Goodfellas Page 8

“Yes, ma’am. They’re in apartment 205—Ahh! They shooting! They shooting! Please hurry!”

  Click!

  She put her phone back in her clutch.

  “Genius!” Lee Lee said.

  “This is only the beginning,” Faye said, standing to her feet. “I need to ask you something before they get here.”

  “What’s up?”

  “When you did what you did to get the disk, did you check for cameras?”

  Lee Lee’s eyes widened, and she inhaled sharply. She opened her mouth to apologize, but Faye shook her head.

  “It’s OK. Everything happened so fast. But I don’t think you can stay here anymore. Go grab as much shit of yours and Jaymar’s that you can. Y’all may have to come and live with me. I’m sorry for bringing you into this, Lee Lee. You got shit to lose.”

  “Yea,” Lee Lee said and stood up, embracing Faye. “You. Where I’m from, we ride for our friends. Jaymar will be OK with my sister for a few more days. Shit, I’ve kept her son for weeks at a time. I’ll be right back.”

  Faye waited for Lee Lee as she rummaged around her house trying to throw as many things as she could into a suitcase. Every once in a while Faye would look out the window in the living room to make sure the police hadn’t arrived yet. She didn’t want to be there when they did.

  “Lee Lee, we need to go!” she called.

  “I’m ready!” Lee Lee ran from the back rooms with a large duffle bag over her shoulder and pulling two suitcases.

  “OK, we’re out,” Faye said, taking one of the suitcases. “No regrets.”

  Chapter 10

  Kayden

  The vein on his right temple always bulged when he was worried. Mentally, he was flooded, and it showed all over his face. From the moment he woke up that morning he received nothing but bad news. Sunday was supposed to be the Lord’s Day, but for him, it had the devil written all over it.

  “What the fuck?” he said out loud to himself as he stood in the kitchen of his condo watching the news.

  He had been leaning up against the marble island in the center of his large, modern-styled kitchen, eating a bowl of Cap’n Crunch when the breaking news story hit the big screen. Supposedly, an anonymous drug bust had happened the night before that had led to several arrests. He didn’t become alarmed until the cameraman showed a shot of the King’s Court apartments, and the news lady said that was where the bust had gone down.

  “We don’t know the names of all who were involved in last night’s arrest,” the blond woman said, “but we do know that officials recovered at least $20,000 in drugs and money. More on this story when we come back.”

  Kayden was in shock. He was so stunned that his mouth was open, and the spoon in his hand was frozen a centimeter away from his lips. He couldn’t believe it. The spoon dropped back into the bowl with a loud clank, and his hands balled into fists. Making his way back into his room, he snatched his phone from off of the nightstand by his bed and dialed the first person that came to mind.

  “Yo, no heads-up?” his voice came out gruff and angry.

  “There was no time,” Detective Winthrop said in a hushed tone. “They’ve been on me like white on rice all morning. I haven’t had time to call anyone.”

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it!”

  “It’s the truth!”

  Kayden took a deep breath and began to pace the floor in his room. He, of course, had lied when he told Jayden that he hadn’t been trapping out of Kitten’s apartment. And, of course, Jayden had seen right through the bullshit. What Kayden hadn’t done was shut down the operation when Jayden had asked him to. After all, the only man that he answered to was their father, and the last time he checked, Jayden wasn’t him. However, right then, he was regretting that situation. If the dope and money were tracked back to him, it would be a bad thing for them all. As much as he hated to admit it, Jayden had been right.

  “What all do they know?” he asked.

  “Nothing yet. None of the men arrested are saying anything. And that girl you got seems pretty solid. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “You know how shit goes once the interrogation really starts. Do you think they’re going to hold up when they realize how much time they’re facing?”

