Carl Weber's Kingpins

by C. N. Phillips

  “I told your father to finish the job when he had the chance. It wasn’t like him to leave loose ends.” Dorian shook her head. “He was the one who intervened with the killing of that boy. He told your uncle Johnny to let the kid live. To let him watch his entire family bleed in front of him.”

  “Did Sunny die?”

  “No,” she shook her head. “I was a nurse for the trauma unit back then. I saw them rush Sunny into surgery to treat the gunshot wound he suffered to the head. If I had been able to get close enough, I would have pulled the plug on him myself. Before I ever saw him again, he was gone. But I heard that he survived the surgery.”

  “And Dad never thought to handle that?”

  “No. I think it made Kameron feel powerful . . . to take down New York’s crime family and become better than they ever did. In his mind, he’d broken Sunny down past the point of revenge, and I don’t think for one second he felt Sunny would come for him.”

  “And I guess he figured Sunny’s son would just forget about what happened to his family?” Klax pushed away his bowl of food in front of him, suddenly not having an appetite. “Your husband was something else; you know that? His problem was that he thought he was invincible... when really, he was just stupid as fuck.”

  “I will not let you bad-mouth your father in this house!”

  “The same one who cheated on you with the housekeeper for years? We’re talking about this same house, right?” Klax said glaring at her for defending his deceased father. “I spent years living in the shadow of a man who was just the used up shell of one. He stole Sunny’s spot for the power, and that’s it. After he died, I swore that I wouldn’t run things the way he did. He was a fool sitting on a mound of gold, but I’m a true king sitting on diamonds. And I won’t let his dumb mistakes ruin me. So, you need to let me know where I can find Sunny so I can dead this shit once and for all.”

  “And how are you gon’ do that? That man is gon’ take one look at you and try to blow your head off.”

  “That’s a risk I’m gon’ have to take. Not too long ago, I was just in the car and declared a street war. But after talking to you, that shit ain’t even worth it. The blood that is running in my veins is the reason for this feud, so I’m going to use it to form a truce.”

  “A truce? Your father would never—”

  “Exactly,” Klax cut her off and stood up from the table. “At his oldest age, my father couldn’t measure up to the man I am today. Unless necessary, I prefer to keep the blood off the streets.”

  “And if it’s inevitable?”

  “You just answered your own question.” Klax went around the island to kiss her forehead. “I’ll call soon, Mama.”

  “Wait!” Dorian said when he started to walk away.

  “What’s up?” When he turned around, he saw a look of concern in her eyes.

  “About your sister, loosen up the reins on her a bit,” Dorian said. “She feels like her life is a damn prison with you always watching her every move. She isn’t a preschooler who needs an escort wherever she goes.”

  Klax knew that Kleigh often called their mom to vent about things. For the most part, Dorian agreed with his reasons behind why he was the way he was. She rarely said anything to him about the way he was when it came to his sister’s safety. Any other time, he might have been willing to come to a compromise, but it just wasn’t the right time.

  “If you think that while all this is happening that I’m gon’ do that, you’re out of your mind. You just spoke about the laws of the streets, and isn’t one of them ‘an eye for an eye’? The most I can do is tell my soldiers to fall back more into the background,” Klax said and turned his back on her. “But just know both you and her always have a few people with y’all.”

  “All Kleigh is going to do is find ways to hide and get away from you, Klax,” she sighed. “You’re gon’ push her away.”

  “After all of this shit is over, you have my word. I will loosen up a bit, a’ight?”

  “OK,” Dorian said, taking a few quick steps to embrace her son. When she pulled back, she looked up into his handsome face and placed a gentle hand on his cheek. “You know what? You were right about one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your father couldn’t measure up to the man you are today. You’ve always been so smart, and I’m proud of you for that. But just be careful, you hear me? Your father may have been a lot of things, but I would be lying if I told you I didn’t love him until the day he died. That’s a pain that I don’t want to relive, understand?”

