Vengeance

I was frozen in place, not quite sure what to do, or how to pull the entire thing off. Ten thousand dollars would be one hell of a gift for Hannah. I could pay her back in a lump sum for all of her help and compassion toward me. I forgot all about Macy’s and the necklace.

“Well, what do you think?” Mr. Sterling asked. “Do we have a deal?”

“Um, I live with my aunt,” I lied. “Her name is Hannah. She’d have to come with me. Is that cool?”

“Cool,” he said, and then grinned. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black business card, then handed it to me. All it had on it was his name and number. “You can call me personally to set it all up.”

His bodyguard chimed in. “Are you sure about all of this, sir? That’s a private number.”

“I’m quite aware of that, Virgil.” He looked at his bodyguard and chuckled. “It’s my private number, after all.”

Virgil looked embarrassed and stood back.

Mr. Sterling then gazed back at me. “So I’ll look to hear from you, or Aunt Hannah.”

With that, he left, and I rushed home to tell Hannah about what happened. I ended up using the money collected in my boot to purchase all the fixings for Christmas dinner, along with a cheap tree that I dragged home myself and decorated with Hannah’s lace from around the apartment.

When I told her that I had met a man named Richard Sterling who wanted me to come to Alpine, New Jersey, to sing for his New Year’s Eve party, Hannah started screaming. “The Richard Sterling? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Who is Richard Sterling?” I was sitting on the sofa trying to figure out how to solve her squeaky Rubik’s Cube but stopped when she had such a fit over it.

“Richard Sterling, the billionaire?”

I shrugged. “I guess. He was in Rolls-Royce with a chauffeur and a bodyguard. I’m assuming that’s the one.” I paused after what she said sunk in. “Did you say billionaire? Not millionaire but billionaire?”

“That’s exactly what the fuck I said.” Hannah sat down beside me and started waving her index finger in my face. “I told you that you could sing your ass off, baby girl. This is the beginning of something major.”

When Hannah made that statement that night, I had no idea how factual it would become. Long story short, I did more than meet a bona-fide billionaire in Times Square. I ended up meeting my protector, provider, teacher, savior, biggest fan, talent developer, and often even my priest. I ended up meeting the father that I had never had!

PART TWO:

THE REFRAIN

It has been nearly twenty-five years since I left Atlanta. While I am grateful for all the success, wealth, and fame I have been able to obtain throughout this journey called life, I have never forgotten what they did to me. The four of them tried to break me and, for a time, they accomplished their goal. As my fortieth birthday approaches, before I celebrate that milestone, before I embrace that significant benchmark, vengeance will be mine.

—Wicket, circa 2012

Chapter One

Saturday, June 9, 2012

1:42 p.m.

Atlanta, Georgia

The Ritz-Carlton suite was over thirteen hundred square feet with a panoramic skyline view of Atlanta, a music area with a grand piano for me to practice on, an executive study, a butler’s pantry attached to the formal dining room, and a bedroom with the kind of high-thread-count bedding that I was accustomed to.

I was soaking in the massive tub with “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele seeping through the surround-sound sys

tem and singing along with the words. Her vibe was so relevant. Our musical styles varied somewhat but we were both getting paid to do what we were passionate about, so it was all good. The video for “Rolling in the Deep” had over 400 million views on YouTube, but my video for “The Other Side of the Pillow” had nearly 900 million views. Glad my body was looking tight that week we filmed it in Punta Cana. Otherwise, I would have been worried about people seeing my flaws forever and would have cringed when I heard the numbers. Even though my song was dope, the visual effects of the Dominican Republic made the video truly pop. Most people in the United States would only ever dream of traveling the world. I was blessed to actually do it on the regular. Sounds crazy but I had more than a million frequent flier miles.

Then again, I was actually flawless, keeping it real. I really didn’t have any choice other than to remain unblemished and impeccable with both my looks and tastes. Rivalry was thick in the music industry and it was no longer completely about selling records, even though I had sold more than 150 million albums and over a billion singles at that point in my career, shattering all kinds of records. It was about being a performer. Selling out arenas for hundreds—sometimes thousands, if bootlegged—of dollars per ticket and making the world believe you were the shit. That you could walk on water, that you were superhuman and unparalleled and untouchable.

Untouchable? I was definitely that for an overabundance of reasons. I tried to quickly distance myself from the long-ago memories that were persistently clambering back and focus on my upcoming show that evening. As always, I was going to turn it out, but first I had to get dressed and go do a sound check. I hated sound checks. They were nothing but an intrusion on a perfect day. I had been doing the shit long enough that they should have known exactly what settings to have on the soundboards, but each venue space was different, so I dealt with it.

Pure irony that I had never performed in Atlanta before. Then again, I had my reasons. Damn good reasons. Okay, the memories were coming back again. It was time to do something extreme . . . like playing in Thumper, aka my cooter, but what with?

I scanned the room as “Rack City” by Tyga came on. Aw, yeah, some freaky shit for me to get off on! I stood up, grabbed my back scrubber with the wooden handle, and then sat back down in the tub. I moved the end of the handle in and out of Thumper and closed my eyes. I started gyrating my hips to the music, like I was a stripper named Nutcracker working the pole, except the pole was literally between my legs and inside of me. I slid it in deeper and deeper until I was thrashing around in the tub by the time the song ended. I was an expert at getting myself off quickly.