Hard Candy
Authors: Amaleka McCall
Table of Contents
If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can
win a hundred battles without a single loss.
win a hundred battles without a single loss.
The Art of Warâ
Sun Tzu
Sun Tzu
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I have to honor God, who is the head of my life. No matter what the storm, God has brought me through.
Chynna, Amaya, and Aiden, you all are my life, the air that I breathe, and it is for you that I live.
Ed, my confidant, my best friend, my soul mate, you have no idea how much I love, respect, and honor you. You are definitely a REAL MAN in every sense of the word. Thank you for loving me through the times when I am truly unlovable. Thank you for being my biggest supporter and cheerleader. Most of all, thank you for helping to spark my creative juices with this novel. It is just as much yours as it is mine. I love you more than words could ever say.
Daddy, I love and appreciate you more than you would ever know. I love you for never giving up on me and finally understanding that I just had to do it
my
way. Yolanda, I probably don't know a stronger, more resilient person than you. Thanks for exhibiting brute strength all of these years and for loving my father unconditionally.
my
way. Yolanda, I probably don't know a stronger, more resilient person than you. Thanks for exhibiting brute strength all of these years and for loving my father unconditionally.
Ms. B, I adore you. You have taught me so many things over the years. Even when you thought I was not listening, I heard you. I love you for growing such a wonderful son and being such an awesome grandmother.
Gran'ma, I love you very much. Distance could never change that. You said you were going to be here until one hundred, and I believe you. I love you.
Quita, I don't tell you this often enough, but I love you. Thank you for being more than a friend and even more than a sister. This book, just like the others, kept you up at night just as much as it did me. You are truly a rider.
Katy, I have officially adopted you as my aunt. Knowing that you have my back all of the time means the world to me. I love you even when I'm yelling at you about fashion!
Ashley and JaQuavis, thank you for breathing life back into my writing career. Thanks for long talks and good advice. There is no place else to go but up from here!
Renee Perrier and Caitlin O'Neill, two of the most dedicated test readers in the world. Thank you both for taking the time to read, critique, offer advice, scream at the characters, and tell me when I was just being way over the top with
Hard Candy
. Your dedication meant more to me than you'll ever know.
Hard Candy
. Your dedication meant more to me than you'll ever know.
Carolyn Boyd, for being a true friend and one of my biggest supporters. I truly appreciate your constant plugs and the free advertising. You probably sell more books than I do! Thank you!!
Joseph, I love you. I know you're going to continue to make me proud.
Fatima, none of this would be possible without your skills. You know what you do. Thank you.
To the usual suspects, Yvette, Shannon, Aunty, Cindi, Kawana, LaIvy, Ms. Elanora, Porshe, Merci, Lexi, Jamol, Mylon, Renee Leggett, Pete, Ray, Ralph, Nadia, Samantha, Mr. Harold, Reggie, Adrianne Morrison, Steph, and Andrea Rockâa great big THANK-YOU for all of your support, love, and laughs.
To Tyra, Robbie Thomas, Thaia, Val, and Tara, who over the years have made enough of an impression on me that I could write books for days.
My family (on all sides), thank you for every experience, whether negative or positive. Trust me, I learned all of my life lessons from you all.
My fellow authors that I admire, Kiki Swinson, Tracy Brown, K'wan Foye, Allison Hobbs, Karen E. Quinones-Miller, Dwayne Joseph, and Victoria Christopher Murray, I have crossed paths or had informative conversations with all of you at some point and just know you've made a lasting impression on me. Thank you for paving the way.
All of the book clubs, readers, reviewers, and people who I can finally call “fans.” Thank you for all of your constant support. Without all of you, writing would be a moot point.
Carl Weber and the Urban Books family, thank you for the opportunity to share my stories with the world.
Chapter 1
A raucous laughter erupted through the house. The strange men's voices were muffled through the homemade ski masks they wore.
“Hold ya head up, nigga!” one of the men instructed, taking delight in his victim's pain.
Easy did as told. His neck, snapping left and right as they took turns hitting him, was throbbing with an unbearable shooting pain. Another blow to the face caused something to crack at the base of his skull. It felt like a fire had erupted in his brain. The pain rendered him speechless with shock.
“You a tough guy? You ain't gon' try to scream, beg, ask for mercy or nothing?” one of the masked intruders belted out.
Easy felt the butt of a handgun connect with his skull. His pride wouldn't allow him to budge. He was cut from a different cloth. From a rough childhood, he had clawed his way to the top of the drug game. His reputation in the streets preceded him, and he wasn't going to show weakness now.
“A'ight, nigga, if you so tough, get up and save your family, motherfucker!” one of the masked men taunted, his breath hot on Easy's nose and lips.
Easy continued to let his head hang, his blood dripping on the expensive Oriental rug that covered his living room floor.
“You gon' die a pussy even if you don't say shit. We gon' teach you a lesson, since you think you're invincible in the streets,” said the main instigator amongst the intruders. He wanted Easy to beg for his life.
