What happens when you have 2 individuals who are weathering their own personal storms collide. Would it be the match made in hell or the perfect love story?
Can't wait to find out!
"I can't remember the last time I heard my brothers real name?"
Nala said smiling from ear to ear in the short hallway of her apartment as she stood against the wall waiting on the elevator to come arrive on the 44th floor. Maurice stood next to her leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets and his left foot crossed over the right.
"What they call him then?" Maurice asked look over at her. She looked at him and smiled.
"Dave"
Maurice furrowed his brow and asked in a confused voice. "How you get Dave from Angel?"
Nala looked over at him, snaked her arm around his and leaded her chin on his shoulder. "You don't wanna know. But NEVER call him Angel...."
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Nala hadn't heard her brothers real name since she was a in elementary school and he was (barely) a freshmen in high school. He slapped one of his teachers who refused to call him Dave and got expelled 2 weeks into the school year. Dave hated being called Angel his entire life. Even though he was named after his half Cuban father, everyone who knew him hated calling agreed because he was the exact opposite and nothing like his father. But from the stories that Nala heard from everyone in the hood they grew up in, he was the spawn of his father, just an unruly version.
Even though he was spitting image of his father, Dave hated everything about him and when he was old enough he changed his name from Angel Juan Santana Castillo to Angel Santana Karrington. He disliked his mother just as much but felt Karrington fit him well, even though He and Nala had different fathers they went through the struggle together and taking his mother's last name was an easier pill to swallow.
Nala didn't know her father; she was always told that her mother was Angel's whore. Even though Angel loved her, he loved the money she made even more. He was abusive and didn't care what limb she had to sell to get his count right before returning to him. While she was pregnant with Nala he beat her all through the pregnancy causing her to go into labor 2 months early. When Nala arrived Ironically accepted her with ease knowing that she wasn't his. He was papi and Nala was his Black Bonita. Angel wasn't her father but no one was stupid enough to doubt a devil named Angel about anything. Nala always has the chocolate brown skin and those thick black ringlets so everyone summed it up to her looking like her mother.
Nalas mother knew the truth and knew exactly who her father was because after he paid for the pussy the first time he loved it so much that he kept coming back and eventually wanted to wife her. For months he would send give her money and constantly bought gifts trying to entice her to leave Angel. But one day the money stopped coming, the gifts stop showing up and he was no where to be found. All the attention and affection she craved was gone.
Having to live with the fact that the man you were with and since 14, who is also your pimp killed the man you were beginning to love tore her up inside. It was even worse when Angel and Dave became so attached to Nala that her presence didn't matter anymore.
But when Nala was 3 they only father she'd ever known was murdered. Their mom was never was never the loving mother that they needed. But with Angel, home became a hostile environment for both Dave and Nala. Everything they did wasn't good enough; she would yell, degrade and hit them every chance she gotta.
Due to the abuse, Nala began to shy away from everything and everyone. She focused on school and when she was old enough, she signed her self up for dance at their local park district just to buy herself sometime from having to go home after school. Any activity or camp she signed herself up for Dave would pay for it with the money he made from pack & robbing people. Anything that needed signing for either of them Nala would forge the signature.
Dave turned to the streets and loosely followed in his father footsteps. As a child Dave had a thing the old school mafia. He loved the original gang shit So much so that he named himself after David Berman. Berman was a mobster in the 1900 who start his mob life at 13 and took over the Flamingo in Las Vegas buy walking in and basically telling them "I run this shit". Dave looked up to that, he wanted to be that. He couldn't be like Angel... Coke sniffing, whore running, women abusing Angel. He had a sister to protect and living like that wasn't going to cut it. Watching his father abuse his mother and sleep with other women in the same bed. He used to contemplate different way of killing his father and getting away with it. Seeing what his mother went through, all he wanted to do was protect her. But when she started to beat him like he was being beat, he became heart broken and cold hearted. Deep down, he loved his mother to death and never once thought of retaliating and taking his anger out on his blood- he used the streets for that.
On the outside looking in, their mother looked like a beautiful widow with 2 beautiful children. Their mother became used to hiding who she really was from the outside world. As beautiful as she was she had extremely low self esteem. She was an ex prostitution who became a madam (female pimp), card cracker and used men to pay for the house note that Angel left her with. She kept her kids in the newest of attire to cover up all the bruises that were mainly on Dave (he took the most so Nala didn't have to take any). By the time Dave was 11 (Nala, 7) he became Nala's unofficial guardian, taking care of Nala, making sure she got to school on time, picked up on time and ate everyday so no one would question their care or ask Nala questions about her mother's whereabouts. He felt she was too young to understand and didn't know how to keep quite, but she understood everything and as long as her brother was there she had no complaints.
