by J. L Rose
“Either deal with dude or I will, Lieutenant!” Dante told her, noticing she was watching him.
“Dante, calm down!” Lewis told him as she walked over to the group. “Don’t do anything that will draw any more attention to you, like killing a police officer!”
“I can deal with it!” Dante replied, remembering Monica’s ex-DEA husband. “Just deal with him or I will!”
“Dante!”
Dante heard his name and looked behind him to see his mother and Lisa, and Eddie in a wheelchair being pushed out of the hospital. Dante left Alinna and Yasmine and walked over to his mother and cousin while ignoring Lisa’s mean mug she was giving him as he stopped beside Eddie’s chair.
“What’s up, youngin’? How you feeling?”
“How the hell do you think he’s feeling?” Lisa asked with an attitude, rolling her eyes at Dante while mumbling something nasty under her breath.
Dante ignored his cousin and squatted down beside Eddie.
“Youngin’, it’s my fault this shit happened to you. I should have had you some backup out there other than the team you had with you.”
“It’s nothing!” Eddie replied, hearing Lisa sucking her teeth. He ignored his girl and continued, “Hey, I heard about how you handled that nigga Gator. Good looking out, my nigga!”
“I want you to get better,” Dante told him. “Once you’re ready, I got a team for you that’ll watch ya back and hold shit down for you.”
“Hold up!” Lisa yelled. “Eddie isn’t about to—!”
“Lisa, chill!” Eddie told her, raising his voice while cutting her off. “You need to let me deal with this!
Lisa sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes as she walked off and headed across the parking lot to Eddie’s car.
Eddie shook his head while watching her. He looked back at Dante and saw the expression on his face. “It’s cool, Dante, my nigga! She’ll be a’ight once I’m outta this chair, but I’ma get at you once I’m back on my feet.”
Dante shook up with Eddie and then turned to his mother and gave her kiss on her cheek. “I’ll see you later, Momma!” he said.
“Alright, baby!” Brenda replied, smiling as she watched her son walk back to where both his wives stood with their friends.
* * *
Dante spoke with Lieutenant Lewis a few minutes as he listened as she promised to keep a watch on Detective Howard. He then gave his keys to Vanessa to drive the Bugatti while he rode with Alinna and Yasmine inside the new Rolls-Royce Wraith he gifted to Alinna. He then glanced over toward his mother as Jung held open the back door of her new Bentley Bentayga. He caught her eye and winked at her, causing her to smile as she climbed into the SUV-model Bentley.
Once the Rolls-Royce left the parking lot, followed by his mother’s Bentley and the security team for Alinna, Dante turned his focus to Alinna. “I spoke with Monica. We’re leaving for Puerto Rico in two days.”
“Angela?” Alinna asked him.
“I gotta finish things with Angela and keep my word I gave to Monica!” Dante said while nodding his head.
“How long you plan on being there, Dante?” Alinna asked with a slight attitude.
Dante caught the attitude and tone of Alinna’s voice, and he realized that his wife had a major problem with him dealing with Angela. Dante then called out to his wife to get her attention. “Relax, shorty! What I have in mind for Angela should have you smiling if nothing else! Relax!” he told her.
“Whatever, Dante! You still didn’t answer my question, nigga!” Alinna told him, rolling her eyes at him.
Dante smirked at Alinna’s attitude, which he felt made her even sexier. He even noticed Yasmine smiling and watching them. He then looked back over at Alinna and answered her question. “We won’t be gone no longer than a month, shorty!”
ELEVEN
Alinna rode with Dante and Monica out to the airstrip so the two of them could make their flight out to deal with Angela, who was hiding out in Puerto Rico. Alinna spoke very little along the way. She still had strange feelings about Dante being anywhere near Angela, who was the mother of her husband’s first child.
Once they arrived at the airstrip, Alinna saw Rafael’s people waiting. She waited until the Rolls-Royce pulled to a stop and Yasmine climbed out of the Wraith. Alinna then climbed out as Dante came walking around from the other side of the car.