Easy's body swayed from the incessant blows, but he still didn't lift his head or give the men the satisfaction of knowing they were hurting him. The high-pitched screams of his youngest daughter, however, penetrated his resolve.
“Daddy!” Brianna wailed from some distant place. “Daddy, help me!” she screamed again, this time her voice more high-pitched and frantic.
Easy opened his battered eyelids, turning his head painfully toward the sound of his youngest daughter's voice, which grew louder as the intruders dragged her by her hair to Easy's location.
“I want my daddy!” Brianna belted out again.
Brianna's voice caused a sharp pain in Easy's chest. Out of his severely swollen eyes, Easy could see his baby girl squirming and fighting, blood all over her face. His breathing became labored as a surge of hot adrenaline suddenly coursed through his veins.
It was the first time Easy felt nervous since the entire ordeal had begun. He had conditioned himself to believe that he would die in the game, so this end wasn't totally unexpected. But he'd never thought that his enemies would come after his family like this, especially when everybody in the streets knew his creed was “no women and children.”
“Now, nigga, I think you gon' change ya fuckin' mind. I want you to whimper, beg, cry, like the pussy you are!” one of the men said.
Easy closed his eyes in anguish. He didn't want to see them kill his baby girl. At that moment, he envisioned himself killing all of the intruders slowly, torturing them mercilessly.
“You gonna beg or what?” another man asked him.
These men were hard-pressed to get Easy to beg, but it wasn't happening.
“Eric, please! Give them whatever they want. Please,” Easy's wife, Corine, begged.
When the men had finished raping and beating Corine, they brought her to Easy's side, bound with nautical rope that had cut into her soft skin and left rope burns.
Easy had been unable to look at his wife until now. The only man to ever have her sexually, it hurt him to even imagine another man touching her, much less having sex with her. Easy was being emasculated before his family.
Corine let out another bloodcurdling plea. “Eric, please! I'm begging you!”
Easy didn't budge. He refused to open his mouth. It wasn't pride or selfishness; this moment was like living an art-of-war principle for him. The one rule he was going to live and die by was never to give in to the enemy when they would kill him, anyway. That would be like giving them double satisfaction.
“Eric!!!” Corine screamed, attempting to break through his calm reserve, but her pleas fell on deaf ears.
The intruder who had been taking the lead said, “A'ight, the tough-guy gangster is not going to fold on his own, so we'll fold for him.”
“Take off her clothes,” the man demanded.
The men were ramping up their act in a desperate attempt to get a rise out of Easy. When he heard the man's words, he began fidgeting against the layers and layers of duct tape and rope that held him captive. His knees burned from the kneeling position he was in. Easy felt as powerless as the first time he had been beaten by his caretakers as a child.
“Daddy!!” Brianna let out another throaty gurgle, her ponytail swinging as she tried to get away from her captors.
The first man slapped Brianna with so much force, she hit the floor like a rag doll.
Easy watched as one of the three men stood over her and began unzipping his pants. He bit down into his jaw, drawing his own blood. The metallic taste filled his mouth and made him thirst for revenge. Easy could feel vomit creeping up his esophagus, his blood boiling in his veins, but he did not utter a word.
“You still playing hard-ass? Well, I'm about to show you real hard-ass,” the same intruder said. “Do it,” he ordered, and the other two intruders forced Brianna's small legs open. The main man climbed between them and used his manhood as a weapon. The little girl let out an ear-shattering scream from the pain.
Easy rocked back and forth now, his fist clenched so tight, he was sure the bones in his knuckles would burst through the skin.
“Yeah, you ain't so tough now, EricâI mean Easy,” the rapist huffed as he banged into the little girl's flesh.
Easy finally recognized the man's voice. His heart began to pound, knowing who was perpetrating this heinous act on his daughter.
“Junior?” Easy rasped, blood dripping into his mouth and eyes.
“What, nigga? You calling out my fuckin' name?” Junior said as he continued to rape Easy's youngest child.
“Oh shit! Man, how the fuck did he know it was you?!” one of the other men asked nervously.
“Fuck him! You shoulda never crossed me, Easy,” Junior said evilly.
“You're a dead man,” Easy said, his voice muffled.
“No, you the dead man, bitch nigga!” another one of the intruders said, leveling his weapon at the back of Easy's head.
Candice sat up, her heart racing. Sweat drenched her sheets and her pajamas. She touched her face and realized she had been crying in her sleep. Using her hands, she wiped away her tears and took a deep breath.
She flopped back down on her pillow, realizing the nightmare was over. “This is getting ridiculous now,” she whispered to herself as she tried to shake the horrible images from her mind. The dreams had now become a regular occurrence in her life.
Although she wasn't in the house when her entire family was massacred in cold blood, she was the one to find her mother, father, older brothers, and little sister. Candice had deduced that the killers had viciously raped and sodomized her mother and her eight-year-old sister. They had also brutally tortured and killed her father.