  Kayden wanted to say yes, but in actuality, he did not know. Dino, Flex, and Tony had been riding with him since he left Chicago. He’d met them while he was there, and they were the most solid and thoroughbred niggas around. But then again, everybody was that way when he was up up. What about when he was down? Would they talk to the feds once they got hit with them years? His paranoia told him no, and to get rid of the problem.

  “I’ma handle it. I got some people. This shit can’t touch my dad’s front door, do you understand that?”

  “Kayden—”

  “What am I paying you for?” Kayden barked. “My involvement in this shit needs to be nonexistent. And what’s this shit about an anonymous call?”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “That apartment complex . . .”

  “What about it?”

  “Remember that little ‘situation’ we had awhile back?”

  “You gotta be more specific than that, Winthrop.”

  “With the letter that you intercepted. The one that was supposed to go to your father.”

  “Yea. I handled that.”

  “Maybe not. The woman and her daughter lived in the King’s Court apartment complex before the mom was—died.” The detective caught himself. “So, are you sure nobody knew what you were doing up there? We tracked the number of the anonymous caller from last night.”

  “And?”

  “The phone number is registered to a Faye Jackson. The same name as the daughter.”

  Kayden’s jaw flexed again, and he disconnected the phone. It took him all of five minutes to get completely dressed and be out the door. Knowing it might not have been a good idea, his anger had the best of him, and he drove by the King’s Court apartment complex. All he saw was yellow tape and squad cars. There was no way that he was going to make it into that building.

  “Shit!” he said and hit the steering wheel of his Mercedes hard with his palms. “Shit shit shit!”

  On the way down there, he’d called in a favor to someone, so he knew that the situation with his people in jail would be handled. Even Kitten. Yea, shorty had some good top and could fuck him good, but so could the next slide. She had to go. No loose ends. She would be handled the same way Chrishelle had been.

  Without trying to, his mind went back to the day he found the unopened letter on his father’s desk. He had been outside of Greyson’s office, waiting for the cleaning lady to do her thing. Her name was Tami, and she’d been cleaning the building for almost a year. She was young and had a pretty, innocent face. Her hair was usually in a pulled back ponytail, and whenever Kayden saw her, she was in her work attire. She didn’t know that he was there, and he almost missed it, but when she pulled out the envelope slyly from her pocket and set it on the desk, it was the most curious thing. When she left, Kayden made like he’d just gotten there so she wouldn’t be alarmed.

  “You always do the best job with my father’s office. Thank you, Tami,” Kayden flashed her his charming smile. “Take the rest of the day off, why don’t you?”

  “Oh no,” Tami shook her head. “Mr. Vincent likes me to clean every office in this building the same way I do his, and his is the first stop of the day! Thank you, though, Mr. Kayden. Have a good one.”

  With that, she bustled away. It was obvious that she did not want to stay around there for too long. What was more obvious was that, even when he wasn’t around, Greyson’s power was. Kayden watched Tami swish away down the hallway of his father’s Fortune 500 marketing company before he entered the big office space. He had to admit it, his father was living every boy in the hood’s dream. He’d figured out the perfect way to blend the street life that was embedded in his DNA and the cor
porate life that everyone wanted him to live. The marketing company that was, of course, named Greyson Enterprises, was his biggest accomplishment. When he first started, it was worth about $100 million. Since then, it had grown to five times that.

  Curiosity got the best of him, and he picked up the envelope that Tami had snuck in there. The two words on the outside of the envelope had been written with a fine hand. They said simply “From Chrishelle.”

  “Chrishelle? Who is Chrishelle?”

  At first, he didn’t open the letter, thinking that she was one of his father’s ladies of the night. Then again, why would she feel the need to pay a maid to sneak in a letter if that was the case? Why not just send it in an edible arrangement or something to flatter the old man? His finger acted before his mind told it to, and soon enough, he had the typed up letter in his hands and was reading out loud.

