POW.

The dirt and grass lining the sidewalk next to Red's SUV flew up when the bullet entered it.

Tank and Red both fought for control of the gun until Tank precisely punched Red's inner wrist against the asphalt and his grip loosened around the handle. Tank spared a second to push it away with force before he delivered a round of ferocious blows to Red's face and shoulders.

Naeema's breath was caught in her throat like thick spit as she eyed the gun go spinning down the street like a wild top before it stopped on top of a sewer grate.

Tank cried out.

Naeema shifted in the seat to look through the driver's-side window. Red was pressing his hand to Tank's neck just enough to slide his fist up against his chin. Tank's head snapped back and blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, even as he maintained his death grip on Red's own neck.

Red head-butted him and Tank stumbled back long enough for his opponent to jump to his feet and deliver a blow to the side of his head. Naeema opened the door. Tank was a proud man who wouldn't want her help, but if she had to double-deuce Red from behind to make sure he whipped Red's ass, then she gladly would.

Tank shook the hits off before he stood up tall and walked straight up to Red, avoided the next blow to his face with a swift duck, and grabbed Red's neck and jerked his hands in different directions.

Naeema's mouth fell open as Tank held up his hands and Red's body drooped to the ground with his head twisted at an odd angle.

Yo, Tank broke that fool's neck.

There was no coming back from that.

Tank motioned for her to get out of the truck before he bent to flip Red's body over his shoulder. He walked over to his own SUV. She frowned at the way Red's eyes stared off into space and his head bounced like a bobblehead against Tank's back.

One down. One to go.

Kill the lying bitch.

There was no coming back from that shit either.

Naeema tapped her fingernail against her teeth as she watched Tank toss Red's body into the back of the SUV like he was nothing more than a sack of potatoes. I gotta do this. That fool ordered me dead.

She threw the car in reverse just as Tank looked up at her through the windshield.

Naeema didn't stop until she was near the sewer grate. She hopped out quick as hell and picked up the gun before she climbed back in and did a fast K-turn. The tires squealed as she turned the SUV in the opposite direction, back toward the church and as far away from Tank as she could get.

Naeema removed the clip to make sure it was still loaded with bullets as she waited at a red light not far from the church. She took the turns to drive by the parking lot. The only vehicle still sitting there was Nelson's Caddy.

Bas wasn't there.

"Unless he was waiting for Red to swing back through and pick him up," she said aloud.

"I need a gangsta bitch . . ."

Naeema looked down at Red's cell phone at the sound of his ancient-ass ringtone. Still wearing her gloves, she picked it up. On the screen was a picture of Vivica butt naked with her legs spread wide and a lollipop in her ass. Dumb bitch.

She took off one of her gloves to be able to swipe and sent Vivica's call to voice mail. "Lawd, why didn't I tell Red that she let a kid eat her out before his neck got snapped?" she asked as she checked his text messages.

Overlooking Vivica's long row of incoming texts steadily asking him where he was, she was checking if he and Bas ever texted.

They did.

Naeema started typing a text to Bas using the same fucked-up lettering that Red seem to prefer but before she could hit Send the phone sounded off with the old-school classic ring. BAS was displayed on the screen, without a picture, naked or otherwise. Thank God.

That would've been too suspect and the last thing she needed to top off the night was knowing the same dude that licked her ass was licking his homeboy's too. O-kay?

DONE?.

Naeema laughed bitterly at the text, wishing she had taken one of the many opportunities she'd had to truly fuck Bas up. "Oooh, motherfucker," she said, backspacing the text she had typed to simply put: ouTsiDE.

She pulled around the corner and parked outside the garage door entrance where Red had dropped his wannabe mafioso ass earlier. He would be able to see the SUV on the surveillance equipment in the office but she already knew the tint was 5 percent and usually used for privacy glass so Bas couldn't see inside. She hoped she'd waited long enough for him to leave the office and be traveling across the church to the garage, then she grabbed the gun and eased the door open enough to squeeze out. Her pulse was racing as she stooped down to wait at the back of the SUV.

The familiar scraping of the door against the sidewalk echoed against the night as she stepped from behind the truck with the gun raised. "Surprise, motherfucker," Naeema said, her voice as cold as the stare she leveled on him while she stepped up onto the sidewalk.

The look on his face was worth a million dollars.

She turned the gun sideways and kept her grip steady as she stood before him and pressed it against his chest. "So . . . my sucking your dick and swallowing shouldn't have nothing to do with this right here, right?" she asked sarcastically, motioning in the air between them with her free hand before she backhanded him across his pretty-boy face with it.

He turned his head back slowly to glower at her until his eyes seemed lined with red anger.

She circled his body to pat him down although she knew Bas rarely carried a gun.

"Go inside," Naeema told him. They had all taken too many chances with their violence in the middle of the streets of Newark like there were no witnesses lurking to see their shit.

Bas turned and opened the garage door and walked inside. Naeema kept the gun pointed at him as they made their way through the church and into the sanctuary.

God forgive me.

She pushed him down onto one of the dusty pews.

"Where's Red?" he asked, leaning forward and pressing his elbows onto the top of his knees as he looked up at her.

