Payback Ain't Enough Read online

  The #1 Queen of Street Lit

  WAHIDA CLARK

  delivers the latest installment in her best-selling series

  PAYBACK AIN’T ENOUGH

  Filled with the same glamour, sex and danger, we dive back into the hip-hop drama where old rivalries and new beefs arise in Detroit’s blood-drenched drug turf. Shan is now married to Briggen, the much desired former hustler turned legitimate businessman. With one child and another on the way, Shan’s life is about to get turned upside down. In a day she’ll go from being the envy of the streets to having her life on the line.

  Briggen, a man leading a double life, wants to know who killed his brother, Forever. He wants revenge but it’s only a matter of time before Briggen’s own lies catch up with him. Nick is back in the big ‘D’ and ready to take over the game. The only thing standing in his way is a buried secret from his past that is about to come back to haunt him. It’s only a matter of time before ambitions and secrets collide and revenge goes a step too far. In this game of power and intrigue where the stakes are high and the rewards are dazzling, the losers are gonna discover – there’s always a price to pay.

  After nine and a half years in federal prison and ten months in the hole, New York Times bestselling author, Wahida Clark, has truly earned her place among the greatest in urban fiction.

  Payback Ain’t Enough

  Copyright © 2012 by Wahida Clark

  Cash Money Content™ and all associated logos are trademarks of Cash Money Content LLC.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  First Trade Paperback Edition: April 2012

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Book Layout: Peng Olaguera/ISPN

  Cover Design: Nuance Art

  For further information log onto www.CashMoneyContent.com

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011931198

  ISBN: 978-1-936-39911-6 pbk

  ISBN: 978-1-936-39912-3 eBook

  To all my loyal readers. Love you much!

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Reading Group Questions

  'Thugs Part 6' Excerpt

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  All praise is due to the Creator. Wow! Book number eleven. Who would have thought it and where did the time go? I owe it to my readers, no doubt.

  A special shout-out goes to all of you who made this book, Payback Ain’t Enough, possible: Nuance Art, Al-Nisa, Hasana, Nobel, Maxine Thompson, Intelligent Allah, Keisha Caldwell (whose name was supposed to be in Justify My Thug), Molly Derse—thank you for your diligence, Linda Wilson, and Alanna Boutin. Everybody behind the scenes at S&S. Thank you. If I missed anyone, you know who you are.

  Much love and thanks to the Cash Money Fam. Watch what I do in 2012!

  Peace!

  Wahida Clark

  Follow me, the Official Queen of Street Literature at:

  twitter.com@wahidaclark

  facebook.com/wahidaclarkreadersclub

  www.wclarkpublishing.com.

  PAYBACK AIN’T ENOUGH

  CHAPTER ONE

  Fuck what you heard. Scratch all that shit that you was told before. This is the realest, slickest, illest shit right here.

  —NICK

  FOREVER

  The only thing worse than being a prisoner in my own skin is the feeling of helplessness as I listen to the bloodcurdling screams echo from the next cell as a man gets another man’s dick rammed up his ass.

  Who would’ve thought that I, Forever Thompson, would be serving a life sentence confined to a fuckin’ wheelchair and paralyzed from the waist down? I remembered it as if it was just yesterday, hearing my name followed by those six words, “You are hereby sentenced to LIFE.” All of my dirt flashed across my mind after I heard those words. And to think that all this bad karma surrounding me started over some pussy and dough. A dangerous combination that will suck you in every time!

  It all began with me using that bitch Shan to mule my dope into the prison. But no, I couldn’t stop there. I had to fuck her and get her pregnant. Now, here I am again, for the thousandth time thinking about those I left behind: my brother, Briggen, by the same mother, my wife, Nyla, my daughter, Tameerah, and last but not least, my first cousin and partner-in-crime, Zeke.

