Page 7 of City of Gods
“I didn’t stutter, sweetheart.” With one flick of the scalpel, a perfect square of my flesh peeled off, taking the small black light cross with it. I was so fascinated that I forgot I was pissed at him for a second.
Someone with Bakari’s knife skills would be an amazing killer. He was so precise. I wasn’t even bleeding anymore after the initial cut. It looked like he’d used a square cutter to take a chunk out of me. If I hadn’t seen him make the cut with my own eyes, I would have never believed a human being did it.
“Are you going to sew me up?” I asked, still staring at the small, perfect square. It was probably a 1x1 block.
“Yeah. That’s the plan now that the tattoo is removed.”
“Would there be complications if you let it heal like this? I mean, without stitching it.”
“You’d have to take care of it just like a tattoo. There’s always a risk of infection.” He lifted an eyebrow at me with a quizzical look in his eyes. “You want me to leave you like this?”
“Kinda. It’s cool. It’ll heal and leave a perfect square on my thigh. I know it’s weird but this is the most perfect fucking thing I’ve ever seen. The corners are so sharp and the lines are so straight.”
“You want a square-shaped scar on your thigh?” he marveled.
“Why not? If you stitch me up it’ll eventually leave a scar anyway, right?”
“Yeah. But it would be so small and light. Nobody would ever notice unless you told them. My work is flawless.”
“Wow, you’re such an arrogant dick. Also, I thought Hakim was the plastic surgeon, not you.”
“He is. My shit still goes hard, though. I could probably give a motherfucker a new nose that would have their family questioning if they’ve always looked like that.”
“Okay. Shut the fuck up,” I sighed. “You can just put whatever little healing goop on my thigh and just leave it. I like it.”
“Healing goop? Is that the professional term?” He scoffed. He picked up a tube and squeezed a dollop onto his gloved finger. His touch was so gentle and light that I barely felt him applying it. He covered the small area with a bandage and then stood.
“See? Healing goop. Like I fucking said. You knew what I meant. You just wanted to be an asshole.”
“It’s my specialty.” He lifted a shoulder in a half shrug then pulled his gloves off and tossed them in the trash. “Anyway, you’re good to go. You can leave and never come back.” The easy way he slid his hands in his pockets annoyed me for some reason. Like he was dismissing me.
“I was going to do that anyway.” I paused after slipping my shoes on. “You know, Bakari, for what it’s worth, I’m telling the truth about Junior. My mother gave me the orders herself after she spoke with someone on Junior’s team when she was prepping for a job. She knows how important the Temple is to Bellmore. She used this hit on Junior as my first big job. I still feel like the nigga who told her let Junior know about the hit, which is why he’s in there recovering and not dead. He moved at the perfect time and…” I shook my head, trying to figure out how I could have anticipated the movement. My eyebrows pulled together, knitting a veil of frustration over my face.
I looked up when I felt a pair of intense bedroom eyes on me. “None of that matters, Sanai. You violated Temple rules and you’re out now. If my brothers and I need to handle a problem with Junior, then we will. But your mother isn’t the only person who knows the value we bring to Bellmore. Junior and all his men know, too.” He stood there, looking at me expectantly. His large stature making it clear that he wanted me gone. Well, fuck him. I wanted to leave. I needed to be alone with my thoughts.
I got the fuck out of there and didn’t bother looking back or warning them again.
Three
“What’s up, Breeze? You’re not eating these wings and I’m about to fuck up my order and yours,” Hakim said before taking a bite from the wing flat on his plate. My eyes snapped to his and I frowned.
“Don’t touch my fucking food, greedy ass motherfucker.” I pulled my plate closer to me and ate a forkful of red beans and rice. Maasai, Hakim, and I were having a meeting over lunch to discuss what happened last week at the Temple.
We’d released Baptiste to his boys after he was stable and awake and they took him back to his house to finish recuperating. We never asked about the info Sanai gave us about a hostile takeover. Instead, we voted to find out on our own. Maasai checked a few places and pumped people for information, but nobody mentioned it. Everyone claimed they’d heard nothing about Junior’s people trying to destabilize our neutrality. All signs were starting to lead to Sanai being a liar.
Even though that was the easy thing to believe, I couldn’t get her face out of my head from that night. Right before she left, she looked so confused as to how she could have missed her mark. She seemed adamantly upset about not being able to kill Baptiste to stop him from taking the Temple down.
“Hakim, have you found out anything on your end about this alleged takeover?” Maasai asked, pulling Hakim away from his almost-finished plate of food.
“Nope. Same outcome as you, Sai. Nobody knows anything and actually laughed me out about it. Shit pissed me off, for real.” He chewed his food and washed it down with a long drink of cognac before sighing and diving right back into his food.
I swear to god I didn’t know how the fuck my brother was able to stay in shape with the way he ate. That motherfucker would punish a whole plate and go back for seconds and thirds and still function.
“You have a fat nigga living inside of you.” I shook my head at him and pressed my palms together.
“Well, the fat nigga inside of me wants another order of wings. Who the fuck thinks a ten-piece is enough?” He wiped his hands and lifted his fingers to call the waitress over.
“Normal people, nigga. That’s who,” Maasai laughed. “Listen, I don’t know what Sanai was on that night but if Junior or his men were going to make a move on the Temple, I would have heard something about it by now. Somebody would have been to see us about it. Everything has been quiet.” My brother looked at me, a question mark in his eyes. “You’re not saying anything, Breeze. What’s good? You find anything?”