The Family Business 5 Page 9

  Denny parked his truck in a lot down near the entrance to City Island, and a few minutes later, Li’l Al pulled up in a stolen minivan. The two of us jumped in, and Li’l Al began driving toward the building that Vaughn lived in.

  The street was quiet, probably due to the fact that it was in a residential area. Li’l Al circled the block, dropping Denny off on the other street behind Vaughn’s house. The plan was for me go through the front door, while Denny would sneak behind the house and go through the back. Vaughn didn’t think anyone knew where he lived because he did most of his drug business down on Boston Road on the other side of the Bronx. Screwing Kandace came with more benefits than just good pussy. She knew everything there was to know about Vaughn, and now so did I.

  Denny got out, and Li’l Al circled the block again, parking on the corner. I slipped the ski mask over my face, keeping low until we got the text from Denny, letting us know he was ready. At that moment, Li’l Al slammed his foot on the gas, speeding down the street and coming to a stop in front of Vaughn’s place. I hopped out of the van with a shotgun in one hand and a .44 in the other and ran up the steps to Vaughn’s front door. You would think my first instinct would be to kick in the door, but in my experience, these drug dealers were so cocky they never locked their doors. I twisted the knob, and voilà! The door opened.

  “What the fuck?” A guy was sitting on the sofa, playing a video game when I rushed in. He dropped the game controller and reached for a Glock that was on the table in front of him, but before he could touch it, I had my .44 pointed at his face. He tossed his hands in the air, and I grabbed the gun, tucking it in my waistband.

  “Oh, shit!” I heard from someone in the back, which confirmed that Denny had entered as well.

  “Where the fuck is Vaughn?” I barked at the dude on the sofa, who now looked like he was trying to think of his next move.

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  “Man, that nigga don’t pay you enough to be a fucking hero,” I warned, stepping close enough to hold the barrel of the shotgun at his knee. “Now, talk or get capped. I don’t got no time for a whole bunch of back and forth.”

  “He’s upstairs,” the dude finally said as Denny entered with another one of Vaughn’s guys.

  “Get over there on the sofa,” Denny commanded.

  I began to ease my way to the staircase.

  “Yo, cuz, be careful,” Denny said.

  I nodded my head as I ascended the staircase slowly. For the first time since we’d entered the house, I was nervous. I arrived at the only room with a closed door and pulled the trigger of the shotgun. The wood cracked as the blast splintered it damn near in half. I’d read somewhere that shots fired, whether they hit someone or not, disoriented people, and instinctively they went to the ground. I wanted whoever was on the other side of that door to be disoriented as hell.

  “Ahhhhhhhh!” A woman shrieked as I stepped inside the room and pulled the trigger again. She grabbed hold of the blanket and held it tight against her.

  “The fuck?” a naked Vaughn yelled from the floor, where he was scrambling to get up.

  I stepped closer and held my gun to his face.

  “Wake up, motherfucker!” I yelled. “Where’s the fucking stash?”

  “Ain’t no fucking stash, nigga. I got some cash on the dresser. Take it and get the fuck out!” Vaughn said with a look of disgust.

  “Fuck that chump change. Where’s the stash?” I asked again.

  “Fuck you. I told you ain’t no stash!”

  I suddenly noticed his black and swollen eye and remembered what Denny said about the other night, when Vaughn said he supposedly beat my ass in the club. I hit him in the face with the barrel of one of the guns. “You stay lying, huh? I hope you realize it’s about to cost you your life and hers.”

  “No!” The girl screamed and flailed her arms around, no longer concerned with covering herself with the blanket. “I’ll tell you where it is. Please don’t kill me.”

  “Shut the fuck up, bitch,” Vaughn growled at her, and I hit him in the face again, harder this time.

  “You know where it is?” I asked the girl.

  “Yeah, it’s in the room across the hall in the back of the closet,” she said.

  I took off the duffle bag that was hanging across my chest and handed it to the girl. “Go and put everything in it into this bag. Every fucking thing. You understand?”

