Betrayal Read online

  “Zeke . . . man . . . come on.”

  Zeke sighed. “I hate that I have to be the one to tell her.”

  “Zeke . . . it was just a mistake. I’m a man. I’m fucking imperfect. Come on. I know you can relate.”

  “Thirty-four years, Sam. Thirty-four years and I never once stepped out on my marriage. Thirty-four years. Through good times and bad. Through times when frustration and temptation reared their ugly heads. Thirty-four fucking years. I can’t relate to you, Sam. I can’t relate to being a man that way.”

  “Zeke, man . . . I was weak, I know. But, I love Jewell. You’ve gotta believe me. I love her the way you love Sapphire.”

  “Sapphire is a fucking unfaithful, lying bitch!” Zeke yelled out suddenly, slamming down his fist on his desktop.

  The outburst made Sam jump. He tensed up, stared hard at his father-in-law. He’d been in situations where his life had been on the line. He’d had the blade of a knife pressed hard against his throat to the point of drawing blood. Another time, a different blade had penetrated his abdomen. He’d had the barrel of a loaded gun held against his head and chest before. He’d been shot at two other times. Each and every time the reaper stared down at him with a sickly grin, Sam had stared back and dared death to claim him. He’d never been afraid.

  Not like he was now.

  Zeke stared back at him with eyes colder than death ever could be. Eyes filled with pure hatred. Eyes clouded by extreme pain.

  Sapphire was cheating.

  Damn.

  “I don’t care if you do it yourself, or if you have someone else do it, Sam, but if you don’t want to go back to the gutter, then you’ll do whatever you have to do to make sure my wife dies. Do you understand?” Zeke fell silent for a moment, his chest heaving up and down, and then said, “Do you?”

  Sam swallowed dry saliva. “Damn, Zeke . . . I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry this happened to you.”

  “I didn’t ask if you were sorry for me,” Zeke said. “I asked if you understood.”

  Sam wanted to look away, but couldn’t. His heart beat heavily. His palms were sweaty, cold. He got the chills. “I . . . I . . .” He paused, unsure of what to say, unsure of what he could say. He’d killed before, but the act had been done under different circumstances.

  Zeke studied the conflict in his son-in-law’s eyes. It truly hurt him to give the ultimatum, but he had no choice. His wife had betrayed him. Sam had betrayed his daughter.

  Betrayal.

  They both had to pay.

  “How important is your life to you, Sam?”

  Sam’s shoulders fell, and his chin dropped to his chest. He let out a long exhale. “I . . . I can’t make this decision now, Zeke. I . . . I need time.”

  Zeke flared his nostrils and looked at Sam through narrowed eyes. They both have to pay, he thought. “You have two days,” he said. “Two days and then I want my answer. Do you understand?”

  Sam looked up at his father-in-law, the man who’d shown him what being a man was all about. This was a situation he never imagined he’d have to face. He nodded.

  Zeke stood up. “Say hello to my little girl,” he said, and then walked past Sam, leaving him alone in his office.

  Chapter 3

  Ten minutes later, Sam left Zeke’s office and headed to his car. Where he was going, he didn’t know. He was reeling, still trying to come to grips with the ultimatum he’d been given. His life was being threatened by a man for whom he’d do anything. A man who’d given him one final chance at life.

  Twelve years ago.

  Sam had been a different person then. A statistic headed toward a long stretch behind bars, or worse. Sam had no respect for life back then. His or anyone else’s. He lived each day to survive by whatever means necessary. He had learned to live that way when his mother, a crack addict, kicked him out of their decrepit box of a studio apartment at age fourteen, because she wanted to use the extra money spent on him to support her addiction. Fourteen years old, with only the clothes on his back, Sam became a product of the street. He learned to remain hidden in the shadows by day and thrive at night, a vampire amongst the prostitutes, pimps, drug users, and dealers that would become his family.

  Sam did it all. He robbed, he maimed, he sold drugs, he pimped. Always strapped, he grew up an angry, young black man who lived life without fear, remorse, or regret.

  Take or get taken out.

