Her palm was sweaty and her leg started to twitch when Rayshawn was led back to the defense table by the bailiff. He looked at the nervous expression on Jaicyn’s face and shook his head. He hadn’t wanted her there when the verdict was read and thought that he had been very clear with his lawyers when he said for them to keep her out of the courtroom. Obviously Jaicyn was more persistent than he thought.
After ordering the court to maintain a level of order once the verdict was read, the judge, a mean looking black man who at one time may have been good looking but now just resembled Clarence Thomas, allowed the jury to enter the courtroom.
“Has the jury reached a verdict,” Judge Vaughn asked the foreman, a middle aged Black man who ran his own lawn care service.
“Yes sir, we have.”
“Please read it.”
The foreman took a slip of paper out of his blazer pocket and adjusted his reading glasses.
“We the jury, find the defendant, Rayshawn Moore, not guilty on all charges.” The foreman smiled and handed the paper to the bailiff who then handed it over to the judge. He read it over carefully while Jaicyn closed her eyes and practically sat on her hands to keep from screaming for joy.
Judge Vaughn looked at Rayshawn. “Young man, with a verdict of not guilty on all charges, you are free to go.”
Rayshawn’s smile was smug. He walked past the prosecutor and shook his head. She turned away, embarrassed that she’d been outsmarted by him. He was free to continue selling drugs to whoever he wanted and she was powerless to stop it, unless she could convince her bosses to keep the case going. She’d get him and his connections, one day.
Rayshawn turned to his fiancée and motioned for her to come closer. Jaicyn practically jumped into his arms. He promptly wiped away the tears from her eyes.
“No tears,” he ordered. “I told you everything was going to be alright. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”
Chapter 14
Rayshawn felt Jaicyn shift beside him and grinned when she slid her leg over his and invaded his side of the bed. There was enough space on her side, but every night she ended up with her legs and arms entangled with him and he on the edge of the bed.
He’d missed that.
After spending six months in county jail, sleeping in his own bed with his fiancée felt better than he ever imagined it would. He slipped his arm around her bare waist and pulled Jaicyn as close to his body as possible. The La Perla lingerie that she’d worn for about two point five seconds lay at the foot of the bed. As sexy as she looked in the black French lace, the outfit hadn’t been necessary…for either of them. They’d made love all night and the sun was starting to rise.
Rickie and Bobbie would be getting ready for school in a few minutes. Rayshawn listened for Rickie’s alarm clock. He wanted to talk to both of them before they left. He knew that they hated having to leave their big house in Stone Mountain and put most of their stuff in storage. He remembered what it felt like when he and Dayshawn had to downsize so they could go live in their grandparents’ small house. He wanted to apologize.
Jaicyn didn’t stir when Rayshawn eased out of the bed. He gently closed their bedroom door behind him and walked down the short hallway to Rickie and Bobbie’s room. Both girls were sitting on their beds watching the Weather Channel before deciding on their outfit for the day.
“Is Jaicyn up?” Bobbie asked him. “Because she said she would drive us to school.”
“I’ll take you,” Rayshawn volunteered. “Let her sleep.”
“I don’t se why we have to go to school today anyway,” Rickie complained.
“Why shouldn’t you?”
“Because you just came home! We haven’t seen you in six months. That’s a reason to skip school.”
If there was a chance that she could get out of going to school, Rickie was going to milk it for all it was worth. She was like Jaicyn in that way.
“Nah,” Rayshawn shook his head. “We’ll kick it this weekend. But I want to talk to you though.”
“About what?”
Rayshawn sat down on Bobbie’s pink and purple comforter. The girls sat next to him. He looked serious. They waited patiently for him to speak.
“I want to apologize to you guys,” Rayshawn said. “I should have planned better. I didn’t think they’d take the house. If I had known that, I’d have got another house for you guys.”
“It’s not that bad,” Bobbie started to say but Rickie stopped her.
“No, the apartment isn’t that bad,” Rickie agreed, “but is this how it’s always going to be?”