  “Bust cell 49!” I could hear the goon squad yelling into their radios and the sound of their boots hitting the cement steps. I knew shit was getting ready to get real ugly for at least one muthafucka. Forty-Nine was right next to me, and I could hear it in surround sound, the cat in the cell next to me screaming. It was the familiar sound of prison rape.

  I sat in my wheelchair knowing what was getting ready to happen next. When the goons rushed past my cell I heard 49’s door pop open. A few minutes later, they were dragging T-Bone, the punk-ass rapist, out. He didn’t even bother to offer up any resistance. I watched as they stood him up and rested him against my cell with his hands cuffed behind him and a billy club to the throat.

  The losing opponent was a new guy who had just come in yesterday. He came out wrapped in a sheet and limping slowly. He met eyes with me, and I could see the pain and fear peering through his tear-filled, red eyes. As the guards attempted to walk him past my cell, he lunged forward with a shiny object and stuck it into T-Bone’s side about four or five times before the goons wrestled him to the ground. Damn. Old T wasn’t the winner after all.

  Bone slid down the bars of my cell and hit the floor. As the blood trickled out of his mouth all I could say was, “You should have stayed true to the pussy.”

  DARK

  “You ready?” I stood outside of Forever’s cell and asked him for the hundredth time, as it was my courtesy to take him to make his regular Thursday pickups.

  “Sheeeit. Nigga, you heard what happened up here earlier?” Forever asked as he maneuvered the remote on his wheelchair.

  “I caught a little something,” I told him.

  “Yeah, that punk-ass rapist T-Bone finally got his ass handed to him trying to fuck one of them young boys who ended up guttin’ his ass.”

  “Get the fuck outta here.” I tried to act surprised. The young dude was Lenny. He was my homey Ray Ray’s cousin, who had just went home. I tried to pull some strings and get him in another cell because I knew what he would be up against. But I couldn’t swing it until next Monday and I’d already be gone. I gave him a shiv and schooled the young nigga. I told him to handle dude as soon as he stepped in the cell or get handled. I guess they both got handled, and I couldn’t have cared less because I had much bigger fish to fry. “It’s just another day in USP, Jonesboro,” I said to Forever.

  “Punk muthafuckas.” Forever shook his head and wheeled himself out of his cell.

  I got behind him and began to push him across the compound. As we passed the TV area, niggas were playing cards, chess, gambling,
and talking shit. The shit reminded me of that HBO special OZ. Forever got his usual shout-outs since he still carried much weight in the Feds and he had much respect… wheelchair and all. And I had to admit I received plenty of benefits from being on his team.

  “Yo, I need you to go pick up that weed from Shokkah,” he told me.

  “Aiight. I got you,” I said as I continued to roll him down the corridor. After the first few stops I began to roll him in the opposite direction of Shokkah’s cell.

  “Hold up, where the fuck you going?” Forever snapped. Something I was used to.

  “Nigga, Shokkah ain’t going nowhere. They servin’ that barnyard pimp today. You know everybody and they momma gonna be at chow. My man is gonna hook us up.” I continued to roll him toward the chow hall.

  “Word.” Forever was in total agreement with me.

  FOREVER

  It was Thursday, and my man Dark was right. It was chicken day and every nigga in this bitch was rushing to the chow hall.

  “What up, Moe?” I asked one of my newest customers.

  “Forever, I gotta holla at you later.”

  “I’m sure you do, nigga. You know I got you,” I told him. It was also payday for those niggas who worked in the Unicor factory. Payday was always a very busy day for me.

  “Yo, where we going?” I asked Dark’s black ass for the second time. Chow was to my right, but he was wheeling me to the left. My antenna went up. “Yo, nigga, what’s up?” Dark wouldn’t answer me. I looked back at him, and he was looking straight-ahead with this glassy look in his eyes. I saw that same look on him before. It was right before he took out King Bey. And I saw it again, right before he took out Big Will. Dark got off on taking niggas out. He was that one nigga who loved to put in work.

