Free Baby Brother by 50 Cent, Noire

oldest brother. “I can’t believe you so stuck on that Jesus shit that you would let a niggah murk your fuckin’ brother and tell us to leave the get-back for the Lord. You soft as fuck these days, man.”
    Priest held up his hand. “Don’t roll out on me too far,” he warned sternly. “Everybody just chill out and let’s concentrate on getting Baby Brother in the ground. He didn’t live no life of crime, and we ain’t gonna blacken his memory with none either. All this payback and getback y’all talking ain’t gonna do nothing to bring him back. This thing could get bigger and uglier and the only thing that’ll accomplish is the spilling of more blood. Besides”—he glared at Farad and Finesse—“both of y’all out on parole as it is. You wanna go back upstate and get tossed in the bing like I did? Didn’t I do enough hard time for all of us?” He shook his head and glared at each of his brothers, letting them know that despite the priest’s collar he wore around his neck, he was still large and in charge.
    “Now I said what I said, and I meant it. It’s final. Let the cops handle it. That’s what they get paid to do. Malik’s gonna have his boys all over it. They’ll make sure justice gets served.”
    Raheem spoke quietly. His eyes were red and full of tears. “Those slime-bags banged him, Antwan! They stuck their dicks up his ass, then cut his fuckin’ throat. Now you might be able to close your eyes and not see that shit. You might be able to search your soul and not feel it too. But I can’t .”
    Priest tightened his muscles, absorbing his brother’s wrath deep in his soul. He knew all about prison rapes. He had groveled around like a dog behind those bars before God took mercy and spoke to him. He’d participated in acts so grimy that no amount of baptism could wash the stink of his deeds from his spirit. There’s no such thing as a MONSTER. There’s no such thing as a MONSTER. There’s no such thing as a MONSTER. But still. He’d been blind then. Just a snake crawling around on its belly in the darkness. He was trying to live a redeemed life now, and the retaliation his brothers were suggesting was sinful.
    “I said, leave it be. All of us need to take a page outta Baby Brother’s book. The way he lived his life should be an example to us. Let’s not use his death as an excuse to do even more wrong in our lives. As hard as it might be, and bad as it might hurt, we gonna do this the right way. Leave Borne and his crew alone. Whatever them fools got coming, they’ll get it. Now leave it alone.”
     
    Five nights later Priest was feeling low. Baby Brother had been buried, and the stress of going through the emotional, jam-packed funeral and keeping his younger brothers in check at the same time had taken a physical toll on him, and his body was in turmoil.
    “I’m going out to get some juice,” he told Farad, rubbing his throat. Finesse was upstairs in bed with a girl, Kadir was on the road back to Atlantic City, and Malik and Raheem had just gone back to the house they shared in Crown Heights.
    Sitting at the table, Farad looked up as his brother dragged out the door. Antwan looked bad. Worn. The funeral had hit them all hard, especially since Baby Brother’s coffin had been closed, a telltale sign of his brutal and disfiguring death. But Priest had taken it hardest. He was the oldest and used to be the baddest and the meanest. He was the protector of his clan. Mother and father to his younger brothers, and he took it as if their failure to protect Baby Brother rested squarely on his shoulders.
    Priest ambled down the streets of Brooklyn with his mother on his mind. She had been such a beautiful woman. Tall, well-shaped, with the most amazing dark-chocolate skin and a dazzling smile. Their father had been muscular and very light-skinned, with amber eyes, which was the only physical attribute he had passed on to any of his sons.
    It was late, but his throat was sore and he