Spin, p.1
Spin, page 1
SPIN
DIAMOND D. JOHNSON
Copyright © 2025 by Diamond D. Johnson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
CONTENTS
Trigger Warning
Prologue
1. Zion ‘Steel’ Perkins
2. Toni McCall
3. Zion ‘Steel’ Perkins
4. Brooklyn Fox
5. Toni McCall
6. Zion ‘Steel’ Perkins
7. Toni McCall
8. Zion ‘Steel’ Perkins
9. Toni McCall
10. Rhythm Hyde
11. Zion ‘Steel’ Perkins
12. Toni McCall
13. Brooklyn Fox
14. Zion ‘Steel’ Perkins
15. Toni McCall
16. Rhythm Hyde
17. Zion ‘Steel’ Perkins
18. Toni McCall
19. Toni McCall
20. Brooklyn Fox
TRIGGER WARNING
The following content throughout this book contains material of grief, and loss of a loved one. While this is a work of fiction, the story includes events that may be hard for some to read. Ex. Death of a partner & spouse, conversations of sexual abuse, and miscarriages. Readers who are sensitive to these components, please take note, and read with caution!
PROLOGUE
ATLANTA, GEORGIA— FIVE YEARS AGO
ZION ‘STEEL’ PERKINS
“My baby! Oh God, my baby! They took my baby from meeee!” my mother-in-law, Malia cried out loud as she stood there, looking down at the dirt, seeing as the funeral workers were just moments away from lowering my wife’s body into the ground.
Malia’s screams and cries were in constant competition with the violent sounds of the thunder, lightning, and rain that was currently taking place. Her cries were shaking the trees, and I know for a fact that the trees weren’t shaking because of the powerful winds. The hurt that we were all feeling right now was enough to move nature out here. I was hurting. I might not have been screaming, crying, and showing it verbally in the same manner that Malia, along with the rest of my wife’s friends, and family were showing it right now, but I can assure you that no one felt this shit right now as badly as I did. I can’t even put it into words the pain that I have right now in my heart. My body is numb. I swear that I can’t feel a thing right now. The weather outside was saying that it was in the middle 50’s today, but I can’t feel it. The coldness doesn’t have any kind of affect right now on my hands, I wasn’t breathing the cold air in, feeling it in in my lungs, none of that.
I just sat through a three-hour funeral, where I didn’t even have the privilege of seeing my wife for one last time because the damage that her body had undergone were too extreme to the point that she had to have a closed casket. Because I didn’t have that chance to look at her one last time, I didn’t have any peace. My mind wasn’t at peace right now. My heart wasn’t steady. I had no closure, and with all those things combined, I knew that I wouldn’t be okay for a while, but how could I give up when I had my newborn son, that was resting in a car seat that was propped up on an empty chair that was next to me? This little boy was going to need me. I was the last living parent that he had, so the thoughts that I had right now of getting out of this chair, opening the casket, using the gun that I had on my waist, and blowing my brains out, so that the funeral coordinators could just scoot my wife over, and make room for me, and bury me along with her, I couldn’t be selfish and do that shit to my son. As much family as I had, and even though I knew anyone of them would take my little man on, and raise him on my behalf, I couldn’t do that selfish ass shit to him. Because I knew I couldn’t, I was going to have to go through this fucked up part of life, and deal with the permanent heartbreak.
My wife’s name is Sapphire. Sapphire Perkins. We’ve been married for the past ten years. My wife was killed. Ran off the road, causing her car to flip over ten times, killing her right there on the spot. With such a gruesome death, you would think that my son that she was carrying at the time would have died along with his mother, but he didn’t. She was eight months pregnant with our baby boy, and I just knew that it was no way in hell that he would have survived that kind of crash, but he was right beside me, sleeping through the sadness that had taken place today, and this little boy didn’t even realize the miracle that had taken place with his life because his casket was really supposed to be right beside my wife’s. Our little boy’s name was Zayne. If you looked up the meaning for that name, you’ll see that it means that ‘God is gracious’. I didn’t name him, and neither did my wife. My mom was the one to name him. When Sapphire was alive, her and I came up with a deal that we wanted to be surprised with the gender of our baby on the day that she’d given birth. Really, she’d come up with the idea, but I was the kind of husband that was always willing to give my wife anything that she wanted to make her happy, so I let her convince me that waiting for the gender when she gave birth would be the best option.
We never talked names. We wanted to name him at the hospital, but because of the way that he’d arrived, I was so numb, and in a place where my brain wasn’t properly functioning, so for at least the first two days of his life, my son was John Doe. I remember being at the hospital, and my mom coming over to me, holding my son, and asking me if she could give her grandson a name, and with a look in my eyes that didn’t house anything, I told her that she could, and she decided on the name Zayne. She could have given him any name in the world, and I wouldn’t have argued with her about it because that’s just how cut off my feelings were at the moment. Shit, my feelings are still cut off right now.
