Pursuing The Plug Read online

  Contents

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  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Let’s connect!

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  © 2018 Royalty Publishing House

  Published by Royalty Publishing House

  www.royaltypublishinghouse.com

  Previously titled ‘For His Love’

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Any unauthorized reprint or use of the material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage without express permission by the author or publisher. This is an original work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Contains explicit language & adult themes suitable for ages 16+ only.

  Royalty Publishing House is now accepting manuscripts from aspiring or experienced urban romance authors!

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  Dedication

  To my day ones, this one is for you. Enjoy.

  Epigraph

  You never see a man cry until you see a man die.

  Loud, thunderous footsteps sounded off like grenades as Hampsher pushed herself into the space between her bed and nightstand. Silently, while squeezing her hazel eyes shut, she prayed that she’d finally come into possession of the one magical power she’d been asking God for in the last three years of her life—invisibility. Her seven-year-old brain functioned at a high capacity but couldn’t quite comprehend the fact that humans didn’t acquire those types of powers, not even in the darkest of hours.

  As the thudding continued, Hampsher pushed her back farther into the cranny, wishing away the evil spirits that had come to haunt her while she slept. Their chattering, rudeness, and unwanted presence had awakened her. Hampsher hurried from her bed after hearing the distress call of her mother, Harrah. Unfortunately, she’d bumped into the heel of a wheat colored Timberland boot that surely didn’t belong to her father. He wouldn’t be caught dead in those things.

  Back peddling into her room, Hampsher slammed the door and placed her stool underneath the handle after locking it. She rushed to her secret corner as she heard her door being kicked in. By the time she made it to the floor, Hampsher knew that the visitor had gained access because she could hear his footsteps.

  Bending forward, Hampsher slid underneath her twin-sized bed. Her parents had performed this routine with her several times, but she had never understood why. In the heat of the moment, her next steps came to her like riding her princess bike on the grounds. Underneath her bed was a small cordless phone that remained on the base at all times. Hampsher never used the phone because she had no cause. On that day, she’d discovered a reason.

  Mashing the number one, Hampsher placed the receiver up to her ear and waited for the phone to roll over. The ringing commenced as the intruder closed in on Hampsher’s location. With widened eyes, she watched his every move. When his knees hit the floor, she was slightly relieved by the sound of her grandfather’s voice on the other end of the line. Knowing that her cover had been blown, little Hampsher cared nothing about the volume of her voice. Fear paralyzed her movement as she came face to face with the intruder.

  “Papa… Papa! Someone’s here, Papa. Please… Please, get here, Papa.”

  Hampsher’s tears never spilled over her prickled eyes as she felt her leg being pulled from underneath the bed and body being exposed to the open air.

  “Hampsher! Mama! Say something, Momma!” her grandfather, Badu, yelled.

  Though Hampsher could hear him, survival was her only concern. Her father had been training her for that moment without her knowledge, but she was thankful for his crudeness on the days she wished he would simply let her be a kid.

  “You’re coming with me. Maybe you’ll be a bit of encouragement in getting your father to talk,” her aggressor said, straining to pull her from her hiding place.

  Preparing herself for the small window of opportunity, Hampsher steadied her breathing and quivering hand as her entire body emerged from beneath the bed. Survival instincts were her top priority as she drowned out the sound of her grandfather’s voice yelling into the receiver. He lived only twenty minutes away and would cut the travel time by half. Hampsher was certain Papa would be there soon, even though her little mind had no sense of real time.

  Finally exposed and seemingly vulnerable, Hampsher’s small limbs stiffened as she watched her assailant reach for her neck.

  “Let’s go!” he barked.

  Springing into action, Hampsher lifted the cordless phone in her hand before bringing it downward and onto his temple. Immediately, the giant, in comparison to a small Hampsher, fell over to the side with his left hand hugging the left side of his face. Without giving him the time to recollect himself, Hampsher scooted closer and began ramming the end of the cordless phone into his temple repeatedly, connecting with the one place that her father had taught her to would put the biggest competitor on their back.

  “Uh! Uh!” Hampsher grunted. Her movements were indiscriminate as to where they landed near his temple just as long as they were powerful and mighty.

  With each blow, Hampsher could sense the depletion of her victim, but she was too afraid to halt. Her little arms grew tired after the fourteenth collision. Her breathing labored and chest heaved from the shortage of oxygen. She’d kept count, struggling to acquire the number fifteen, which is the moment blood spewed from his thick skin and splattered on her beautiful silk pajamas.

