“That nigga Phil is going hard right now. He gotta die before he gets me,” Junior proclaimed, his words laced with anger, fear, and hurt.
Tuck didn’t believe Phil was responsible for any of the deaths related to Junior and his crew, but he knew there was nothing he could say to change Junior’s mind. He was starting to believe they were all just simply casualties of war, that Candice had orchestrated this entire bloodbath. He just had to find out why.
When Candice saw Tuck in the bathroom mirror, her heart almost exploded. The feelings she had for him caused her to hesitate, something that might cost her her life. Tuck could’ve called her out or shot her. Candice couldn’t help but think now that he had feelings for her, too. He was probably now convinced, from the looks of things, that she had killed Broady.
She was also the last person seen with Razor, and now she was hiding in the midst of a crime scene, holding two guns, with a dead body right outside the door.
Candice could only imagine what Tuck must be thinking. From what she’d overhead in the bathroom, Junior believed that Phil killed Razor, Broady, and Shana. She knew better and was starting to have her own suspicions about the identity of the killer.
Candice waited a few minutes after Tuck and Junior left the club’s office to come out of hiding. Candice knew she’d have to give them a couple of seconds to get into the car and pull off before she got the fuck out of the club, just to be on the safe side. She couldn’t chance Junior doubling back for anything.
When she thought the coast was clear, she tiptoed out of the bathroom and averted her eyes away from Broady’s bludgeoned corpse. In the process, Candice ran dead into someone right as she reached the office door. She was infamous for this shit now. Panic struck her like a one-ton boulder. Instinctively, she raised her two guns, one in each hand.
“Whoa, little lady!” the man said, raising both hands in surrender.
Sweat ran down Candice’s face now. She didn’t recognize the man.
“We ain’t got no beef with you, ma. We came here for a nigga.” The man motioned for her to move out of the way. He was also holding a gun.
“Yo, Dray! Them niggas got away!” another man called out, his voice moving toward them.
In a knee-jerk reaction, she lifted her gun and slammed it into the head of the man in front of her. He crumpled to the floor like a deflated balloon, and his gun misfired.
The sound of the shot gave away their location, and she could hear someone running toward the office.
“Dray!” the man cried out from beyond the room.
Candice turned her full attention to the office door as a man ran into the office.
“What the fuck you did to Dray?”
The man held a gun at his side, but didn’t have time to raise it before Candice charged into him. She hit his gun hand with a brachial stun, just like Uncle Rock had taught her. The man’s hand went limp, and his gun skittered onto the floor. Candice hit him in the throat, a direct blow to his windpipe, and the man stumbled backward, his eyes wide with fear as he clutched at his neck.
Candice let off a warning round. The man dropped down to his knees. He didn’t want any trouble with her. As the man cowered on the floor, Candice lifted her gun and knocked him on the back of the head.
“I—I wasn’t gonna hur—hurt you.” The man gurgled out his words.
Candice needed him to be completely unconscious. Biting her lip, she gave his head another solid crack, and he flopped down flat on his belly like a washed-up sea turtle.
Phil had sent his lieutenant and another one of his workers to get Broady, and they ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Candice’s legs felt like jelly. Her body was shaking all over. She had never really used her skills before. Although she felt a surge of power from overtaking all of these thugs, a feeling of dread washed over her all at once. Vomit crept up her throat as her stomach muscles seized repeatedly.
Candice could hear the faint sound of police sirens in the distance. The sound jolted her, and she pulled herself together. She ran for the club’s back doors, where her car was parked. As soon as she made it out into the fresh air, Candice let it rip. She hunched over and threw up.
Shaking off the spooked feeling, she slid into her car and revved the engine. Police cars whizzed by as she pulled out of the back alley. Candice froze until the last car had gone. Then she eased out of the alley and onto the street, going in the opposite direction.
Candice was too preoccupied with her escape to notice that she was being watched. Tuck wasn’t the only person to know she was at Club Skyye and suspect her of killing Broady.
Candice thought about Uncle Rock as she drove like a bat out of hell. Once again, he had been right. Cleaning should rid the world of bad people and not be used for selfish reasons like revenge. The bodies were piling up, and Candice still had not gotten the retribution she sought. She could only imagine the nightmares she was going to have now. She had seen too much death in her life already. Candice wasn’t sure how much more she could take.
Candice might be as sweet as candy to her uncle Rock, but she was definitely “Hard Candy” on the streets. She still had one last important mark left, and she planned on getting to him before anyone else could beat her to it.
Uncle Rock rolled over onto his back, his chest rising and falling rapidly. His heart raced, and his chest burned. The tip of his gun was still hot from the shots he’d let off. The shoot-out was a necessary evil. Rock knew he was being watched by the Agency. They could have hired any number of their trained cleaners, but they’d chosen him. It was a form of control.
Rock’s flying bullets had caused flesh wounds at best. If he’d wanted to take out his mark, he could have. He had several chances to take the perfect shot, but he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill an innocent federal agent who had been used as an expendable pawn in a deadly government game. He had seen shit like this happen over and over again.