If you knew the kind of person that my wife was, then you would know that she didn’t deserve this shit. We’re talking about the kind of person that if she was sitting next to me right now, and it was pouring raining like this, she would be the one asking me, and everyone else around her if we were okay. She was never the type to think about herself. Always putting others before herself, and at times, that could be a good, and a bad thing because I used to feel like there were people in her life that she would allow to take advantage of her. Like, her fuckin sister, who was behind me, doing all that fuckin screaming, and carrying on, knowing she was one of the worst people to my wife when she was living.
Her sister’s name was Ivory, and she was the oldest by two years. Her life consisted of running behind niggas, and being friendly towards every other bitch, wanting to be in their section at the clubs, taking out of town trips with them, but the second Sapphire would hit her up, wanting to spend some time with her sister, she would have every excuse in the world on why she couldn’t hang with her. She’s borrowed money from my wife on plenty of occasions, and Sapphire was the kind of person where she hated confrontation, so knowing her sister owed her money, she wouldn’t come to her and ask her to give her the money back that she owed her. Ivory took advantage of the pure heart that Sapphire had, and that’s why it was taking everything in me to remain calm and not have one of my security guards that I had posted up front to grab her ass up, and escort her out of this motha fucka! The only reason why I didn’t resort to that shit is because I knew that it wouldn’t have been something that my wife wanted. No matter all the wrong doings that Ivory has done to her over the years, she still wanted a relationship with her sister, and she still loved her in spite of everything.
As I looked around, on top of all our family and friends that were here, there were hundreds of people that had come out from the U.S Army. My wife served in the U.S Army from the moment she graduated high school at the age of seventeen. As sweet as she was, and as big as her heart was, that woman was fearless. This was someone that I’ve been married to for the last ten years of my life, and prior to us getting married, we only dated for one year, so I’ve known her for eleven years, and in those eleven years, I’ve learned plenty of stories from her that took place in the army, so I knew the strength, the bravery, and the passion that she had. She served her country and she did that shit proudly. The hundreds of soldiers that she’s served with, and even the soldiers that she’s trained because for the past six years, she had been a sergeant, so she was known, and loved by many. Even though both men and women that were here, had to stand here, and have on their game faces because it’s what they were trained to do, you could see the heartbreak, and the brokenness in all of their eyes. Sapphire was loved by many, and my wife lost her life all because of the pure heart that she had.
I’m sitting here, fighting back tears, angry as fuck with myself because I felt like I should have put my foot down a little bit more, and maybe this shit wouldn’t have happened. In the years that Sapphire and I have been married, I’ll say for the first four of those years, neither one of us were ready to have a baby. I say that because I was in my prime in my boxing career. I was undefeated, and year after year, I was the heavy weight champ. At the time, the only things that mattered most to me was my career, and my wife. I wanted to go down in history as the greatest boxer of all time, and at the moment, I just wasn’t in a position to take an off season for Sapphire, and I to have children, and she was understanding of that as well because she had just become sergeant in our second year of marriage, and at the time, we were stationed in Georgia, which was her home town, with no clue where we would move to next, so bringing a child into a situation where our livi ng situation wasn’t structured was what we deemed as selfish, so we agreed that when I started talking retirement, and when Sapphire has been sergeant for a few years, then we could start talking babies. Those four years flew by, and before you knew it, Sapphire started having baby fever like a motha fucka. She was on me hard about having my child, and again, I give that girl whatever she wants, so I told her that we could start trying, and she immediately stopped taking her birth control bills.
I thought that it would be simple getting her pregnant, but it wasn’t. Damn near four months of actively trying, and when she did eventually get pregnant, by the time she’d made it to ten weeks in her pregnancy, she suffered a terrible miscarriage. After that, came another one, and a year later, another miscarriage. The pain from that was too much on her and had her feeling like she no longer wanted to have a child, but we were still having unprotected sex, and she hadn’t gotten back on her birth control. Years went by without any successful pregnancies, and eight months ago, when we were sort of in a tough spot in our marriage because my wife started getting in her head, feeling like she didn’t deserve me, since she couldn’t give me babies, when in actuality, I would keep her reassured any chance that I could, always telling her that even if she wasn’t able to ever give me a child, that I would still love her more than anyone, or anything in this world, but she was having a hard time accepting that. When we were going through that tough patch, I remember picking up on changes with her. The sleepiness, the moodiness that she would undergo, and just physical changes that were happening within her body. I was the one that brought it to the table, telling her that I think she might have been pregnant, and sure enough, she was. This was the first pregnancy of hers were she made it out of the first trimester. I remember Sapphire kept telling me that when she made it to her nine-month mark, she was going to retire and just become a stay-at-home wife. I had no argument with that. My wife had given her country thirteen years of her life, and I made more than enough money to take care of her without her having to work.
The only thing we clashed with each other on was me wanting her to take her retirement sooner. I didn’t want her to wait until her nine-month mark. I felt so strongly about that because by this time, she had already lost three of our children, and I didn’t want to risk her still working while she was big, and pregnant, but she swore that she could handle it, so I let her. This was the part where I said that I should have put my foot down because had I, I knew that she would have still been here.
