The cold steel of the Berretta 9mm caressed Keisha’s petite hand as she reached inside her custom-made pink leather purse. Her matching shoes scraped across the floor as she swiveled in the black leather chair and monitored the muscular chocolate colored man’s every move like a hawk watching its prey as he stomped across the light brown tile floor and waved a tan file folder in the air. Keisha noticed the expensive Rolex watch, contrasted against his olive green Carthart jean outfit with matching work boots as she narrowed her large brown eyes, and took a long hard look at her brother.

“I don’t know who in the fuck you think you are Tyrell, but you best check that shit before I check it for you, motherfucker.”

Tyrell slammed his chubby palm repeatedly against his stout chest, raised his bushy left eyebrow, and declared loudly as if trying to inform everyone with in a mile of them.

“SHIT, KEISHA, I’M THE FUCKING CONNECTION FOR COCAINE AND MARIJUANA IN LOUSIANNA. I’M THE MOTHERFUCKING DRUG KINGPIN THE FUCKING COPS DREAM OF BUSTING. I’M A NEW BREED OF HOODLUM. I’M A NOTORIOUS UNDERWORLD ENTREPRENEUR WITH STREET SMARTS AND A COLLEGE EDUCATION.”

Tyrell looked at the large gold ring on the back of his hand, rubbed the spot where the ring slammed into his chest and raised his eyebrows as if surprise by his power.

“Ouch, that shit hurts!”

The sound of his voice echoed in the room. His eyes squinted and again focused on Keisha’s face.

“Anyway, Keisha, by fifteen, I was slanging coke every day. By the time I left Roosevelt College in 88, you know for yourself, I earned two thousand dollars a day. Shit, I paid for four years of my college and all of yours before I got busted with that kilogram in Texas.”

Keisha’s eyes cut into Tyrell as he picked up a glass off the top of an oak and glass entertainment center. She graduated from Roosevelt College five years after her brother with a master’s degree in banking and finance and a bachelor’s degree in business administration. She later married Del, the C.E.O. of the rich and powerful McGhee Entertainment Company. His now deceased parents, Arthur and Patrice started M.E.C. in 1960. As entertainment agents, the company represented some of the top artist in the entertainment industry as well as athletes in the sports industry. She breathed deeply, rolled her large eyes, crossed her long legs, then removed the pistol from inside her purse and laid it in her lap as Tyrell paraded in front of her.

“Yeah, yeah, I know the story; but, see you’re forgetting Del and I got you where you are, Tyrell. When you did your five years, who got you the job at On-The-Move Cargo and Freight? Del did.”

Keisha’s smooth forehead wrinkled as she arched her back and waved her hands wildly in the air at Tyrell.

“When you needed money and the muscle to buy this place after the strike, we invested the money.”

His forehead wrinkled and his hairy upper lip puckered as if he’d tasted a sour lemon. His nostrils flared making his nose spread out over his face. Tyrell walked to the big screen television, retrieved a tape, and stared at his sister.

“Keisha, I don’t care if you and Del helped me, I’m gonna to kill the motherfucker before he kills both of us.”

He balled his well-manicured hand tightly as if ready to hit something or somebody and pounded the side of his leg like a child ready to throw a tantrum because he could not have his way.

“Why won’t you understand that or are you so fucking in love you’ve lost focus on what we’re trying to accomplish here?”

In spite of the purple highlights in her hair, Keisha looked like a younger version of her mother as she flung her hands in the air.

“Lost focus… Shit, Tyrell, you’re forgetting Del and I invested a half of a million to help you purchased this shipping company from Worthen Bank and Trust. While you and Del oversaw ya “ll drug dealers and illegal businesses, little ole Keisha ran There-In-A-Hurry.”

Keisha retrieved the clear plastic cup of iced coffee. The moistness dripped across her pink and white fingertips onto the cast iron desktop. She took her napkin, dried her hand, mopped the spot, and tossed it in the black trashcan.

“I can’t believe now that I’ve turned it into an international import and export company and “M.E.C. Holdings” into a local entertainment and retail giant...”

She took a loud sip from the cup, returned it to the desk, and stood up with pistol in hand. She approached the front of the desk, faced Tyrell, and leaned against the desk. The thin edged top of the black cast steel desk pressed into her behind as she spoke bluntly to her brother.

“I just can’t fucking believe you got the nerves to stand up in my face talking about he wants to kill you, so you gotta kill him first. What kind of brother are you and what kind of a fool do you take me for.”

