The Cartel 7--Illuminati--Roundtable of Bosses

by Ashley

  C.J. stood, not wanting to endure the agonizing uncertainty of another round. “Can I be excused?”

  Estes nodded, already engrossed in the new cards he was receiving. C.J. hurried from the room, seeking solace, seeking relief from the tension and the inquisitive eyes of Estes’s comrades. He rushed outside into the darkness that enveloped the secluded villa. His fingers pulled at the necktie he wore, releasing the tightness as he took a deep breath of relief. Everything in Estes’s world was high stakes and the pressure of living up to his expectations was heavy. Perhaps if he were truly blood, if they shared relation through a deeper connection, C.J. wouldn’t feel the need to do everything right. But they weren’t truly family. They were affiliates and C.J. wanted to keep his spot as Estes’s adopted mentee or project or whatever bond it was they were forming. C.J. simply didn’t want to disappoint. He would rather live up to the hopes of Estes than to be thrust back into the hands of someone like Ms. Bernice, or God forbid much worse. He wanted to stay in this world where kings played even if he literally had to fight to belong.

  The sound of someone exiting caused him to sneak off to the side of the front entrance, hiding out of sight. He wasn’t ready to be summoned back inside just yet. The respite of the ocean air and the full moon was relaxing to C.J. The stakes were too high inside. He wanted to be where it was easy for a little while. He peered out from behind the bush that gave him coverage. The big man from the card game came storming out with another gentleman trailing behind him. C.J. recognized him from the table as well—he wasn’t hard to remember. The long ponytail he wore secured by a rubber band and braided down his back made him stand out among the crowd.

  Javier, C.J. thought, finally placing a name to the man whose money he had taken.

  “Javier! Cool it,” ponytail whispered.

  “I’m going to kill him,” Javier replied. He might as well have been breathing fire he was so irate. His eyes fumed with venom. “Who the fuck does he think he is?”

  “Take a walk,” the ponytail advised. “You’re going to fuck up everything we have planned. The son of a bitch is living on borrowed time.”

  “Estes’s days are numbered. I’m going to slit his throat from ear to ear and then burn this place to the fucking ground.” Javier’s words were so harsh that C.J. recoiled. “And that little nigger boy he has in there will be on his knees, sucking me off, where he belongs. The nerve of Estes. To sit that black motherfucker in my seat. He will pay for this.”

  “In due time, my friend,” the ponytail responded. “For now, go home, sleep it off. We just have to be patient until the time comes.”

  C.J. watched in horror as the men went their separate ways, one going back in the house and the other getting into the town car that awaited him. He had become privy to a plot to assassinate Estes. There was no way he could let Estes sit among his enemies. He raced back inside where he collided with Estes. He didn’t realize he was shaking until he noticed Estes’s bent brow of concern.

  “Everything okay, kid?” Estes asked.

  C.J. opened his mouth to speak but halted when the man with the long ponytail came up behind Estes. The man gave Estes a pat on the back. C.J.’s heart raced and pounded loudly in his ears. Should I say something? Do I tell him right now? C.J.’s thoughts were running wild. He might not even believe me.

  “I’m calling it a night. Appreciate the hospitality as always, Estes.”

  C.J.’s mouth was open to speak but the words were caught in a roadblock in his throat. Say something. Hurry. He’ll be gone soon, C.J. urged himself but the fear of repercussion in the face of the man he would be accusing stopped him.

  “Kid?” Estes called as he turned to walk away.

  C.J. looked at the man who was sliding into his suit jacket by the front door and then back to Estes, who was preparing to head back to the game.

  “He is planning to kill you. I heard him and the other man, the one who stormed out, talking about it outside,” C.J. revealed.

  Estes watched the man walk out the door and C.J. looked at him, stunned. “Aren’t you going to do something?”

  “You don’t let the prey know they’re prey, kid. You play dumb until it’s time for you to move smart. You did good, C.J.,” Estes said. Estes put an arm around C.J.’s shoulder and guided him back to the card game. “And fix your tie.”