“Where’s Monica?” Alinna asked as Vanessa, Amber, and a team of security walked up.
“She’ll be here!” Dante replied while watching Rafael’s boys walk over Angela’s husband, Geno, to him, who looked better than when he last saw the man. “Let your boss know I owe him,” he told Rafael’s boys, handing one of the three guys a rolled knot of cash.
Dante received a nod from the guy he handed the cash to. He then shifted his eyes to Geno after the three Jamaican men walked off.
“Been a long time!” Dante said.
Geno looked up from staring at the ground to meet the one man he hated more than any person alive. He then started to spit into Dante’s face, only to catch a glimpse of something fly past his eyes. Pain exploded from the right side of his face, and he found himself on all fours with blood flowing from his mouth.
“Keep your spit inside of your mouth,” Yasmine told Geno, noticing him working up to spit at Dante.
Dante smirked as he looked over to Yasmine as she stood over Geno, who barely caught her movements before suddenly hitting the ground. Dante heard his name and looked over at Amber pointing at something. He looked in the direction she was pointing to see the metallic-black Benz truck turning onto the airstrip.
“What’s Gomez doing here?” Alinna asked, also noticing the Benz truck.
Dante heard Alinna’s question but chose not to answer her. Instead, he turned back to Geno and told him to get up off the ground, just as Vanessa cried out, “Oh shit! Monica’s fucking Gomez!”
Dante looked back over at the Benz truck to see Monica kissing Gomez. He slowly smirked, already aware of them seeing one another.
“Alright, you two! We gotta get going!” Dante stated.
Alinna looked at her husband and heard how calm he sounded and saw the smirk on his face. She balled up her face and stared at him.
“You knew about those two, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Maybe!” Dante replied, winking his eye at Alinna and smirking as both Monica and Gomez walked up.
“You ready, boy?” Monica asked playfully, punching Dante in the stomach.
“Yeah!” Dante answered. “You got your handcuffs with you?”
Monica looked over to the guy beside Dante and recognized him as Geno. She pulled out her cuffs and began handcuffing him.
Dante turned back to Alinna as Monica took care of Geno. Dante then kissed Alinna and then Yasmine. “I’ma call once we land in Puerto Rico. Stay out of trouble while I’m gone!”
“You just make sure you don’t make me whoop your ass when you get back!” Alinna told him, kissing him again and then watching as he turned and started toward the G-4 with a smirk after hearing what she just told him.
Alinna watched as Dante and Monica disappeared inside the jet after Geno, and then continued watching until the jet was in the air. She then turned and walked back over to the Rolls-Royce.
“Alinna, are you okay?” Yasmine asked, once she and Alinna were inside the back of the Wraith and leaving the airstrip.
Alinna shook her head and remained quiet a moment while staring out the window. She started to answer Yasmine, just as her phone began ringing. She saw it was Tony T calling on the other line. “Yeah, Tony.”
“Alinna, where’s Dante?”
“You just missed him, Tony. Why?”
“We got a problem. We just got word that this Cuban muthafucka just got in town and is looking for Dante about money that’s owed to him.”
“Money!” Alinna repeated, but began chuckling. “Find out this Cuban’s contact number. I’ll deal with him.”
* * *
&nb
sp; Dante got a little rest on the flight to Puerto Rico, but he spent most of the time talking with Monica and reading over the papers she had on Angela. He then focused most of his attention on what he was reading, but became aware of the jet beginning its descent.
“Dante, we’re close!” Monica announced to him.
Dante was ready once the G-4 landed and the hatch was opened. He escorted Geno off the jet and spotted the sixty-four-inch Maybach waiting with a chauffeur.
“I thought we was going to blend in, Dante?” Monica asked as she, Dante, and Geno started toward the car.
“We are!” he replied in a clueless voice.
“Dante!” Monica said, getting him to look over at her. “How the hell are we supposed to blend in riding in a May-damn-bach?”
After climbing into the back of the Maybach, after nodding to the chauffeur and sitting Geno on the left side, Dante waited until the driver shut the door.
