Adored by a Brooklyn Drug Lord 2 Read online

  Daddy rose from his chair, asking me to do the same. He picked up a remote from his desk, pressing a few buttons on it. Luther Vandross’s “Dance With My Father” came on. Daddy held his hands out to me. I walked straight into them, resting my head on his chest. We danced around the library, taking small steps, singing the words to the song under our breath.

  “You remember those nights I would read you ‘Corduroy’?” Daddy whispered against my hair. “Even if you weren’t ready for bed, I would read you that book wherever you were.”

  “I always thought it was weird…”

  “Those nights I had no idea whether or not I was coming home. I knew if I were to take my last breath that night, I wanted to picture you in bed safe. That ritual kept me grounded during situations where most would fold.” He placed his chin on my head, rocking me from side-to-side. “I don’t know what war you're running out to fight, but I want to remember you like this, Kelsey.”

  I am not going to cry, I repeated in my head. “Daddy, I love you.”

  “Baby girl, I love you too.”

  My phone interrupted the moment. It was a message from Quill.

  Everything is set, it read.

  “Daddy, I gotta get out of here to handle some business,” I said, kissing him on the cheek. “I owe you another dance, you hear?”

  He planted a kiss on my forehead. “I plan on holding you to that.”

  __________

  I stood in the middle of the elevator leading to the penthouse of the nondescript luxury building on the Upper East Side. Muzak played overhead, coming from a speaker where a security camera should have been. The Last Jinetes had chosen privacy over security and it was something they were going to pay for. I reached the halfway point of my ride when I decided to get to work, pulling out the Glock on my waist and the silencer in my interior jacket pocket. The leather gloves I wore prevented me from feeling the cool metal against my fingertips. I had given the piece one final twist as I approached the twentieth floor. Whoever stood on the other side of these doors knew that any visitor at this time was an unwelcome one, which was why through the slit of the elevator door I shot out the hallway light, hitting the two guards I had been warned of in the head before they could react. They slid to the floor, slumping over like rucksacks of potatoes.

  Rummaging through the larger guard’s pockets, I came up with a key to the front door. Ranchera music seeped from the door, filling the hallway as I entered the apartment. Dancing in the center of the living room was Oscar Veracruz. Twirling around the spacious living room with him was a Latina twenty years his junior, giggling at her meal ticket’s dance moves. This was the horseman of conquest, celebrating his win with Quill earlier. I stood there, watching him spin her around, oblivious to his imminent demise. Oscar spun her around, pulling her to his chest as I fired the shot, tearing through her head and hitting him square in the chest. They crumpled to the floor like rag dolls, dead before their blood could soak the plush area rug underneath their feet. On to the next…

  “Mmmm, papí,” I heard a woman say from the second door down a long hall. “Can I get a little bit more? You know I need my special medicine so I can take care of you…”

  Alberto Veracruz let out a harsh laugh. “I can give you some more, but it won't be right there. Here,” he said, and I could hear the creak of the bed as they changed positions. “You can have as much as you want…mí amigo is waiting on you to show him some attention.”

  I listened to the sound of snort after snort, Alberto giggling every now and then. Ecstasy filled moans escaped his female companion every now and then as she took hit after hit of the fish scale cocaine the brothers were known for. Alberto was the Jinete of famine; I saw what he did to young girls. They would do anything to and for him in the name of getting another hit to escape the nightmarish lives they lived in Colombia. I could see their gaunt faces as if it were yesterday. Most of them would rather cocaine than a meal. The woman in this room was no different. However, at the end of the day, if I had to choose between her and me, the choice was obvious.

  “I gave you what you want, and now it’s time for what I want. Open up, mí amor,” Alberto crooned. I pictured him feeding the woman his thick little fleshy dick in increments, something he did to feel better about his lack of length. “Ay, fuck. Keep sucking it like that. Don’t stop…”

  Turning the knob, I opened the door a crack, giving the air in the room a second to displace. Moving too fast would alert him to my entry with a breeze. Three more inches later, I felt comfortable with opening the door all the way. As I expected, Alberto sat in the center of his bed with his head back, a mess of blonde hair bobbing between his flabby thighs. He was quick to climax, giving me another thirty seconds before he came. Stepping deeper into the room, I stood at the foot of the bed, raising my gun to end the second horseman. My aim switched between his head and heart. Taking a breath, I pulled the trigger, hitting him right between the eyes. His head snapped back, the slight motion enough to keep the woman sucking, oblivious to what was coming to her next. I hit her in the back of the head, and she slumped instantly, her head dropping onto his lap with a sense of finality. Closing the door behind me, I crept toward the master bedroom, shaking the entire way.