  “Dear Greyson,

  As you know, I have been caring for your child since she was ten years old. You know, the child that you threw to the side as if she was nothing? The third child that nobody knows about. I’m sure there are many blogs and magazines that would love to get their hands on a story about how their dear Mr. Vincent left his child for dead in an orphanage when he had more than enough means to take care of her. What kind of dent would that put in your pockets, huh? But for a price, I am willing to keep my mouth shut. I want $5 million. Faye, who you know as Regret, is a good woman. She is smart, beautiful, and compassionate. She has deserved much more than what life has thrown her way. The least that you can do as her father is give her a decent future, and you will never have to hear from us again. My number is at the bottom of this letter. Please contact me at your earliest convenience.”

  He had to read the letter two more times to get a real grip on the words. Third child? But when? Had Greyson stepped out on their mother a long time ago? Is that why this Chrishelle woman was trying to get money?

  He looked in the envelope and saw that there was another folded up piece of paper inside of it. When he pulled it out and saw what it was, he had to take a seat in his father’s chair. It was a birth certificate certifying the birth of a woman named “Regret You Vincent.” A woman who had the same date of birth as he and his brother, and it wasn’t fake. He saw both his mother and father’s signatures at the bottom of the certificate. He checked the time of her birth and saw that she was born two minutes after Jayden. He knew that his mother had died shortly after child birth, and it was always something that Greyson refused to talk about. Now he knew why. He and Jayden weren’t twins.

  He spent the rest of the afternoon doing his best research on Chrishelle and Regret. Money talked, and his connections went a long way in New York. In an hour’s time, he found out that Regret had lived in St. Peter’s orphanage since the time she was born and until Chrishelle Jackson officially adopted her and changed her name to Faye Jackson. When his informant was giving him their living arrangements, Kayden cut him off and asked for her phone number instead. He wanted a sit-down meeting with her. For once, he might have found some sort of leverage over his father. He didn’t hesitate to call the number he was given as soon as he could.

  “Hello?” a voice sweeter than honey answered on the first ring.

  “Chrishelle.”

  “Greyson?” she asked, and Kayden paused.

  “Yes,” he lied. “I got your letter.”

  “And?”

  “And we need to meet.”

  “For what? You read what I want. We both know that what I say is true.”

  “We need to meet so that I can give you what you want. I don’t need for this type of thing to resurface. Not now.”

  Chrishelle was silent on the other end. He knew she was still on the line because he could still hear her breathing. She was pondering what her next move would be, he could tell, so he helped her make a decision.

  “No funny business. If you are worried about your safety, meet me at my nightclub, tomorrow night. As I’m sure you know, it is busy every night, so there will be eyes everywhere.”

  “OK. Tomorrow night at eight.”

  “Perfect.”

  His father had bailed him out of a sticky situation; now, it was his turn to return the favor. After he told her the address, he went to his own home and removed all of the money from the safe in the floor under his California king bed. The next night came faster than what he would have liked, but he was at the club where he said he would be. It was busting, like it normally was, and everybody seemed to be having a good time. There was a fine shorty on the dance floor that he wanted to holler at, but before he took a step, one of his bouncers patted his shoulder.

  “You have company. Side door,” the bouncer told him.

  Kayden fixed the collar on his suit as he walked through the crowd of people and to the door. He’d told Chrishelle to knock on the side door because he didn’t want her coming through the front. It was too crowded, and she most likely wouldn’t have even gotten a chance to speak to the bouncer up there.

  “Come in,” he said to the casually dressed older woman.

  She was beautiful and wore her hair curly on the top of her head. She put him in the mind of Jada Pinkett back in the day, and it was clear to see that she’d held on to her youth without issue.

  “You look nice,” he complimented her, and she cut her eyes at him.

  “I’m not here for compliments,” she said and looked around. “Kayden . . . Jayden, whichever one you are, where is your father?”

  “Kayden,” he informed her. “And my father wasn’t able to make it tonight, so he sent me instead.”

  “You?”