The room became silent after she chambered a bullet then stood up with her legs spread and fingered the trigger. The padded grip of the 9mm warmed her small hand as her cold eyes stared at him and zeroed on his forehead. Her voice diminished gradually to a whisper as she talked.

“Besides, I’m not gonna stand by and just watch one of your tired ass old men take him out. You can’t expect me to do that and you’re fucking crazy if you do, Tyrell.”

Tyrell’s eyes grew wide with surprise as he stared at her. He threw his hands in the air. When he raised both eyebrows, narrow eyes ballooned to the size of a quarter.

“Wait,

WAIT ONE MINUTE, Ms Annie Oakley,

As Keisha returned to the chair, Tyrell inserted the tape into the black VCR and strutted over to the desk. Leaning back in his chair, he swung his bulky boots onto the desk, then pushed his black glasses up on the end of his nose and picked up the remote control. The light from the black twisted metal floor lamp glistened off his baldhead when he folded his hands in his lap and turned his head to look at Keisha as she placed the gun into her purse.

“Look, Keisha, I got fucking proof that he’s trying to take me out. A few of my men spotted Mitch Johnson tailing me last week and ambushed him outside one of my dope houses. Let’s just say that before he died, he told us that Del hired him to kill me. Shit, if you don’t believe me then watch this tape.”

Tyrell pointed the remote control at the large screen and started the video recording of two gloved muscular men beating and pistol-whipping a man tied to a metal chair. After a few hard strikes across the face with the butt of a large black pistol, pieces of the victim’s teeth shattered and exploded from his mouth. Seconds later, the butt of a wooden handled sawed off shotgun smashed into the other side of his face. A crimson spray of spit squirted from his mouth as the impact crumbled his jawbone.

The man sobbed loudly like a baby and pleaded for mercy. One of Tyrell’s men walked over to the powerless prey, pushed the gun into his quivering thigh, and pulled the trigger. The blast traveled into the leg, ripping away the flesh, and exposing the bloody muscles. The man hollered, pleaded, and begged them to stop. However, the unsympathetic gangster shot him in the other thigh. The victim let out another sickening scream. His body jerked and the chair tipped over, and flung him hard to the concrete floor. His battered face struck the plastic covered concrete and jarred more of his teeth lose. His light brown pants turned crimson red as the blood flowed from the gaping wounds and dripped to the floor beneath him. He spit blood and pieces of his broken teeth out of his mouth onto the plastic then screamed for them to stop.

The two gangsters reached down, picked the metal chair off the floor, and slammed it down. When the legs hit the concrete floor, the man screamed again. One of the men strolled over, pulled the victim’s head back, and stared down into his questioning eyes. The gangster shoved the end of the gun into the wound on the man’s right thigh and squeezed the trigger again. Another round ripped through the wound and made the injury much larger. His thighbone became visible as the force of the shot ripped the pinkish colored flesh apart. The harsh tactics proved effective if not brutal. Suddenly a dark fog crept over his consciousness. The torture, loss of blood, and pain robbed him of the power and strength to stay woke.

Tyrell picked up the wooden handled tin bucket off the heating plate and walked over to his helpless prey. He held the hot bottom of the pail with an oven mitt and poured the water over the man’s body. His victim screamed again as the water burnt into his flesh and caused his skin to instantly blister. He jerked and his eyes rolled to the back of his head as he started to black out again. However, some liquid ammonium carbonate beckoned his mind back through the black hole of semi-consciousness that the pain created. Tyrell needed him woke and his mind as sharp as possible. However, once he got the information he needed, he had no more use for him.

Keisha watched as the gangsters bombarded their victim until he begged for death. He told Tyrell everything; about how his boss wanted Tyrell dead because he’d become so powerful and his territory had become large and very profitable. No sooner had the last words fallen from his shattered mouth, one of the men strode forward. He stuck the muzzle of the pistol against the helpless man’s head and pulled the trigger, Mitch’s brains sprayed across the tarp. The large 44-caliber bullet ripped a large section of skin and bone from the defenseless victim’s forehead. He then kicked the chair over. As he fell to the ground, most of the pitted brain emerged from the grotesque wound and leaked some semi clear fluid from inside the brain cavity. The corpse, no longer recognizable as human, lay in a quickly gathering pool of blood and fluids.