  Her hands were shaking as she took the bag from me.

  I pointed the other gun at her. “And if you try anything funny, after I kill his ass, I’ll kill you, too.”

  The expression on her face said it all. She understood that I wasn’t playing. “I swear, I won’t do anything funny.”

  “You got two minutes to get across that hallway and back in here. Don’t make me have to come looking for you,” I warned her.

  “You won’t.” She scrambled out of the room.

  “Traitorous bitch,” Vaughn panted as sweat poured down his face and mixed with the blood.

  “Shut the fuck up.” I stepped toward the doorway and yelled, “Yo, you good down there?”

  “Yep!” Denny yelled back.

  “A’ight, strip them motherfuckers down. We ’bout to roll out in about a minute and a half!”

  “I hope you know you ain’t getting away with this shit.” Vaughn moaned. “You must not know who the fuck I am.”

  “I know exactly who you are. That’s why I’m here and not at your little corner spot where everyone else thinks you keep your stash.” I pointed my gun to his shriveled-up dick and laughed. “And from the looks of things, I understand a lot more now too.”

  “Baby girl, you got ten seconds to get your black ass back here!” I warned. “Ten, nine, eight . . .”

  My countdown got down to three by the time she ran back into the room. The empty duffle bag was now full.

  “Here, here. That’s everything, including his guns,” she said.

  “Put that shit on the dresser in it too.” I nodded toward the cash and jewelry Vaughn had pointed out earlier. “And those keys and phones.”

  She followed the instructions and dumped the items into the bag, then gave it to me. I slipped it back onto my body.

  “Good job. Now, bring your ass. And you too, tiny dick,” I commanded.

  Vaughn hesitated like he wanted to try something with his naked, unarmed self, but he got moving once I fired a warning shot into the dresser behind him. I shoved him and his girl into the little bathroom in the hallway.

  “Hey, bring them up here,” I yelled to Denny.

  Denny escorted the two dudes from downstairs, who were naked now too, and I waved the gun in the direction of the bathroom. “In you go.”

  They slow-stepped it, but they understood they had no choice but to go in there with Vaughn and his woman.

  “Now, don’t y’all get freaky in there, okay?”

  “Fuck you,” one of the dudes said.

  I closed the door and lodged a chair underneath the doorknob. It wouldn’t hold them long, but long enough for us to get the hell outta there. We ran out of the house and into the waiting minivan. We barely had the doors shut before Li’l Al took off down the street.

  “You get their phones and keys?” I asked Denny.

  “Hell yeah, I did.”

  “Cool,” I said, taking my mask off. “Wanna hear something crazy?”

  “What’s up?”

  “That nigga Vaughn’s face was already fucked up. He really did get into a fight with somebody.”

  “Word? Well, he gave as good as he got, because I heard the other dude left the club in an ambulance,” Li’l Al added.

  “What? And y’all thought that was me?”

  “Hey, that’s what everybody was saying,” Denny replied.

  “This shit is wild.” I shook my head.

  A text came in from my aunt, telling me my mama was up and asking about me.

  “I don’t know what the fuck is going on with that shit at the club, bu
t I ain’t got time to worry about it right now. Take me back to my moms.”

  KD

  18

  “Hey, KD.”

  I walked into the reception area of Building 6 on my property and was greeted by the smiling face of Elizabeth Martin, a pretty brunette with perky breasts and a fine ass. She was one together woman, and I was hoping to fix her up with Tyler one day. They would have some pretty-looking grandkids for me.

  “How ya doing, Lizbeth? I heard you needed to see me.” I removed my hat and took a seat in front of her desk.

  “Yes, sir, I sure do,” Elizabeth replied in the sweetest of Southern accents. “Tyler had me run some tests on the young ladies you’re planning to have at your party.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, realizing that she would never have called me over personally unless it was important. Real important. If she said what I thought she was fixin’ to say, I was going to kill Peter Lee. My party was in a day, and the last thing I needed was a bunch of diseased prostitutes. I needed those girls to be as clean as the board of health and ready to work. I’d already spent a small fortune on catering and remodeling Building 3.