  “You can do this,” I whispered to myself.

  Eugenio Veracruz’s bedroom was silent. There was no woman present to provide a distraction, no music to cover my approaching footsteps. I had to enter and exit this bedroom on skill alone. Similar to Alberto, Eugenio slept in the center of his bed, the covers tucked underneath his chest. I walked over to the side, aiming the gun at him the best I could, the anger coursing through my veins causing my hands to shake. A smile crept up Eugenio's face, and I thought he was in the middle of a pleasant dream until his eyes fluttered open, finding mine in the dimly lit room.

  “After all we’ve been through, I thought you would make our last time together more…intimate,” he said, rolling onto his side and propping his head up on his hand. “Don’t you want to get up close and personal, Kelsey? Feel the heat coming from my skin, listen to the last breath to escape my lips? Why don’t you come a little closer? Or are you scared?”

  I shook my head. “Ain't nobody scared of you.”

  “Then why are you shaking so bad? You did so well with my brothers yet you come in here and forget everything you’ve learned from that father of yours.” He gave a sad shake of his head. “My brothers were stupid, thinking with their penes instead of their heads. With their distractions, I would imagine they were very easy to take out. How many bullets did you use? Two, three total?”

  Silence.

  “Good, that means you’ll have plenty more for me,” Eugenio finished with a smile.

  His hand shot out from behind him, throwing a pillow at me. I shot it, releasing an explosion of feathers, clouding my vision for a split second. Eugenio leapt out of bed, kicking me square in the chest, and sending me flying into a wall. The impact stunned me, knocking my gun out of my hand, flying across the room as I slid to the floor. Eugenio grabbed me by the neck, raising me up into the air and tossing me across the room like a rag doll. I landed on my arm, hearing a crackling snap I barely heard over my head cracking against the floor. A shooting pain darted up my arm straight to my head. I was rolled onto my back and dragged across the floor to the head of the bed.

  “I thought we would never meet again, Kelsey. Of all the girls to enter my life, you are the only one I've developed a soft spot for,” Eugenio admitted as he tossed me onto the bed. He rummaged through my pockets, coming up with the keys to my car, some extra magazines, and the pocket knife I kept on me. “That beautiful chocolate skin of yours, pretty dark eyes, a head full of hair, and those legs…legs for days…”

  Eugenio gave a sharp tug to my cargo pants, yanking them down to my ankles, revealing the .38 I had in an ankle holster. My head was still spinning, and I was fighting to stay coherent. He placed the gun on the nightstand, returning his attention to my legs, which were glo
wing underneath the moonlight. With a final tug, my pants were tossed aside, giving me the freedom to kick Eugenio in the face. The first blow stunned him, and he caught the second one, using my leg to yank me closer to him. He punched me dead in the face, snapping my head back into the tangle of blanket and sheets.

  “Do you know which Jinete I am?” he asked, yanking my one good arm above my head as he freed one of his sheets from the fray, using it to tie my uninjured hand to the headboard. “The one of war. You should have known better than to come into my home, kill my brothers, and think you would ever be able to outsmart me. I have proven to you once before that you will never be able to go up against a beast like me and live to speak of it. Now, I make an example out of you.”

  Eugenio mounted me, gazing down on me with a feral grin playing on his lips. Slipping his fingers under my chin, he lifted my head to meet his lips. I screamed against them, biting on his lower lip and earning a slap across the face. He grabbed me by the hair, yanking my head back hard, this time sucking on my neck with those cold lips of his. I could feel his erection growing against my stomach. Like the sound of his name, imagining Eugenio entering me sent a stream of vomit through my stomach and straight out of my mouth. Bile splattered the sides of his face, getting into his eyes like it did Quill.

  “Fuck, you stupid little bitch!” he roared, raising his fist to hit me again.