  That was his mantra. Despite that death’s pounding on his door grew louder each day—that was how he lived. That was how he survived.

  Take or get taken out.

  From fourteen to seventeen, he never got taken. But then he turned eighteen, and his good fortune changed. For the next four years, he was taken far more than he took. Taken to jail, that is. By the time he was twenty-two, the rap sheet he’d amassed had been sadly impressive. Breaking and entering, aggravated assault, drug possession, DUI, car theft. From eighteen to twenty-two, he spent almost more time on lockdown than he did on the streets.

  His mother kicked him out to further her habit, from which she eventually passed away, and he’d become another lost soul with his hand on the knob, ready to turn and let death come waltzing inside. That was the man he’d been twelve years ago. No future, but more jail or sure death in sight.

  And then he met Zeke.

  He’d been walking to his car. A Mercedes. Sam didn’t know much about cars back then, but he knew how valuable a Benz was, especially to the owner of the chop shop he used to deal with before his last stay in prison. A Benz, especially one as pristine as the one Zeke had been walking to, would net him a good amount of money. Far more than the dishwashing job his parole officer had him doing.

  Tucked away in the dark at the side of a building, Sam watched Zeke approach the Benz. He was wearing a black suit that looked tailored and expensive. His black leather shoes looked as though they’d been cut from the same cloth of money as the suit. He wore a black fedora on his head, similar to the type Frank Sinatra used to wear, and he had a black trench coat slung over his arm. He was giving off a strong odor, one Sam caught a whiff of instantly: money.

  Sam looked down at his Polo sweat suit, an outfit he thought he’d been fronting hard in, and then looked back at Zeke. Money was practically falling from his pockets as he walked without a care. In Zeke, he saw everything that he would never have. Money. A high paying job. An expensive ride to roll around in. A big house with lots of rooms, six or more, with a pool, and a Jacuzzi. A banging-ass wife or girlfriend, or both. Sam scowled, and hate welled instantaneously.

  Hate for Zeke.

  Hate for his success.

  Hate for everything he had.

  Hate for Sam’s own failures.

  Hate for his mother for sending him to a life void of hope.

  Hate for a father he never knew.

  Hate for his parole officer, although he was probably one of the only people left who may have actually given a shit about him.

  Hate for the pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, and hustlers he called family to that very day.

  Hate.

  With one more arrest, Sam would go to jail and wouldn’t come out for a long while.

  Sam thought about leaving Zeke alone and heading back to the halfway house where he lived, to make it back before curfew passed. He stared hard at Zeke. Sized him up. He was big, but older. Sam surmised that he could take him out. He scowled again, as the voice of reason sat upon his right shoulder and begged him to go home. Sam took a breath. Stared at Zeke. Thunder rumbled in the sky. Sam exhaled. And then he kicked the voice of reason off of his shoulder and moved, thinking that he was only going to go to jail if he got caught.

  If.

  Hurrying behind Zeke, he was determined to make sure that didn’t happen. One blow to the side of his head. Two, if necessary. That would be enough to knock him out and take whatever cash he had, and the keys to the Benz. One unsuspecting blow.

  Unfortunately for him, he didn’t know that Zeke, a former Marine, had been
aware of his presence since he’d first exited the building. He didn’t know that Zeke had known something was about to go down. That he could smell it the way he could smell the quickly approaching rainstorm.

  Sam never saw it coming. The blow he was supposed to administer was given to him first.

  One to his nose, and then another to his midsection, and then finally a sweeping kick, taking his legs from beneath him, sending him crashing hard to the ground. In a matter of seconds, Sam’s thoughts of driving away in a Benz with cash in his hands and more on the way quickly disappeared.

  Bleeding heavily from his nose, and nauseous from the punch to his stomach, Sam was dazed, confused, and embarrassed. He tried to stand up, but was forced back down by the heel of Zeke’s expensive leather shoe.

  “I wouldn’t get up if I were you.”

  Sam looked up at Zeke. Spots were flashing in his eyes, the result of the stinging pain from the blows he’d received, particularly the one to his nose. He said, “You broke my fucking nose!”

  Zeke said, “Guess you regret trying to approach me now, huh?”

