“I’m pretty sure they’ll bring the rifle down,” she went on. “They’ll have to break it down and wrap it in a coat. They won’t want to carry a big rifle out in the open on the street. It would catch too much attention.”
G-Baby took in a big breath, then let it go, saying, “You’re right. They wouldn’t leave it and wouldn’t carry it out in the open. You’ve learned a lot in the last three years.”
“I hope it’s enough.”
G-Baby chuckled. “Me, too!”
“Add a few minutes to call the elevator and ride it down. All in all, they should take at least ten or twelve minutes to get to the lobby downstairs. How does that feel to you?”
“I think that’s about right,” he said.
Good. He was breathing easier, calmer. “At most, we spent seven minutes getting here. That leaves us with at least three or four minutes.”
“That should be plenty time to get our business done and get out,” he said.
“We’re not leaving immediately.” The elevator smoothed to a stop. “We’re here now. I’ll explain later.”
Michelle stepped out into an empty hall.
“Remember,” she said, “if Jackson and Peters are together, no matter where they are in the room, I take Jackson, you take Peters and we take them soon as we go in. There’s no time for talking or hesitating for anything. If we both cap the same guy, the other one will have time to get one of us. I’m in no mood to get shot tonight.”
Michelle laid her hand on G‑Baby’s forearm. “You can do this, Unc. Just take a deep breath and blow it all out. When you’re ready, we’ll move.”
G‑Baby took in a deep breath, blew it all out, and nodded.
With G‑Baby only a half-step behind, Michelle was the first through the door.
Puhffiitt! Puhffiitt!
Two silenced shots. Two men hit. Two men down.
Jackson and Peters were standing in the middle of the room. Neither man had time to react. Fortunately, they were alone in the office.
G‑Baby started to walk with Michelle toward the two men on the floor.
“No,” she said, “better you keep an eye on the hall. I’ll check these two.”
He went to the door and watched the hall.
Michelle crossed the large office. Peters was dead—one shot, center mass in the chest.
Gut-shot, Jackson tried to crawl away. He stopped when Michelle stepped in front of him.
“Muthafucka,” she said, “how did you know we were on the roof across the way?”
“Fuck you. You’ll never know.”
“Yeah, but you’ll be just as dead if I know or not. Before you go, you need to know who killed your sorry ass. That man standing over by the door? His name’s Gabriel. He goes by G‑Baby. He’s the one who shot Peters dead. He’ll also help me kill your sorry security when they come in. He’s Gabe Jr.’s dad.”
Jackson glanced over at G‑Baby.
“Three years ago, you had Lewis kill Gabe Jr. and my brother, Michael. Now, I’m getting a sister’s revenge on your miserable ass. I already got Lil Rich, Quincy, Lewis, and your dirty cop, Glover. Now we got your man, Peters, here. He’s real dead, like you’ll be in another minute. Then we’ll get Oxford, too.”
Jackson rolled over onto his back and pulled himself upright, leaned against the front corner of his desk, coughed, and blood dribbled down his chin. “You’re the little sister? This is just revenge? How the fuck did you get this far?” He coughed again; more blood.
“Yeah, I’m the little sister. And you? You’re a dead asshole.”
“If you kill me, you’ll never find out who ordered me to set up the move on your brother. And you won’t know who told me about you being on the roof. Kill me, and you’ll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your short life. And it’ll be short, because the people who ordered me to kill your brother will kill you. Kill me and you’ll never find out none of that shit.”
“You’re right about the part where I kill you; that’s definitely happening. The other shit you’re saying about taking orders? Maybe, maybe not. As far as I care, you’re the top man on my list of assholes responsible for killing my brother, so you’re dying here, now. And the sweet part? A guy named Ascia is even paying me to take out you and your crew. Seems like lots of people don’t like you.”
“Ascia? He’s behind this?” Jackson shifted, then coughed. More blood trickled down the corner of his mouth. “You’re working for Ascia? I didn’t expect that.”
“Didn’t expect me to know Mr. Ascia, eh? You’re surprised that he sent me. Does that mean you’re working for him, too? Is he the one who told you to look for me across the way?”
“Who I work with is none of your fuckin’ bidness, except they’re gonna come after you for this. What’re you doing working with Ascia?”
Michelle smirked. “Now you’re just trying to keep me talking, hoping your man Oxford will come up on us and save your sorry ass. Won’t happen that way. We know where he is and when he should get here. We have a few minutes yet.”
Jackson narrowed his eyes at Michelle and coughed again.
“We came at you when we saw him on the roof across the way, you arrogant dick. Did you really think we’d run off because you’re so bad and we’re scared like some baby‑g with no stripes? You don’t have the brains to think we’d come at you real fast. Now you’re dead, and you know it was me and G‑Baby who killed you.”
Jackson started to speak. She ignored him.
“Uncle G.” Michelle nodded for him to join her. “Time for this worthless piece of shit to die.”
Puhffiitt! Puhffiitt!
Two shots hissed; one from G‑Baby’s gun, the other from Michelle’s.
“As good as that is, we’re not done yet,” Michelle said. “Oxford and his buddy will be here soon. Our next move will be out in the hall.”
