“What now?” Romil asks.
“The fuck if I know.” More bullets slam into the side of my vehicle. By some miracle, our asses weren’t hit.
“They got Lucifer!” somebody shouts.
What? I cast my gaze to Lucifer’s crib and I catch those muthafuckas slinging her ass into the backseat of one of the SUVs. “Is that who I think it is?” I don’t know why I asked—there’s no mistaking Python.
“The fuck?” My heart, which was already beating double time, goes harder. This does have something to do with LeShelle. Python is kidnapping our head bitch in retaliation.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. We have to do something, but what? The only thing we can do is watch these dirty muthafuckas peel out while spraying bullets in every direction. “Duck.”
I hit the floor. I avoid looking in Dime’s brainless direction as more bullets hit the car. The rancid scent of burning rubber fills my nostrils. When I glance up again, I see the red glow of the SUV’s taillights. I scramble out of the car. Out on the street I look around, amazed at the sheer destruction. There are piles of bodies lying everywhere.
“Can you fucking believe this shit?” Romil asks, awed.
I shake my head in dismay. I even entertain the notion that this is all a bad dream and I’m still back at the crib, trippin’ on some bad coke. In the distance, the wails of police sirens pierce the night.
“You think those muthafuckas got Fat Ace?” Romil asks.
I have no idea, but start jogging toward Lucifer’s crib to check. Her front door is still wide open, but it’s not Fat Ace we see when we rush inside.
“Oh my God. Ta’Shara!”
6
Wendi
“I have a bad feeling about this.” I check my watch again. “They’re late.”
My police lieutenant and on-the-down-low white boyfriend, John Fowler, looks around the perimeter of this old abandoned factory for any sign of the people who are supposed to be meeting our small crew of six tonight. If he’s worried, he doesn’t show it. Then again, he’s a master at remaining cool under pressure.
I am nervous as shit.
This is the first time that we’re doing a deal like this on our own. In the past, Captain Melvin Johnson ran the illegal arms shipments. He had all the street connections and knew the military arms dealers personally. Not only that, but he knew and controlled this city with an iron fist. Well, for a while anyway. The past two years, things have spun out of control, but the money is what keeps drawing us back. Good damn money. The kind of money that makes pinning on these tin badges and putting up with shitty police paychecks tolerable.
Now Captain Johnson is six feet under, and all of us who worked with him miss the extra cash. Before Johnson was placed in the ground, police chief Yvette Brown promoted Hydeya Hawkins to take his place. Hawkins is cool, but she’s a pit bull with a bug up her ass about cops following the law. Instead of closing Johnson’s case after finding his murderer dead, she kept snooping until she discovered the millions of dollars the ex-captain had foolishly stashed throughout his house.
Hawkins freaked everyone out when she remained determined to get to the bottom of the source of Johnson’s money My ass included. I kept expecting that any day she would put all the pieces of the puzzle together and slap handcuffs on all of us.
Thank God Captain Hawkins’s husband was recently killed and Chief Brown forced her onto administrative leave. We all can breathe again.When the Vice Lords reached out to Fowler, we were excited to get back to business and stack more paper.
“What time is it now?” I ask.
“It’s midnight.”
Fowler pulls out a pack of cigarettes. It’s the first time he has shown concern about these people being late. “I thought that you quit.”
“I have.”
He plants one cigarette between his lips and pushes in the truck’s lighter. While he waits for it to heat up, he looks at his cell phone as if to double-check if it is working.
The lighter pops and he reaches down to place it against the tip of the cigarette.
“Maybe something came up,” I suggest. “How much longer do you want to give them?” I can tell by the way he pulls a deep breath that my questions are getting on his nerves, but I can’t help it. I get chatty when I’m nervous. When Fowler doesn’t bother to answer my question, I press my lips together, determined to keep them closed. Another five minutes pass and my mouth unglues itself. “Maybe they—”
“Goddamn it, Wendi! I don’t fucking know! All right? Now can you please shut the fuck up? I can’t think!”
“All right! Fine! Fuck!” I shrink back into my seat with my jaw clamped tight.
Fowler takes one look at me and exhales a long puff of smoke. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to snap.”
I refuse to look at him.
Fowler leans across the truck and then drapes his arm around my shoulder. “Forgive me?” he asks.
Since my anger is the only thing that has softened him toward me, I hold on to it for a while longer. But then he takes my chin between his fingers and forces me to look at him.
“I’m sorry,” he insists.
I melt. “It’s fine,” I whisper back.
A pair of headlights sweeps across us and we shift back into business mode.
“It’s them,” Fowler says. A smile hooks his lips.
Four black SUVs roll to a stop directly in front of us. The fact that they leave their headlights on bright is a dick move, but I know that neither of us will say anything about it.
We sit, looking like deer caught in headlights while waiting to see who’ll make the first move.
Finally the Vice Lords shut off their lights, but no one makes a move to get out of their vehicles.
I glance over at John, but hold in a question for fear he’ll snap again.
Another minute passes. I shift around in my seat. Are we going to do this shit or not?
John’s patience must’ve reached its breaking point, too, because he hasn’t said or signaled anything to me before exiting the vehicle. I stay planted in my seat with hope in my heart that everything will go as planned.