  “Yes, me. And if you follow me upstairs, I have your payment ready. My father doesn’t need something like this leaking into the media. He just opened another business in California. That’s actually where he’s at tonight. Come with me.”

  He held out his arm, and reluctantly, after looking around a few more times, she took it. Kayden had always had a special charm with the ladies. They trusted him, even when they knew that they shouldn’t.

  “So, you know about your sister?” Chrishelle asked as they headed down the hall toward an elevator.

  “Yes.”

  “For how long?”

  “I found out when you sent my father that letter,” Kayden told her honestly. “It makes sense now why he never talks about my mother.”

  “Because he blames her for your mother’s death.”

  “He told you?” Kayden raised his eyebrow at her when they stepped into the elevator, and he pressed the number two.

  “No, I have never had the pleasure to sit down and talk to him about it, unfortunately. I was hoping I would get the chance to tonight, but you’ll do, I guess.” She looked him up and down. “I put two and two together at first and recently found out more information. When he was up and coming, all of New York knew how much he adored Taylor. I went to school with her back in the day. She was a sweetheart. I see why he loved her. He let everyone know it too. When she got pregnant, it was widely known that she was having twins. She never knew about the third child. Her body couldn’t handle the stress that came with having Faye. She lived long enough to sign the birth certificate. I truly don’t believe that she even saw the name that Greyson chose for the child. She had to have been so weak . . .”

  “Damn,” Kayden said when the elevator doors opened again and they were on the second floor. “That’s deep. I guess I’ve never really thought to think about how I felt about not having a mother. Pops always kept us busy.”

  “Too busy to think?”

  “No. Too busy to ask questions,” he said and pulled his arm away from her. “After you.”

  Chrishelle, whose eyes swooped the room before she did, stepped off of the elevator. They were now in a restaurant above the club, and it was completely vacant. Kayden stepped out after her and took her to a table that had a briefcase sitting on top of it.

  “Nice place,” Chrishelle complimented the restaurant’s setup. “I get an ol
d-school vibe up here.”

  “I would say thank you, but this was my brother’s idea. It’s not open to the public yet, and I don’t understand why. It looks done to me.”

  “He came up with all of this by himself?”

  “Our father and me are usually too busy dealing with real business to meddle in these types of things. I would have hired somebody to design the place, but, Jayden . . . well, Jayden—”

  “Has an old soul. Like my Faye,” Chrishelle’s tone held a drip of fondness in it. “That’s why he hasn’t opened it yet. Just because it looks right to our eyes doesn’t mean that it’s ready to his.”

  “I feel you. But we didn’t come here to talk about the opening of this restaurant, did we?” Kayden asked and opened the briefcase and showed her all of the Benjamins inside.

  “How much is it?”

  “Half.”

  “Half as in only two point five million?”

  “Yes, you will get the rest once you sign a nondisclosure agreement that I will type up myself. Unfortunately, this family cannot just go solely based off of your word.”

  “Family? Faye is your family. Five million is nothing to you. In your whole life, I’ve sure you have all seen fifty times that. She has not. It took me a long time to get her to the point where she could even smile genuinely. I won’t sit around another second while we play a game of the princes and the pauper! She deserves the full five. Now. Or I’m on the phone with every blogger and magazine before the sun comes up. Now, you can have my word that I will never tell a soul. I haven’t in twenty years. But I’m not signing any paper.”

  Kayden studied her, trying to catch her bluff. However, if they were playing a game of cards, her poker face was foolproof. She was dead serious, and Kayden sighed.

  “I will get it to you first thing in the morning, but only if you agree to not make those phone calls.”

  “Deal,” Chrishelle said, snapping the briefcase closed. “I’ll let you know when and where to meet me, and you and your family won’t ever hear from us again.” She started toward the elevator doors, but paused in the middle of her stroll and turned to face him. “You would really rather give me this money than get to know your family? Your sister? A person with the same eyes and face as you?”