  “Give it to me straight, Lizbeth. How bad is it?”

  She chuckled. “Not bad at all. There are a few girls I’d exclude, but the reason I wanted to speak to you is because I discovered something interesting.”

  I sat up in my chair. When Elizabeth had something interesting to share, it usually meant dollars signs for old KD. “Like what?”

  “Four of the women are prime candidates for us to bring in house, and two may fill an immediate need.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’re not shitting me, are you? You sure about that?”

  “Yes, sir. I was surprised myself, so I double checked.” She handed me a piece of paper, which I scanned, even though I didn’t know what the hell I was looking at.

  “Would ya look at that?” I could already hear the cash register ringing.

  “What do you want to do?” Elizabeth asked.

  “I’m gonna go talk to their pimp, that’s what I’m gonna do. Then I’m going to sit down with these young ladies and make them a job offer—one that I don’t think they’ll be able to refuse considering the lives they lead.” Smiling broadly, I placed my hat back on my head as I got up from my chair.

  She came around her desk and hugged me. “You’re a good man, KD Shrugs. I wish I had met you when you were younger. We could have had a good time.”

  “We sure could have.” I laughed. “But these days, I live vicariously through my son. You and Tyler would make a fine couple.”

  “Maybe, but he’d have to ask me out for us to know. I think your boy is scared of me,” she said lightly.

  “Well, I’m gonna have to unscare him,” I replied, heading for the door. “I’ll be back in touch about those girls directly. Going to take a ride out to see their boss.”

  * * *

  Hours later, I walked into my dining room, where Tyler and the Wildman boys were standing. The four women Elizabeth had told me about were seated around the table. Two were beaners from South America, one was a Chinese, and they were all pretty. The last one was a black girl with the biggest set of tits on her I’d ever seen. That little negress made my dick hard just looking at her. I had a thing for big-titty black girls. I wouldn’t marry one, but I’d fuck one in a minute because the pussy was always outstanding.

  “What the hell, Tyler? You didn’t tell our guests they could eat?” I asked, staring at the untouched plates of food. “I spent a lot of money on this shit.”

  “I told them, Daddy.” Tyler shrugged.

  “Well, damn, y’all must not be hungry. From what Lee told me, y’all ain’t ate since this morning. Is the menu not to your liking?”

  The four of them sat there staring at me like I had two fucking heads, which irritated the hell out of me. I was not in the mood for games.

  “Look, Lee done told me that you all speak English, so let’s stop playin’ around. Y’all eat up.”

  “We are not here to talk or eat. We are here to fuck. That’s what we get paid for,” the beautiful black girl stated boldly. Her accent sounded kinda French, and it was sexy as hell. “Talking will just get us beat.”

  “Not here it won’t,” I said. “You’ve been brought here so I can talk to you gals about an opportunity.” I sat in the empty seat closest to her.

  She seemed to be their spokeswoman, so I directed my conversation to her. “What’s your name?”

  “Celeste.”

  “That’s a right pretty name,” I told her, reaching for some of the roast and potatoes on the table. “Celeste, my name’s KD. Where you from?”

  “Haiti.”

  I leaned closer to her. “That’s over there near the Dominican Republic, ain’t it? Y’all had a terrible earthquake a few years back, didn’t ya?”

  “Yes,” she replied, looking surprised that I knew anything about her country. “I lost my mother, father, and sister.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Tyler lost his momma a few years ago too.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, shooting a quick glance at my son.

  “Tyler, you boys sit down and eat. Stop hovering over our guests like they’re some kinda prisoners.”

  The boys sat down and dug into the food as the ladies watched.

  “Eat up, Celeste. It ain’t poison,” I said.

  “What kind of opportunity?” Celeste asked. Once she picked up her fork, the other girls did the same. There was no doubt she was the leader of the group.