  “I got you, Mama,” he said. “Ain’t nothing gon’ happen to me.”

  He left her house and started toward his own home not too far down the way when he felt his phone going off. He almost ignored it, but something told him to see who was calling. When he looked, he saw that the caller ID read “Bakery.” He raised his eyebrow. It was too late for anyone to be there, and he doubted that his sister was there.

  “Hello?”

  “Klax! Klax, i-it’s me, Jasmine. Please help me. They h-have guns.”

  He sat up straight in the driver’s seat when he heard the fear in her voice.

  “Who? Who has guns?”

  “I don’t know. T-they told me to—”

  “Gimme this shit,” Klax heard a voice in the background say before someone else got on the phone. “What up, bitch-ass nigga?”

  “Yo, who the fuck is this?” Klax barked.

  “Come find out for ya’self,” the voice said. “The deal is you show up alone and willingly, and then you take me to your main stash spot.”

  “You must be dumb.”

  “Nah, but I know how much your sister loves this little bakery y’all have here. If you don’t show up, we not just gon’ blow it up like we did that theater. We gon’ send this bitch up in flames with the girl in it. You have an hour.”

  Click!

  “Fuck!” Klax bellowed and hit the steering wheel of his vehicle. “Shit!”

  If something happened to Turner’s Bakery, Kleigh would never forgive him. Not only that, but he couldn’t have Jasmine’s blood on his hands. Quiet as kept, she was special to him. Kleigh didn’t know it, but before his father took him completely under his wing, the two of them had a thing. He would have fallen in love with her if he hadn’t fallen in love with the streets first. He always figured he would have time to act on those feelings again, but not until he had the time to settle down.

  He mulled over his options for a few moments before realizing that he only had one. He had to go. Before he pulled off, however, he drove around to the far back of the house to the shed. He got out of the car and used a key on his key ring to undo the lock. He rarely had to go there, but because he wasn’t close enough to his own home, what was there would have to do. He swung the door to the shed open and stepped inside. To anyone else, all they would have seen were the old yard tools his father used to do work with, but Klax looked past all of that. He walked to the back wall and moved a lawnmower and blower out of the way. Placing his hand on the wall, he applied pressure to it and slid it to the side. It was a trick wall that his father had installed to hide what he really kept in the shed: guns, guns, and more guns. Klax loaded up on everything he needed, including a bulletproof vest. He then checked every clip and strapped each firearm to his body before sliding the wall back and locking the shed up again. If it were a storm they wanted, then he would bring a hurricane.

  He went back to his vehicle and sped away from his mom’s house. Klax didn’t have a game plan, but what he did know was that by the end of the night, he would still be the only one who knew where his main stash spot was.

  It took him thirty minutes flat to get to the bakery. He parked in the back alley. He was sure that dude on the phone wasn’t alone, but that didn’t mean anything to him. He’d gone to battle as a lone wolf before and had turned all of his opponents to slaughtered sheep. Positive that the white shirt he wore was going to be stained with the blood of his enemies when h
e was done, Klax got out of the vehicle. As he walked, he screwed the silencer on the pistol in his hand. He eased his way toward the brick building, making sure to steer clear of the surveillance camera. He waited for it to swivel to the other side before he did a dash to the back door of the bakery and entered through the kitchen. The lock had been broken, and Klax figured that was how they’d gotten inside.

  Already prepared for whatever, he wasn’t shocked to see that there was someone standing patrol at that door, but his back had been turned when Klax came in. The man was in all black and whipped around at the sound of someone coming up behind him and tried to reach for his gun. He was too slow. Klax hit him with a quick jab to his esophagus, and when the man choked on his own breath, Klax put a bullet between his eyes. His head snapped back from the clean shot, and Klax caught him before he fell on the counter and lay his dead body down gently. One of the reasons was because he didn’t want to alarm the other intruders, and the second was because he didn’t want to hear his sister’s grief about having a dead man on her counters. He removed the mask from the man’s face and saw that he didn’t recognize him.