  * * *

  C.J. was roused out of his sleep as Estes opened the bedroom door, spilling fluorescent light into the darkened space. He wiped the sleep from his eyes as he looked up at the hazy image of Estes standing in the doorway.

  “Get up and meet me downstairs,” Estes said, his baritone voice stern and serious.

  C.J. climbed from the bed without hesitating, clueless as to why he was being pulled from his peaceful slumber at this hour. Am I in trouble? he thought. Did I do something wrong? He could not help but wonder what was so pressing that it could not wait until morning. It was uncustomary for Estes to break C.J.’s rest, especially when he was due to train the next morning.

  Estes met him at the front door. Even at this odd hour, he was pulled together with nothing less than perfection. C.J. looked down at himself in uncertainty but didn’t have time to second-guess as Estes was already headed toward the driver that waited out front.

  Silence seemed to be the standard as they rode through the darkness, up toward the mountains. The Dominican Republic was a beautiful island where multiple ecosystems coexisted. Estes resided beachside where crystal clear water washed up onto the shore in his backyard, but there were also jungles and dry areas that resembled deserts. As the car snaked around sharp curves, C.J. discovered that it held mountains as well. The elevation mixed with the darkness made him cringe with every turn but Estes sat cool and unbothered as if they weren’t at risk of falling to their deaths at all.

  When they arrived at the top, they drove a few more miles away from civilization and into a dense forested area.

  “Where are we?” C.J. asked. He swallowed a lump in his throat. He noticed another town car and silently wondered who else was there. His gut was going haywire. There was danger in this darkness. There was death clinging in the air.

  Estes didn’t answer. He simply exited the car and left the door open, signaling C.J. to follow. He froze midstep when he saw the men he had overheard plotting Estes’s death the night before.

  “Hell of a place to meet, Estes? What is this about?” The pig might as well have had a snout. The way he spoke sounded more like snorting as he complained.

  “It’s about disloyalty,” Estes said. C.J. was still frozen. His fear was paralyzing him, making it hard to even squeeze in breaths of the thick, humid air.

  “We can take care of that for you, of course, but did we have to do it all the way up here?” the fat man snorted as he tried to laugh off the seriousness of the situation. “Who is it? I’ll bet it’s that rat bastard Chavez. You say the word and I’ll handle him personally.”

  Estes stood stoically and raised his hand casually, signaling, and just like that red beams appeared on the chests of both men.

  “I’ve shown the two of you how to build empires for the past two decades, have I not?” he posed. The men looked down at the threat that lingered over the left sides of their chests.

  “Emilio!” the fat man pleaded as he put his hands up. “What is this? We are like family. I would never!”

  “Only you did,” Estes shot back. He nodded to the other man. “The both of you conspired to kill me,” Estes said. “What did they say they would do again?” Estes looked at C.J.

  C.J.’s throat was dry as sandpaper, but he couldn’t back down, not in front of Estes, not when it counted. “Slit your throat from ear to ear,” C.J. offered. His voice shook, but he was grateful the words had come out at all.

  “Estes, this is all a misunderstanding,” ponytail said, trying to keep things diplomatic.

  “You’re right,” Estes answered. “I could never understand how two men whom I’ve fed for years, whose wives
and children I’ve fed for years, could go against me in this way. You dug your own graves so you will take your own lives. Walk.”

  The men looked over their shoulders to the dark cliff in the near distance.

  “Estes!”

  Their pleas fell on deaf ears and a content mind. Once Estes came to a decision there was no changing things.

  They shuffled their feet backward until their heels were on the edge of the thousand-foot drop-off. C.J. knew it took a lot to make grown men cry. The stench of death had these men sobbing as they beseeched Estes for mercy. It had been a long time since he had to put in this type of work. Estes’s resume was lengthy and he was respected off name alone. These gentlemen had forgotten how unforgiving Estes could be. He was about to remind them.

  C.J. tried to comprehend what was happening right in front of him. Is he? He can’t, C.J. thought. Surely, Estes wouldn’t make these men throw themselves off the top of this mountain. Is he going to kill them right here?

