Redemption Earth's Cry Read online

  Redemption – Earth’s Cry

  Melech and Earth’s Tale

  Edwina Fort

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Redemption Earth's Cry

  The Prologue

  Chapter One | The Kidnapping

  Chapter Two | If All Else Fails

  Chapter Three | Alone at Last

  Chapter Four | Meet the Hobbit

  Chapter Five | The Brownies

  Chapter Six | The Delectable Mr. Black

  Chapter Seven | The Talented Mr. Black

  Chapter Eight | The Allure of the Yellow Dress

  Chapter Nine | Meet the Guardians

  Chapter Ten | King of the Savages

  Earth | & | The Talented Mr. Black | Forever

  Chapter Eleven | Meet Melech Black

  Chapter Twelve | Unworthy

  Chapter Thirteen | The Meeting

  Chapter Fourteen | Nobody Messes with the Medicine Man

  Chapter Fifteen | The Outstanding Mind of the Medicine Man

  Chapter Sixteen | Pre-Game Jitters

  Chapter Seventeen | Something About Her Brings Out The Best In Me

  Chapter Eighteen | Because You’re Mine

  Chapter Nineteen | The Talented Mr. Black is Back

  Chapter Twenty | Let Them with Eyes SEE

  Chapter Twenty-one | Strange Fruit

  Chapter Twenty-two | The True Inheritance

  The Epilogue

  Introducing the Law Boys Series

  Coming for What’s Mine | Chapter One | And The Father Is...

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Epilogue

  Introducing the Law Boys Series

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2018 by Edwina Fort

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below:

  Author Edwina Fort P.O. Box 346 Keithville, LA 71047 www.authoredwinafort.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Redemption – Earth’s Cry/Edwina Fort. – 1st edition ISBN

  Acknowledgements

  As always, I’d like to give all honor and praise to the Heavenly Father. Without Him I am nothing, my pen belongs to Him. I’d also like to thank my husband, my children, my family and Team 2019. But I am nothing without my fans! Thank you, guys, you are the best!

  Welcome Back Redemption Fans, May I present Level 2...

  The Prologue

  Earth

  My mother started teaching me to play the violin before I took my first step. By the time I was four, I could perform a full concerto with cadenzas in the first and last movements. I was the only child in the ghetto with a violin.

  My mother, who had at one point in time had a very promising future, fell in love with the wrong man, who was also her band’s manager and my father. Being a black female violinist made her very popular, and when she began to complain to him that she was too tired to perform so many shows because she was a new mom, he introduced her to cocaine.

  At first it seemed like the answer to her prayers. The drug made her feel like a machine, she didn’t need much sleep and didn’t need much to eat. She was able to compose and perform and still spend a good amount of time with me.

  But over time her powdery hero began to take a toll on her gift. And the more my father pressured her to get herself together, because she was causing him to lose money, the more of the drug she did until finally he couldn’t take it anymore and walked away from her, the band that was no longer getting booked for gigs, and me.

  That’s when things really got hard. My mother could barely hold a job, which meant she could no longer afford her cocaine habit, so she had to settle for its cheaper cousin, crack. Piece by piece I watched her sell away all our nice things.

  Until all that was left was her precious violin that was named Earth’s Cry. It was a mahogany beauty that sat on its stand in our living room in front of the windows. Every morning the sun shined on it, kissing it with its rays. When I was a little girl I would sometimes sit on the floor next to it and just stare at it, imagining that I could hear it weeping.

  My mother loved the violin so much that she had named me Earth after it. She said when she was fourteen she saw a homeless man sitting at a bus stop with no shoes on in the dead of winter. She had felt so bad for him that she had given him the money her mother had given her to pay for her eighth-grade field trip.

  In return he’d handed her the violin and told her its name was Earth’s Cry. She took it home and taught herself how to play it. I always believed it had special power, because anytime my mother played it within hearing range, the music called to me, bringing me to a complete stop from whatever I was doing. It seemed as if it seeped into my soul and resonated in my bones.

  One night when I was twelve years old my mother woke me up with tears in her eyes. She said she had to go away and that a very good friend of hers was going to take care of me until she came back. She packed my suitcase and to my surprise, she gently laid Earth’s Cry in it on top of my clothes.

  I picked up my violin that she had bought me a few years back, but she took it from me tossing it to the side before bringing her hand to gently caress the deep mahogany wood of Earth’s Cry.

  “This is yours now.” She spoke softly as she silently wept, lifting her shaking hand to try and wipe away her tears. “Maybe... it was always meant to be yours.” She muttered more to herself than me.

  “I was never worthy of it. It never sang for me.”

  I shook my head confused. She made beautiful music with the violin, what was she talking about? Why was she crying? Why was she packing my stuff?

