The red-bottom shoes were talking, loud, saying I’m a badass bitch, and the way she was wearing the red short dress proved it. Though Sticks was the one who had shelled out the cash for it, there was no doubt that she owned that baby. The confidence came from Sticks when she locked eyes with him. He didn’t have to say it, but the look on Sticks’s face when she came downstairs co-signed that she was about to knock the city of Miami dead.
Club Liv was the trendiest club on the East Coast, housed inside the famous Fontainebleau Hotel. On Sunday nights, even the biggest of the ballers needed reservations to get in. Valet parking looked like it could’ve been a set for the ultimate Cash Money Records video. Only MEGA ballers popped up unannounced, flashes from the paparazzi’s cameras reflecting off their heads as they tried to sneak in unnoticed, which was damn near impossible.
Lolah had done as she was told, dressed to impress. The red dress was made with a low neck and no back. The material hugged her body like a convict serving life held his wife during the conjugal visits. And her shoes were killing it. The way she walked in the six-inch heels made her ass sit up like a baby in a high chair.
“Are you sure we are going to be able to get in?” Lolah asked Sticks as they were standing in the lobby with the rest of the crowd. Sticks, wearing a mocha-colored two-piece Armani with matching slip-on Ferragamo gators, complemented her ensemble like Godiva chocolate on big red strawberries.
“Don’t doubt me, baby, just stand by my side,” he said. “Trust me.” He smiled, and said in a flirtatious way, “That’s all I want from you.”
“You can always count on me,” she said, batting her long eyelashes. She reached for his hand and gripped it tight.
When Lolah recognized a rapper with dreads get turned away, she got worried. If he couldn’t make it to the other side of Liv’s doors, how would they be able to? she wondered.
Once they reached the entrance she caught a look over by the bouncer. His back was wide enough to park a small car on it. “How’s it hanging, Sticks?” Right away, the oversized bouncer embraced Sticks with a brotherly handshake.
Sticks answered, “That’s between me and your girlfriend.” He looked to be serious as a heart attack; then he let out a small smirk. “You know how I do.”
Unfazed by the shot, the bouncer said, “That’s why I don’t put rings on their fingers, ’cause of players like you.” He patted Sticks on the back, and just like that they were inside.
A hostess who Sticks addressed as Claudette asked him if she wanted her to lead them to the good spot. She flirted with him as if Lolah wasn’t standing there. She had no idea why this girl was getting under her skin. Sticks wasn’t her man yet, but if Sticks had been Lolah’s boyfriend, she may have checked the chick with a bitch-these-Louis-bout-to-be-up-your-ass look. But because their relationship was completely platonic, she let it fly.
“If you don’t mind, honey.” Sticks smiled like he and Claudette were close friends. “You can show me where Carlos is seated.”
Claudette gave Lolah a quick, appraising glance before addressing Sticks. “Carlos is expecting you?”
He nodded, then said, “He will be, when I see him.”
Claudette led the way with her ass swaying provocatively to the beat to a 2 Chainz cut, “All I want for my birthday is a big booty girl,” to Carlos’s table. Lolah couldn’t believe how big the girl’s butt was; she sucked it up that it must have had to be a product of butt shots. Carlos sat at a table near the rear of the club. He was sitting alone texting on his iPhone, with a bucket of champagne on his table.
He happened to look up and noticed them. “Sticks.” The man they had come to see stood up and acknowledged them. “Long time no see.” He gave him a brotherly hug. “Man, where you been?” It was apparent that he was happy to see Sticks.
“Here, there, all around.”
Carlos’s eyes quickly settled on Lolah. “Who is your friend?” he asked right away, looking her up and down.
Carlos was extremely handsome, Lolah thought. He had a full head of thick curly black hair, straight white teeth, and a slight Spanish accent. He was dressed to the nines, jewelry was big with lots of shiny diamonds.
“My name is Lolah,” she said, holding out her hand.