  They were her mother’s favorite. Immediately, she dropped the phone and stood to her feet. She’d made a mess of herself. The motionless body beside her stirred curiosity in Hampsher’s stomach.

  Here is where you can determine if you’ve defeated your opponent. Hampsher recalled her father’s words as she bent and placed two fingers on the victim’s neck. The thudding that she’d felt in her own as her father had shown her was absent. I won. Hampsher sighed. Knowing that her father would be proud of her victory, Hampsher silently celebrated in her head, not understanding what she had truly accomplished.

  In that second, the chaos of their home became clear. Her mother’s voice rang out again. There was commotion on the steps, leading into the living room where the voices disappeared. As silently as
she could, Hampsher tiptoed toward the banister that overlooked the foyer just off of their living room. Her breath was caught in her throat as she witnessed her mother being dragged behind her father. Both resisted whatever orders they’d been given.

  Hampsher’s memory was impeccable, which came in handy as she scanned the room filled with five men other than the ones who rightfully belonged. Locking them into her mental rolodex, she zeroed in on the massive weapons they carried on their hips and in their hands. Hampsher recalled her attacker having the same weapon at his side. She’d witnessed him tuck it before pulling her from underneath the bed.

  Tiptoeing back into her bedroom, she kneeled before the lifeless body and removed the gun from his waist. It was much larger than her small hand, so she steadied it with two. Lifting, Hampsher aimed at nothing, pushing the gun out in front of her. She hurried back toward the banister and looked over it once more.

  “Boss man needs his bread. Either you give us the drop on the safe or you can take a bullet to the dome. Whichever you choose is payment for him.”

  “I don’t have it, man!” her father yelled.

  “We all know that’s a lie. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here, and you surely wouldn’t have gotten fronted.”

  “I need a little more time.”

  Hampsher wasn’t sure who the men in her home were, but by the sound of her father’s voice, she knew they were trouble.

  “It's been twelve months. That’s more than enough time. Now, this is your last chance. Either you give us access to the safe, or end ya shit right now.”

  “You’re going to kill me anyway.”

  “Smart man.”

  “Fuck you and the…”

  Before Floyd, Hampsher’s father, could finish his statement, he was hit in the mouth with the back of a pistol. Blood spilled from his busted lips, staining his clothes.

  “Son of a bitch!” Hampsher’s mother’s heavy accent rang out through the house.

  With the blood boiling in her veins, Hampsher lowered herself onto the floor and aimed the gun that she had in her hand toward the man that had just assaulted her father. Both index fingers hugging the trigger, she pressured it until a loud blast followed by a spark of fire caused her to shift in position from the force it released.

  “Somebody is in the house. Kill him and let’s roll,” she heard from below just before shots rang out.

  Mastering her fears, Hampsher cradled behind the pole that was on the side of her as protection and continued to fire her weapon. The gunfire caused tingling in her ears, deafening her for a split second. With her eyes closed, she didn’t stop pulling until the bullets ceased, and there was only clicking from the gun. Silence quilted the air. Only heavy breathing and the sound of her father’s whimpers were present.

  “No… No…” Hampsher’s small frame appeared over the banister. “Harrah! No! No! Wake up, baby! Please, wake up!”

  Confusion snipped away at Hampsher’s sanity as she stared down from above, arms tired and heart weary.

  “Baba,” Hampsher called out to her father the name he preferred over anything else.

  With the life he led, he’d cleared all traces of his daughter’s existence to protect her from his known and unknown enemies. In their home, there were only photos of him and his wife. Hampsher’s privacy was top priority, and Floyd protected her with everything in him. She was his jewel, the purest aspect of his filthy life.

  “Baba!” The pain in her young voice was piercing. Floyd was unable to respond for tending to his own.

  Hampsher’s heart swelled in her small chest with threats of bursting as she twirled on her bare feet and took off for the stairs. The elevator would’ve caused the anxiety her tiny frame was feeling to swell within her throat and claim her life too.

  Two by two, Hampsher descended the stairs with bare feet and a broken heart. Her father’s weeping was vexatious, stirring ill emotions within her being as she neared both parents. The pouring of blood caused her to lose her balance upon contact. Slipping, she fell to the ground and landed with a thud.

  Devastation clung to her like the plague. Her world spun out of control at once. Elbows planted on the ground and bravery worn like armor to shield her from the air life was attempting to strip her of, Hampsher was able to retrieve her balance and continue with the feeling of blood coating the bottom of her feet. Quick on her toes, Hampsher was at her mother’s side before the first tear could fall from her round eyes.

