BELIEVE LIKE A CHILD (Home Street Home Series Book 1)
BELIEVE LIKE A CHILD: Chapter 14

The next morning, Alessa woke up tired. She had slept poorly. All night, her dreams drifted to the boys who had accosted her. She was grateful she had two days off before returning to work.

When she walked out of the bedroom to use the bathroom, Harlin was standing at the sink, shaving. He wore only a pair of sweatpants, and Alessa noticed what a well-defined physique he had. His shoulders were broad and his torso narrowed at the waist. His stomach was well sculpted and his muscular arms rippled with strength.

He caught her staring at him. “How are you doing this morning? Give me a minute to finish shaving and the bathroom will be yours.”

“I’m doing okay,” she replied. “I didn’t sleep well and my body is sore.”

Harlin looked at her but didn’t know what to say next. He was used to a world where he dealt with men who had been in battle and didn’t talk about how they felt the next day. He wished Tasha were home. “I called Tasha last night and told her what happened to you,” he said. “She’s flying home tomorrow.”

“Oh no, Harlin,” Alessa protested. “She doesn’t need to do that. This is her vacation, and I’ll be fine.”

“Ain’t no big deal,” he answered. “She said the relatives were driving her crazy. Besides, she was upset to hear what happened. I told her you’d be staying here with me until she got home, and she liked the idea. When do you need to work again?”

“I don’t have to be in until Monday afternoon.”

Harlin’s expression hardened. “You need to be working during the day. Coming home at night ain’t a good idea for you. I’ll make sure you get day work. One of my boys will drive you there and pick you up for a while until we finish dealing with this.”

Alessa’s eyes widened. “What do you mean until you’re finished dealing with it? Harlin, I want this to go away. And I’m afraid if you keep going after them, they will come back and hurt me again.”

Harlin put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You don’t have anything to worry about,” he reassured her. “You need to understand that this is bigger than you. In my neighborhood, men don’t have sex without it being mutual. Last night didn’t look too mutual to me, and we need to deal with that. Otherwise, we’ll have these punks thinking they can do whatever they want and get away with it. We do illegal stuff and screw people up who overstep their bounds, but we can’t let them take advantage of the women around here. My mother and sister live in this neighborhood. You understand?”

Alessa nodded. After Harlin left the bathroom, she stood for several minutes, staring at her reflection in the mirror, studying the stranger that looked back at her. Less than twenty-four hours ago, her life was moving in the right direction. Now, as she gazed at the dark circles under her eyes, with one eye nearly swollen shut from being punched, she was disheartened by the thought that life would never cease to be a struggle. Maybe, just maybe, she was meant to be unhappy? There must have been something she’d done to deserve such a bad hand. She splashed water on her face and turned to use the toilet. She pulled up the large T-shirt she was wearing and sat on the seat. Looking down at her thighs, she saw all the bruises and scratches from the previous night.

When she peed, the sensation was as if someone had thrown acid between her legs. She screamed involuntarily as her insides burned, which would continue for the next several days until her injuries began to heal. Her scream brought Harlin rushing into the bathroom. Rage inflamed him when he looked down and saw her bruised legs. His face turned red and his eyes burned with fury.

“I’m leaving,” he said curtly. “When I come home later, I’ll walk you down to your apartment so you can get some clothes. Until I get back, you stay inside and don’t let nobody come in.”

She looked up at him tearfully. “I didn’t mean to scream. I didn’t expect it to burn when I peed. But I’m okay. It took me by surprise. That’s all. I’m sorry for being a pain in your ass.”

Harlin looked at the girl, sitting on the toilet and sobbing, and it made his heart hurt.

“You ain’t a pain in the ass,” he told her. “How about you cook something good for me and my boys for dinner? That would be nice. I got all kinds of food in there to cook. My mom and Tasha are always bringing stuff over.”

Alessa managed a slight smile. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Harlin left the house shortly after and headed down Dauphin Street in his black van. He was picking up his boys and they had two stops to make. The first was a visit to Tag, the neighborhood aggressor. The second was the Dollar Basement store on Broad Street to discuss Alessa’s new hours with her boss.