  “An opportunity to come and live here and be a part of our organization. I want to take you from living at the bottom of the barrel and bring you here to live at the farm and be treated first class.”

  I motioned for Patrick, who was wearing an apron and helping the cook, to bring over a tray of lobster tails. He placed one in front of each of us. The ladies stared at their plates like they weren’t sure what to do with the tails.

  “Make sure we get some of that drawn butter to dip it in, Patrick. What’s lobster without butter, right?” I winked at Celeste, and she smiled.

  “You got that right,” Tyler said as he reached over to help one of the beaners snap her lobster tail open.

  “I bet you ain’t eating fucking lobster over there at the Horseshoe or any of the other hellholes you been to,” I said to Celeste before stuffing a biscuit in my mouth.

  “No, we ’ave not,” she admitted in that sexy accent of hers.

  “So, how’d you like to be able to eat like this every day and send some money home to Haiti?” I looked around the table at each of the girls. “A thousand dollars a week to start with. How does that sound?”

  The other three women looked excited—no longer pretending that they couldn’t understand English—but Celeste shook her head. “That would be nice,” she said, “but we’ve heard these claims before. Our families have not seen a dime, and we are beaten if we question it.”

  I motioned for Tyler to get my briefcase from the other side of the room. When he brought it to me, I opened it and took out four stacks, totaling a thousand dollars each, and tossed one in front of each of the girls.

  “I know when they brought you here to the U.S., they probably told you plenty o’ lies. So, here you go. A good faith gesture to show you that I ain’t bullshittin’. And there’s plenty more where that came from,” I told them.

  Celeste still wasn’t convinced. “And what about the man that we work for now? How will we explain all of this to him? He’s a very evil man.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but he don’t wanna fuck with me.” I looked her straight in the eyes. “Besides, that’s already been handled, and all your belongings from his place are on the porch. I was pretty sure you’d accept my offer. Now, was I right or not?”

  Celeste looked at the other ladies for a minute, but no words passed between them. Then she picked up the stack of bills, placing it in her bra. She nodded at them, and they did the same, snatching up their money rea
l quick.

  “And now what happens?” she asked.

  I picked up a bottle of wine and poured some in her glass. “There’s four of us and four of you. I’m sure we’ll figure out something before the night is through.” I raised my glass for a toast. She picked hers up and clinked it against mine, revealing her dimples when she finally cracked a smile.

  Nevada

  19

  My eyes constantly went from checking the time on my phone to checking the entryway of the library as I sat at a balcony table, losing my mind. Kia had said to meet her at 11 a.m., but it was already 11:26. Being late seemed to be a habit with her. Dammit, where the hell was she? I had something really important to talk to her about.

  A wave of relief came over me when I saw her walk in the far entrance to the left. She looked like a high school kid in her T-shirt, ripped jeans, and sneakers, with her hair pulled back. I waved, and she headed up the stairs toward me.

  “Hey, hope you’re not mad that I’m late. The trains were a mess.” She placed her coffee and book bag on the table, then leaned over to give me a hug. She smelled amazing, and if I was mad, I couldn’t be anymore. “You been here long?”

  “Nah, not long at all,” I lied.

  “Good. Now, I have a ton of questions I need help with.” She pulled her GED book out of her bag and turned to me.

  I just gazed at her silently.

  “What?” She moved a few hairs from in front of her face. “What? Do I have something in my teeth?”

  I shook my head. Despite the importance of what I wanted to talk to her about, I was suddenly nervous and tongue-tied.

  “Well, what is it then?”

  I took a breath. “First, I don’t want you to get mad. Okay?”

  Her eyes met mine. “Mad about what?”

  “About this.” I opened my laptop and maneuvered it so that she could see what was on the screen—a copy of her passport. “I hacked into Marie’s computer and pulled your file.”

  “Oh.” Kia sat back and stared at me. She looked a little taken aback. “Why would you do that?”