  Leaving him where he was, Klax crept through the dark kitchen toward the front of the bakery where he could hear faint voices. He moved as silently as he could until he was able to get a good look at his opponents. They were all hiding in the shadows with their guns drawn, waiting for him to show up. Had he come in through the main entrance of the bakery, they would have surrounded him. He counted four total. One of them had a mask over his face, but his thick, short dreads were sticking straight in the air.

  “Where this nigga at?” Bad Hair said.

  Klax knew instantly that he was the one he’d talked to over the phone. The fact that they were defiling a family business with not only their presence but their thirst to see him dead set him off. Klax aimed his weapon at his first victim, who was hiding behind the cash register.

  Pfft!

  The bullet caught the goon straight in his temple and made the other side of his head smack the register. Knowing he’d given his position away, Klax aimed his gun again and took out the man closest to the front entrance before doing the same to the one hiding underneath a table. Mr. Bad Hair tried to turn around and fire his gun at Klax. The bullet hit him in the chest but was caught by the vest he was wearing. He was so amped up on adrenaline that the power of the bullet barely slowed him down. Before the goon could fire again, Klax punched him once in the jaw, knocking him back. Klax then grabbed him by the wrist and twisted it as hard as he could.

  “Aah!” the goon shouted.

  The gun in his hand dropped to the floor, but Klax continued twisting until he heard the bone crack. He was still shouting in pain when Klax sent the butt of his pistol smashing into the side of the goon’s head.

  “The fuck was y’all thinking?” Klax said and kicked him in his mouth with the tip of his Jordan 13 when he fell to the ground. “You know who I am, right?”

  “F-fuck you,” the man on the floor stammered with blood pouring from his mouth, and Klax kicked him in the ribs. “Uuugh!”

  “You shot me, little nigga,” Klax said, touching the hole in his shirt. “For that, I’m gon’ grant you a couple of more minutes of life. Tron sent you?”

  “You know who sent me, bitch,” the goon said glaring up at Klax with glossy eyes.

  “I have a good guess,” Klax said. “But I’m looking for confirmation.”

  “You might as well kill me now. ’Cause you ain’t getting shit outta me,” the goon said and broke into a fit of bloody coughs.

  Klax, not one to beg, did as he asked. He pointed the gun down and turned the goon’s head into pastrami. He clenched and unclenched the hand that wasn’t holding the gun. His chest was on fire, but he would have rather the bullet hit there than to put a hole in the bakery wall.

  “Mmmm! Mmmm!”

  He heard the muffled sound of someone coming from the back. He’d almost forgotten about Jasmine and rushed to where the noise was coming from. He found her bound and gagged in the back office. Beads of sweat plagued her forehead, and her eyes had a look of frozen terror in them. When he cut her free, she clung to him and sobbed into his neck. Klax didn’t know what to do, so he just held on to her as tightly as she was holding him.

  “You good, shorty,” he assured her. “Everything is good. I handled that.”

  As she cried, he reached for the phone in his pocket and sent a text to his cleaner team to get there ASAP. He put the phone back and rubbed Jasmine’s back, trying to sooth the fear out of her. He figured right then wasn’t the time to inform her to keep what had happened there that night between the two of them.

  Instead, he decided to take her home. He told her he would take her to get her car in the morning because he didn’t think she was in the right state of mind to drive. Klax helped her to her feet and led her through the kitchen and out the back door. Seeing the busted lock as he passed made him shake his head. It had been the first time in history that someone had been that bold with him. Klax didn’t want to admit it, but Tron’s recklessness made him worried about the mayor’s birthday event.

  “What were you even doing here so late, Jas?” Klax asked her and began to drive off.

  When he pulled out of the alley, he saw a white van pull into it. It had only been about fifteen minutes, but he was pleased to see his people on their jobs. He didn’t care what they did with the bodies of Tron’s people, as long as they got them out of the bakery.

