Baltimore Chronicles Read online

  Baltimore Chronicles

  Volume 4

  Treasure Hernandez

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1 - Neighbors, who needs them?

  Chapter 2 - Powdered Courage

  Chapter 3 - Hotel Love

  Chapter 4 - Fight for My Life

  Chapter 5 - The Hunt with Some Extra Baggage

  Chapter 6 - Typical Country Morning

  Chapter 7 - My Own Private Crack Den

  Chapter 8 - Chance Meeting

  Chapter 9 - Common Ground

  Chapter 10 - Truth Kills

  Chapter 11 - Good News, Change of Heart

  Chapter 12 - Stay Away From the House

  Chapter 13 - Crack Effort

  Chapter 14 - Not So Welcome Back

  Chapter 15 - Painful Reunion

  Chapter 16 - Sneak Attack

  Chapter 17 - Fall from Grace

  Chapter 18 - Different Faces, Same Old Story

  The Block

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Neighbors, who needs them?

  Scar’s eyes popped open. “These mu’fuckin’ birds!” He had been woken up for the fifth day in a row by a flock of birds chirping outside his bedroom window.

  “I hate the fuckin’ country,” he mumbled to himself as he wiped his eyes and lumbered out of bed. The bright morning sun was shining through the south-facing window of his bedroom. He stood and looked out that same window at the black birds cawing in the tree. “I’m putting an end to this bullshit once and for all.” Still groggy from his sleep, he put on a pair of cream-colored sweat pants with a matching zip-up hoodie.

  He had only been in the country house for a week, but to him it felt like a year. He hated the slow pace and solitude. There was no action, no one around, and no fun. In short, he was bored out of his mind.

  The first few days at the house were not so bad. He had been occupied by all the action of moving in. Being the head of the biggest drug cartel in Baltimore had its advantages. He had some of his low-level soldiers come out to move his shit, while his top-level soldiers sat down for a meeting about how things would run. Scar told them that Flex would be representing him in the city while he was hiding out in the country.

  Although Flex hadn’t been with Scar’s crew for very long, he showed loyalty and drive, the two things that Scar demanded. Scar noticed and rewarded Flex with a promotion. Scar felt that Flex had grown into a man—especially the way he handled killing Sticks after Scar found out that Sticks had stolen money from him. Scar had seen a definite change in Flex’s demeanor after the young soldier got a taste of murder, so now, whatever Flex said was word. If any of them had a problem with Flex, then they would have a problem with Scar.

  If Day had been at the house, he would have been representing Scar, but that nigga had disappeared. At one time, Day was Scar’s right hand man, but what Scar didn’t know was that Day had ulterior motives. Day had infiltrated his posse and become his right hand man, all the while scheming to take down Scar’s empire. Now Day was nowhere to be found. Since Scar had been in the country, he hadn’t seen or heard from him. As a matter of fact, no one in his crew had. Finding out what happened to Day was one of the things on Scar’s list. He just hadn’t been able to investigate since his sudden escape from Baltimore.

  Fully awake now, Scar went to his closet and pulled out his AK-47. He inserted a magazine full of bullets and cocked the side handle. The machine gun was loaded and waiting to inflict some serious damage. This was the last thing Scar wanted to be doing. He wanted to still be sleeping, but he’d had enough. Every morning some damn birds were interrupting his sleep, and he was sick of it.

  The rest of the house was quiet as he walked out the front door into the early morning chill. He carefully and quietly walked around the house so he didn’t alert the birds to his presence. They could be as loud as they wanted, and Scar hoped they would be. He figured if they remained loud, it would drown out any noise he made and it would be easier to ambush them.

  “Enjoy your last chirps, you mu’fuckin’ squawking crows.” He raised the machine gun, propped the butt end against his shoulder, and aimed at the middle branches of the tree. A shower of bullets spit out of the gun barrel as Scar pulled the trigger. Bullet shells flew every which way and littered the ground. He sprayed the tree back and forth as the air filled with the smell of spent gunpowder. The black birds scattered in an attempt to flee as they were bombarded with bullets. Some made it out and were able to fly away. Most got caught in the line of fire.

  Forced to stop shooting because the magazine was spent, Scar dropped the gun to his side. He surveyed the damage he had inflicted. There were feathers and leaves still lingering in the air, taking their sweet time floating to the ground. They would settle next to the dead birds. Smoke from the gun barrel was swirling in and around the tree branches. There were at least twenty dead birds scattered around, lying in the grass.

  Scar was proud as he stood admiring his work. “Now maybe I can get some sleep.” He stood on top of the hill and looked over the valley that sprawled out in front of him. There were only treetops and sky as far as he could see. It was the most isolated he had felt since escaping the heat in Baltimore to hide out in the country.

  This loneliness made him long for the good old days, when he was young and he and his brother Derek were inseparable. They looked out for one another. Even though they didn’t have any parents and were in an orphanage, they had each other. They were family. Scar longed for that bond again. He had it for a while, until he started fucking Derek’s wife, Tiphani. That act of betrayal had pushed Derek over the edge and destroyed any familial bond they once had. Now they were sworn enemies, and Scar had no one close to him. He didn’t trust anyone. He had kept everyone at arm’s length while becoming the biggest player in the game. Now that he was isolated and alone, he regretted sleeping with Tiphani and betraying his brother.

