He took another swig of the drink and threw the bottle off the balcony and watched it land in the Olympic-size swimming pool below. His condo was three stories above ground, and as he glanced down, the mixture of liquor, height, and cocaine caused him to become disoriented. He looked at the picture again and kissed it. He remembered back when he was innocent and untainted by life’s ills. He wished he could start back over and have his life back with his father and brother. But now both of them were gone.
Mecca took off his Timberland boots and carefully climbed on top of the railing. He took off his shirt, exposing his definitive tattoo that covered chest and arms. He closed his eyes and spread his arms out like an eagle soaring in free air.
“God, please forgive me for I have sinned. Money, Poppa, I’m coming to join you,” he said as he prepared to jump to his death.
Before he took the leap, he heard a stampede of feet coming from beneath him. He opened his eyes and glanced down and couldn’t believe his eyes. Am I drunk? he asked himself as he saw at least fifteen men of Dominican descent creeping into his first floor patio door, all of them carrying assault rifles or handguns.
Mecca knew who’d sent them, his own grandfather. He had seen those same goons wipe out other crews while growing up. Mecca instantly grew enraged. His pride was still intact, and he figured, if he was going out, it would be with a bang.
Mecca hopped off the rails and stepped back into the house. He walked over to the table and grabbed both of his guns. He then dipped his entire face into the cocaine bowl and took a deep sniff. Cocaine was all over his face as he rose up with bloodshot-red eyes. He walked over to the radio, and the sounds of Tupac blared out of the speakers. He turned the volume up as high as he could, so the intruders didn’t have to guess what part of the house he was in.
“Come on, mu’fuckas!” Mecca yelled. He pounded his chest just before breaking the bulbs in the big lamp that lit the room up. He wanted to kill every single man who came for him. He was about to set that mu’fucka off.
Mecca ran to the corner of the spacious room and kneeled behind the couch and cocked both of his guns. “Y’all trying to come in my home and get me? Do y’all know who the fuck I am? Huh!” he yelled over the couch, as four men ran into the room and positioned themselves.
Mecca’s body was sweating profusely because of the drugs and his anxiousness. He was ready to get it popping. He rose up blasting, shooting anything that was moving.
The sound of Estes’ henchmen’s assault rifles filled the air as they tried their best to take Mecca’s head off.
Mecca, even though he was high as a kite, aimed with a marksman’s precision, picking them off one by one. He ducked behind the couch briefly for cover and then emerged blasting. Busting his gun was like second nature to him, and he began to kill the men in the room. Before he knew it, he was the only one left standing.
When he heard the sounds of feet coming up the stairs, he realized that he had no chance against the army. A man ran through the door, and Mecca rolled across the floor and fired his gun at him, but nothing came out. He was out of bullets.
Mecca rushed for him, but the man popped him in the shoulder. But that didn’t stop Mecca. He ran and struck the man across the face, causing him to drop his gun. Mecca then began to beat the man to a pulp. Swollen to twice its normal size, the man’s face became like a bloody stew as Mecca pounded the man with his gun. That’s when the others came up the stairs, and Mecca caught another bullet to the mid-section.
“Ahhh!” he screamed as the burning-hot bullet ripped through his torso. Mecca fell on his back in pain and saw another man coming for him.
The room was dim, so the man couldn’t see Mecca clearly and began firing aimlessly.
Mecca grabbed the dead man’s gun and fired a bullet through the man’s head, dropping him on contact, and the rest of the goons came in blasting.
Mecca then struggled to his feet and ran full speed toward the balcony. With bullets whizzing by his head and body he thought he had no choice, so he leaped.
“Everything is going to be okay,” Young Carter said as he consoled Taryn. “I’m going to find him.”
Taryn had been worried all night about her only remaining son. She had gotten the news from her father that he would be killed. She knew the rules to the game, but as a mother, there was no way she could accept the contract on her son. She tried her best to convince her father to call it off, but he wasn’t budging.
She had been calling Mecca all night to tell him to flee. She just couldn’t believe what Estes was telling her. She didn’t want to believe that Mecca had killed Monroe.
Estes had decided not to tell Taryn about the baby, and he moved Leena in with him, so he could protect her. Potentially she could have been carrying a boy, and that would be another opportunity for a male heir to bear his last name. By Taryn being past her biological time frame to have babies, he wanted to shield Leena until the baby was born.
“I know Mecca didn’t do what they saying he did. I went over there this morning, and his place was empty and riddled with bullet holes. I have to find my baby.” Taryn cried hysterically on her stepson’s shoulder.
“I will find him for you. Mecca is a soldier. I know he is still alive, okay. You know Mecca. He’s probably laid up somewhere with a female right now. Them goons just came over and trashed the place, trying to intimidate him.” Carter was selling Taryn a dream. He knew in his heart that if Estes put a contract on Mecca then most likely he wouldn’t half-step. “Look, I’m going to check around and see what I come up with, okay.”
“Okay, Carter. Thank you so much. Please bring my baby home. I can’t lose another son.” Taryn grabbed his face gently. She looked into his eyes and was amazed at the resemblance he held with his father. At that moment, she had faith that he would make things right.
She then looked over at Breeze, who was on the couch crying, and went to soothe her.
“I will. I’m going to find him. Just don’t worry,” Carter said just before he exited the house. He hopped into his car and grabbed his phone from his waist so he could call Ace and Zyir to roll with him. He picked up his phone, but dropped it when he felt someone grab him from his backseat.
“Yo, Carter, it’s me!” Mecca said as he released Carter.
“Man, what the fuck are you doing?” Carter asked as he turned around to look at Mecca. He saw that he was shirtless and bloody. The atrocious smell of liquor and blood invaded Carter’s nostrils.
“Don’t look! Stay turned around! They watching,” he said as he lowered his voice and stayed crouched down out of sight. “Yo, fam, pull off so we can talk.”
Carter pulled off, and once they were clear of the house, Mecca sat up and looked around nervously. “Man, they trying to kill me.”
“I know. Taryn told me what was going on. Man, tell me you didn’t do what they say you did.”
“Hell nah, I didn’t kill Money. I told you I saw them mu'-fuckin’ dreads running out when I came. I didn’t have my banger on me, so I couldn’t get at them.” Mecca kept his eyes moving.
Carter immediately had skepticism, because as long as he knew Mecca, he was always strapped. It didn’t sound right, but he was going to give him the benefit of the doubt. “I knew it couldn’t be true, man. You know we have to get at them niggas, right? We have to go to war.”