  “You know the penalty for disloyalty. Nothing short of death. Not just any death: this death, in this way. You can pay for your disloyalty and walk off this cliff with your pride or I can give the signal to my men and end it with a bullet. The bullet doesn’t save your family, however. If you choose that option, the death continues to your namesake. Again, the choice is yours.” It was an old Dominican ritual among gangsters. The Devil’s Cliff was the highest ridge on the island. A man could die with honor by selling his sin to the devil and taking the plunge or he could die by the gun. These two wouldn’t be the first or the last to fall victim.

  Their feet shuffled nervously as the strong wind gusts almost made the decision for them.

  “Estes, por favor no hacer esto,” the fat one held no shame as he got on his knees begging Estes for forgiveness. “You don’t have to do this,” he kept saying, in broken Spanish from the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing.

  Estes lifted his foot without hesitation and kicked the man backward, sending him falling unexpectedly over the edge of the cliff. The scream was so loud and fear-filled that it made C.J. close his eyes. It echoed out over the night, but the drop to the bottom was so long that the sound faded the farther he fell.

  Ponytail looked in fear as Estes motioned for his driver to pull the trigger.

  The shot exploded in the air and sent flashes of the day he had been taken by Baraka’s men into C.J.’s mind. Anytime he heard a gunshot it brought up the unpleasant memories. The bullet hit ponytail in the center of his forehead and his body went limp, falling over into the abyss. There was no sound this time, no screams could be heard, and Estes turned away from the scene unaffected as he headed back to the car. C.J. crept to the edge and watched the turbulent ocean waters below. The ocean had served as the graveyard to the dead and made the bodies disappear instantly. It was like it had never even happened at all. A chill swept up C.J.’s spine as the dizzying heights made him stumble.

  “C.J., let’s go,” Estes called. C.J. turned and rushed to the car, not truly feeling safe until he was inside. An awkward silence filled the air. C.J. was locked inside with a killer. He knew his family had a long relationship with the streets and that they lived by the gun, but being up close and personal with murder always made him feel weird. A part of him felt fear but the other part, the parts of him that were made up of Miamor Holly, felt intrigue. He was conflicted over what had just occurred.

  “Does it scare you? Killing people?” C.J. asked, reluctantly, once they were tucked away and on the descent down the hill.

  “No,” Estes gave a simple reply. “Is that what you feel? Fear? Right now, after seeing that?” Estes returned.

  C.J. thought about his emotions. He assessed the pit in his stomach and the hole in his heart. “I feel bad, I guess. It feels like that will come back to me one day,” C.J. said, honestly. “What I do to people matters. It’s not like the pit. The kids I beat walk away at the end. This is final. Once you did it, it was forever.”

  “Smart, kid. You’re highly intelligent,” Estes said. “That feeling you have. That sickness that’s telling you to throw up right now, it means you’re one of the good ones. I no longer have that feeling. You hold on to that as long as you can, but never be afraid of what you must do when another man disrespects you. Once someone threatens you or the life of someone you hold dear, they must be eliminated. Do you understand?”

  C.J. nodded as he sank into the plush leather interior. He couldn’t get the screams out of his head. He stared out the window, noticeably conflicted about complexities an eight-year-old boy should never have to consider. Life with Estes would change him, it would harden him, but C.J. oddly was looking forward to becoming a man under Estes’s watch. Witnessing the power, the influence, and the wisdom Estes had intrigued C.J. and only made him want to live the lifestyle even more. There was a hunger in his belly that he hadn’t known when he was with his parents. They gave him too much, made him earn too little. Miamor and Carter had been so focused on making sure he led a life of privilege that they forgot to instill that dog’s instinct that made you fight your way to the top. C.J. didn’t know what the bottom felt like, but with Estes there was always the threat of losing it all so he worked hard to keep everything Estes offered. Their bond, although unconventional, was growing by the day and Estes was not only grooming a fighter, but a gangster, and, more than that, bringing out the killer instinct inside.