"Dead as a motherfucker," Naeema said. "Just like Nelson."

He squinted his eyes at that but his face remained expressionless.

She stood in front of him. "I told you I wasn't coming for you. I just wanted whoever killed my son . . . and I got him. All you had to do was go on with your life, but no, you want to be the godfather and order motherfuckers to kill me, right?"

"And you woulda killed me if you thought I killed Brandon."

Naeema nodded vigorously. "It woulda been a waste of good dick . . . but yeah, I woulda."

He eyed her with a deliberate pause at the warm vee above her thighs in her skintight jeans. He shook his head before he hung it with a little sardonic laugh. "You ain't fake all them nuts. That's probably the realest shit I know about you . . . Na-ee-ma."

"Probably," she agreed.

Bas sat up and slouched back against the pew. "So you're the MIA mother not in his life?" he asked with a lick of his lips.

Bastard.

"You don't want to talk about mothers," she shot back.

His entire body went stiff and his coolness evaporated into a look that thankfully had no power to kill. "If you knew the truth about that, you wouldn't have come back for me," he said with a momentary tightening of his lip-an inadvertent reflex of the anger she stoked.

Naeema eyed him as she shifted the gun from one hand to the other, keeping it pointed at his heart. She raised it up until the barrel was pointed at the spot just between his eyes.

More brain matter and blood splatter.

"I would have dealt with Nelson myself if you just told me," he said.

She smiled sadly and opened her eyes wide a few times to keep tears from pooling. "You know what, Bas . . . I believe that," she finished with a softness to her tone that surprised her. "He was jealous of Brandon taking his spot with you."

Again his eyes squinted a bit but his expression never changed.

Her finger stroked the trigger. She came to kill him, not to chat or listen to riddles about his mother's death. Shoot him.

His eyes were locked on her. Steady. Unwavering.

Shoot this motherfucka.

Naeema straightened her arm and stroked the trigger again, softly.

He never flinched.

He's a killer . . . but so am I.

"I was right. You wasn't what you seemed," he said, his tone slightly accusing.

You ain't what you seem, Queen . . . just like me.

Naeema walked up to stand before him with her legs spread wide. She put the gun to his head and raised her other gloved hand balled into a fist and displaying the ring. "Kiss the ring and ask me to forgive you for wanting me dead," she said, keeping his steady stare.

Bas pressed his lips to the gold. "Forgive me, Queen," he said.

She arched her brow at his use of her alias. Stepping back from him she shook her head. "For whatever we shared that I know was real," she said. "And for whatever love you showed my son. I forgive you."

Naeema backed away from him with the gun raised. "Stay away from me and I'll stay away from you. I got just as much dirt on you as you got on me."

She pushed back against the swinging doors of the sanctuary. She gasped when Bas ducked down and pulled a gun from under one of the pews and pointed it at her. Damn, I led him right to a damn weapon.

POW!.

"Ah!" Naeema cried out as the bullet pierced the flesh of her shoulder and the force knocked her back against the wall, even as she fired back.

POW!.

Her aim was better.

The bullet landed in his heart and the force caused his body to curve out as his arms and legs came forward. The gun fell out of his hand and he landed back atop the collection table.

Wincing from the burning pain in her shoulder, she came over to stand above his body. Blood spread across his sweater from just above his heart.

"I forgave you," she said. "But you still were going to kill me?"

Blood filled his mouth. "I killed my own mother."

If you knew the truth about that, you wouldn't have come back for me.

"You really think I ever gave a fuck about you?" he said, the blood in his throat already thickening his words.

His body began to convulse and his eyes rolled back in his head until she saw nothing but the whites.

Naeema raised her gun and shot him in the head.

POW!.

She put him out of all of his miseries.

17.

Everything feels different.

Naeema raised her head from the pillow and looked over at Tank asleep on the floor in a sleeping bag with one of her pillows pushed under his head. His snores filled the air like a long and loud chainsaw. His mouth was slightly open and she smiled, thinking of a mouse crawling into it.

Tank.

She let her eyes linger over him. Her anger at him had faded last night when he killed for her. Even at the worst moment in their relationship, he had been her savior. She was alive because of him. And I love him still.

Her head whipped around at the sound of a short snort. She winced in pain at the soreness of her right shoulder as she eyed Sarge, sleeping, sitting in a chair pushed up against the front door with his arms crossed over his chest and a machete in his hand. He must have come up sometime during the night after Tank had carried her in the house and tended to her bullet wound. Her heart tugged.

My own security team.

Naeema pushed back the covers with her good arm and eased up off the bed. She looked down in surprise to see she was wearing Tank's old football jersey. He had to have put it on her because she didn't remember shit after the pain pills he gave her knocked her the fuck out. She didn't mind the jersey at all.

She tiptoed over to Sarge and eased the machete out of his hand before he woke up and chopped off his own leg or some shit. Sliding it under her bed she reached for the box and opened it to pull out her pipe and the stuffed baggie of weed beside it.

She was halfway across the living room when she turned back for her Louis Vuitton bag. She left the living room and crossed the kitchen, stepping out onto the small porch with its missing step. It was the sight of her motorcycle through the open door of the garage that made her knees weak. She thought it was another casualty of the night before.