  “Mama?” The rasp within her voice had deepened. Her emotions thick and causing a shift within her entirely. “Mama?”

  Leaning forward, Hampsher looked into her mother’s golden eyes. Fully African, raised in the motherland and brought to America as a teenager, Harrah maintained her light skin as if she was reserving it for the next life. She’d instilled core values such as caring for yourself wholly into her cub at a young age. Looking down at her shell, soul evaporated and already above them both, Hampsher saw beauty beyond imagination.

  “Don’t go, Mama. Come back to me. Mama, wake up. You have to wake. My recital is tomorrow. You promised you wouldn’t miss it for the world, so come back. Mama!” On her knees, Hampsher shook her mother’s body from one side to the other as if it would revive her. “Do something!”

  Her attention fell upon her father, who had cornered himself with his back against the wall. He’d always had the solution to her problems, so she didn’t understand what was so different about that moment. Floyd was forever her saving grace, and she could use a saving more than ever at the moment. Her neck tilted, and her eyes batted to blink away the tears that just wouldn’t stop falling.

  “Baba, do something,” she demanded, gritting her teeth and ramming her small fist into her thigh.

  Anger rose and conquered her structure like a thief in the night. Not only had it taken control of her, but it had robbed her of the joy she felt hours prior and the woman who had made life possi1ble.

  “Baba! Who did this to her? Who did this to you, Mama?” Hampsher, so young and undeserving of the harsh reality she’d just been dealt, pleaded for understanding. “Who did this to you?”

  Snapping her neck in her mother’s direction, she questioned her as if she’d somehow recite an answer, and Hampsher waited. She waited for the magic her grandmother had promised was real. She even waited for the God her mother made her pray to each morning and night to show himself. But she received nothing, nothing from the fairies she’d believed in for years, nothing from the Big Guy she’d grown to love and appreciate for his generosity, and nothing from the man that she knew as her father. In that moment, Hampsher had never felt more alone.

  Drenched in a puddle of her tears, Hampsher bunched her mother’s robe and began to dry them just as she would’ve. “Don’t leave me, Mama. I’m not ready for you to go.”

  Exhaustion weighed on her frame as she continued to weep due to the loss of her love. Lowering herself onto her mother’s chest, Hampsher disregarded the blood that covered her own attire. The crimson colored liquid drenched her top as she wrapped her left arm around Harrah and closed her eyes.

  The morning sun rose, settling on the bridge of her nose. Hampsher could feel the heat radiating through the thin layer of skin that stretched the curve of it. A smile crossed her darling face. The smell of freshness seeped inside of her small apartment and rested within her walls, circulating the entire room, filling every space available and landing on top of the sheets where she lay in the nude.

  “Face your fears and forever be reminded of the love that I carry for you,” Hampsher repeated as she stretched limbs. Each morning, her mother kneeled at her bedside and repeated the same line.

  It was said that the first thing to leave you memory was the sound of someone’s voice. As the twentieth anniversary of her mother’s death approached, she could still remember her sweet, reassuring tone. In fact, it was the music to her ears and the start to each of her days.

  On her feet, Hampsher twirled until she was facing the bed. Her small fr
ame leaned forward and began readjusting the sheets so that they wouldn’t reflect her night’s sleep. She flattened the wrinkles and pulled the thin comforter toward the pillows before fluffing them as well.

  The white bed set brought newness to her mornings and boosted the idea of a fresh start. Hampsher tiptoed her way to the window after redressing her bed. The small bakery just across the street was turning the fresh sign on as she folded her right arm under her small breasts and used it to prop her left one. Hampsher rested her chin on her knuckles and stared across the way. Her view wasn’t much for others, but it was everything to her.

  Fresh linen.

  Fresh bread.

  Fresh start.

  Fresh face.

  Hampsher had chosen that particular location for one reason. She could remember her mother redressing her bed every morning, keeping it fresh with little traces of human activity. She’d wake up extra early in the morning to prepare a fresh batch of dough so that Hampsher could bake fresh rolls in any size and shape that her heart desired.

  With a white towel, her mother would nearly wipe the melanin from her skin with her roughness in pursuit of a fresh face. Collectively, these all generated the thought of a fresh start, a new beginning.

  “Oh, how I miss you, Mama,” Hampsher whispered as the short, round woman flickered the light until it was steady.