  “I was there late tonight making sure that everything was good for the event tomorrow, and I must have fallen asleep,” Jasmine said, shaking her head. “Next thing I know, I’m waking up to a gun pointed in my face.”

  The visual caused Klax’s jaws to clench. Had he walked in and seen Jasmine’s body on the ground, he didn’t know how he would have felt. His ornery expression didn’t go unnoticed by Jasmine. She reached over and placed a hand on his leg, squeezing it gently.

  “Hey, I’m good, just like you said.”

  “I just keep thinking about what if something had happened to you.”

  “It did, but I’m here,” she said. “On the bright side, it’s nice to know that you still care about me.”

  “I never stopped caring,” Klax said glancing over at her. “You should know that.”

  “Then why—” Jasmine started, but Klax cut her off already knowing what she was going to say.

  “Look what happened tonight. You know why we can’t be together.”

  “We aren’t together, and look what happened tonight,” she shot back, using his own words against him. “I love you, Klax. You know that. Do you understand how hard it is hiding that? Every day, it’s like I’m living a lie. When Kleigh talks about you, I have to pretend like I know nothing about you. When you used to come to the bakery all the time, I had to act like just being in your presence didn’t bother me. And now, you barely come in, and I miss seeing your face. It makes me feel crazy! Do you know how that feels?”

  Klax wanted to do anything and say anything to make the hurt in her voice go away. However, there were no words he could offer to ease the pain she felt because he still couldn’t give her what she wanted. However, he knew how she felt. Being around her, he always felt like an invisible magnetic force was pulling him to her, which was why he had to stop going into the bakery so much. Whenever he had a moment to imagine what life would be like once he could sit and enjoy it, it would always be with her. The hardest thing to do was deny his heart what it desired, but he had to do it one more time.

  “I’m sorry, Jas,” he said finally.

  “Yeah, I bet you are,” she scoffed and crossed her arms. “Just take me home.”

  “You sure you don’t want to come to my spot?”

  “Whoever those niggas were back there didn’t want me. They wanted you. I’ll take my chances in my own shit.”

  They didn’t say another word to each other the rest of the ride to her apartment. Before she got out, she gathered her thin
gs, and Klax watched her. He wanted to tell her to stay, but no changed behavior would immediately follow, so he bit his tongue.

  “I’m still gon’ have somebody come through and post up tonight, OK?”

  “Do whatever it is you feel you gotta do,” she said and opened the door.

  “Don’t be like that.”

  “It’s not me being like anything,” she said and made to get out, but paused. “You know, it’s hard for me to let another man even get close to me.”

  “You got a man?” Klax asked, not hearing any of the other words she said, and she rolled her eyes.

  “No, I don’t, and that’s the problem. I’ve been sitting around for the past two years waiting for you. The moment I think something is getting too serious, I back off, because none of these niggas compare to you. But you know what? I’m done doing that. You made your choice, and I’m finally making mine. I hope the streets keep you warm at night.”

  Without a final word, she slammed the door to the Range Rover and headed for the lit up stairs of her apartment complex. Klax sat there watching her, wishing that it was regret he felt. Because then, he would have gotten out of the car and chased after her. Instead, he did exactly what he said he would and called someone to stand watch over her apartment complex.

  Chapter 8

  “The way they leave tells you everything.”

  —Anonymous

  Adonis

  Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz!

  Adonis ignored the phone vibrating on his office desk. The cushioned desk chair he was sitting in was pushed back and swiveled to the side. His face was to the ceiling as he was relishing a feeling of pure bliss.

  “Oooh, shit, girl. Work that mouth,” he moaned.

  He tightened his grip on the handful of hair he had and guided the young woman’s head up and down on his shaft. He felt her full pink lips mixed with her tongue action sucking and knew that he was close to shooting all of his nut sack down her throat.

  Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz!

  His phone began to go off again, and he tried to ignore it so that he could reach his climax. He grabbed the back of the woman’s head with both of his hands and made it bob quickly until he felt an electric shock shoot through his body.