“What’s the plan?” G-Baby asked.
Michelle picked the lock on the office door across the hall. “It’s open. Lock Jackson’s door.”
G‑Baby quickly, quietly, locked and closed Jackson’s office door.
“When they walk past to go into Jackson’s office, we step out and take their asses down. I’ll go first; you come fast behind me. I’ll shoot left; you shoot the guy on the right. Not much of a plan, but they won’t be ready for us. If we move fast, they’ll be down before they even get their guns out.”
“Got it. I shoot fast and to the right.”
“Yeah. Fast is good; accurate is better.”
From inside the office down the hall and across from Jackson’s, Michelle heard the cop, Gerard, talking with Oxford out in the corridor.
“Mr. Jackson’s gonna be real interested in this rifle we found.” They walked past the door.
“On the count of three,” Michelle mouthed and held one finger up at a time. One, two, three. Together they burst out behind the two men who, almost to Jackson’s door, were about ten feet away. They spun around, grabbing for their guns, but not fast enough.
Puhffiitt! Puhffiitt!
Two shots fired. Two men hit.
Oxford, dead.
Gerard, gut-shot.
Gerard jerked up his gun—
Puhffiitt!
—and Michelle shot him in the arm. The gun clattered to the floor, and Gerard slumped back against the wall. His gun sat a few inches past his reach.
Michelle kicked his gun away. “Thanks for bringing my sniper rifle down. You’re right, it’s the one I shot your dirty partner with. Since it’s a cop killer, I have to get rid of it. You know how real cops feel about their own getting killed. Now you know it was me who killed him. And you know how you helped me, by delivering it like a delivery boy.”
“Fuck you, bitch. You’ll never get away with this.”
“You cops are all the same. You think you can do any shit you want and don’t have to pay. Well, you’re wrong. Your partner already paid for his part in killing my brother. Now you’re about to pay. Your price is a little di
fferent—it’s more. You’ll die a dirty cop in disgrace. I’ll let your scumbag partner stay clean so his little boy will get his pension, but your kids are already grown and shouldn’t get a free ride off the taxpayer’s money. They’ll know their daddy was a rotten, drug-dealing, dirty cop.”
“Me being here doesn’t mean shit. Lots of cops work extra security. You can say what you want. Nobody’s gonna listen to a lowlife street bitch from the hood.”
“I don’t need to say shit to nobody. See this?” She held up a half-kilo brick. “It’s smack, and your cop friends will find it on you.”
Michelle leaned over and stuffed the brick inside Gerard’s coat pocket. He tried to push her away but he didn’t have the strength.
“You’re dying with five hundred grams of street heroin in your pocket. You’re a heroin dealer, a disgrace to your family and the police.”
Puhffiitt!
The shot went through the heroin and through his heart.
The world would know he was a dirty cop.
A dead, dirty cop.
Thirty: Family
MICHELLE, DEJA, AND Nikky climbed out of Deja’s car and waited for G‑Baby to park.
G‑Baby joined them on the sidewalk. “So this is the famous Scott’s Diner?”
“Yes,” Michelle said, “and it’s about time you met Scott. Shall we?” She went in first. “Hey, Scott, got a minute?” she called out. “I want you to meet someone.”
“Hey, Michelle.” Scott came over, wiping his hands on a clean towel. “What’s up?”
“Scott, this is my uncle, G‑Baby. Uncle G, Scott. He makes the best breakfast on the whole coast. Does pretty good with lunch, too.”
“Real happy to meet you.” Scott shook hands with G‑Baby. “I’ve gotten to know Michelle, and think she’s the best. I’d say good things about her, even if she wasn’t standing here. It’s an honor to meet some of her family. You guys get seated, and I’ll bring some coffee to get you started.”
“Seems like a nice guy,” G‑Baby said.
“He is, and he’s a good judge of character. Apparently this is—”
“What do you mean by ‘he’s a good judge of character’?” Nikky interrupted.
“Oh, you’ll like this. After I’d been here for about a month, Scott started making comments on my guys. You know, the ones I sent in for takeout breakfast.”
“What guys?” Deja asked.
“The guys who give me some good loving. I send them out to get us something to eat. I’m damn sure not cooking for some guy just because he gave me some good sex. Guaranteed, he got as good as he gave.”
“Oh hell yeah!” Deja bumped fists with Michelle.
“Besides,” Michelle said, “not one of them ever came in my kitchen with a bag of groceries asking, ‘Where’s the frying pans?’ So, I send them down here for takeout.”
Nikky scoffed. “I’d really like to see the guy who cooks breakfast. You find one, grab his ass because he’s a keeper.”
Michelle continued, “Scott figured I was the only sister around for them to be with and after a while, he started saying stuff like, ‘Good guy. Good looking but cheap. He was a punk, dissing the waitstaff.’ Pretty soon, we created ourselves a routine. He tells me what he thinks, and I tell him how I rated the guy based on having spent the night with him.”
“How many are we talking about?” Deja asked.
