Page 8 of Welcome to the Table

Hellcat Black

C alliope was gon’ be mad at me because I was going to be late.

For once, it wasn’t because I was knee deep in some pussy or letting a female top me off.

Melph's dumb ass called me at the last minute because some nigga hadn’t paid his dues in two months, and the nigga was reaching because we didn’t do late payments.

Even though I despised my father, I was the one he called to get my hands dirty.

Melph was testing me to see if I could be level-headed in certain situations.

I hope I passed because I knew my father had some shit up his sleeve.

I could usually pinpoint what it was, but he was hard to read sometimes.

Calliope was a silent killer who took shit too far.

He prolonged shit and made people suffer, but not me.

I was in and out like a thief in the night.

I ain’t have time for the pleasantries. Once they saw me, they knew I was about to zip they ass like a zipper on a dress.

Melph and I always bumped heads, but the nigga made sure I was educated.

We all knew this shit that we had going wouldn’t last forever.

The underground gambling, money laundering, and all the other shit he was into wouldn’t last forever, and he wanted something for us to fall back on.

With this shit came a lot of casualties.

Niggas thought they could play with us, but then came up missing, and well, y’all know the rest.

Athena told me that she knew from the womb I was going to be a menace because I damn near walked out of the pussy.

The doctor didn’t even have time to give her that shit that they put in yo’ back because my foot was already hanging out.

I was breach and stubborn. She said they tried everything in their power to turn my ass around, but I wasn’t budging.

Hence, the reason she named me Hellcat. She knew I would be hell on wheels. I live up to my shit, too.

While Athena always thought I was just her special child who needed extra love, Melph thought I was pure evil. Everything I did, even the shit for the family, he always said I had ill intent behind it. I should have been born to the fucking devil, but Athena always defended me.

I’d graduated from high school and was about to go out with my brother. As I got dressed, I noticed Melph standing at my room door. I ignored him and continued to get dressed.

“You will never be me, nigga,” he told me, and my head whipped around. “Athena can’t protect you for your entire life. You gon’ get in the trenches.”

I looked at him with evil eyes before I walked over and grabbed his throat, pushing him against the wall.

“I been living in the trenches since I learned you were my fucking daddy.”

We switched positions, and he had me hemmed against the wall. His thumb applied pressure to the front of my neck, and I felt faint.

Click click.

“Get yo’ fucking hands off my son before I kill you, Melph. I don’t play with you like that. You may be big in the streets, but I’m the big dawg in this house.” She cocked her gun, and Melph froze. His hand dropped from my neck, and she pushed him out of the way and grabbed me into her arms.

“Fuck that nigga. You are my son and mine only,” she whispered in my ear before letting me go.

I always wondered what Athena meant by that, but I never questioned her, and that’s when my resentment and borderline hatred started with Melph.

I respected him as a father, but that’s as far as it went.

My parents made sure I graduated from Xavier University, but it was my decision to pledge Kappa Alpha Psi.

I wanted a brotherhood outside of the life we led, and that was my opportunity.

That’s how I met my nigga Hollygrove. He was one of my line brothers. Of course, we were locked in for life.

Calliope was a loner. He would always rather be by himself, and I respected that, but when it was time to put in work, he made his presence known.

In some ways, Hollygrove kept me out of a lot of shit, and that’s why he became my right-hand man.

He kept a nigga from acting off impulse.

I wanted to move out of the city to expand our businesses, but Melph was against it.

That nigga wanted to be able to get to and control everything, and that’s where we always bumped heads.

I wanted to do shit my way, but he always had another plan that I didn’t follow.

If you gave me a job, let me do the shit my way.

At one point, they thought I had ADHD, but Athena realized that I was just active for my age.

She didn’t believe in therapy and shit because she could handle the way I did shit and would always be there to help me when other people didn’t understand me.

My mother protected me from shit that Melph knew would fuck me up.

Calliope did too and took the brunt of the frontline shit because he was more of the calm one.

Shit, in my mind, I was a normal kid, just a few loose screws in my head, and I didn’t give a fuck what Melph said as long as my mother loved me.

I had mad respect for my father, but sometimes I felt like he didn’t fuck with me like he did with Calliope.

That didn’t make me love him any less, but it made me dislike my father even more.

The only person who knew that was my mother, and she would always say, “Yo’ father loves all three of y’all evenly, but I just gotta love you a little harder.

” And I took that for what it was because she always did.

Outside of my brother, I knew my mother would always have my back, right or wrong, and I fucked with it.

“I knew this nigga was on some bullshit. I shouldn’t have answered the fucking phone.” I looked at Hollygrove as I drove through Frenchman to get to the Blue Nile club.

It was broad daylight, and this nigga had me going to the club to collect money.

This was one of the many clubs that we owned with an underground gambling ring.

I have witnessed a lot of bitches and niggas lose their lives behind money.

Cars, homes, you name it, they lost it in this gambling shit.

Millionaires have gambled their companies and lost, left with nothing but the clothes on their backs, requesting a fucking Lyft to get to their destination. Shit was sad, but life was a gamble.

“Nigga, that’s typical Melph. He knew what the fuck was going on today but called to distract you, but this shit ain’t gon’ take long. In and out, and if there is a bad bitch in the room, please don’t get sidetracked. No witnesses, nigga.” He chuckled a bit. He knew me too well.

My weakness was a fine, thick bitch with a plump ass and big titties. A cute face to match would bring a nigga to his knees, and I loved an older seasoned woman to turn my black ass out.

“I can’t make no promises, nigga, but I can try.” I slid him the blunt to finish it off as I parked directly in front of the club.

It was eerily quiet because Frenchman wasn’t poppin’ until nightfall, so it was empty except for the stores getting ready for the night.

I hopped out of my black-on-black 2024 Jaguar F-Type with Hollygrove.

We were dressed in all black. I would change before I met with my brother.

We walked in the door, and I winked, tossed a knot of money at the bartender, and watched as she slid it into her bra strap.

She winked at me with a smile and continued whatever she was doing behind the counter.

She knew what it meant. No explanation needed.

I saw Hollygrove shaking his head from side to side, and I shrugged.

“I couldn’t help myself. Plus, I need her to keep her fucking mouth closed.” I kept walking.

“Nigga, y’all own this fucking club. She knows the fucking drill when you walk in this bitch” he rebutted, and it was my turn to shake my head.

“Nigga, you already know this is Melph’s fucking club, and I don’t trust no fucking body. Yeah, she knows the drill, but that ain’t gon’ stop her dick suckers from running.” We both laughed as we made it to the basement.

The shit was so fucking small I almost hit my fucking head on the ceiling. I ducked and made my way down the steps with him close behind. We moved smoothly down each step so the nigga wouldn’t hear us. Smooth criminals like Michael Jackson. Athena always said that.

When we got to the bottom of the stairs, I scoped out the scene.

This big back ass nigga didn’t even have security with him.

His back was to us. If he were a smart man, he would have felt us coming, but he didn’t.

He had four fine bitches surrounding him, and Hollygrove shook his head because he already knew what the fuck I was thinking.

Even the bitches didn’t look up. They were so busy looking at what this nigga was doing that they didn’t notice us.

The room was dimly lit, but there was a lamp hanging above his head.

He was dropping stacks of money into a money counter, and the bitches looked on with wide eyes.

I nodded to Hollygrove to grab the rope because we were about to hog tie this nigga for playing with the family money, and I had shit to do.

This was not part of my fucking day, so he was about to feel my wrath.

He crept over there and grabbed the rope as I shook my head because this nigga really wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings.

I found it funny. He didn’t know shit that was going on around him.