“I miss you, Daddy,” Candice whispered. Then she looked over at the pillow next to her and relaxed a little. “Y'all still here, boyfriends? Always down to ride to the bloody end,” she whispered, speaking to the two semiautomatic handgunsâa .40-caliber Glock and a .357 SIG Sauer that she lay next to at all times.
She immediately thought of Tupac's lyrics and smiled. “All I need in this life of sin is me and my
boyfriends,
me and my
boyfriends,
” Candice mouthed, changing the lyrics a little bit. She laughed at how she'd butchered the song. It still wasn't nearly as bad as what Jay-Z had done with Pac's song when he had done a remake, as an ode to Beyoncé.
boyfriends,
me and my
boyfriends,
” Candice mouthed, changing the lyrics a little bit. She laughed at how she'd butchered the song. It still wasn't nearly as bad as what Jay-Z had done with Pac's song when he had done a remake, as an ode to Beyoncé.
The joke didn't last long enough to erase Candice's pain. She covered her eyes with her forearm. She wanted to feel better about todayâthe four-year anniversary of her family's murders.
Although she had a beautiful luxury apartment, highend furniture, and flat-screen televisions in every room, she was lonely. Candice found that material things only made her feel better temporarily. Nothing could be a fix for the loss of her family. In fact, she often wondered what life would be like if her family was still alive. She envisioned her father hugging her and her baby sister as he showered them with gifts, his smooth Hershey's chocolateâcolored face plastered with a smile. “Here, sweet candy cane,” he would say. “This is for you from the only man who will ever love you.”
Now eighteen, Candice wondered if her father, a revered figure on the streets of Brooklyn, would've threatened whichever boy she brought home to escort her to her high school prom. She knew for sure her two older brothers, Eric Jr. and Errol, would have been very protective of her. Candice was a tomboy, playing sports with her brothers and challenging them on a regular basis. She also wondered about her little sister, Brianna, who would've been twelve today. Candice could see her sister's moon-shaped face and tried to imagine what she would look like on her twelfth birthday. On her twelfth, Candice had gotten a Tiffany diamond pendant and necklace with the matching bracelet. Her father had also thrown her the biggest party that year.
A smile formed as she pictured her mother's face, the color of butterscotch, smooth and milky. Candice didn't always get along with her mother, but she knew her mother loved her just the same. If she was more girly, she was sure her mother would've been easier to get along with.
Candice could still hear her mother's voice fussing with her about coming home late from basketball practice. “
Candice, why are you so late? You think the sun rises and sets around you? Eric, you have to do something about that girl! We are not going to keep waiting for her to eat dinner and to get things started in this house
.”
Candice, why are you so late? You think the sun rises and sets around you? Eric, you have to do something about that girl! We are not going to keep waiting for her to eat dinner and to get things started in this house
.”
Candice's father, of course, would jump to her defense. “
Corine, you leave my little candy cane alone
.”
Corine, you leave my little candy cane alone
.”
The day her family was murdered, Candice was rushing home from basketball practice. As she exited the A train station at a feverish pace, her basketball shorts whisked back and forth in the wind, and sweat made her white tee stick to her athletic chest and abs. She whizzed past the usual corner and stoop hangouts in the neighborhood.
The Bed-Stuy neighborhood in Brooklyn had definitely undergone some changes in the last few years. There were even a few white people now in the mix. In fact, the brownstones on either side of her family's home were undergoing massive renovations before the new tenants moved in. This seemed to validate Candice's mother claim that “the Jews are taking over Bed-Stuy.”
Candice just knew her mother was at home beefing over her chronic tardiness. It was Brianna's eighth birthday party, and the family had gathered to celebrate. Though it was still the middle of the week, a large party for family friends was planned for the upcoming Saturday.
Candice slowed her sprint to a walk as she neared home. She could only imagine the spread her mother would have laid out. A grand birthday cake that looked more like a wedding cake, with purple and white frosting that would surely be the center of attraction. (Purple was Brianna's favorite color.) There would probably be enough food to feed the entire United States military. The Hardaways never spared any expenses when it came to their children's birthdays.
Candice had been told several times to be home on time. In fact, her father had told her that he would have one of his workers pick her up from the gym, but she protested, saying, “Daddy, I'm old enough to get home by myself. Getting picked up is for lames.”
Candice hated being treated like a little kid. She was fourteen and needed to be a little independent. Her dad didn't agree with her taking public transportation, but she was the one person who could have her way with him. She was her dad's first daughter, and his heart definitely belonged to her.
When she got to her brownstone, she realized her keys were in the pocket of her jeans, which were inside her gym bag. She thought about ringing the bell but didn't want to take the chance that her mother would answer the door.
Candice placed her bag down on the stoop and fished around in her gym bag until she located the keys. As she was about to insert the key in the door, she noticed something that looked like blood on the doorknob, but she couldn't be sure. Confused, she used her shirt to try to wipe the substance off, twisting her shirt over the knob to clean it, and the door clicked open.
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