  “Fuck!” I spat as I slapped the arm of my wheelchair. Dark laughed. He knew I had just caught on to what he was about to do. He picked a damn good day and time to do this. And the fucked-up thing was I didn’t even see it coming.

  I ignored my gut when it warned me that this muthafuckin’ Dark was a snake! And as usual, my gut was right! I shouldn’t have trusted him—let alone taken him under my wing. Youngins these days don’t respect the code, and they damn sure don’t respect one another. Shit… I should know. I used to be one of them grimy, backstabbing, lying, conniving muthafuckas. Here I done put the nigga up on game. I made him, gave him all the jewels and the word on any and everybody who thought that they were somebody, and now this dirty bastard was preparing to do me in. These new niggas got the game fucked up! How can I, a nigga in a wheelchair, be a threat to this muthafucka? I can’t do shit for myself, let alone to him.

  My wife, Nyla, made a huge attempt from day one to stay by my side and to do this bid with me. But every time she came to visit me, the look of pity and disgust on her face told it all, so I told the bitch to step. Fuck her. I couldn’t stand for her to sit there and look at me like I was some fuckin’ cripple. “Yo, anybody around? This Forever!” I yelled out.

  “Chill out. Ain’t nobody else down here, maine,” Dark said as he looked back and forth down the hall before closing the double doors to the laundry room. He then wheeled me over to the far wall, snatched the remote off my chair, and hit the lock at the bottom so that I was parked.

  “What’s up? What’s it gonna be?” I asked him.

  “Forever, you a smart dude. I know you know what this is,” Dark said as he pulled a cord out of his pockets and began tying my wrists behind my wheelchair.

  I simply looked at this nigga and wished to have five minutes where my body was fully functional so I could stand up and rip this nigga’s heart out of his chest. At that moment, it seemed that all of the washing machines started their spin cycle. Dark mumbled something, stepped away, and then grabbed some rubber gloves out of a bucket. My heart fell to my feet as he put them on, and as he was doing so the nigga had the nerve to be smiling. This nigga was crazy for real. I remember like it was yesterday, the day I took him under my wing.

  I had been watching him the minute he arrived at the pen. Even though he was ruthless, he was a stand-up type of dude who wasn’t on that homo-thuggin’ shit. I got some niggas together, and we went to go see what he was made of. My crew cornered him up in the shower as I fell back in the cut.

  “So you that nigga, Dark?” my dude Ronnie had asked him. No sooner than the words left his mouth, the other guys who were in the shower began to file out. They knew instantly what it was.

  “You don’t look like a man that would pick the wrong muthafucka. So do what you came for,” I heard Dark say.

  Okay cool. So the nigga wasn’t backing down. He passed the first test.

  Anxious, Ronnie was the first one to go at him, and they went at it. When the other niggas saw that Ronnie was being given a run for his money, they all jumped on him. Dark was swinging and tossing those niggas left and right. When they saw they had no wins, Gator pulled out a shank and started to swing. I sat amused, watching Dark duck and weave. Dark grabbed Ronnie and pulled him in front of him using him as a shield.

  “Enough!” I screamed at them niggas. Immediately everyone started to stand down, but Dark was still holding on to Ronnie. He was breathing heavy and was ready to get it in. “Dark, let the muthafucka go,” I told him.

  Gator said, “You a lucky bitch today.”

  “You the lucky muthafucka,” Dark spat, shoving Ronnie into Gator.

  “I’ll get with y’all later,” I said. The four of them backed up slowly. Once they were all gone I moved closer to him.

  “I don’t owe you shit,” he said right away in an attempt to let me know that he wasn’t the type of nigga that was going to live his bid paying the next nigga back.

  “I didn’t say you owed me anything. And I don’t owe you. But when shit wear off, come see me,” I told him and then backed up and rolled out.