Rayshawn looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Rickie sighed. “We had the townhouse in Washington Heights, and then we had to stay in the foster home. Then we moved into the condo with Jay-Jay, then down here into another apartment. Then we finally get settled into a house and all of a sudden we have to move again. I know what you and Jaicyn do, but do either of you understand how this affects us?”
“Every time we move,” Rickie continued, “we have to change neighborhoods and change schools. I’m tired of it. Is this how it’s going to be until we go to college?”
“No,” Rayshawn answered, suddenly aware that he’d let Rickie and Bobbie down in more ways than one.
He’d been so worried about making sure they had everything that they wanted, he forgot about what they actually needed…stability.
“I’m sorry, girls,” he said. “I promise to do better. I moved you here with me to make sure you had a better life, but it hasn’t been better, has it?”
“In a way it has,” Bobbie replied. “But you and Jaicyn are hardly here and when you got locked up, we were on our own a lot.”
“We worry about you and Jaicyn,” Rickie added. “It’s nice to have money and all, but what if you get locked up or shot? What if something happens to my sister? I don’t want to sound like an old person, but you and Jaicyn have to stop.”
Rayshawn nodded. He spent six months in jail thinking about his future and the future of the girls he cared about. He didn’t want this life for them anymore.
“It’s not easy,” Rayshawn explained. “But I’m working on it. I promise, the three of you are my only priority. I’m not going to let anything happen to Jaicyn or my little sisters.”
He put an arm around each of the girls and hugged them. They hugged him back.
“Get dressed quickly,” he said, standing up. “We’ll stop and get breakfast before school. I think it’ll be okay if you missed first period.”
“Cool!” Bobbie cheered.
Rayshawn closed their bedroom door and walked right into Jaicyn. She was leaning against the wall, clutching her robe closed. There were tears in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Rayshawn asked her.
“I don’t know,” Jaicyn said, wiping her eyes. “I heard what you said to my sisters. I appreciate that you care so much about them.”
“Why wouldn’t I? We’ve practically raised them. They’re my responsibility too. Not just yours.”
“We haven’t been doing a very good job, have we?” Jaicyn muttered sadly. “They were so scared when King got shot, then you got locked up. They worry about us.”
Rayshawn leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. “How do we do this?” he asked his partner in crime. “How do we get out? No one has ever just walked away from King’s crew. Not without repercussions.”
“I don’t know,” Jaicyn said again. “But we never committed to this for life. We walk away and King has nothing to worry about. We aren’t rats. He can trust us.”
“We’ll see,” was all Rayshawn said.
Jaicyn threw her hands in the air and started down the hall. Rayshawn was useless to talk to if the subject matter involved King.
“By the way,” she said over her shoulder. “He called. I told him it was your first day home and you’ll talk to him next week. If he calls again today, I’m changing our numbers.”
Rayshawn knew that
Jaicyn was still mad at King and everyone else in Washington Heights. She had to learn how to let shit go. Everything worked out fine. If he didn’t care, neither should she.
****
“Hey Jaicyn,” Renee called from across the shop. “Phone’s for you.”
Jaicyn looked up from the stack of real estate listings she’d printed off the Internet. Finding a location for Caliente II was easy. Finding a location for Rayshawn’s record label and recording studio was proving to be much harder. But she volunteered. She had an eye for real estate after working for Darrius for so long. Besides, Rayshawn wasn’t going to do it.
“Who is it?” Jaicyn yelled back.
“She said her name is Sandy. Want me to tell her you’re busy?”
“No, I’ll take it,” Jaicyn grumbled. She took the cordless phone out of Renee’s hand and walked into the manager’s office in the back of the store. Her nostrils flared as she slammed the door.
“What?” she snapped into the phone.
“You’re a hard person to reach,” Sandy laughed. “I’ve been calling you for two weeks.”