“You wanna start looking for Angela tonight or in the morning?” Dante asked.
“What about him?” Monica asked, nodding over to Geno.
“We can either take him with us or leave his ass at the hotel. Choose!”
Monica shook her head at Dante and then rolled her eyes at him and motioned for the driver to let him know they were going to their hotel. She then looked back at Dante.
“How exactly do you plan on keeping him locked up at the hotel, Dante?”
Dante slowly smiled a demented-looking smirk as he looked over at Monica. “I’m sure you know I can think of a few ways to keep him at the hotel,” Dante said.
“You really are insane, boy!” Monica told him, shaking her head and smiling at him.
* * *
“Hello!”
Alinna heard a thick Spanish accent from the deep voice that answered the phone.
“I was told you were looking for Dante Blackwell concerning the matters of missing money and Fish Man?” Alinna said.
“Who is this?”
“Alinna Blackwell. Dante Blackwell’s wife. What can I do for you, Mr. Francisco?”
“You can do nothing for me, woman! I want to talk to this bastard Dante Blackwell! He owes me a lot of money, and I want to know who do he think he is! This is my city, and this black son of a—!”
“Mr. Francisco,” Alinna spoke up, cutting off the Cuban drug boss, “I’ll say this to you and then I’ll end this conversation: You’re very lucky to be dealing with me instead of my husband, because after the first words of disrespect that spilled out of your mouth, this phone call would have ended and my husband would have been on his way to see you. I am going to say this one last time. This city, as well as New Jersey, no longer belongs to you! These two cities belong to the Blackwell family now. And as for whatever money you mentioned that is owed to you, I think you need to take it as a loss, because neither my husband nor myself will be leaving this city nor will we be paying you anything! It was nice speaking with you and goodbye!”
After hanging up on the Cuban, Alinna looked to the others who were sitting around listening for her to get off the phone.
“What’s up, Alinna?” Dre asked her. “We warring or what?”
“I’m pretty sure this Garcia guy isn’t going to let the way I just spoke to him just slide, so I want everybody on point and ready for anything to happen,” Alinna warned.
“Are you going to let Dante know about this, Alinna?” Natalie asked her, just as Brenda spoke up.
“We all know how my son is. If we tell Dante about this issue, we all know he will be back in New York within hours. My advice is that we not overreact and tell Dante until it’s completely necessary. We should be capable of dealing with this ourselves. Dre, Tony T, and the other men can maintain security, and Yasmine can stay close to Alinna with a team of security. Are we in agreement?”
Alinna stared at her husband’s mother while everyone else sat or stood and waited for Alinna’s response. She sat thinking the whole plan over in her mind, but eventually gave in. “Alright. We can hold off on contacting Dante about this, but everybody needs to stay ready at all times. Period!”
* * *
Alinna finally received the call she was waiting for. She lay in bed with her sleeping son talking to her husband.
“So, how’s everything going there so far?”
“We’ve gone by the address Monica had, but nobody lives there. Monica’s going to look somewhere else. She’s going to contact Nash Johnson back there and have him look into a few things for us as well.”
“You try seeing if Geno knows anything?”
“He won’t talk; and when I was going to make his ass, Monica wouldn’t let me mess with him.”
“So you two basically are just out there with nothing right now, huh?” she asked, watching Natalie walk into the bedroom with baby Damian in her arms.
“Is that Dante?” Natalie asked as she was laying Damian down in his baby bed.
Alinna told Dante to hold on as she handed the phone to Natalie to talk with him. Alinna then picked up her son and carried Dante Jr. from the bedroom to his own room that he shared with Andre Jr. She laid her son down and then covered him and kissed his cheek. Alinna kissed her nephew and left both Dante Jr. and Andre Jr.’s bedroom and headed back to her own bedroom.
While walking back into the bedroom, Alinna saw that Yasmine was now on the phone with Dante. Alinna simply smiled as she walked over to the bed and climbed back inside to lie down. She ended up waiting another five minutes until Yasmine handed her back the phone.