  “Where you going, mama?” My heart was racing so fast I felt that it would beat right out of my chest. There was too much happening at once and my brain wasn’t awakened enough to process everything. She was leaving, no...I was leaving. She was giving me Earth’s Cry.

  “Mama sick. I need to go get help.” Her hands shook very badly as she gently closed the lid on the suitcase. When she was done she took my coat down out of my closet.

  “Here, just put this on over your pajamas. Sista Dinah is waiting in the car for you downstairs.” I smiled, I liked Sista Dinah and her husband Brother Abraham, they were nice people that brought us food sometimes.

  “When you co
ming back?” I asked my mother as she hurried me down the stairs. “How long do I have to stay with them?”

  She tried to wipe the tears from her eyes, but it did no good. “I don’t know, baby. Not that long...” Sista Dinah got out of her car when she saw us coming. The smile on her face was sad as she waved at me.

  I got a bad feeling, turning to face my mom I squeezed her hand. “When you coming back?” She didn’t answer, she just pulled me into a hug that made me feel like this was the last time I was going to see her. Tears burned the back of my eyes.

  “Promise me, that when you have children you won’t repeat the same mistakes I made, promise you’re going to break the chain!” Frowning I opened my mouth to ask her what she was talking about, but she only squeezed me tighter, clutching my coat with desperate fingers.

  “Promise to break the chain!” Her anxious voice rang out into the night.

  “I promise,” I muttered through my tears. She nodded her head lifting her mouth in a one-sided smile.

  “Earth’s Cry was always yours, she’s going to sing for you, baby.” With jerky movements she rubbed her hand through her hair that had one time been very beautiful, but was now a matted mess on her head.

  “You just wait...it’s going to sing for you.” Then she turned and walked away.

  Sista Dinah put her hands on my shoulder, I don’t know if it was to stop me from running after her or to simply relay the message that she was here, and she wouldn’t let me fall, but either way I needed it. Together we watched her until she disappeared down the street and around the corner. That was the last time I would ever see my mother.

  I told myself that night that I would do as she asked and break the chain. But sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we unwittingly end up repeating our parents’ mistakes.

  Chapter One

  The Kidnapping

  History informs us of past mistakes from which we can learn without repeating them. It also inspires us and gives confidence and hope bred of victories already won.

  —William H. Hastie

  15 Years Later...

  Earth

  “Are you sure that’s the little brother?” Brianna, my best friend asked. “Dang! He is fiiiinnnee!”

  I took in the authoritative man that the maître d’ was showing to the corner table that had been reserved for my dead husband’s younger brother. Yes, he was very handsome. His powerful strides crossed the floor in a way that made me feel as if he was the ruler and we his subjects. The way the maître d’ walked next to him with his head bowed only reinforced that feeling.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. The reservation had been made for Mike Black for 2 o’clock.” I looked at my watch. “It’s 2 on the dot.”

  “If they Indians, why they ain’t got names like Running Bull or Dances with Wind?”

  So lost I was in my head I didn’t even hear her question. My nerves were a wreck and my palms were sweaty. I was seconds away from cowering and running for my life.

  Many times my late husband Mitch warned me never to come in contact with his family. They were a powerful group that had generated their wealth through a string of casinos that had been in their family for decades. My husband was Native American from the Seminole tribe, he said his immediate family had long lost all the things that made them human and were a heartless bunch that destroyed innocent people like me and our daughter Rain for the pure sport of it.

  He also told me many times that his family’s power and influence knew no bounds. And that there was none as powerful as his older brother Melech, who was in control of their family’s vast wealth.

  Bria shook her head slightly. “I don’t know, Earth. He don’t really look Indian to me or like a little brother.”

  This time her ignorant words penetrated my thoughts. I punched her in the arm.

  “Ouch! Bit—” She hissed grabbing her arm mean mugging me.

  “They not Indians, Bria. Indians live in India... They Natives...” I rolled my eyes at her. “And yeah, you right, he don’t look like either.”

  The man who had just sat at the table was darker than Crazy Larry and he wore his authority like a garment. It made the custom-made grey suit he sported pale in comparison. Unlike Mitch, who looked like a full-blooded Native, the baby brother looked to be of mixed heritage. Although he was very dark and could easily pass as an African American, his high cheek bones proclaimed his Seminole lineage.

  For just a moment as he was undoing the button on his jacket so that he could sit, his gaze fell on me. I inhaled. The raw uncut strength that came from his eyes was breathtaking. Quickly I looked away pretending to straighten out the cloth on the table next to us. Brianna and I were dressed very similar to the waitresses here, not enough to rouse the suspicion of the employees, but enough to trick the eyes of the guest.