The government would paint Avon Tucker as a rogue agent who had lost his way while being undercover and gotten killed in the line of duty as a result. Unlike in the past, Rock couldn’t complete the job this time. He knew there would be consequences for his failure to complete the mission. The Agency would come after him, or they would come after those he cared about, Candice being one of them.
Rock pulled himself up off the concrete and leaned his back against the short ledge of the rooftop. He reached over with a trembling hand and dug his handgun out of his black bag. He put the gun up to his temple and slid his gloved index finger into the trigger guard. He squeezed his eyes shut and began pulling back the trigger. He pictured Candice’s face. He pictured the wrinkled-face head of the CIA’s assassin program. He pictured Junior’s face. He pictured Tuck’s face.
With a heavy sigh, he took his finger out of the trigger guard and dropped his arm down at his side. He punched the top of his bent knee with his other hand. Angry, Rock blamed himself for not keeping Candice out of this game. He had been the one to convince her that she could be a “cleaner.” He had let her live with the lies that the government had fed to the media about her father’s death. He had a responsibility to Candice. To Easy. He had to stop her from murdering an innocent man.
Rock knew, by process of elimination, where Candice was headed. He would just have to get there before she did. Candice needed to hear the truth once and for all. Whether she hated him or not, Rock had to tell her the truth about her family’s murders.
He threw his supplies back into his black bag, and a slip of paper floated to the ground. It was a photograph of his newest mark.
“I can’t kill you if I die first,” he whispered to the crumpled picture.
Rock had a plan that would satisfy everyone, including the CIA. He rushed down the roof ladder, agile as a cat, but suffered from the burst of energy when a coughing fit assailed him as he reached the bottom rung. He doubled over, spat out the blood that came, and told himself that his days were numbered, either way he looked at
it.
Rock was prepared to sacrifice his life to protect the ones he loved. For the first time in many years, he let go of his anger and resentment toward love and embraced what he experienced over the years with Candice.
Maybe he should have never stopped believing in love to begin with. Candy’s love, over the years, had certainly healed many of his emotional wounds, yet the scars still remained.
The day after the government released Rock back onto the streets of New York, he had a green military bag, an old driver’s license, and one thousand dollars in cash in his pockets. In his assessment, there was little else he needed. He was a free man, after all.
Rock stood outside of the train station on Thirtyfourth Street and Seventh Avenue, right outside of the largest Macy’s in the United States. Things had changed since he’d left for the war. It was 1980, and although the war had been over for five years, he had remained with the CIA, carrying out missions and paying his dues.
Standing on the New York street corner, Rock looked out of place in his army fatigues and combat boots. As the city’s residents whipped by him, he felt discombobulated by the frenetic pace of life. His mind was still a bit fuzzy from the drugs he’d been given, making it difficult to remember his way home.
Finally, with the assistance of passersby, he boarded the number 3 train and headed to Brooklyn. He needed to go home and reclaim what was his.
When Rock arrived at the Wortman Houses, he banged on the heavy metal door. Anxious, he shifted uncomfortably at the front door.
The door flung open, and a woman stared at him, dumbfounded. Rock stared back, his heart pounding in his chest. Neither of them spoke a word for at least thirty seconds.
When the shock wore off, she twisted her lips into a scowl and folded her arms across her chest.
Rock stared at the black eye she wore like a fashion accessory.
“What the fuck you want?”
“Betty, I—I—I . . . ,” Rock stammered. The drugs still messed with his mind. He felt as if his brain was short-circuiting. Most days he had an entire sentence in his head, but today he couldn’t get the words to come out of his mouth.
“You come back here after almost six years, and I’m supposed to greet you with open arms? You think I don’t know the fuckin’ war been over since seventy-five? Where you been?”
Just then a little boy ran to Betty’s side and tugged on her hand.
“Go back inside, Junior. This ain’t nobody you know,” Betty said, scooting the little boy away from the door.
Rock stared at the boy until his little round head disappeared into a bedroom. He was stunned speechless.
“Who the fuck is that Betty?” a man’s voice boomed from somewhere inside of the apartment.
Rock clenched his fist. He was ready to kill, automatically assuming the man was responsible for Betty’s black eye.
“Yeah, I got a new man now,” Betty spat, her hands now resting on her ample hips. “So you better be leaving before he comes to the door,” she cautioned, starting to shut the door in Rock’s face.
Betty had definitely changed, but for the worse. When Rock left to go to war, she was a beautiful young girl. They had been courting for almost a year. Right before he left, he had consummated the relationship by taking her virginity. Betty was the only woman he had ever loved.
Rock stuck his foot between the door and the frame so she couldn’t close it. She looked at him with sad eyes.
“The boy,” Rock managed to say.
“You figure it out!”
Her words cut across Rock’s heart like steel.
“Betty! Get ya ass from that door!” the man inside screamed.
“I gotta go, Rock. I don’t love you no more.”
Rock moved his foot and let her slam the door in his face. He stood there for a good five minutes trying to deal with the new situation. He could hear Betty screaming inside and the little boy howling, probably in reaction to his mother’s distress. Although Rock wanted to plow down the door and reclaim what he had lost, he remained solid and silent as a rock. He stomped away from the door and never looked back. He had written off love for good.