Sticks was surprised when Carlos took her hand, turned it over, and kissed the back. “Indeed, the pleasure is all mine.” Then he looked at his phone; there was a call coming in. He sent it to voice mail and asked Sticks to have a seat. “Maybe you can enlighten me on how many tickets one has to scratch to hit the lottery of this magnitude.”
Sticks blushed.
Carlos’s eyes flashed back to Lolah, lingered a second before turning to Sticks. “Clearly you are the lucky winner of the big prize.”
Sticks joked, “If I had all your bread, I’d burn all mine.”
At least Lolah thought he was joking anyway.
When they set down in the booth with Carlos, Claudette appeared with two additional glasses, then disappeared again, but without shooting Sticks another one of her come-fuck-me smiles.
Bitch!
Sticks told Carlos that he and Lolah were only good friends, “like family.” He said, “But by no means does that mean she’s available to you. I didn’t bring her here as a gift to you. I brought her for business reasons, playboy.”
“Business?” He seemed so confused. Then he looked at his phone and sent it to voice mail again and the same number continued to call back-to-back and he didn’t bother to answer.
Sticks continued, “That’s right,” he said, “she wants to go into business and I told her you’d be a good ally.” Lolah watched Carlos closely, the same way she did her opponent when playing cards, just like her father had taught her, looking for tales of deception. Carlos’s eyes bounced from hers to Sticks, from Sticks to hers, then back to Sticks.
“You pulling my leg, right?” Carlos seemed amused at the notion of going into business with a woman. “Why would a pretty girl like her want to get in such a dirty business?”
The bastard may have been cute, Lolah thought, but he was also a chauvinist.
Sticks explained, “I haven’t even told you which business she’s interested in.”
Carlos squinted his face as if he were in physical pain. “But all business is ugly, especially the ones I deal in.” He added, “Definitely no place for a woman.”
Lolah pulled out all of her chips and placed them in the pot. She spoke up for herself, “It’s simple.” She crossed her legs. “I want to bootleg cars. I don’t need a babysitter or your money as any kind of investments. I have my own money, and plenty of it. So, I don’t need no handouts. But . . .” she paused for a second and let her eyes meet Carlos’s. “I do want your services. If I can get them, I’ll be grateful. In return, I’ll give you my loyalty, and I assure you my loyalty is something that can’t be wavered or brought. I promise at the end of the day to make you enough money for you to appreciate and respect me.” Placing her hands on the side on his thigh, she said, “You feel me?”
Through his pants, Carlos’s body temperature rose, and Lolah was sure it wasn’t the only thing on his body that was going up.
“Maybe we can do some business,” Carlos said, “but”—he put his finger up—“on a trial basis. Give me a day or so to stew over the . . . uh . . . proposition, and I’ll get back to you. Is this to your satisfaction?”
Sticks couldn’t believe what had just transgressed. No one ever demanded anything from Carlos, especially not a woman and a woman he had never seen or knew nothing about. Lolah smiled seductively knowing that he’d see things her way.
“I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
“Let’s all have a drink—enough of this business talk, si?”
Carlos filled their glasses and proposed a toast. “To friends over business.”
They all touched glasses and took a sip of twelve-hundred-dollar-a-bottle expensive grapes.
10
Nobody Likes a Greedy Bitch
In a matter of days, Sticks turned Lolah on to major buyers of stolen cars, one in Russia and the other in Argentina. Dealing with Lolah was like Burger King: a buyer could have it any way they wanted—make, model, interior color, features, and everything. If her clients wanted it, she got her guys to go get it for her. Everything was working out; the supply and demand were leveling out.
Though things were pretty much intact, she wanted to figure out a way that she could eliminate the middleman on the shipping end. The only problem was the logistics, out of the country. But the beauty of any business was one step at a time, she reminded herself. She was already getting well ahead of herself, before venturing into large overseas markets; she first needed to get her money up in the States. So she started with shipping cars over to the Bahamas, but she couldn’t resist the Russian’s money because it was always long and right.