Once John is out in the open, the driver’s-side door of the vehicle in front of us opens.
Here we go. I make the sign of the cross and pray for the best.
I was part of a number of these deliveries when Captain Johnson ran the operation. I recognize the large, muscular frame of the notorious Vice Lord leader, Fat Ace. But there is also something different. Has he lost weight? Are those burns all over his face? I lean forward to get a better look. It’s hard, given that it’s past midnight and it’s dark as hell in this lot.
John and Fat Ace greet each other with a shoulder bump and handshake. Their words are nothing but a low mumble, and I find myself dying to know what is being said, but until John gives the signal, I don’t make a move.
After two minutes stretch my sanity to the limits, Fat Ace turns and signals to another person in his SUV. The passenger door opens and a tall, younger man steps out of the vehicle carrying a black duffel bag.
“Um. How are you doing?” I say in my internal Wendy Williams voice. My gaze sweeps over the guy a couple of times with more than mild interest. Sure. I have a few years on the kid, but I wouldn’t mind teaching the young buck a thing or two in the bedroom.
The duffel bag is dropped onto the hood of our truck and then unzipped in order for John to take a look inside. He grabs a couple of stacks and then flips through the crisp hundred-dollar bills for a quick check. Satisfied that the money is all there, he zips up the bag, does another unnecessary handshake, and then turns back toward the truck with the money.
John gives me the nod and I bolt out of the truck and hurry to the back. More car doors open and a crowd of Vice Lords and a few of our guys hop out of their vehicles and encircle me as I unlock the back of our white unmarked truck. Once I get my trembling fingers to unlock and roll up the metal door, I step aside for the men to hop into the back and inspe
ct the various crates upon crates of military-grade weapons.
An animated John hops into the back, too, and he proceeds to give a tutorial about the latest and greatest weapons and ammunition he’s secured from our supplier. He’s like a kid in a candy shop.
I, however, am still a nervous wreck while I stand next to the kid. I may be mistaken, but he doesn’t seem interested in the whole deal. I catch him looking off at nothing a few times.
Suddenly, phones go off all around. One by one, the Vice Lords scoop out their cells and look down at the screens. Some tap each other on the shoulder and point to whatever message they’re reading.
Something is up.
A knot forms in the pit of my stomach and rolls around. I glance up at John, who’s busy going on about the firepower of a weapon. I struggle to think of a way to catch his attention, but his gaze never once swings in my direction.
I cough.
Nothing.
More phones buzz.
I cough again.
Still nothing.
When my coughing and hacking sounds like consumption, the young blood to my right reaches over and pats me on the back.
“You cool?” he asks.
Before I can answer, his phone trills. “Hold on a sec.” He scoops his phone out of his pants pocket. After a quick glance at the screen, his golden complexion pales even in this dim light.
I glance up into the back of the truck to see that John has ended his spiel. He notices that he no longer has a captive audience.
“Bruh.” The young man next to me waves Fat Ace over.
Fat Ace hops out of the truck.
Something is definitely going down. I step back, not sure what to expect or what to do if these thugs flip the script and start blasting. Heaven knows that we’ve handed them a huge shipment of weapons to pull it off. Neither John nor I have a real connection to these men like Captain Johnson had, which means no loyalty. And in the streets, loyalty means everything.
Fat Ace huddles with his crew.
“Guys, are we good?” John asks, smiling, but I can tell that the alarm bells are going off for him, too. He keeps his hands wrapped around a weapon that he was showcasing in case he has to do a Rambo in order to get us out of here.
My hand inches toward the weapon inside of my jacket as well.
“We have to go,” Fat Ace announces. He turns to John. “Everything looks good. We’ll take it. Can you deliver another shipment—say in two weeks?”
I relax.
John’s face explodes with a smile. We’re back in business.
“Two weeks. Sure. We can handle that order,” John boasts.
“Great. Keys,” Fat Ace says, holding out his hand.
John is lost. “Excuse me?”
“The keys—to the truck. We don’t have time to unload. Something has come up that we have to handle. It’ll be a lot easier for my guys to take the truck.”
John shoots me a look, but I’m not sure what the hell he expects me to say or do in this situation.
“If it’s that important to you, I’ll make sure that you get it back. Swing by our funeral home in a couple of days and you can pick it up there.”
“Yeah. Well. All right,” John says, thinking that we’ll double back with our guys to Memphis.
With no further reason to protest, John jumps out from the back of the truck and says, “Give them the keys.”
I toss them over and Fat Ace catches them with one hand.
“She’s all yours.” John grabs the bag of money and moves back while the men lock up the back of the truck.
Fat Ace offers his hand a final time. “It’s nice doing business with you guys again.”
“Same here.”
We step back, feeling all kinds of vulnerable as we watch men climb into the truck and others roll the metal door back down, locking them inside.
“Tombstone,” Fat Ace calls, and another large man rushes forward.
Fat Ace whispers something in his ear and hands over the keys. I can only assume that he’s telling the guy where to take the shipment.
“You got it, boss man,” Tombstone says and takes off to climb in behind the truck’s steering wheel.