Harlin and his crew found Tag on North Orkney Street, which was deserted at that hour. They pulled the van over and opened the side door, sucking their target into the van. Tag’s eyes searched frantically for a way to escape, but he knew it was no use. He also knew if he put up a fight, he would piss Harlin’s boys off even more and the beating he would get would be far worse.

“Hey, man, what the hell?” he said, trying to tough it out. “I thought we settled this last night?”

Harlin glowered at him. “Yeah, that was before we knew you raped the girl.”

Tag turned to one of Harlin’s crew members. “Come on, man, help me out,” he implored. “I didn’t mean to hurt her. I got carried away is all.”

The boy he addressed glared at him as if he might snap his neck. “I ain’t here to help you. You broke the code of Dauphin Street last night when you assaulted that girl. Now shut up or I’ll cut your tongue out.”

Harlin and his crew drove on for another thirty minutes before they reached an empty lot sheltered from the street by some abandoned and dilapidated buildings. Tag, who was blindfolded, didn’t know where they were but felt broken glass crunching beneath his feet as they pushed him ahead of them into one of the rundown buildings. When they ordered him to take off his clothes, he groveled at their feet, begging for forgiveness.

Harlin walked up to him and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. “Take off your clothes or we can take them off for you if that’s what you’d like.”

Tag cried as he undressed. When his clothes lay in a pile at his feet, Harlin motioned to his boys. Two walked over and hogtied Tag’s feet and hands together behind his back before laying him on his side. Tag shook with terror as his bare flesh met the cold cement floor. Scared that he would die, he whimpered, pleading for mercy.

Harlin walked over to him, a rag wrapped around his hand. He grasped Tag between the legs and pulled out. One swipe of the razor edge blade detached Tag’s penis from his body. Harlin dangled it above Tag’s head for him to see.

Screaming in pain, Tag vomited.

“You won’t be needin’ this anymore,” Harlin taunted. Then he looked at two of his crew. “Let him bleed out. Then burn the body.”

As their van moved toward the road, the glow of the fire was visible as they drove away. The crew had dowsed a blanket in gasoline, tossed it on top of Tag, and lit a match.

“That was one ugly prick!” Harlin joked.

The boys in the van laughed as they headed to North Broad Street to visit the manager of the Dollar Basement.

They walked boldly into the store, and Harlin immediately asked for the manager. The girls at the register recognized him right away and got nervous, hoping there wouldn’t be any shooting. One girl went into a back room, and Brady came out almost immediately. He too knew who Harlin was. If you lived or worked anywhere in North Philadelphia, you had to live under a rock not to know who he was. Brady stepped up to Harlin and extended his hand.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Brady, the store manager. You asked to see me.”

Harlin ignored his hand and stared at him. “You got a girl named Alessa working here.”

Brady nodded briskly, relieved he had information about her. “Yeah, she’s young and goofy. Do you want me to get her address for you?”

“No, motherfucker,” Harlin growled. His face was snarled as he clenched his teeth together. “I don’t want you to give me her address. That girl is with me. If I ever replace out you gave someone her address, I’ll kill your ugly ass. Understand?”

Brady immediately regretted his attempt to suck up and nodded vigorously in agreement. “Yeah, sure. I won’t ever give anyone her address.”

Harlin moved in closer. “She can’t work that late shift no more. You’re gonna need to give her hours during the day. I don’t want her leaving here after five at night. You make sure that starting on Monday, she is only working the day shift.”

Behind Brady’s broad smile, he was shaking with fear. “Absolutely, sir,” he said submissively. “That’s no problem. Alessa only works during the day from now on. No more night shifts. I completely understand.”

“One other thing,” Harlin said. “Don’t ever let me hear that you’ve been disrespectful to her.”

“I would never be disrespectful to her, sir,” Brady assured him.

Harlin turned on his heel and, without casting another glance at Brady or the women working in the store, walked out, with his crew following close behind. As he got back into his van, he thought that Alessa could do something better than earning minimum wage at that dump. He remembered her at Pulsations. The girl could dance. She should be at Double Visions, making real money. Doubles, as they all called it, was a go-go bar. The girls there were hot and exotic, and Alessa would fit right in. He would suggest it to Tasha when she got home the next day. As they drove back to Dauphin Street, Harlin convinced himself that it was a good profession for Alessa to get into. She could dance and make a lot of money, and he could provide her protection.