She had only been in business a little over two months, and her profit alone was already tripling the paper she left Richmond with. She was off to a better than decent start and able to rent out an office space near the beach. She could tell that Sticks was impressed with her negotiating skills and business acumen. In addition, she felt like she was in her element. It was something about making that money and keeping busy that made her think less about home, especially since she had touched base with her father and he was okay. But most of all, he was most proud that she was surviving, eating good, and enjoying her life in the land of the free.
In Mickey’s eyes, that was all any father could really ask for. He knew he’d made the right decision in sending her to Florida. Matteo and Sticks owed him—harboring a fugitive was a small favor in return for the pain they’d caused all those years ago when they lived in Virginia. That’s one of the reasons Mickey tried to talk to Peaches about her growing attachment to her new family.
“I know they treating you real well, but I don’t want you to get too attached,” Mickey told Peaches during one of his calls.
“Why do you say that? Aren’t they your friends from back in the day?” For Peaches, Mickey’s caution was coming a bit too late. She had already caught feelings for Sticks and knew he felt the same way. They hadn’t burned up the sheets yet, but it was only a matter of time.
All Mickey would say was, “We got history that’s both good and bad. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
But not everyone wanted Peaches to be happy. That was evident by the text message left on her phone just this morning:
NOBODY LIKES A GREEDY BITCH EATING RIGHT OFF THEIR PLATE. BE CAREFUL NOT TO CHOKE!
Lolah wasn’t intimidated, but she wasn’t stupid either. With her vision and ambition, she knew that she’d be stepping on someone’s toes. After all, both Sticks and Carlos had warned her about this from the beginning. She had no idea that he would take notice of her this early in the game! Also, she was thoroughly impressed that he was able to get her number and contact her.
From day one, she researched her competition in depth. There were lots of car thieves, a few small timers, who stole cars, chopped them, and sold the parts. But the only big-time player buying and selling high-end cars in volume was Pablo. Pablo had a reputation for being an asshole with a serious mean streak. From the information Lolah gathered, he seemed to have more bark than bite, but that didn’t mean Pablo wasn’t to be taken seriously. She had learned at a young age, never sleep on an enemy and especially never underestimate their capabilities.
Lolah had a crazy morning already. Everything that could go wrong was going wrong, and to top it all off, she had a bad case of cramps and wasn’t really in the mood for the excuses, no’s, or any bullshit, but if she were a toilet, she was stopped up from the shit going on in her business.
She sat at the desk, with her legs crossed and the phone on speaker. “What do you mean the cars are gone?”
“Nothing personal, Lolah. But I got a better offer for the Vette,” Dean said.
“What about the six Benzs you said you would get for me?” she asked him, knowing in her gut that he didn’t have those either, but she so wanted to be wrong.
“They gone too,” Dean said.
“They gone too?” she asked, not expecting or allowing him to answer. “Really?” She shook her head as if he could see her through the phone.
He and Lolah had made a deal for twenty cars a week at 7k each. Dean and his crew were beasts at circumventing alarms and snatching whips, but obviously not very keen on loyalty. “Maybe next time I will do better,” Dean suggested.
Dean had been the second supplier today that had reneged on a deal; it was crystal clear what was going on. Pablo had paid a better price for them not to sell to her. But what Pablo didn’t know was she was a master at cards, and he wasn’t the only one who could deal from the bottom. First she would deal with Dean since he was on her radar right then. “I tell you what I’m going to do,” she said confidently, as if she was in a position to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse. “I’m going to put Pablo’s ass out of business, for starters”—she took a sip of her cappuccino and then started speaking firmly again—“and when you come begging for someone to sell your merchandise to, I’m going to tell you to drive them up your fat ass. Mark my words.”
“Why you acting like that, Lolah? It’s only business, like I said. It’s nothing personal with you. In fact, I like you.” He was trying to hedge his bets by playing both ends to the middle.
Lolah quoted a line that she liked from Scarface, “All you have in this world is your word and your balls.” She added: “I suggest you use plenty of spit the next time you suck on Pablo’s.”