Tyrell hit the stop button on the VCR. In the thick silence that followed, he walked over to Keisha and touched her shoulder, as if concerned that somehow she’d become traumatized by the events she’d just witnessed.

“Are you alright, Keisha? I know that was hard to watch but I thought you needed to know. He’s trying to kill me and you, so I got to take him out.”

Keisha stood up and smoothed the wrinkles out of her light pink sundress. Her sad eyes followed the water flowing down the rocky waterfall into an oblong shaped fish tank. Miniature sunken ships, treasure chests, a giant coral rock, and seashells littered the bottom. The sun lamp drenched the watery scene with its warmth as an array of fish shot from between the holes in the rock into the shipwrecks. Keisha returned to the chair, picked up her matching purse, and walked towards the door.

“Yeah, I hear you. I remember overhearing Del talk about taking someone out because they’d gotten too big. I never imagined he was talking about you, Tyrell. Still, Del is my husband and my problem. I’ll solve it myself.”

The click of her gem-studded heels stopped short when Tyrell’s fist slammed against the top of the gray metal desk and his eyes stared into the back of her head. After all they’re blood; they have the same mother but different fathers. After his father married her mother, they grew up in the same house; therefore, they were kin and that made them close.

“So, it gonna be like that little sister? Well, you just remember if you don’t handle this, I’m gonna kill him myself and if you get in the way, I’ll….”

Keisha spun around, placed her right hand on her hip, and glared at her brother. She couldn’t believe those words came out of his mouth. During their childhood, he used them to get her to do his homework and chores around the house. Frightened of his father, she did whatever it took to keep her brother quiet. However, they were no longer children. Those words didn’t work and she intended to let him know why. She sashayed across the office, placed both of her hands on his desk, and stared into his cold bloodshot eyes. The more she looked at him, the more she remembered the hardships of her childhood. She recalled how much she despised her stepfather for the things he’d done to her during her childhood. The thick white tips of her hot pink fingernails appeared to dig into the desk every time she drummed them against the black cast iron. Her large eyes gradually grew smaller as her face tensed up while she spoke.

“You’ll do what, Tyrell? What you gonna do; run and tell your daddy that I won’t do what you say? Well, too late, Tyrell.”

Keisha abruptly straightened up, shoved her hand into her pursed and stared at Tyrell.

“You never noticed that he don’t come around for money anymore? Well, that’s because after I graduated from college, I spotted his worthless drunk ass coming out his so-called rent house in the Ward.”

She pulled a picture from her purse and flung it at him.

“A few months after I married Del and you took over the Ward, I took that perverted old man out by the river, and put a bullet in his pathetic head. Now go tell him.”

The thin flat picture flew through the air and landed inches from the edge of the desk. Tyrell’s robust finger stretched out and picked it up. He bowed his baldhead as his narrowed eyes peered over the rims of his glasses and closely examined the body lying face up by the muddy Mississippi. He looked at her and slid the picture back to her.

“Who you trying to fool, Keisha; you had Del kill him; stop lying.”

Keisha put the snapshot back in her purse as her eyes glared at him. Her arms folded across her chest, and then her slender fingers squeezed and released her forearm as she fought back tears brought on by her memories.

“That doesn’t mean anything, Tyrell. I never told you this but the real reason I stopped going on those camping trips was your father used to rape me after you went to sleep. That’s why I came to your tent at night instead of sleeping in my own tent.”

Keisha unfolded her arm, retrieved her pink silk hankie from her purse, and dotted the corners of her eyes then returned the hankie to her purse. She batted her long eyelashes briefly and leaned on the desk. Her wide spread fingers supported her weight as her high-pitched voice trailed to a whisper.

“I was trying to escape him and as long as you were close, I was safe. Anyway, as I said I brought Del into this plan to get you to where you are right now; he’s my responsibility. I can see that he is getting in the way, but that is my problem to handle.”

Keisha stood up, touched the corner of her eyes with her fingertip, and stared at Tyrell then looked at the clock on the wall and at the fish tank. Spontaneously, her arm reached across the corner of the desk. Her hand slapped the back of Tyrell’s head, and she pointed and waved her long finger at him.

“For the last time, Tyrell, you mess with Del, you’re messing with me. YOU GOT THAT, TYRELL?”

Keisha strutted out the office to the parking lot, started her car, and sprayed gravel leaving the parking lot. A few minutes later, she located her husband coming out of one of his dope houses.

"Get in the car, Del; he’s looking for you."