Page 82 of City of Gods

Ishouldn’t have gone to check on Kenya after she went and ran to Mother like a scared little bitch. Still, I was knocking on her door, holding a bottle of her favorite wine.

It wasn’t exactly the best way to apologize to your older sister for pistol-whipping her and leaving her stranded in her own house…and probably breaking her jaw. Then again, there were no real protocols for something like that.

It wasn’t like there was a Hallmark section in the damn store for violently assaulting your sister.

“What the fuck do you want, Nai?” Ken said, standing in the doorway with her hand propped on her hip. It had been a few days since I beat the fuck out of her, so her skin was still heavily bruised and the swelling was plentiful. She was a ghost of the beautiful woman I knew her to be.

I held up the bottle of wine and Kenya scoffed, her nostrils flaring since I imagine it was difficult for her to roll her eyes. The emotion was the same, though.

“Look, I know you hate me and all that but I need you to understand that you can’t protect Mother anymore. She had an entire plan rolled out and didn’t give a fuck if we all got caught in the crossfire. You heard what she said when I had her on the phone.”

Kenya still didn’t say anything in response. She only glared at me with her one good eye.

“Okay. Fine. Hate me forever. That’s cool. I can live with that. I’ll set this down on the porch and leave.”

I had to meet Bakari at the Temple anyway. We’d found Takia’s address from a few steady hours of internet digging and he knew what her schedule was at Bellmore General so it was time to make moves. I needed to stop by and check on my sister first, though. I wasn’t willing to let her get in the way of what needed to be done but I did still love her. It was an odd feeling but then again, we weren’t raised to handle emotions like normal people.

I bent to sit the wine on the porch and just as I did, the familiar sound of a shot echoed in the air, and the heat of a bullet whizzed past my ear.

“Ken, get down!” I shouted, dropping to my stomach. I yanked on Kenya’s arm and she hit the floor with me. We bear-crawled in the house while bullets lit up the exterior.

I took the gun from my waist and clicked the safety off. When I checked to see if Kenya had been hit, I saw she had her gun as well.

From the open front door, we both fired shots at the all-black vehicle, taking out the tires. I turned to Ken when there was a pause in the gunfire. “You hit?” I asked, panting.

“No,” she answered, shaking her head. “You?” Her words were muffled because of the wire keeping her jaw shut but I understood her fine.

“Nah. I’m good.”

A few more shots rang out and I fired back. Kenya was out of ammo.

The black SUV crept forward, groaning on deflated rubber and metal on the street. They wouldn’t get far. “I’m going to run up,” I told my sister.

“Nai, no. Stay here. You don’t know how much firepower they have.”

“I need to know who the fuck is in there. What if it’s Mother?”

“You know damn well she’s not going to risk coming out of hiding to kill us herself. She’s a coward.” The hurt in Kenya’s eyes called to the hurt buried somewhere inside of me. I hated it. I didn’t want to be reminded that somewhere inside, I still loved Mother no matter how awful she was.

More shots. That time they were aimed closer to our position on the ground at the front door.

Sirens sounded in the distance making Ken and I both curse. We had to go undercover.

“How far away you think they are?” I asked her.

“Maybe two minutes. They’re not going to get away unless they go on foot. Do not go after them.”

“I need to, Ken.”

“Sanai, I’m begging you. I hate you so much for what you did to my face but if I have to bury you…” Her lips drew tight and she shook her head, tears glistening in her open eye. “Don’t.”

“Fine,” I huffed.

Outside, car doors opened and closed, there were three pair of black boots on the ground from what I could see at my vantage point.

“Torch it!” I heard a female shout. Seconds later the SUV went up in flames and the people occupying it fled. Everything in me told me to chase them down and kill each of them with a bullet to the back of the head but I saw the look on Kenya’s face. She was scared.

The sound of sirens grew closer and now, I could see the flashing red and blue lights against the black of the sky in the distance.

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