The Last Kings Read Free Page B

worse is that we’re girls! You know what happens to girls in the game.”
    Mocha’s rant went in one ear and out the other. I wasn’t scared of Coopa. He was just a man who stood behind his army instead of in the front.
    â€œWhatever, Mocha.” I didn’t feel like arguing with her, especially since she had been the one to even bring it up.
    â€œFor real, Sadie, do you think they would take us seriously?” she asked. “I mean, we don’t know anything about the game to even try to play.”
    â€œ You don’t know shit about the game, Mocha,” I said, and I thought about the question.
    I knew the city was hungry, but I also knew that even though Coopa was running shit, he wasn’t handling business like he should have been. Eventually, Detroit would birth a new king . . . so why not make it a queen?
    â€œI don’t know, Mocha. Maybe, but only if we were strapped heavy and had a team of loyal ones,” I finally answered.
    Mocha sighed heavily.
    â€œI’m going to sleep. Your ass is crazy. I can’t believe we are even still having this conversation.”
    I heard her turn over, and I lay facing the ceiling for a few more moments, lost in my own personal thoughts. If I could come up with a way to take the game by storm, I’d do it in a second. I’d grown up around the world of drugs and fast money. The attraction that I had to it was undeniable. It enticed my soul. I was ten when my mother dated her first hustler. My mother always had a new man almost every six months. They gave into all of her lavish wants and always made sure I had everything that I needed. My mother wasn’t just your typical beauty; she was drop-dead gorgeous. Her father was part Dominican so her hair flowed almost to her butt. She didn’t believe in the working world, so she played off of her wide hips and plump breasts because it worked for her. We moved around a lot, and in every city, she would date the new “big thing,” until he either got himself killed or incarcerated.
    The longest relationship she had was for two years, and I hated him. His name was Nino, and I was fourteen at the time. I was just coming into my looks and many would often tell me I was beautiful, just like my mother. My mother moved us into his large six-bedroom estate and promised me that “this was it.” Like a fool, I believed her, like I always did. It didn’t take long for the fairy tale to be shattered. Soon my mother began to realize that Nino was an angry and very possessive woman beater. Whenever my mother did anything he didn’t agree with, he would floor her. For a while, my mother put up with it saying that she needed him, and if it wasn’t for him, we would be on the streets. But when Nino started paying inappropriate attention to me, things started to really get out of control. Instead of protecting me like a mother should have, she turned to drugs. The same ones Nino was selling to the crack whores roaming the streets. The first night Nino raped me, he put a gun to my head and told me that if I screamed, he would blow my and my mother’s heads off.
    I had never felt pain like that before in my fourteen years, and I felt lower than dirt. He was large, too large for a young girl’s first time. I remember biting my lip so I wouldn’t scream. My womanhood was stripped from me in thirty minutes and fifteen seconds. I knew that because I’d closed my eyes and counted to mentally evade Nino as he humped my body deeper and deeper into the mattress. No matter how much of a failure my mother was, she was still my mother, and I didn’t want him to hurt her any more than he already had. After that first time, it began happening periodically. I never spoke a word of it to my mother. Whenever she looked at me, her eyes reeked with sadness and pain. I could tell she knew what was happening, and the fact that she didn’t do anything to stop it turned