Page 3 of Heart of a Savage
I cringed. I’d totally forgotten that she needed me to help her with her Mother’s Day setup since it was a few days away. I swear, every holiday that was invented, Sabrina Logan was going to celebrate it. She even celebrated people coming out of a surgery successfully, completing a task, getting a new job, house, car; whatever the hell the accomplishment was, she was going to celebrate it. I never questioned why she did it, and a part of me already knew why. It was therapeutic for her to quell her loneliness.
“Yes, Sabrina. I know, I know… I got tied up,” I said before she could unleash her wrath on me.
“I don’t ask for much, Amour?—”
“I know, Mother. I just have a lot going on right now.”
“You know... just get here.” She hung up in my face, and I sighed from exhaustion. I knew when she hung up on me, it was a clear sign that she was upset. I loved my mother. She was all I had aside from Paige, my uncle Lamont, and my cousin Lena, but I needed her to understand that I had a busy life. Nonetheless, no matter what I had going on, I’d always show up for my favorite girl.
“Sabrina’s?” Paige questioned, bringing me out of my thoughts.
“Sabrina’s,” I confirmed.
Paige chuckled. “I’m going to just drop you off. I don’t want none of that smoke she’s about to blow your way.”
“Oh no, sissy pooh. Your ass is coming right inside with me. I’m not going to be the only one getting cussed out. It was you who told me I needed to move on Corina’s ass today, anyway. I could have waited until tomorrow.”
“Fucking lies! Your ass got me out of my sleep to run down on that ho.”
“I mean, it’s your money she was playing with, too, sooo... ” I shrugged.
“Whatever, Paris Amour.”
I cut my eyes at her. “You must want to get matching wheelchairs with your girl, Corina.”
She burst out laughing as we got on the expressway. “AP, I rarely say this to you, but you have got to calm down, sis. One shot to the knee would have been cool. But both knees? How the fuck is she supposed to go make deals, not being able to walk, with a fucked up face, and being out of commission?”
“Calm down? That was me being calm. And I don’t give a fuck how she does it, as long as the shit gets done.”
“You’re very irrational at times. You don’t always have to kill or hurt people to get your point across.”
“P, you of all people should know me. You know I don’t do anything without probable cause. A lot of these scums don’t take me seriously until I pop off. They don’t hear me until I make this gun talk. Hence why your little friend back there almost got her head blown off because shethoughtshe could play with me.
“They see a pretty face and think I’m some pushover. I’m rational until I’m not. And your ass ain’t no better, so what are you really saying?”
“You know what I mean, Arie. We got too much shit going on to be going down for a murder charge. You know Papa Lo taught us better than that.”
“He also suited us up with a team of sharks that’s going to fight on our behalf. I’m unbothered about getting caught. If I have to choose between my respect and jail, I’m always going to choose the former.”
“Just stay smart, sis. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Always been that. And when I’m not, I always have you.”
She smirked and shook her head.
Paige had been my best friend since sixth grade. She lived a couple of houses down from me, and we always walked to school together. Our parents were tight, and we would always have sleepovers and do everything together. At the age of fourteen, Paige’s house caught on fire, killing her parents and little brother, Joseph. The police ruled it as some wiring issue, but we knew better than that. Paige’s father, Joe, was in the same business as my father, so we suspected foul play. The only reason Paige survived the incident was because she was at my house at the time. It was a tragic day for everyone. I remembered holding her close as she cried in my arms. No one came to claim my good friend, so my parents took her in, and I gained a sister in return.
It was hard for the first year. We ended up moving to get away from the memories of her losing her family. After some time had passed, my father began to teach us how to hustle. We were high schoolers and wanted all the flyest shit. He and my mother always got us whatever we wanted, but my father was a man who lived by the motto, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”
I always thought that applied to men, but he let me know quickly that it applied to everyone. He would tell us that if we wanted the latest attire, we had to work for it, and he’d match whatever we earned. So, that’s when our lives began to change.
My daddy was a member of the Assassins Association, or AA, where all the elite hitters were born. Once your name came across their radar, your life was on a countdown. Lorenzo started young, and worked his way up to become one of the top hitters and drug suppliers in the city. He never wanted us dependent on anybody, not even him and my mother, so he had us running packages for him. Our pay was $500 every week. Sabrina was against it, but she could do nothing because whatever Lorenzo said was law.
I wasn’t the heartless bitch people made me out to be, but after Lorenzo went down for intent to distribute a hundred kilos of heroin and was currently serving his time upstate, something inside of me switched. I didn’t care about shit but my mother, Paige, my uncle and aunt, and my cousin Lena. Everyone else was only used as a means to an end. I had sex without feelings, moved without a conscience, and had zero tolerance for bullshit.
My father raised Paige and me to be independent businesswomen and boss-ass sharpshooters. He trained us day in and day out on how to eliminate our enemies and clean up any mess that we made. We were like ghosts. No one knew who we were or when we were coming. They just knew once we did, it was over for them.
For a long time, it was just Paige and me until we met Mayani and Megan our first year of college. They were twin sisters who had moved to Michigan from Ohio to go to Baker for school. From their backstory, I could tell they had it hard coming up.