  CHAPTER 15

  THREE YEARS LATER

  Breeze sat across from her nephew completely torn up inside. She tried hard not to show the disappointment in her eyes because it wasn’t Mo who had let her down. None of this was his fault. It took a village to raise children and their village had failed not only him, but her daughter, and C.J. as well. Three years had passed and Mo had grown from a young boy to a young man. He was fifteen years old and he loomed over her, his muscular frame a result of endless days of discipline. He wasn’t a kid anymore, but a young, handsome man, and with his hair grown out long and wild he looked so much like her brother Mecca. The sight of him made goose bumps appear on her forearms. It was like someone had put her in a time machine and she was looking at her brother, alive and breathing. The resemblance was uncanny. Hell, he might be Mecca’s son. Lord knows Leena popped that thang for both of them, Breeze thought. Seeing him here, caged like an animal, paying for sins that were not his own, was like salt on an open wound.

  “Don’t look so sad Aunt B. I’m good in here. I’m holding it down,” Mo said, his voice deeper than she remembered. He had turned into a man on her. She had missed so much. “I’m glad you out. You came back for us just like you said you would.”

  “I was always coming back Mo. I love you. I love C.J. too. I’m so sorry this happened,” Breeze said.

  The mention of C.J. hit a nerve with Mo and his expression grew grim. “You know where he is?” Mo asked.

  “I don’t. Not yet, but I’m going to find him. I’m here for you. I’ll get a job and I’ll put money on your books. Whatever you need. You hear me?” she asked.

  “You don’t have to worry about me, Aunt B. I get by,” Mo said.

  “Three years feels like a lifetime,” Breeze said, growing misty. “I’m going to rebuild this family, brick by brick. When you finally come home, you’ll walk out of here to a kingdom. I promise you.”

  Mo stood to his feet. “I’ve got to get back,” he said. “You take care of yourself, Aunt B.”

  “You too, baby boy,” Breeze answered. They hugged for a long time and Breeze was afraid to let him go. It was a reunion, but somehow it felt like a goodbye as Breeze watched him walk back into the custody of the guards.

  Her family was torn apart and scattered everywhere. She didn’t have a clue how to locate all the pieces let alone put them back together. Mo couldn’t be saved right now. He was stuck in the system at least for the next four years. Frustrated, Breeze stormed out. If her father could see the state of their family he would be so disappointed. She shook her head in disgrace as she rushe
d out, not wanting to miss the next bus. Life after lockup was completely different for Breeze. She didn’t have access to money, her own place, or even her own car. The illusion of prison had made her forget how hard her reality would be after her release. Life had humbled her. She was so low that the crawl back to the top seemed impossible. As she emerged out on the city street she saw the bus pulling away from the corner. Breeze took off running.

  “Wait!” she shouted as she sprinted full speed. She thanked God for the traffic light at the corner. If she missed this bus, she would never be able to make it downtown in time to see the social worker about her daughter. She banged her hand against the side of the bus, calling, “Wait!” Finally getting the driver’s attention, she slid on, panting as she slipped the driver the fare before finding a seat.

  The characters around her came from all walks of life and as Breeze sat she found herself wondering if she ever would have crossed paths with these people in her prior life. Everything had always been done at the highest level. Before their empire had come crumbling down, Breeze would have never even paid attention to the ways of these common people. She hadn’t lived a regular life before, but now she was thrust in the middle of one, trying to make sense of it all. She had walked through the world with privilege that had blinded her to the struggles of the real world. Everything with Breeze had always been so high stakes. Kidnapping, murder, revenge, war. Those were the types of problems her family had faced over the years. Money had never been an issue and making a dollar out of fifteen cents was something Breeze was not equipped to do. Not many things frightened her, but figuring out how to make her own way was terrifying. I have to contact Carter as soon as possible, she thought. She knew that he would know what to do. He always knows.

  Breeze was so distracted by her thoughts that she almost missed her stop. She pulled the cord, signaling to the driver to pull over. She hopped off the bus and rushed across the street, sliding into the Social Services office just before the security guard locked the door.