With “flowers” on her dress...

I told the Director of the Rehab Center that she would be there for at least two years “I’ll be here every day to visit her, to see her progress,” I said.

“We went through illegal channels to admit her, Frank,” said Dave, the Director. He also did her paperwork. He used “Verona Sinclair” on her papers. I got her a fake I.D. and I knew a man who worked for the Social Security office back in Miami.

It was costly, but I was a thug, a hustler, I
made moves. He some kind of way got her a new social security card made. With that in mind, never to reveal this to anyone, I closed Dave’s office door and handed him an envelope with three grand inside.

I stared into the Director’s eyes, with a no-
nonsense attitude.

“Silence is golden.”

“Why are you doing this to her?” He took the money.

“I never had the chance to save my mother.”

I smiled, tears falling down my face, having empathy for my sister. After all, she taught it to me.

“But I have the chance to save my sister. And save her I will.” My face got dark, thinking about Florida Brown. “Even if I have to kill for it. I will protect my sister at all costs.”

The Director looked at me, with a grin.

He said, “Kill for it?”

I sat down in the chair, lowering my eyes to the desk. “I won’t actually do that, but, you feel me, she’s my blood.”

“Yea, family is important.”

We understood each other.

Now I was flipping through the TV channels, sitting in my room, boxes all around me. I needed to unpack, but I didn’t have time for that.

I was still trying to get used to the beautiful sights of Winston Salem, North Carolina. A few murders flashed in my face from the TV.

An image caught my attention. A police badge had black tape around the center.

“…Miami-Dade Police officer Janis Jakes-
Brown was gunned down early this morning as she was leaving her Earlington Heights home…witnesses say a masked gunman ran up to her, just as she got in her Yukon Suburban, and opened fire. He shot her three times in the chest. And once in the head. No suspects in this heart-breaking crime have been found…”

Clad in black silk boxers and a wife beater tank top, I smiled to myself.

“Damn, who did her ass in? Karma, I tell
you.”

I let a Salem Light cig. I puffed on it, blowing smoke towards the ceiling fan.

“Karma is a bad bitch!”

“And in related news, drug dealer Frank
Sinclair, Sr., notorious in the drug world, was also found shot to death in a local Denny’s restaurant on Biscayne Boulevard…

The F.B.I. have been probing him for months are startled at his murder.

Witnesses say a ski masked gun man, clad in a black cargo uniform, rushed inside, and shot him in the head. He allegedly threw a picture of Officer Brown on his table and fled the scene in an unmarked van…”

I was really laughing. Gahdam! My dad got
killed, too? Evil danced in my eyes as I sat in the darkness, with the glow of the tube illuminating me like a vampire.

Driving back to Miami to kill those sick bitches, for hurting me and my sister, was well worth it! I was stubbing out the cigarette. I was in so much pain.

Janis watched me marry my only sister, and didn’t stop it and she didn’t tell us.

My Dad didn’t stop it and didn’t tell us.