  Once shit had time to cool down he came to see me and after that first conversation we became inseparable. Now here I was about to lose my life to the only nigga that I can say I trusted. Oh well, fuck it! It is what it is. Sometimes you the killah, sometimes you the prey.

  I knew that Dark would kill a man for me at the blink of an eye and took pride in doing it! He had so much potential. Niggas would tease him and tell him that he looked like that dude off of Martin, Brother-man from the fifth floor, and he would get pissed. He was just darker. Fuck that, the nigga was pitch black. Dark was a quiet dude, and at the same time he was gung ho. He had no qualms about puttin’ in work, and he had lots of niggas shook because his hot temper was easy to set off.

  “I appreciate how you put me on game and everything. It’s mostly because of you that I’ma get out and get on top where I belong, real fast. And I’ma stay there,” he told me.

  The more I looked at him, the more he looked like the devil. That glazed look in his eyes grew more intense.

  “See what happens when the student gets ahead of the teacher? You really think it’s that easy, huh? You’re gonna become the don overnight? You really think you’re gonna come from behind these walls and take over? I created you with these hands, and by these hands I will destroy you.” I spoke firmly like a father to his disobedient son or like Geppetto to ignorant-ass Pinocchio; this wood nigga thinks he’s about to become a real boy.

  “Show me a nigga that gets on top and stays on top and I’ll kill myself and save you the trouble,” I told him, at the same time wondering how I was going to die.

  “It’s my time to shine, Forever. I’ma get out and shake shit up! Too bad you won’t be around to hear my name. And for the record, this shit right here is only business. It’s not personal.”

  “Business for who? At least you can tell me that!” I needed to know. Only because I wanted to know how deep the saying “You reap what you sow” went. He ignored me and disappeared behind one of the industrial-sized washers. I heard him coughing. And then he reappeared, wearing a mask and carrying two thin plastic bottles.

  “This bleach shit is strong,
” he said while coughing.

  “Bleach? Nigga, why won’t you just slit my throat and get it over with?”

  “Nah, this is how they want it done. It’s bleach and ammonia. And don’t worry about for who. It don’t matter nohow. You outta here.”

  “Fuck you, nigga. You doin’ me a favor.”

  “Fuck me? Nah, fuck you, nigga,” he said as he came toward me.

  “Sheeeit… If you can earn stripes off of killing a handicap, then you deserve to be on top. I’ll even give you my parking spot! Pussy-ass nigga!” He thought he was killing me? Sheeeit, I died the day that bitch Shan pulled the trigger and put me in this fuckin’ wheelchair. Fuck the bullshit I ain’t mad; I’m relieved. I laughed in that nigga’s face, and if he was close enough I would spit in it. “My streets gon’ eat yo’ ass up,” I said. “You young and you dumb.”

  “You watch. This time tomorrow, you’ll be in the fridge and I’ll be a free man preparing to claim my throne,” Dark gloated. As his mouth twitched as if he were the joker.

  Suddenly I began to laugh uncontrollably. “Throne? Who the fuck you think you is? There’s a million-and-one hustlers just like you on the streets. I hope you got enough bullets!” I snapped. As I watched Dark adjust the mask over his nose.

  DARK

  I knew I shouldn’t be doing this. Here I was getting out in about thirty-six hours and I gots to kill me a nigga one more time before I hit the bricks. Why did I have to do this? What stupid nigga would take this kind of chance? Why jeopardize my freedom like this? I could just walk away and chill out for the next thirty-six. Just as those thoughts ran through my mind, Forever looked over at me. And that look, the expression on his face, convinced me that I had to do this.

  “I don’t know why you playin’. You and all the rest of your Memphis muthafuckas around here don’t know who the fuck I am and what the fuck I’m capable of. Y’all punks ain’t the only ones who gets down and dirty. I’m from the ‘D’, and we gets it in too. D is also for Dark, muthafucka!” I said as I prepared myself to pour the strong-ass concoction down Forever’s throat.