But, for some reason, Rock couldn’t leave the neighborhood. Instead, he watched the little boy grow up from a distance. He had even convinced a local drug dealer to help the kid out. He knew deep down inside that the boy was his son. A son conceived out of love but raised to live in a world full of hate.
Chapter 13
Junior drove himself to Long Island College Hospital for treatment for the gunshot wound in his shoulder. Tuck left him at the hospital after convincing him that he had to get out of there before the police arrived because of his “parole” terms.
In New York, whether you were a gunshot victim or the perpetrator, the police showed up with a mouthful of questions. Tuck couldn’t risk the local police questioning him and blowing his cover. He was under and alone. He hadn’t heard from Brubaker since the incident with his wife back in Maryland. Tuck didn’t know where his case or career status with the DEA stood, but after he got locked out of the system, he knew something wasn’t right. Tuck was too preoccupied after Junior’s call to gather his shit from his apartment, but now he needed it.
After much consideration, he took a huge risk and hailed a cab to take him to his undercover apartment. All of his amassed evidence against Junior and Broady was inside, along with his computer and equipment. He needed to get inside, get his shit, and try to get help from some of his DEA counterparts—without involving Brubaker.
When the cab arrived at his apartment building, he rushed up the steps and immediately noticed that the door to his apartment was open. Tuck slid his gun from his waistband and inched up to the door to listen for noise. There was no sound, so he peeked through the small crack between the door and the frame to see if anyone was still inside.
Satisfied that the coast was clear, Tuck kicked the door open. When it swung open wide, he put his back up against the wall, his gun held in front of him, his eyes darting around the ransacked apartment. The couch was overturned, and all of the tables looked like they had been axed down the middle. The kitchen cabinets hung open, with their contents spilling out, and the drawers were open as well, the contents dumped out onto the floor as if someone was looking for something in particular.
Tuck ducked his head and quickly peered into the bedroom. It was empty too. He rushed into the bedroom, hoping the intruder didn’t get into his safe. He moved the clothes in the closet, to check for the safe, scrambling around amid the piles of clothing that had been pulled off the hangers.
“Bastards! Shit!” Tuck cursed in a harsh whisper. The safe was gone, along with his computer and original undercover cell phone.
Tuck didn’t trust calling anybody on the cell phone that Brubaker had given him. He had to get out of there before anyone came back. He rushed out of the apartment, thanking his lucky stars that he’d kept the keys to the Lexus with him when Junior offered to drive to Club Skyye. But first he had to return to Junior’s house to retrieve the car.
Tuck stumbled out onto the street, paranoid. He rushed up the street and around the corner, looking desperately for a pay phone. He raced another block up until he spotted one. “Finally!” he huffed, exasperated.
He rushed into the pay phone booth, praying that the phone worked. His shoulders slumped in relief when he heard a dial tone. He pecked the buttons and said a silent prayer that the DEA agent he was trying to reach picked up.
“Operations. Carlisle speaking.”
The voice filtering through the dirty pay phone receiver sounded like music to Tuck’s ears. Dana Carlisle was the closest thing Avon had to a real friend inside the DEA. She was in his unit and had been on the scene when the accidental shooting took place years ago. Carlisle had always had Avon’s back, even when it seemed like the entire agency had turned on him. After the incident, Avon’s only friends on the inside were Carlisle and Brubaker. Now he was down to one.
“Carlisle, it’
s Tucker,” he breathed into the receiver.
“Tucker!” she shouted, happy to hear from him after he’d been under so long. She was well aware of all the nasty rumors circulating about him at work.
“Shhhhh,” Tuck whispered. “You can’t let anybody know you’re speaking to me. They’re after me.”
“Okay,” she whispered back. “What’s going on with you? They have your picture up everywhere in here.”
“I’ll explain that later. I need you to look something up in the system for me. They have my computer.” Tuck was wary of every person that passed the phone booth. He could swear everybody was watching him. “Go into the case system. I need everything about Eric Hardaway. They called him Easy,” Tuck said, his words coming out fast and jumbled.
“Okay,” Carlisle said.
Tuck could hear her typing the information into her computer. “Don’t let anybody see your screen,” he cautioned.
“I got you. Okay, here goes. Eric Hardaway. Known drug kingpin in Brooklyn. Target of Operation Easy In. Born in Brooklyn, New York. Father was—”
“Just tell me how many children he had,” Tuck said, wanting her to get to the point quickly. “I know about the one son . . . the murder and stuff.”
“Okay, let’s see. Hardaway children—Eric Junior, Errol, Candice, and Brianna. Wife is Corine. Affiliations—”
“Shit!” Tuck had finally figured it out. “Fuck! How could I be so stupid!” he cursed under his breath. He held the phone to his ear as his mind raced. Candy is Candice Hardaway. She was the one killing off Junior’s crew because she believed they killed her father. But what is her connection to Joseph Barton?
“Go to the operations screen. Tell me more about Operation Easy In,” Tuck instructed, his voice frantic.
“Okay, okay,” Carlisle said, typing rapidly.
Tuck shifted his weight from one foot to the other and wiped beads of sweat from his head.
Hard Candy Page 18