  He stayed there for a good hour, thinking about his past. He went over everything that had happened and all of his actions that brought him to this place. He thought back to the elation and love he felt the first time he saw his brother again after years of separation. He thought about the first time he and Tiphani hooked up, and the time his brother Derek found him in bed with Tiphani. It was bad enough that he was fucking his brother’s wife, but it was worse that he was doing it in his brother’s bed. That discovery sparked the feud that turned Scar’s world upside down.

  Before that, Derek and Scar had worked together. Scar was on the side of crime, and Derek was on the side of the law, but they worked in tandem to make extreme amounts of money and control most of the drug trade in Baltimore. With his brother working against him now, wanting revenge, Scar was forced into hiding. The entire police force was on a manhunt for Scar. All of the politicians and police officers the he had been paying off stopped taking his bribes. He was poison in the city. Without any allies in high places, he had been forced to escape from Baltimore, eventually ending up here in the middle of nowhere.

  “Fuck that. What’s done is done. Can’t change nothin’ now.” He snapped back to the present and walked into the house. He wasn’t about to let sentimentality get the better of him. There was a reason he was the head of the most notorious gang in Baltimore.

  Scar walked in the house to find his niece sitting at the kitchen table coloring in her coloring book. His nephew was on the floor in the living room playing with his toy cars. The kids were too young to realize that they were being held as captives. Scar had originally kidnapped the children to get his brother to help him escape Baltimore. Sinc
e Derek was a former detective, Scar figured he could find out when and where the police were searching for him.

  He did escape Baltimore, but it was in no way because of any help Derek provided. If Scar hadn’t taken initiative and left when he did, he would have been captured. As he was driving out of Baltimore, the authorities were driving to raid his house. This pissed Scar off to no end. He was now holding the kids as punishment for Derek and to try to shake Tiphani out of hiding. Scar wanted revenge on that bitch. He was going to make her pay for betraying him and trying to set him up at the armored car ambush.

  “Hi, Uncle Scar,” they said in unison as he walked through the door.

  “What’s up, little ones? Why you up so early?” He hid the gun behind his back as best he could.

  “We heard some loud bangs outside,” his nephew said. He was the younger of the two children.

  “It sounded like firecrackers,” said Scar’s niece.

  “That’s what it was. Firecrackers. I was tryin’a scare away the loud birds outside my window,” Scar replied. “Go upstairs and change out your PJs and I’ll make y’all some breakfast.”

  “Pancakes!” yelled his nephew.

  “Pancakes.” Scar smiled his crooked smile. Even though he had kidnapped the kids, they were the only things that made Scar smile these days.

  The kids raced up the stairs to see who could change the fastest. Scar followed them and put his machine gun back in the closet. Since they’d been with him, he had tried to hide the guns and drugs from them. He didn’t want them growing up like he did. He wanted them to keep their innocence as long as they could.

  Scar started mixing together the pancake batter and warming the griddle as the kids came rumbling down the stairs. “First!” His niece crashed into the table.

  “Not fair. You always win.” Scar’s nephew pouted.

  “You’ll win one day, big man. How ’bout you get the first pancake?” Scar tried to cheer him up.

  Scar served breakfast as the kids occupied themselves with their own little games. They had formed a tight bond since all of the drama surrounding their family started. First, their father, Derek, had been put in jail; then their mother, Tiphani, staged her own kidnapping and disappeared. Now their uncle had kidnapped them. They had been shielded from it as much as possible, but children are like dogs; they can sense when things aren’t right. Kids are smarter than adults give them credit for.

  “When is Mama and Daddy coming to get us?” the nephew asked.

  Scar hesitated before he answered. “Soon, little man, soon.”

  “Maybe we should go back to Baltimore. They might not know where we are, or they might get lost,” his niece chimed in.

  “I wish we could go back to Baltimore, but this is home now. I talked to your pops the other day, and he still busy. He’ll get here as quick as he can,” Scar lied.

  “I don’t like it here. I want to go back home,” said his nephew.

  “Me too. Me too.” Scar agreed.

  A somber silence fell over the table, all of them sitting with their own thoughts. The kids were thinking about their parents and wishing they were in their own house. Scar was wishing he was back on familiar ground, bangin’ on the streets of Baltimore.

  Scar was getting the uneasy feeling that he may be stuck in the country for a long time. If that was the case, he needed to figure out what the hell he was going to do with the kids. He didn’t want to become their father. When he kidnapped them, he hadn’t thought about keeping them long term. He was thinking about the present and what he needed to do at that moment. The fuck did he know about raising kids? He couldn’t look to his childhood as an example. He watched his mother get beaten to death and was in and out of foster homes his whole childhood—not to mention the fact that the state separated him and his brother while they were in foster care. He already felt like he was a father figure to some of these wild-ass soldiers in his crew. He didn’t need two real children to take care of and send off to school.

