeal, as he fought from passing out from extreme trauma. Rain continued without missing a beat.

“We fronted this nigga eleven kilos of coke when we robbed some New York bitches in East Baltimore of a shipment. You probably remember, because you gave us the tip.” Rain allowed him a second to think about it. “This old school ass nigga just thought he could just chump us, and just take our shit, expecting nothing was going to happen to him. That nigga even had the nerve putting our name out in the streets that he wasn’t gonna pay us and fuck the Porter’s this and fuck the Porters that. Imagine that.”

She chuckle
d and then shrugged.

“Dayvid was pissed. I mean real
ly pissed and just wanted to blow his brains out.” Rain shook her head. “I told him nah, bro. That’s too easy. For a motherfucker to steal our shit and to put our names out on the street like we punks, just killing a nigga wasn’t good enough.”

Rain paused in front of Smitty, bent down until she was inches from his face and with the meanest, harshest tone and scowl
ed. “No, for a nigga like that I had to take his soul!”

Smitty panicked as he began to cry
silently. She felt nothing inside for him any longer and would not relent. “When we caught this bastard.” Rain turned towards Face, “with the help of my long time, always reliable nigga right here, and my brother Dayvid. We brought him to a place similar to this.”

Rain’s eyes scanned
across the abandoned warehouse. She squared her cold, sullen eyes directly into his, “and within one hour, this nigga was begging us to take his life, because the pain he was enduring was too much than he could ever imagine.” She shook her head to assure him.

Rain pulled the empty folding chair closer to him and took a seat and explained
. “First thing we did was take a pair of pliers and began taking out his teeth one by one and put them on a table right in front of him.” Rain frowned and her shoulders shivered. “Just thinking about that snapping and grinding sound makes me sick just to think about.” Rain sat back in her seat and got comfortable and said almost politely, “yeah, he cried, begged us for forgiveness, even told us where we could find the rest of the keys and money he had stashed.”