Charlie puffed out and suddenly had to choke back her tears. She watched God walk around the bedroom naked, looking for some pants to put on. She didn’t know what to think. The evidence was there. He raped Chanel and she had left her mark behind on his skin.
“I’ll be in the shower,” he said.
He left the room. Charlie lingered on the bed with a lot to think about. True or not, how could she betray her man? She was eating again, she had nice things, and they started to have great sex again. So, would she bring all that to a halt for Chanel? She doubted it. But still, knowing that God was the monster that raped her little sister was a sickening feeling.
God hopped in the shower and took his sweet time in the bathroom. He felt that he’d gotten away with the assault and attempted murder. For a few weeks now, he’d been subtly keeping tabs on Chanel. Although the girl was frightened of him, he was confident that she was clueless.
After his shower, he dried off and wrapped the towel around his waist. He smiled at his handsome reflection in the mirror and was ready to start another day. Fingers had been asking to do another lick. God wanted to wait a bit longer before they went after another target. Things had been too hot on the streets and the cops were putting pressure out there. It was a risk to move too soon, especially anywhere in the Tri-State area. Their work of deadly home invasions had been on the news, and a task force had been set up to catch the culprits. God didn’t want to push his luck. If anything, he felt that it was time to move out of town and start fresh somewhere else—maybe the South or the Midwest.
As he was coming out the bathroom dressed only in a towel, Chanel happened to step foot out of her bedroom. The two crossed paths in the hallway. God smiled at her and said, “Pardon me.”
He hurried into the bedroom to be with Charlie, while Chanel stood there frozen like she was cemented to the floor. In passing, she noticed the scratches on God’s back, and an uneasy and queasy feeling swiftly came over her, and the night of the rape and assault came flooding back.
Could it have been him? God?
She ran back into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. She crawled back into her bed with a flood of tears coming from her eyes.
Bacardi heard the door slam and worried about Chanel. She entered the girls’ bedroom to find her daughter cowering and crying in her bed. Bacardi carefully joined Chanel on her bed and gently wrapped her arms around her daughter to comfort her. Something had upset her. The poor girl was shaking like a leaf in the wind. She assumed it was another bad dream.
Chapter Thirty-One
A crowd of men in a concrete Brooklyn basement hollered and cursed at rolling dice. There were large amounts of cash on the ground, and the atmosphere was rowdy as the thugs gambled, smoked weed, and drank.
Among the group of men gambling in the basement was Fingers. He gulped a 40oz, took a few puffs from the blunt, and clutched a handful of money.
“Yo, run that back, nigga,” Fingers hollered.
“What you want on that, nigga?” a thug shouted.
“I got a C-note on that muthafucka.”
“Bet, nigga.”
Fingers took another swig from his beer. He felt comfortable in the thuggish and sketchy environment, especially with his .45 tucked snugly in his waistband. He didn’t go anywhere without it.
The men continued to gamble, the dice rolled against the gray concrete floor, and the numbers did not come up favorably for Fingers. He lost a hundred, but he was willing to run it back. “Five hundred, nigga,” he said.
“Nigga, you like losing money, don’t you?” said Tony, the shooter of the dice.
“Just fuckin’ roll ’em dice, nigga,” Fingers said with a bit of irritation.
Tony chuckled. The crowd of men continued to be loud and sometimes vulgar. A lot more money was thrown into the pot, and it nearly totaled a stack. These were some heavy hitters and they won big or lost big.
The dice rolled again, and once again, Fingers lost. He shouted and cursed. “Fuck me!”
Tony laughed and taunted Fingers with, “You ready to ante up again, nigga?”
Fingers pulled out another wad of bills from his pocket. It was a sizable knot of cash totaling fifteen hundred. Fingers looked like he had money to burn.
He wanted to quickly win back the six hundred he’d already lost, so he tossed a few hundred dollars into the growing pot of cash. Things were becoming a lot tenser. He hated to lose. He wanted to win and he wanted to get his mind off his troubles.
Fingers was still offended that God hadn’t allowed him a turn with Chanel. It wasn’t as much about fucking Chanel, but more so the way God blocked him and looked at him like he was a piece of shit for wanting a turn. The thought of raping her never would have occurred to Fingers, and yet, it had entered God’s mind, and he went through with it. So, God thought that only he was good enough to fuck the black beauty?
Fingers couldn’t understand why it bothered him so much. God had made him feel like a thirsty pervert that night, and it was eating at him.
He downed more of his beer and continued to gamble, and continued to lose. Eventually, he ended up losing more than two grand. Now he was broke and angry.
“Nah, fuck this. Y’all niggas is cheating!” he shouted.