  Usually if Scar had a problem like this, he would just kill whoever it was that was clinging to him. He was hoping to come to another solution before he had to do that to the kids.

  The doorbell rang and snapped everyone out of their thoughts.

  “I’ll get it,” said the niece.

  “No. You stay here,” Scar instructed with a little force behind his words.

  The kids obeyed, and Scar quietly and cautiously walked to the front window. He peeked out the window so as not to attract attention from whoever was at the door.

  “Who the fuck?” Scar mumbled to himself.

  He quietly walked back to the kitchen and told the kids to go play out back. They obeyed and went out the back door. Scar went into a cabinet and took out a 9 mm from the top shelf. He slipped it in his waistband as he walked back to the front door. As he approached, the stranger knocked on the door.

  “Who is it?” Scar stood a little back and to the side of the door in case the person started shooting or tried to kick in the door.

  “Oh, hello. It’s your neighbor,” the stranger called back.

  “Who?”

  “Your neighbor, Arnold. I live just next door.”

  Scar looked out the window again to see if he could see anyone else. It looked to him like this dude was alone, and he for sure looked harmless. After contemplating a moment, Scar figured it was safe to open the door.

  “Hello,” said Arnold as the door opened to reveal Scar.

  “What’s up?” Scar replied to the white man wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and overalls.

  “I just came over to say hello and welcome you to our community,” Arnold said. His warm smile formed his thin face into something out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

  Scar was caught off guard by this unsolicited kindness. A neighbor coming over to introduce himself would never happen in the hood.

  “Oh. Word. That’s cool.”

  “I brought you some vegetables from my garden. May I come in?” Before Scar could react, Arnold had handed him a wicker basket and walked into the house.

  “I thought they would never sell this place. It’s been vacant ever since Miss Sally passed away. Going on two years now. Oh well, guess that’s the recession they are always going on about on the TV. I like what you’ve done with the place.” Arnold slowly walked around the living room.

  “Yeah, well, I was just gettin’ ready to leave. So, nice meeting you.” Scar was finally able to compose himself and say something.

  “Oh, right. Of course. I’m so rude. I just got so excited when I saw that someone finally moved in, I had to come over. I love having neighbors. I think of them as my family. Are you here alone?”

  “Yeah, it’s just me.” Scar looked at the door, wishing this dude would walk through it and leave.

  “Oh, well, you’ll have to come over for dinner. I’m just over the other side of the tree line there.” He pointed to the east side of the house, where the trees were the thickest.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “I get it. You’re shy. Well, I won’t bite. My wife and I own a small farm over there. Nothing fancy, just enough to get by. We don’t need much to be happy when we have each other.” Arnold smiled.

  “Uh-huh.” Scar awkwardly smiled back. What the fuck is this cracker talking about? he thought.

  “You should stop by the farmers’ market this weekend. I sell my vegetables there on Saturdays and Sundays. It’d be a great way to get to know everyone in the community.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see. I really gotta be going.”

  “Oh, right. I forgot. I’m sorry.”

  Just as Arnold was starting to leave, Scar’s niece and nephew came into the living room. Arnold stopped abruptly.

  “Uncle Scar, there’s a bunch of dead birds in the yard. Did the fireworks kill them?” his niece said.

  “Yeah, little one, that’s what happened. Now, go on back outside and play. Take these vegetables to the kitchen.” He handed her the basket.

  �
��Where did you get these?”

  “This nice man.” Scar gestured to Arnold, who had a confused look on his face. When he realized he was being talked about, Arnold reacted like he had been thinking about something else.

  “Huh? Oh, yes. Those are from my garden. Enjoy.” Arnold smiled at the little girl and boy.

  “Thanks.” They walked off, examining the vegetables.

  Scar looked at Arnold to gauge his reaction to seeing the kids. His face seemed expressionless. Scar always had trouble reading white people. They all seemed the same to him.

  The kids had been on the news as missing, so Scar needed to know if Arnold had recognized them. He couldn’t just outright ask him.

  Scar said the first thing that popped into his head. “They came to visit and see my new place. Get out of the city for a few days.”

  “Sure. Right. That’s what I heard this morning. Fireworks. Funny, I thought it might be gunshots or something. Oh well, I’ve taken up enough of your time.” Arnold briskly walked out the front door.

  Little did Scar know, Arnold had come over because he had heard the gunshots and he came to investigate. Arnold hated guns; they actually scared him.

  Scar was shocked. He didn’t know what to do. Did Arnold recognize his niece and nephew? Did he recognize Scar? Why did he seem so strange after the kids came in the house? There were too many unanswered questions for Scar’s liking.

  He decided he needed to stop Arnold before he alerted the cops. He pulled his gun out of his waistband and went out the front door. The second he got past the threshold, he ran right into Flex.

  “Ay, yo. Where you goin’ in such a rush, nigga?” Flex said.

  “Kill my country-ass neighbor.”

  “Who? That cracker I saw just walk in them woods?”

  “Yeah, him. He already in the woods? Fuck.” Scar thought about chasing him, but decided it might be best not to kill him. He figured dude’s wife probably knew where he was going and would come looking for him if he didn’t come back. Scar would just have to be on high alert from now on.