Array 50 Cent - Baby Brother

He was enjoying himself though. Like a cat, he played with his prey a little bit before he snuffed them. Big Boy was cryin’ and pissin’ and Kadir wanted to see what else he would do. He’d test the limits of his manhood. There was no way to predict what a man would do when he knew he was facing certain death. Some dudes got brave, like the short cat with the blond hair. They accepted death with courage and faced that shit square on. Others, like Big Boy, pissed up their clothes and begged. Kadir cocked his gun. He liked it when they begged.

Right on cue, Big Boy started blabbing.

“W-w-wait! Kadir! I got you, man. I’m telling you, I got you!”

Kadir laughed. “Oh you got me, huh? How you figure that, motherfucker? You holding my money in one of your pissy pants pockets or something? ’Cause that’s the only way you got me, muhfuckah!”

“I can get it!” His face was red and tears rolled down his cheeks. “I swear on my mother, I can get it!”

Kadir listened.

“My uncle brings in trucks at a warehouse. Sometimes shit falls off the back of them and lands in my garage. He’s expecting a shipment from the big guys in North Jersey. Guns. All clean. Squeaky fuckin’ clean. I can hook you up, dude, give you a whole crate. Make that two fuckin’ crates! For real, I—”

Kadir laughed. Who the fuck did he look like? Was he supposed to go out there and fence off some stolen Mafia guns to get back his own money?

“Man, you must be stu—”

His cell phone vibrated. With his gat still trained on the two cowering white boys, Kadir reached for his phone without glancing down.

“What it do?”

He listened for a moment, his mind going numb. Farad’s voice was low and deadly on the other line, and the information he relayed was enough to make Kadir start popping off his pistol right then and there.

“What about them Santos dudes?” he asked, his eyes never leaving the cats who were staring into the business end of his gun.

“Yeah. You know that. Some big shit too. Aiight. I’m there, baby. Y’all hold it tight till I get there.”

He stuck the phone in his pocket and stepped toward the two young men. Big Boy turned his body sideways and ducked his head, like he could see the bullet coming.

“Y’all muthafuckahs just got saved by the phone.” He swung the gun toward Big Boy. “When’s that shipment coming in?”

“Tomorrow night. Late. Maybe eleven, but no later than midnight.”

Kadir nodded. “I tell you what. I like you. Both of y’all. So I tell you what I’m gonna do.” He trained the piece on the short guy, the one who was scared but not a coward. “You been betting high for a long time, so I’ma come to your house first,” Kadir told him. “And I’ma pop your woman, right in front of your kids. Then I’ma take your babies down. One by one. While you watch. Next, I’ll find your moms. She’s gonna get it bad too, but I respect old people, so I’ma do her kinda quick. But not until I explain this whole thing to her so she knows just how bad you fucked up this time.”

Kadir was satisfied by the look on the dude’s face. He mighta been brave, but he wasn’t a fool. “Then I’m coming for you, Big Boy. But by that time I’ll probably be pissed off. Don’t count on me to treat your people proper, homey. I get stupid sometimes too, you know. Especially behind my money.”

Ten minutes later Kadir was alone in the warehouse, his prey having scurried away with the promised assurances to deliver a package to a designated location in Brooklyn the next night.

Kadir waited until they were gone, then jumped behind the wheel of his Lexus coupe and headed north. His mind wasn’t on them low-level cats and it wasn’t on no money either. The only thing he could see in front of him was about 70 miles of bad road. Road he was about to burn rubber on so he could get back to his moms’s crib and join his brothers as they tried to figure out how to get Baby Brother outta jail.

There’s no such thing as a Monster. There’s no such thing as a Monster.

Priest awakened to the sound of footsteps outside his door. There’s no such thing as a Monster. There’s no such thing as a Monster. He’d been having a nightmare. The same one he fought against almost every night. The footsteps outside his door were heavy. Different from those made by Finesse or Farad.

There’s no such thing as a Monster. There’s no such thing as a Monster.

The years he’d spent behind bars had sharpened his senses. Survival had been paramount, especially for a killer like him. Watching his back had been a full-time job, and he was on alert at all times, even when he was asleep or in prayer.

He heard a hand fall on his doorknob and watched it turn. There was no fear in him, but his eyes were trained and his body tensed. He slid his hand under his pillow and searched. Years earlier, his fingers would have come out clutching a burner. Tonight they came out clutching a cross.

There’s no such thing as a Monster. There’s no such thing as a Monster.

The door opened and light from the hallway spilled into the room. Priest sat partway up and squinted, confused by the sight of his brother standing before him in his uniform.

“What you doing here, Malik? What’s going on?”

“Baby Brother,” Malik said simply, and Priest fell back against his pillows, the name of his Savior flying from his lips. He felt damnation running through his blood. The sensation of being led to the heights of a mountaintop, only to be hurled over the edge before setting eyes on the glory. Please, he prayed. Don’t let that boy suffer for the ills of his brothers. Oh, God was vengeful.

His strong voice came out in a pained squeak.

“Hurt? Dead?”

Malik shook his head no. “But Sari is.”

Relief flowed through Priest and perspiration soaked his bedsheets.

And then came the fear.

“What happened? Where is he? What happened to Sari?”

The answer to those questions hit Priest so low that he rolled over and staggered from the bed. He tripped over his shoes and pushed past Malik to the bathroom, then stood over the toilet and retched. O, Father, please, he implored. Don’t let this be true.

Baby Brother was pure, but every foul thing Priest had ever done flashed through his mind as Malik pulled him to his feet and held him.

“Where they got him at, man?” he begged his younger brother. “We gotta go down there and get him!”

His heart thudded as Malik shook his head with tears in his eyes.

“I already tried, Twan. He had a hearing. You shoulda seen me, man. On my fuckin’ hands and knees. I begged that motherfuckin’ white judge to release him to me. Told him I’d hold Baby Brother’s hand twenty-four seven. I put my badge on that shit. My word. My rep, my whole life!

“That smug bastard refused. He wouldn’t even listen when I tried to tell him about Stanford. About the fuckin’ scholarship! They don’t give a damn about us man. None of us. We just animals locked down in their fuckin’ zoos. They charged Baby Brother and threw him back in the bull pen. Told me if I didn’t get the fuck outta there, cop or no, I’d be locked in that pen with him.”

Priest covered his face with his hands. He knew all too well how quickly things could go wrong in life. For months they’d been waiting for this day. Ever since they’d gotten that scholarship letter they’d been anticipating the joy of lifting Baby Brother from the belly of their Brownsville beast and flying him off to college to pursue his dreams. For the first time since he could remember, Priest mourned for his dead father. For the comfort of having a male figurehead in his life. But he was the top man of the Davis clan. He was the go-to guy, the one everybody looked to for direction when life got hard.