“And I’ve been ignoring you for two weeks,” Jaicyn fired back. “Why are you trying to talk to me now? You ignored my calls for six months. What the fuck do you want now?”
“That wasn’t personal, Jay-Jay,” Sandy started to say but was interrupted.
“Wasn’t personal my ass!” Jaicyn yelled. “You and the rest of them left me and Rayshawn down here to fend for ourselves. Don’t tell me that was just business, not when we’re supposed to be better than that.”
Jaicyn lowered her voice a few octaves. “When your man got shot, I was there for you. I took care of that for you. My man gets knocked by the FEDS and you didn’t even answer your fuckin’ phone. I don’t have shit to say to you!”
“Andre wants to see you,” Sandy said evenly before Jaicyn could hang up.
“I don’t care.”
“Jaicyn…” Sandy sighed. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what? Did you get the memo? I don’t work for him anymore. We don’t owe him anything and we’re out. Don’t call me again.”
Jaicyn hadn’t actually discussed it with Rayshawn but she knew he wanted out just as much as she did. Sandy was the perfect messenger.
“It doesn’t work like that,” Sandy warned. “You know better than that. He’ll be there tonight. He’s flying private and will be at the Marriott Marquise downtown at eleven. You and Rayshawn need to meet him at the bar at eleven-thirty.”
Sandy disconnected the call. Jaicyn stared at the phone briefly before slamming it on the charger. Who the hell did Sandy think she was? All she ever did was follow King around and run her little restaurant. She didn’t give orders. She couldn’t. She was just married to King. That’s it.
She’d sounded so morbid on the phone. “Be there or else” was the impression that Jaicyn got, but she really didn’t care. She knew why King wanted to meet and it wasn’t a personal visit. Rayshawn must have told him that he wanted out. King was going to try to convince him to stay and Jaicyn wasn’t having it. King and his wife could kiss her ass. King may have been the boss, but she was the boss of her family. He couldn’t control them.
****
King was sitting at the hotel bar when he spotted Jaicyn and Rayshawn walking towards him at eleven forty-five that evening. He smiled when they caught his eye. They didn’t smile back. They kept the same scowl on their faces as they walked towards him holding hands.
A united front.
He got up and walked to an empty table where they couldn’t be overheard easily. The pair followed.
“You wanted to see us,” Jaicyn stated as she slid into the booth. It wasn’t a question.
“How have you two been holding up?” King asked.
Jaicyn huffed and rolled her eyes.
“We’re fine,” Rayshawn answered sharply. “How was Bermuda?”
“I wasn’t on vacation,” King reminded them.
“Yeah, neither was Rayshawn,” Jaicyn replied. Rayshawn shook his head at her. Jaicyn’s smart mouth wasn’t going to make the meeting any easier.
“That’s part of why I’m here,” King said. “I need to know how you beat a federal drug case. That shit just doesn’t happen.”
Rayshawn stiffened in his seat. “What are you saying?”
“K-ci, Sonny, and Little Man are all locked up. But you’re free. I need to know how that happened.”
“I have good lawyers,” Rayshawn answered. “Xavier from Detroit helped. Dayshawn knew a lot of shit too.”
“Plus we’re not stupid like them,” Jaicyn added. “That’s why you sent us down here instead of them. Because we’re careful and smart. Doesn’t take a genius to hide money in places the FEDS can’t find.”
“That’s all?” King’s tone was skeptical. “You’re free because you’re smart? That’s your explanation?”
“That’s the truth,” Rayshawn replied. “Take it or leave it. I walked because of my lawyers and my brother. K-ci and Sonny are still locked up because they’d rather spend their money on cars and rims than pay a good lawyer.”
“He didn’t snitch,” Jaicyn stated, “if that’s what you’re implying. If he had snitched, then we wouldn’t be having this meeting because you’d be locked up. Why does any of that matter now? We’re done.”
King shook his head. “No, you’re not done. No one just walks away. With K-ci and Sonny out for good, you two are all I got.”
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Rayshawn told his boss. “There are plenty of people up there that do. Replace us.”