She disconnected the phone call angrily. She knew she now had to step up her game.
Sticks walked in her office staring at her, smiling. “I’d hate to be on your bad side,” he said. “Take it easy, Dr. Jekyll, or are you Mrs. Hyde today?”
Lolah punched him on the shoulder. “Ha. Ha, Mr. Funny Man. Let’s let go eat before boobirds come out and start to try to crap on ya.”
They headed to lunch and as soon as she got to the restaurant, she realized that she had left her phone in the car. She ran to the car to get the phone lying on the seat of the car. As she about to cross the street to head back inside, she was checking the call log, and she happened to look up. That’s when she noticed a black SUV speeding in her direction. Her first thought was it was the police who had finally caught up with her. If she didn’t know better she thought it was coming directly for her. And it was. It was a good thing she had great reflexes and darted out of the way of the fast-moving vehicle.
11
Wanted: Hard-Body Goons
Lolah was so pissed it was difficult to think straight. Not only had the driver of the SUV attempted to run her over, he caused her to ruin her new Giuseppes.
Sticks asked her to take it easy and gave her a bottle of water. “Thank you.” Lolah plopped down on the plush sofa. Matteo was out taking care of something or another; she and Sticks had the house to themselves. Sticks was trying to be objective. He said, “What if it really was an accident? The man driving the truck might have been drunk or texting.”
“And a reindeer may really be able to fly when nobody’s looking,” she shot back. “The driver of that truck tried to kill me or make me believe that he was trying to kill me. It was as simple as that.”
Sticks twisted the cap off of his own bottle of water and took a sip. “And you think Pablo set it up?” Sticks questioned, “How could he know you would be at that place at that time?”
Lolah didn’t believe in coincidences. “I don’t think, I know Pablo was behind it. Maybe he had someone following me and knows where the office is? That’s not the most important thing concerning me.”
Shaking his head, Sticks said, “You don’t think it’s important to know if someone has been following you?”
“I said, it’s not the most important thing. We can’t change what ‘has been,’ only what’s to come next.”
Sometimes it was hard to believe that Lolah was only twenty
-one, seven years younger than him. She was as smart and cunning as she was gorgeous. A dangerous combination. “I’m almost afraid to ask,” he said, wanting to see where her mind was. “But what’s next?”
An almost giddy gleam shown from her eyes, but it was completely absent from the rest of her face. “Now we are getting somewhere,” she said. “Tell me, how quick can you put your hands on some hard-body goons who can be trusted?”
Like Lolah, Sticks was no virgin to the streets, and had learned its ways at a young age. “You know the flava of the day. Money talks and bullshit walks. Let’s be clear, though, nobody can be completely trusted. That’s something earned and rare. But, yeah, I know a few guys.”
Lolah nodded. “Good enough. I’m trying to buy a goon, not a husband. Complete trust isn’t wholeheartedly required. Just good people who gonna ride for me.”
“I know just the person then.”
“And this is what I have in mind . . .”
12
A Live-Ass Coward
Pablo, the youngest of twelve siblings, escaped Cuba in the oppressive fist of Fidel Castro at the age of seventeen. He journeyed the rough Atlantic Ocean in a boat about the size of a bathtub that almost killed him at least twice. But he overcame the odds, crashing safely on the shores of Miami alive. Bruised, battered, and broke, but alive. That was twenty years ago and today Pablo had done pretty well for himself. He owned two homes and a couple of boats. Real boats. Nothing like that piece of driftwood he escaped from back in the day. These were 75- and 90-foot vessels. He also held the reins to four warehouse-style garages, where he stored and managed his inventory of stolen cars. Pablo spent most of his time in a small, yet lucrative, chop shop a few blocks away from the American Airlines arena. That’s where he was this evening, in a tiny office nestled in the back of a chop shop. A continual racket from all the air tubes and hydraulic lifts filled the shop dirty. Pablo liked the noise; noise meant money was being made, and he loved dinero.
Most Wanted Page 15