About three months ago, I remember my wife flying out to California to meet me because I had a fight out there that weekend. I was one of those people where I could look at my wife, and sense that something was wrong with her. Her eyes would always tell her true feelings. This day, I could sense sadness, and I remember trying to get it out of her, but she wouldn’t tell me. Telling me that she wanted me to have a clear head before my fight, and that she would rather let me know about it after the fight was over. She had my head fucked up on not knowing, so I kept asking, and she eventually told me. One of the young women at the army base was sexually abused by one of the male sergeants. All the female soldiers knew the kind of kick ass sergeant that my wife was, and they knew that Sapphire would literally go to war for them, so when it happened, the female soldier, whose name is Ashley had come to Sapphire, telling her what happened, but she also told my wife that she didn’t want to tell on him because a lot of times, women’s voices aren’t typically heard in the army. Sapphire didn’t want Ashley to allow him to get away with it, so she’d convinced Ashley to take it hire up, and it became a big ordeal. He wasn’t fired, but he was temporarily removed from his position because with law enforcement involved, there was now a case, and it would go before a judge. My wife was deep into this case, acting as a witness for Ashley, and just a week before the case would go before the judge, my wife’s car was run off the road, and here we are right here, watching as her casket was getting lowered into the dirt, and that feeling of numbness was still overcoming me.
This is what I meant when I said that my wife lost her life because of the way her heart was set up. All she wanted to do was help one of her female soldiers, and she was killed because of that shit. Had I put my foot down and made it where she didn’t have a fuckin option, and I told her that I didn’t want her working during her pregnancy, maybe she would still be here. She wouldn’t have had to lose her life at the young age of 30. Life was just starting for her. This beautiful little boy that was sitting right next to me, sleeping in his car seat, she so desperately did everything in her power to have him for me, and through all of that, she never even got the chance to hold him. Never got the chance to fix his first bottle, experience skin to skin with him, and hear his first cry. Life cheated my wife. We’re talking about a woman that’s never even received a traffic violation, and this was the one that God had taken away from me, and allowed to die as tragically as she did? I’ll admit, I was angry at God right now. I was angry at the lengths that He would allow for her death to be so extreme. All she wanted to do was get home that night, but she was cheated, having her car flip, and turn in the air, never once giving her a chance at survival.
The man that had done this to my wife, his name was Gary. Gary was responsible for the sexual abuse on Ashley, too. While we sit here, and we mourn the death of my wife, that nigga is locked up, waiting on his day in court, where he would go before a judge. That nigga still has air in his lungs to breathe, and my wife didn’t have none of that shit.
Three soldiers came over to me, and they placed a folded American flag onto my lap. This was the symbol of honor for us. Once that was placed in my lap, I had no strength in my body to even say thank you, so I just nodded my head. I followed them with my eyes, watching as they went back over with the rest of the soldiers, and from there, they started their rifle salute. I watched them, and I glanced at the picture of my wife that was up front. It was a 20 x 16 frame up front, and it held Sapphire’s army picture. It was the picture that she’d taken when she’d become sergeant. Looking at her, I admired the bad ass that she was. When she was with me, she could be as tender as she wanted, but when it was anything related to her job, she was tough as nails. I’ll never forget that smile on her. Those deep dimples in her cheeks will forever live rent free in my head. Her laugh. The way she would whine my name and say, ‘Steeelllll’ when I was getting on her fuckin nerves. The way she would angrily call me Zion when I had her fucked up. The shit that she would talk in the crowd when she came to my fights.
When God made Sapphire, he only made one woman like her. They didn’t come in bunches. Just one. Nobody was going to love me like her. Nobody was going to go to God in prayer about me like her. I won’t spin another block with anything that requires loving another woman because this shit had scarred me for life, and I swear to God I’ll never let another woman get close to my heart like this again, only to leave me in this cold ass world.
“Tell her bye, son. You gotta tell her bye,” my mama came over, and stood on the side of me. She put her hand on my shoulder, and I looked up at her. I can’t tell you what color her eyes were right now because there was large sunglasses on her face that covered her eyes. If I had to guess though, I knew that her eyes were red. Sapphire was her girl. She loved her like the daughter that she’s never had.
Walking up to that casket and having to say goodbye was going to be the hardest thing that I ever had to do, which is why I didn’t do it, and I allowed everyone else to go up, except for me, but I knew that I had to go get that final closure. With a pain in my chest, I stood up, and for a few seconds, I just stood here, with my hands in my pockets. I dropped my head, which was something that I never in my life did. My pops taught me at a young age to be this cocky motha fucka that I was, and to never drop my head, but I couldn’t even fake that shit right now. I was hurting. They gave me the nickname Steel when I was a little boy because I was always hard…always strong. I felt like cotton. I was weak. Nothing about me was heavy duty, as I found strength in my body, and I walked over to the casket, seeing how low they’d already lowered it. That shit broke me to the point that I fell to my fuckin knees! Even with me being in a boxing ring, having niggas throw all kinds of crazy jabs at me, I have never fell to my knees. I was Steel! Steel doesn’t break. Steel doesn’t fall, but this moment right here, there was none of that steel in my body. I completely dropped, and I didn’t give two fucks about the hundreds of people that were here right now, watching this moment.