  Sam leaned his head back to try to slow the blood flow. “Shit, nigga. Goddamn!”

  Zeke reached into the inside pocket of his blazer, removed a handkerchief, and extended it to Sam. “Here. This’ll work better than your hand.”

  Sam looked up at him and said, “Fuck you, nigga. I don’t need your shit.”

  Zeke shook his head, and then reached into the outside pocket of his blazer and pulled out a cell phone. Sam’s eyes widened at the sight of it. Zeke said, “I’m willing to bet that you’ve been arrested before. I’m also willing to bet from the punk-ass look in your eyes that my calling the police would be a very bad thing for you. Am I right?”

  Sam winced from the pain in his broken nose, and said, “Fuck you, nigga.” He was worried, but had to remain defiant. He’d been punked enough as it was.

  Zeke laughed. “Fuck me? OK . . . if that’s the way you really want to play it.” He flipped the cell open to dial 9-1-1.

  “Come on, nigga!” Sam said before Zeke’s finger could press the nine. “I’m on the fucking ground with a broken-ass nose. Just get in your shit, nigga, and go.”

  Zeke stared at Sam and fought back a satisfied smile. The younger generation had no clue what being hard was all about.

  He held out the handkerchief again.

  This time, Sam took it.

  Zeke shook his head disdainfully. “You know, you young guys think you’re so damn hard, but you have no clue. You have no idea how easy you have it now. You don’t know what struggling really is. You don’t know what it’s like to have lived during a time when the ceiling was so low, there was only so far you could go. No one had to be politically correct. Affirmative action wasn’t in effect. To get anything, to become anything, you had to work hard. You had to be truly hard. Resilient. How old are you?”

  The handkerchief catching his blood, Sam said, “What you wanna know for, nigga?”

  Zeke closed his eyes a bit, then made a move again to dial 9-1-1.

  Sam said, “Twenty-two. Shit!”

  “Twenty-two,” Zeke repeated with a sigh. “Sad.”

  “Whatever, nigga.”

  “Zeke.”

  “What?”

  “My name. Zeke. Not ‘nigga.’ Call me a nigga again and I’m dialing.”

  Sam looked at him, and, knowing the older man wasn’t playing around, said, “Whatever, man.”

  “Yeah . . . whatever,” Zeke said. “Stand up.”

  Sam looked at Zeke, his eyes filled with confusion. Why won’t this motherfucker leave or just call the cops and be done with it? Why the hell is he talking to me in a civilized, calm tone? What the fuck does he want me to stand for?

  “Would you rather stay down on the ground?” Zeke said, as if reading his mind.

  Sam clenched his jaws and slowly rose to his feet. He wanted to strike out at Zeke, get him back for the sucker punches he didn’t get a chance to give earlier. But something told him his efforts would be futile. He stood still with the white handkerchief painted almost completely blood red, and looked at Zeke.

  “Are you hungry?” Zeke asked, putting the phone back into his pocket.

  Sam knotted up his forehead. “What?”

  “I’m going to get something to eat. Are you hungry?”

  Sam said, “Are you crazy, ni . . .” He paused, not letting the rest of the word escape.

  Zeke shook his head. “I’m just hungry. Now, if you’re hungry too, we can get your nose checked out and then get a bite to eat on me. It’s up to you.”

  Sam said, “What the . . .? Are you looking for some kind of special favor? ’Cause I don’t give a fuck . . . that shit ain’t happening.”

  Zeke let out a hard belt of laughter. “Son, I’m a happily married man. I’m definitely not looking for any special favors.” He laughed again.

  His laughter actually put Sam at ease a little. “A’ight. ’Cause I’m just saying, I’ll be dead before that shit goes down.”

  Zeke chuckled. “No favors needed, son. Now . . . are you hungry or not?”

  Thunder rumbled in the sky again. The breeze was picking up, becoming crisp, forceful. The storm was getting closer. Sam looked at Zeke. Something about the older guy gave him a chill, a feeling that if he answered the question correctly his life could possibly be changed forever. He’d had the same sort of life-changing feeling only once before: the day his mother kicked him out. That entire day, something had irked him. Something had pulled at the back of his neck and wouldn’t let go. He knew something bad was going to happen that day. The world had just seemed off.

