Kings of the Castle

by Naleighna Kai

  He wondered how long he’d have to wait for news on Khalil’s condition.

  “Mr. Bostwick,” the nurse added. “A doctor is with Khalil right now, and since you aren’t a relative, you’ll have to wait for clearance.”

  “Even though my name was on a shortlist of visitors?”

  “I’m sorry. Daron Kincaid set security protocols. Now everyone has to be vetted first. Even his son.”

  Two men were already in the room and looked up when he entered. A smile spread across his face as he recognized Jai and Grant, whom he hadn’t seen in years. Both stood and extended a hand toward him. Shaz was in the middle of a handshake with Jai when the door opened again. On the threshold stood a bald, middle-aged doctor, wearing blue scrubs and wire-rimmed glasses.

  “Gentlemen, Mr. Germaine isn’t out of danger, but against doctor’s orders, he insists on seeing you. You’ll only be allowed to go in one at a time. We’ll do it according to last names.” He glanced at a yellow sticky note attached to the clipboard he carried. “Is Mr. Valentine here?”

  Kaleb nodded and felt the heat of everyone’s gaze. “That’s me.”

  The doctor’s lips tightened and disapproval shone from his eyes as though he, too, believed Kaleb was responsible for putting Khalil in the hospital. Or maybe his distaste had to do with something else because all of them received the same look.

  The medic motioned to him, then turned toward the door. “Please come with me.”

  CHAPTER 21

  After a quick visit to The Castle, which was now crawling with cops, Daron took an envelope from Vikkas and promised to swing back by the hospital after Vikkas had the opportunity to speak with the others. Daron had researched every aspect of the documents and found information that compelled him to work on changing the program he ran out of a Morgan Park facility.

  Daron studied the nut-brown face of the man sitting in one of two gray chairs in front of a charred wood desk. A psychologist and educational specialist, Pedro Garcia, was key in helping young men under Daron’s wing transform their lives.

  Pedro looked up from a printout of the new slate of ideas and said, “You’re making the program public?”

  “With the reporters sniffing around and this Castle business, it’s what the program requires to survive and thrive.”

  Daron was determined to assist these talented young men in getting off the streets and better utilizing their skills. Now that he’d given Katara a decoy tracker, he expected that media attention would die down.

  “You’re really planning to buy land out here to build a facility?” Pedro went back to reading the latest draft of Daron’s brainstorming ideas to expand and protect the program.

  Daron’s company being thrown into the spotlight, along with his obligations to The Castle, made him realize that another person needed to be the face of the organization he’d created to run the program. The first step in protecting the participants was building a location outside the house which was currently their meeting place. Daron clicked the screen to bring up the plans on his laptop.

  Pedro straightened his stack of papers then sat them to the side. “You’re risking your life to help these boys?”

  “The target was already on my back,” Daron countered, as he crossed another name off his list on a yellow legal pad. “And I want them to know there’s something more than a street corner or a hustle that’ll land them in prison.”

  “I get all that, but it doesn’t mean you need to light that target up so brightly that even a blind man could see it.” Pedro stared at Daron for a moment, like he had taken leave of his senses.

  “Maybe I should pull Javier off the Florida job.”

  Javier was Daron’s go-to person for unique architecture and construction, but he was currently working on building the estate house on Daron’s private island off the coast of Florida.

  “You need that place finished if anything goes sideways.”

  “A couple of architects who’re also being considered for members of The Castle could handle the project.” Daron knew making the right alliances was important, especially since at least two of the young men in the program were somehow connected to current members of The Castle.

  Even though he was making adjustments, being an active managing member of The Castle was still up for debate. As persuasive as Vikkas’ proposal was, Daron would be risking his freedom, a committed relationship with Cameron, and the success of his young men by accepting the responsibility.

  “You also know, there are several members who’ll be quite upset that you’re taking the best assets off their teams.”

  Major truth behind that observation. Daron’s opportunity for membership had placed him in the middle of a war zone and The Castle was now the battleground. The tablet resting on the table beeped loudly as his perimeter alarm went off. Pedro’s head snapped up as Daron glanced at the screen. A woman swept across the lawn wearing a skintight shimmery jumpsuit and a long hair weave covering her narrow features. Despite not having a clear view of her face, Daron knew it was his over-the-top Aunt Brandi.

  “I’ll be back.” Daron left the office and maneuvered through the entertainment room to the back door.

  Due to the way the house was situated, most guests parked at the back and used the rear door. Cameron was one of the few people who used the front door because it faced Longwood Avenue, and no one could park there. A safety mechanism of her own.