“Wow, you want details, huh? Well, let’s see … most weeks, there may be a couple. Can’t remember when a week went by and I couldn’t get lucky at least once. I mean, I like sex, and I’m not ready for a steady boyfriend.”
“Not even a GFB?” Deja asked.
Scott interrupted the conversation by taking their orders, then he asked, “What’s a GFB?”
“Don’t look at me.,” Deja said. “He’s your friend, Michelle. You tell him.”
“It means good fucking buddy,” Michelle explained. “Sort of like a friend with benefits, but it’s mostly about the sex.”
Scott grinned and walked off, not saying a word.
“No, I don’t have a GFB,” Michelle said to Deja, “but I met a guy last week who might qualify. I’m thinking of giving him a try.”
“So one, two, maybe even three men, been coming in here most weeks.” Deja bugged her eyes out. “How do you keep them straight?”
“Hey, don’t look at me like that. It’s not that much sex. A woman our age moves in with a guy and they have sex every night. Everybody thinks that’s normal. Hell, if she doesn’t want to do it more than once or twice a week, people say she’s frigid. I get laid two or three times a week, but because I’m not living with the guy, somehow I’m a slut. I mean, really, if I was a guy, would we even have this conversation? It doesn’t make sense, if you ask me.”
“Damn skippy!” Nikky said.
“I think I need to go outside and buy a newspaper,” G‑Baby said. “Didn’t I see a store up the street a short ways?”
“Yeah,” Michelle said, “but there’s a paper rack right outside the diner.”
“Nah, I’m going to walk to the store. If I’m lucky, you’ll finish discussing your sex life before I get back.” G‑Baby headed for the door.
“I’m not ready for a real boyfriend,” Michelle went on. “I’ve been with some pretty good guys, but none of them have been keeping material. Not keeping forever, anyway. I figure if I’m not interested in keeping him forever, why keep him for a little while? Why waste our time? I’d like to fall in love as much as the next girl, but with this business of Michael and Gabe Jr. hanging over my head, I couldn’t let go and do that. Maybe now, that can change.”
Scott delivered their lunches just as G‑Baby returned with his paper.
“Y’all finished so a man can eat his lunch?” G‑Baby asked.
“Your timing’s perfect. We’re all done. While you were gone, we all decided to become nuns.” Deja batted her eyelids at him.
“I could only wish!”
“Uncle G, on the way over here, Nikky asked me a question I don’t know how to answer. You have the most experience watching the streets change, so maybe you can help her out.”
“What’s that?”
“With Lewis and Jackson gone,” Nikky said, “what will happen in the hood?”
G‑Baby blinked several times and looked off in the distance for a moment. “Well … the next few months will be a bad time to be in the street life. The police and coroner will probably be busy for a while. I’ve seen the leadership change a couple times and it was pretty bloody. My guess is, we’ll see a lot more drive-bys and turf wars; a bit of a mess in general.”
“Do you really think that will happen?” Michelle asked.
“Yes, unless one of the lieutenants is strong enough to take over, like in that movie with Denzel. But I don’t think so. It’s not like I know any of the players, or want to know them. What I’ve seen in the past has always been bloody. Young fools get all riled up and stupid, running the streets, shooting and … well, it could be ugly for a while.”
“All of that makes sense,” Nikky said. “But really, I’m sorry I asked. That’s pretty depressing, even for the hood.”
“Who knows? Maybe somebody strong enough will step up and keep the lid on things. We can only hope. There’s a lot more good people in the hood than bangers and thugs. In time, it’ll work out.”
“Yeah, but it’s the in-between times that scare me,” Nikky said.
“Yup, that’s the problem, all right. Now, I’ve got a question for you,” G‑Baby said to Nikky.
“What’s that?”
“When did you become a big thinker who worried about big social issues?”
“Ever since Michelle came home and brought these issues to my attention,” she said.
“Well, I don’t know much about big social issues,” Deja put in, “but I do know y’all are ruining my lunch with all of this talk about who’ll do what to who. It’s not like any of us will have anything to do with that stuff.”
&n
bsp; “I agree.” Nikky nodded, holding up her hands. “I don’t plan on being involved in any kind of craziness. But I’m also not moving over here where the rent’s four times what I pay now and twice as far from my job. Unfortunately, that keeps me in the mix, and G‑Baby’s shop is dead in the middle of the action. We’re gonna be there if we want to or not. What happens when that stuff kicks off?”
“Dive for cover when the shooting starts,” G-Baby said. “That, and have lunch here at Scott’s on a regular basis.” He held up his remaining sandwich. “This pastrami is pretty good.”
Surrounded by people she loved, Michelle leaned back in her chair, looked around the diner, and let out a long, deep breath. Her shoulders relaxed slightly, and much to her surprise, the slight tension in her stomach, once a constant part of her for over three years, slowly melted away. The smile at her lips crept into her eyes.
“What’re you smiling about?” Nikky asked.
“Just how good it feels to be here with all of you and to finally have a Sister’s Revenge.”
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Sister's Revenge: Action Adventure Assassin Pulp Thriller Book #1 (Michelle Angelique Avenging Angel Assassin) Page 19