  Zeke watched Sam. “I understand your hesitation, you know,” he said. “I’m a total stranger, a man you just tried to rob, offering to take you to the E.R. and then to get a bite to eat. If I were in your position, I’d wonder if you were looking for a special favor too. I really should just say ‘to hell with it’ and call the police.” He paused, let his words sink in.

  “But honestly, son, I sympathize with what you’re going through. I don’t know you, or anything about you, but I recognize your struggle. You’re desperately searching for the right path. Society has abandoned you and labeled you as just another ‘thug nigga.’ You’re worth nothing and you’re going nowhere. You have absolutely nothing to contribute to the world.”

  Zeke paused again.

  Sam watched him. He thought about speaking, but he saw a look in Zeke’s eyes—a familiarity in them—that grabbed his attention and caused him to keep his tongue quiet.

  Zeke continued, “Believe it or not, I understand what you’re feeling inside. I was abandoned. Had a father who’d spent his whole life in jail. A mother who just couldn’t stop using heroine. I would have been out on the street like you had I not had an aunt who refused to let me fall through the cracks in life. That’s the difference between you and me. I had support—real support. Like I said, I don’t know you, but I’m willing to bet you don’t have anyone but yourself.”

  “Now . . . I’ve never done anything like this before, and hell, maybe I’m crazy for doing so, but for some reason, I feel compelled to do what I know no one else would—especially no one you tried to rob. So . . . are you hungry?”

  Sam clenched his jaws. Pain from his nose was shooting through him, but for a moment he didn’t feel it. He stared at Zeke. No one had ever taken the time to talk to him this way. No one had ever cared. Zeke had said he was crazy, and maybe he was, but if that were the case then Sam was just as out of his mind, because he nodded and said, “Yeah . . . a li’l bit.”

  Zeke nodded and said, “OK. What are you in the mood for?”

  “I like Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

  Zeke chuckled and shook his head. “Why don’t I just choose the place?”

  Sam shrugged. “A’ight.”

  “By the way,” Zeke said, “What’s your name?”

  “Sam.”

  Zeke nodded. “Nice to meet you, Sam.”r />
  That had been the beginning of the life Sam knew now. The life that was now being threatened by the very person who’d given it to him.

  Sam got into his car—a Mercedes-Benz—and started the engine.

  Chapter 4

  Sam didn’t want to go home yet. He couldn’t. He had too much on his mind. The vice grip around his temples was enough pressure. He just couldn’t deal with going home and looking into Jewell’s pretty, hazel eyes. Eyes that had captured him the minute he’d laid his on them.

  He’d been no one then.

  Just a thug given a one-time opportunity to scratch and claw his way out of the hole he’d dug for himself. A one-time, final chance.

  Sam drove for forty-five minutes back to the past from which he’d escaped: his old neighborhood.

  Different now, yet still the same. Hopelessness simmered off of the broken-down, abandoned, boarded-up row houses. It radiated in the glow of the bright spotlights posted by the police, allowing them better vision to see illegal activity against which they were ineffective.

  On autopilot, Sam drove two more blocks, then made a left, drove another block, made a right, then another quick left, before pulling to a stop in front of a house at the end of the row that in twelve years hadn’t changed. He lowered his tinted window and stared at it. Red brick, cracking and turned brown with dirt. Glass in the windows cracked or gone, replaced now by plywood. The metal screen door was bent and was without netting. The door itself, maroon, was cracked in the middle.

  He couldn’t see inside, but he didn’t need to. He knew what it looked like. Three bedrooms—small, one outlet in each room. Two bathrooms—one full, one half. A kitchen, big enough for three people to fit in at one time. A living room with a fireplace that never worked. A basement big enough to house a mini drug operation.

  Sam sighed.

  At one point in his life, this had been a place he’d called home.

  Living with drug dealers, he hung on the stoop by day and sold the weed and crack-cocaine they bagged inside. By night, he was one of a couple who policed the in-house prostitution ring being run.