  In reality, neither Bria nor I could afford to use the restroom in this establishment. We had come to kidnap a man. To be exact, my husband’s little brother Michael. My gaze went back to the corner table. I had not expected his little brother to be so...so...

  “Dominating.” Brianna said as if she was in my head.

  “What was that?” I asked her.

  “He’s so dominating. I don’t think we have enough dope to put out that big body. Did Larry give you enough? We’re going to need an elephant tranquilizer.”

  “We have enough, and we need to move fast before we draw the attention of the maître d’.” We quickly made our way to the server’s hall. I took the drugs that I had acquired for this purpose out my pocket. My hands shook as I emptied the whole pack into the pitcher of water. Using a spoon, I gave it a good stirring.

  “Are you supposed to use the whole thing?” Bria asked from where she stood at the door keeping look out.

  “I don’t know! I think—” I exhaled trying to calm my nerves. I couldn’t remember how much of the drugs Larry said to add. Goodness! I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I couldn’t believe I was getting ready to kidnap this man. Please Heavenly Father, forgive me, but they left me no other choice. They were trying to take my Rain from me and I couldn’t let that happen.

  I couldn’t let her go to a home where there was no love. Mitch said he came up in a cold, loveless environment. His parents were mutli-billionaires and didn’t know the meaning of love. They had raised Mitch and his two brothers to be machines, as cold as them.

  And now they were coming after my Rain, all because they found a little weed in my pee.

  I tried to hand Bria the pitcher of water. “Here go, pour him some water.”

  She looked at me as if I had gone lame. “You crazy as hell if you think I’m going anywhere near that man. He look like he will get up from that table and just...” She searched for the words. “Step on you. I don’t want to get stepped on, Earth!”

  Her response flustered my already frayed nerves.

  “Dammit, Bria! What did you even come for?” She gave me that better-you-than-me smile as she patted my shoulder.

  “For moral support, my sista.” I rolled my eyes at her as I knocked her hand off my shoulder.

  Dammit!

  I took several deep breaths. Okay, I can do this. I can do this.

  I had no other choice. They were trying to take my baby. So, in exchange I will take theirs. Mitch said his brother Melech, who was the head of that heartless clan, actually had a soft spot for their younger brother Michael. I would just use that soft spot to get Melech to sign over his rights to Rain.

  I know, it sounds crazy.

  Believe it or not, it was a crazy Jamaican who gave me the idea. My boss and landlord Larry. Or rather, Crazy Larry. After my last court date, when the judge told me I had one month and thirty days to say my last goodbyes to my daughter before I had to turn her over to the Blacks, I came home and cried and yelled out my frustration at the injustice of the whole situation to Larry.

  I was not a bad mother. I loved my child and took care of her because she was all I had. I was losing her because I was poor and c
ould not afford a good attorney that could go against the team of overpaid vipers that had come to represent the Blacks. I don’t know whose idea it was to drug test me, but once the results came back positive for weed, the Blacks’ attorneys made it seem like I was out on the street selling a$$ for rocks.

  The judge didn’t even grant me visitation rights. He said he felt it would be better for the child to cut all ties to me and begin a new life with her father’s side of the family. After he adjourned the case, one of Black’s lawyers asked him if they were still on for lunch.

  “This would have never happened in Jamaica. We would have extracted our own form of justice to deal with the boars.” Boars is what Larry called any government figure.

  “What would you have done?” I asked him. At that point I was desperate. Rain was the only good thing in my life. Without her, I might as well be dead.

  He’d looked at me through a sea of ganja smoke. “It’s simple, you take the younger boy for ransom.”

  And so, the idea was born.

  That night I tossed and turned in my bed thinking about it. I mean, what did I have to lose? I figured I had a fifty-fifty chance of pulling this thing off. It was a far better percentage than watching my daughter be carried away to strangers who didn’t even bother to show up to court in person.

  Brie touched my shoulder again bringing me out of my thoughts. “You can do this!”

  I nodded. “I don’t have a choice.”

  After squaring my shoulders, I quickly crossed the room to Michael’s table. I walked with a purpose, carrying the pitcher in one hand while placing the other behind my back like the other servers did.

  The closer I got to the table the more the power that exuded from this man enveloped me... suffocating me.

  “Would you like some water?” I asked. I couldn’t help the fact that my voice trembled a bit. I was almost crippled with my fear. There was no doubt in my mind that Mitch had been right when he said he was the only one in his family that was not dangerous.

  This man felt extremely dangerous. Slowly his deep midnight eyes rose to mine... and oh ya’ll! It felt as if somebody snatched the breath straight out of my body. Being this close to him gave me the same rush one would feel if they were standing on the tracks in front of an oncoming train.