  Brandi extended a finger with a long glittery manicured nail to ring the bell as he opened the door.

  “I heard you were back in town.” She enveloped him a bear hug, then stepped back and swatted his arm. “You couldn’t come to see your aunt?”

  “No.” Daron learned long ago not to mince words with his dad’s sister. She was a master manipulator, liar, and user. He’d had experience with criminal masterminds who couldn’t touch her.

  Brandi swept past him and did a slow inspection of the room’s fireplace and artwork before lowering herself to the black leather couch. “You always were like your father.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Daron locked up, trying to think of a respectful but quick way to get rid of her.

  “Hmph,” she scoffed. “That depends on who you ask.”

  “Aunt Bee, what brings you here today?”

  “I was seeing how you were holding up.” Her voice softened as she spoke, her eyes losing some of their gleam.

  Daron lowered himself onto a chair. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t have to pretend with me.” She scooted to the edge of the couch, leaning over the arm and facing him. “While you and your brother had a difference of opinion years before his death, I know that you two had been close.”

  Damn. Daron forgot this was the anniversary of the day his brother, Troy, and his family supposedly died. “It’s been years. I miss them, but I have come to terms with them not being here.”

  Brandi sprang from the couch. “Troy was murdered, and you shouldn’t let it go.”

  “I’ve had the accident investigated by a private firm,” he countered. “They agreed with the police report. There’s no evidence that it was anything other than a tragic accident.” He wished he could ease her mind, but she couldn’t know that Troy was alive and in witness protection. If certain men realized he was that close to law enforcement, they would take him out to make sure he’d never tell their secrets. Aunt Brandi couldn’t be trusted to keep her mouth shut.

  “They’re wrong, and I won’t let it go until the people who did this pay.” Her hands gestured in the air, signaling a deep-seated frustration.

  “Do you know something that I don’t?” Daron couldn’t understand why she was so persistent about this, especially after he’d made every attempt to confirm that there was nothing nefarious behind the car accident.

  “You know how he earned his money?” Brandi stared at the family photos on the mantle of the fireplace. She touched the frame of the picture of Troy standing with their father. “He was just like
Rook, loved the high of being in the streets.”

  “I thought I was like Dad.”

  “Troy was like your dad before he met your mother. But he gave up the streets to try to give your family a better life and I ... ” She snatched her designer purse off the couch. “I’ll look into it, but promise me whatever happens to me, you make sure the people who killed Troy pay.” She stormed off toward the door.

  Daron blocked her path. “Don’t do something that’ll make me have to grieve you, okay?”

  Brandi might not be his favorite member of the family, but he wasn’t trying to bury her either.

  “I can’t make any promises.” She went to her tippy toes and planted a kiss on his cheek before exiting.

  “Shit.” Daron pulled out his cell, dialing as he watched Brandi rush to her Benz. “Steve, I need you to send someone to shadow my aunt. She’s back to inquiring about Troy’s accident.”

  “Why is it that I don’t remember your aunt being that close to your brother?” Confusion seeped into Steven’s voice.

  “She wasn’t. She benefited from Troy’s ability to invoke fear and his way of lining her pockets.”

  Daron didn’t understand why she was so convinced that Troy’s death was a murder.

  “Whatever the reason, I don’t want her getting herself killed.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Jai steered his Audi onto the Dan Ryan, grateful that the morning rush was over. He could make it up north without waiting in the “parking lot” that the six-lane highway normally became. The memories of the teens he’d spent a good majority of his high school years with came to mind. He wondered what he would find awaiting him, and that put him a little on edge.

  Macro International Magnet School was a multi-tiered glass and stone building situated in the heart of Chicago. Teens from all over Metropolitan areas and the outlying suburbs tested into placement and were chosen by a set of criteria no one had ever been able to figure out.

  Khalil Germaine, a philosophy and science teacher who had founded the school, had taken things a step further by focusing on the development of male teens from all corners of Chicago. They were taught additional subjects outside of the normal curriculum. Life skills that parents tended to mysteriously expect, but also forgot to impart to their children—balancing a checkbook, preparing for adulthood, managing crises, among other basic things like maintaining a residence and advocating for what they needed on a personal level.

  He also taught them the mechanizations behind world events that were not in the textbooks all the other students had. They learned of The Birth Control Project used to control White women and the minority population. He explored the impact and true purpose behind wars that had taken place on the different continents, and the role that the United States, Britain, and Europe had played in manipulating world economies and disasters to their benefit. He also tied them to a little-known phenomenon called The Heaven Project, where a man had taken sixty impoverished women from the United States, trained them in enclaves in obscure areas of Canada, Belize, and abroad, then situated them in marriages and positions where they would wield a certain level of influence. The most powerful lesson the boys had learned was to respect women and understand that they were as important in all aspects of life as the men who were hell-bent on oppressing women and people of color on all continents.