“No.”
“No?” Rayshawn repeated.
“You heard me. You two aren’t walking away from this because you got scared. You’re my supplier down here. This deal we have with Cesar ends when I say it ends.”
Jaicyn raised her eyebrows and stared defiantly at King.
“We’re done,” she clenched her teeth as she spoke. “That last shipment was it for us. We want out.”
“What you want doesn’t matter,” King spoke authoritatively. “You work for me and I make the decisions. Until I find a suitable replacement, you will keep doing things the way they’ve always been done. Don’t cross me on this.”
Rayshawn stared across the table. He let go of Jaicyn’s hand before he squeezed it too hard and hurt her. He knew that King wasn’t happy about him giving up his spot in the crew, but Rayshawn thought they were close enough for King to understand his choice.
“Don’t look at me like that,” King said to Rayshawn. “Don’t act like you’re different than anybody else who works for me. I make the rules. There are no exceptions,” he continued. “Not even for you. Don’t forget, you wanted this. You came to me, remember?”
“I was fifteen,” Rayshawn answered. “I didn’t sign up for this shit for the rest of my life.”
“Sure you did,” King chuckled. “We all did.”
He stood up and patted Rayshawn’s shoulders. “Don’t hate me, hate the game,” he said before strolling out of the bar.
Jaicyn stared in his direction until she couldn’t see him anymore. “What the fuck just happened?”
Rayshawn shrugged his shoulders and balled his hands into fists. “I don’t know.”
“He can’t make us do this, baby,” Jaicyn said. “What is he going to do if we don’t do what he wants?”
Rayshawn didn’t know what to say. King had earned his reputation in Washington Heights for a reason. People just didn’t cross him or not do what he said, not if they wanted to keep breathing.
“I don’t want to think about that.”
Rayshawn signaled for a waitress and ordered a bottle of Hennessy. He poured himself a shot and threw it down quickly. There had to be a way around King’s directive. He just needed time to figure it out.
Chapter 15
Jaicyn looked outside the window and felt disgusted. For the first time, since moving to Atlanta, she hated the weather. All of her life
she’d lived in Ohio where the winters were brutal and it was common to step outside to four or five feet of snow with the temperature ten degrees below zero. She thought she left all of that behind when she and Rayshawn moved to Atlanta. But on the fifteenth day of January, it was snowing and Jaicyn was pissed.
“Why do you keep looking out of the window?” Rayshawn asked. “That snow isn’t going to disappear in five minutes. It’s cold as hell out there.”
“Isn’t that an oxymoron?” Rickie giggled. “Hell isn’t cold.”
“Shut up,” Jaicyn snapped. “Play your game.”
The family was gathered in the living room. They’d started to do things together more often since Rayshawn got out of jail two months ago. Rayshawn, Rickie, and Bobbie were playing Monopoly while Jaicyn was looking through bridal magazines. She’d put off planning her wedding long enough.
Autumn was supposed to be in Atlanta helping with the wedding planning, but she had decided to stay in Cincinnati until Dayshawn was ready to give her the type of commitment she wanted.
All Jaicyn wanted was to focus on her wedding but she couldn’t. The weather was making her depressed and every time Rayshawn’s phone rang, she got nervous. Without Johnny around to handle distribution, Rayshawn was back in the saddle. He was doing exactly what King wanted him to do. Backing out was too dangerous. They couldn’t take that risk, not now.
Rayshawn wanted to wait until they girls were out of school for the summer before approaching King again. Johnny told him that Little Man was getting out in the spring. With Little Man free, the south side could pick back up. King wouldn’t be so dependent on what Rayshawn was doing in Atlanta. Summer was perfect timing.
“You’ve been really cranky lately,” Rayshawn commented, while the girls groaned when his corvette landed on Free Parking and he collected all of the tax money they’d stashed there.
“I think I’m getting sick,” Jaicyn answered. “I haven’t been feeling right for a couple of days.”
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