“The rest of you, head home!”
The Vice Lords scramble, and in less than a minute they are jetting out of the abandoned factory’s parking lot.
Once they’re gone, John and I turn to each other and let out a loud whoop as we jump into each other’s arms.
“Yeah! Fuck yeah! We’re back in business,” John shouts.
We congratulate the rest of our team.
“We did it. We did it,” is all I can say. My slice of the pie will help ease the financial money pit that I’ve fallen into since Captain Johnson fell out of the picture. I can stop worrying about having to find another nursing home to take care of my mother, and I can finally start paying the mountain of medical bills she’s accumulated.
“Oh shit,” John swears.
“What?” I’m fearful that he’s about to snatch away our moment of victory with bad news.
“My cell phone,” he says. “I left my cell phone on the seat of the truck.”
“It’s okay. You can just get it when you go pick up the truck later in the week,” I tell him.
“No. You don’ understand. It wasn’t a burner. I’m talking about my work phone.”
“Oh shit.”
7
Yvette
The bedroom phone rings.
My eyes pop open before the first trill stops. I don’t answer because my first reaction is to groan and fear what undoubtedly will be bad news. The temptation to bury my head beneath the pillows overwhelms me.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” James’s grumpy voice croaks from the other side of the bed.
That settles it. I have to answer it now. Sighing, I answer the call. “This better be good,” I warn.
Behind me, James’s cell phone chirps. If both of our phones are ringing, it’s definitely not good news.
My deputy chief’s rushed voice comes onto the line. “Sorry, Chief, but you might want to come down here. We’re going to make the national news tonight—again.”
My grip on the phone tightens. “What happened?” James and I ask our callers at the same time. We turn to look at each other and then sit up.
Deputy Chief Collins hesitates before delivering the bad news. “It’s another massacre, Chief, like the one at the Royal Knights biker club a couple of months ago.”
“Oh shit.” I fling the covers back and perch on the edge of the bed. The massacre at the Royal Knights Motorcycle Club was a level of carnage unlike anything most at the department had ever seen before. Forty-three dead bodies—white bodies. The fucking city went nuts. Black bodies can stack as high as the pyramids in Egypt and the citizens will whine and moan. But white bodies are a whole ’nother story. That’s when everybody’s jobs are on the line.
“Where?” James and I ask our callers. We glance back at each other again.
“Ruby Cove. Shooters damn near took out the whole block,” the deputy chief reports. “The media is already all over it.”
“Jesus.” I squeeze the bridge of my nose and count to ten. “All right. I’m coming down. Has anyone paged Lieutenant Fowler?”
“I’ve called and texted, but he hasn’t responded.”
Shit. I slap a palm against my forehead and count to ten. Behind me, James hops out of bed while promising his caller that he’s on his way downtown. My heart drops. This has been the first night in eons that we managed to synchronize our schedules. Of course, our romantic dinner consisted of a couple slices of pizza before a full ten minutes of passionate but intense lovemaking. Exhaustion hit and we rolled over and fell asleep. Now duty calls again.
“Chief? Are you still there?” Collins inquires.
“Yeah. Um. Hit Fowler up again and, um, I’m on my way over.” I sigh, shaking my head.
“You got it, Chief.”
After disconnecting the call, I
return the phone to its port and then glance up to see James’s fine, muscled, naked ass cheeks rush to the adjoining bathroom.
“The last one in the shower is a rotten egg,” he teases.
I push up a tired smile, but it takes a few more seconds to gather my energy to actually leave my perch. This job is really wearing me down—or I’m just wearing too many hats. Something has to give—and soon. “It’ll get better after the election,” I promise myself. By the time I make it to the shower, James is lathered up and hogging all the water to rinse off.
“Hey! Didn’t your mother teach you how to share?” I ask.
“Mmm. I don’t remember.” He laughs at his own joke before shifting to the side so that a single stream of water can hit me. By the time I’m halfway lathered up, James hops out of the shower.
“Come on, slowpoke. We got to get going,” he sings.
Why and how is he always this damn chipper when he wakes? I’m always mad at the world until at least my second cup of coffee—lately my third cup.
“Yvette!”
“I’m coming. I’m coming.” I lather and rinse twice more before shutting off the cooling water. Ten minutes after that, I’m dressed in plain clothes and heading out my front door—but as I race to my car, James is waving and climbing into the backseat of his city-issued town car.
I wave back—to him and his driver, Miles, and then climb behind the wheel myself. “Duty calls,” I mumble under my breath and then pull out of the driveway. Twenty-two-anda-half minutes later, I arrive on the scene near Ruby Cove. To my horror the place looks more like the set of a zombie movie. Multicolored lights from the various emergency responders’ vehicles illuminate the night while dead bodies litter the ground. There are also crying babies, wailing mothers, and bloodied survivors crowded around.
It’s going to be a long night.
Unable to actually pull onto Ruby Cove, I end up parking right behind a small team of news vans on an adjoining street.
The second I roll up, an eagle-eyed reporter recognizes me.
“Chief Brown! Chief Brown,” the reporter shouts, wrangling the attention of colleagues.
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