  Khalil called each of these teens scholars, not students, which immediately put them in a different mindset. He had given them each a mission to find their passions, but also to remember to “cover their own backyard” when they achieved a certain level of wealth and could positively impact the neighborhoods where they had lived.

  Now, all of these years later, Jai wondered how the others had fared since they’d lost touch.

  “Call Kelly.”

  The connection was immediate and so was the irritation in her voice. “Quit micromanaging, Jai. You’ve only been gone ten minutes.”

  Jai stifled a chuckle at her incredulous tone. “This is important.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” she shot back. “I have just as much to lose as you do. This has been my life ever since I graduated from college.”

  True, he had hired the feisty woman whose studies in nutrition, physiology, and marketing had been an asset. Her organizational skills were nothing short of amazing. “Are the fellas still in the boardroom?”

  “Yes, getting a little antsy because the lawyers have basically said be silent and let them do all the talking.”

  “Let me put them to work. I need you to have them look up…” He fed her the names of his former classmates as he rounded the curve under the Indiana Toll Road. “Then patch me in so they can give me the info.”

  “I could do that for you easily.”

  “I need your concentration on when the detectives show up.”

  “Got it. I just sent a text to Hiram, and he’ll tell the others.” She was silent a moment, but he could hear the swift movements on the other end, signaling she was typing out the words that would spur the men to action. “Give me a second, and I’ll transfer you in there. But may I ask, who are they and what are they to you?”

  “Men I think I’ll run into at Northwestern. They might have been informed too.”

  “That’s a thought.”

  “I’ll talk to you soon.”

  The moment Hiram clicked in, he asked, “Do you think any of these guys had something to do with what happened to Temple?”

  “No, this is about something else entirely,” Jai answered.

  The nine of them had followed through with good intel on his former classmates.

  Grant Khambrel had made a name for himself in commercial construction. Mariano DeLuca had first amassed property in the Chatham area, then opened a women’s shelter. Shastra Bostwick went into immigration law that serviced a wide range of clients who came to America from all over the globe. Victor Alejandro Reyes’ background only stated that he was a businessman, but not what type of business he was in. Vikkas Germaine, Khalil’s son, was making waves in international and intellectual property law. Dwayne Harper, he’s currently a professor of World studies at Malcolm X College.

  Jai took a glance at the envelope, frowned, and added two more names.

  “Kaleb Valentine,” Hiram said after a few moments. “Real estate, mostly in my old hood.”

  “Daron Kincaid,” Falcon added, then paused. “Technology is all it says, but that’s a little strange. Nothing solid on this one. He’s a ghost. Both Daron and Alejandro are.”

  “So what’s the deal with these dudes?” Hiram asked before Jai could query them further.

  “I’m about to walk into something, and I want to know more about them than they know about me. Text me everything you found.”

  “All these dudes are rolling in dough, man,” Falcon said. “How do you know them?”

  “Went to high school with them,” he replied, steering onto the ramp that would take him to Lake Shore Drive. “Well, eight of them.”

  “In Chicago?”

  “Yep. Macro International.”

  “Ah, you mean that bougie school up north,” Kevin taunted.

  Mike chimed in with, “The one where all those nerdy kids hang out?”

  “I don’t know about being nerdy and all that,” Jai defended, realizing they weren’t too far off the mark.

  “I can’t tell,” was Hiram’s sarcastic reply, causing others to laugh it up and making Jai smile. The fact that they could poke fun at him with such a heavy issue hanging over their heads spoke volumes.

  “Y’all doing all right?”

  “Yeah, we’re hanging,” Hiram answered for the group. “It’s a lot better because we know you’ve got our backs.”

  “Always,” he admitted. “I’ll see y’all in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 23

  “I need to know Khalil Germaine’s condition,” Dro said to the woman at the Patient Information desk. He flickered a look at her badge and added, “He’s in ICU.”

&
nbsp; Sharon looked up from her computer screen. “Sir, are you a relative?”

  “Yes,” Dro said without hesitation. “I’m his son.”

  Her penciled eyebrows almost shot up to her hairline. “Really?” A smirk inched across her red lips at his declaration. “You don’t say?”

  He frowned at the unexpected sarcasm. “Is there a problem?”

  “Just a minute, sir.”