“Yeah, baby!” Alinna said into the phone as she broke out into a smile at the smooth, mildly deep sound of Dante’s voice.
TWELVE
By their fourth day in San Juan, Dante and Monica had looked all over the area, when they finally hit the jackpot, after Nash finally got back to them with two new addresses.
They tried the first of the two addresses, which actually led to a meeting with Angela’s relatives. They met Angela’s mother and two sisters, who instantly recognized him from pictures Angela had shown them. After they spent some time with her family, they made up a lie that he was there to surprise her, and Dante then got them to agree not to say anything to Angela. Dante also came up with a third address and even a phone number. After saying their goodbyes and receiving hugs from Angela’s family, both Dante and Monica walked out to the car.
“So what now?” Monica asked, once they got back inside the Maybach.
“We see how accurate this number is first,” Dante stated as he pulled out the cell phone he bought once in Puerto Rico.
He called the number Angela’s mother gave him and then sat and listened to the ringing until someone picked up on the end.
“Hello!”
Dante instantly recognized Angela’s voice with her Cuban accent he knew so well. Dante then simply hung up the phone and smiled.
“Let me guess!” Monica stated after Dante hung up the phone. “That’s an accurate number, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s accurate,” Dante answered, just as the cell phone rang in his hand.
He looked at the phone screen and saw Brenda was calling him.
“Yeah, Momma!”
“Dante, it’s Vanessa,” she replied. “Dante, it’s Alinn—she’s been kidnapped!”
* * *
Within twenty minutes Dante was already in the air, leaving Monica at the airstrip in Puerto Rico. As Dante made the flight from San Juan back to New York, he tried to remain calm while he thought over and over what Vanessa had told him about Alinna. He wasn’t even aware of his own tears running down his face, and he was too pissed to even care.
Once he landed back in New York, he wasted no time rushing off the G-4, to see Vanessa and Dre waiting for him.
“What the fuck happened to my wife?” he barked as he walked up to the Hummer.
Vanessa and Dre kept quiet and just stared at him.
“I don’t give a fuck what happened! But I promise if anything happens to Alinna, I’ma murder the muthafucka
responsible and then each muthafucka that knew about this bullshit and allowed it to happen! Now get me the fuck outta here!” Dante said.
* * *
Alinna slowly opened her eyes, but she had problems seeing out of her left eye. She tried to reach for her face, but she quickly realized she could not since she was tied to a chair. She looked around with her good eye and saw she was in a dimly lit room. She then thought how cold she seemed to feel, and only then did she realize she was completely naked.
Alinna remembered the young woman who was responsible for her being in her current situation. She then promised herself that if she got out of the mess, she was going to kill the woman who had set her up.
Alinna heard the room door being unlocked and tried to look over with her good eye. She saw the door open and in walk a six-foot-one, 230-pound Cuban man. He was followed by a woman, who was the one responsible for setting her up. They were followed by a middle-aged Cuban man wearing a gray suit.
“I see you’ve finally decided to wake!” Garcia Francisco said, smiling down at Alinna. “I was beginning to tire of waiting on you. But since you’re awake now, maybe we can finish our conversation we were having before you rudely hung up the phone on me!”
“How about you kiss my ass!” Alinna told the Cuban drug boss before looking over at the woman. “And as for you, I will kill you, bitch! You have no idea who the fuck you crossed! I will kill you myself!”
Alinna barely finished what she had to say when the big man on her left open-hand slapped her across the face, sending both blood and spit flying. Alinna could taste the blood in her mouth, but she smiled as she looked at the big man.
“I’ll make sure I personally introduce you to my husband. I’m sure Dante will love to know who’s responsible for my face looking like this!”
“Where is this Dante Blackwell?” Garcia Francisco spoke up again.
Alinna looked back at the Cuban and slowly smiled. “I’ll give you a clue on how to find my husband. Just listen to the screaming, since I’m sure he knows who’s crossed his family!”