  Eugenio swung and I ducked, his hand landing inside the mess of pillows at the head of the bed. His nose brushed my mouth and I bit down on it, shaking my head like a pit bull. A shrill scream broke the otherwise silent fight. I let go of Eugenio's nose, and like I expected, he jumped up. I pulled my legs close to my chest and kicked him with everything I had. In a tangle of sheets, Eugenio flew backwards off the bed, landing with a thump. The time I had to escape was limited. My good hands flew straight to my limp wrist, tugging at the survival bracelet I wore until I heard the blade snap free. I cut myself out of the sheets as a hand appeared at the edge of the bed, another one appearing right next to it. When Eugenio's face appeared it was taut with blind fury. I leapt for the gun on the nightstand, my fingers brushing it the same time as Eugenio leapt onto me, his hands wrapping around my throat.

  “You wanted war with me?” he roared, squeezing my neck so tight I was sure it would snap in half. “I could've given you the world, taken you places you could never imagine, my people would have treated you like a queen! Instead you treat me like the enemy. Fine. I’ll show you what happens to those who fuck with the last Jinete.”

  I squeezed the knife in my hand tight, praying to God as I swung my hand back, feeling the blade pierce Eugenio’s throat. The grip he had on my throat disappeared, his hands holding his neck as I yanked the blade free. A stream of warm blood dripped down my back, increasing as Eugenio sputtered to grab his last breaths. I bucked, knocking him off my back and climbing out of the bed in time to see him take his last breath. There was a flash of motion from the doorway, interrupting my last moments with one of the monsters that haunted my dreams. Someone stood there watching, their face obscured in the shadows, and I was positive that I had missed someone in the fray. She stepped forward, causing me to lose my shit.

  “You get points for marksmanship,” Nicole said, hands in her pockets as she entered the bedroom, “but you lose a lot here because we are going to spend the entire night cleaning this place up. You threw up on him too? Thank goodness I told Greg I wasn’t coming home tonight…”

  “How did you know I was here?” I asked, taking a step back, still processing Nicole's appearance.

  “I followed you. Not too hard to do considering that I know where you live,” Nicole replied with a shrug. “With my first official kill, the guy came back to life and I peed on myself. I spent the entire cleanup process wishing I had someone to talk to, or at least another warm body around to keep me from losing my mind.”

  “Fuck a warm body; I need a drink.”

  Nicole reached in her hoodie pocket, emerging with a flask. “Drink up. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

  The next four hours were spent with Nicole teaching me the basics on crime scene cleaning. I listened to her every word, absorbing the information like a sponge, and storing it away for future events. She taught me that the best crime scenes were the ones people had no idea existed. It would’ve been easier to set the entire apartment on fire, incinerating the bodies of the Jinetes, but at what risk? The police would pull video footage, interview neighbors, and someone might remember the young black girl walking down the block wearing all black, entering a building she wasn’t a resident of. The lease of the Jinetes would expire, the landlord would find an empty (and clean) apartment, and no one would be aware of what occurred.

  “People like to glamourize this shit. They’ll rush in guns blazing, thinking that evoking fear in someone before ending their life is what's important. It’s not. You want to know what the most important part of killing someone is?” Nicole asked as we sped across the Williamsburg Bridge.

  I glanced through the rearview mirror at the Louis Vuitton duffle bags I had sitting on the seat. “What is it?”

  “Getting the job done. Fuck the theatrics; save the smoke and mirrors for a magic show. A lot of people have lost their lives behind trying to put on this big production. I want you to make me a promise Kelsey,” Nicole said, slowing to a stop at the red light down the block from my apartment. “Whenever you're blessed with a kill shot, take it.”

  The look in Nicole's eyes told me that she wouldn’t take anything less than an, “I promise.”

  “Good.” She pulled up in front of my apartment building, killing the engine and peering at the backseat. Her eyes flickered between me and the bags, alight with curiosity. “What are you going to do with those?”

  I thought of Quill, who was across the street waiting for my call. “Stop being selfish and do the right thing.”

  14

  Quill

  Amos Winthrop sat at the head of the conference table, brushing his manicured fingernails against the lapels of his Armani suit. On either side of him sat his remaining children, Drea drumming her fingernails on the long table, her eyes darting all over the room, and LaKeith laid back in his seat, arms crossed, ready and waiting for war. Bull sat next to him, engrossed in whatever was on his phone screen. Seven of the nine seats were filled by members of Amos’s crew, from his muscle to the lieutenants he brought up here to help with the expansion, leaving two seats at the end of the table open for Eric and me. With two duffle bags in my hand to his one, we entered the room all business, shaking Amos’s hand before taking our seats. Drea, who had been on tenterhooks since my disappearance last night, eyed the duffle bags sitting on the table.

  “What the fuck you got in there?” she asked, her expression unchanging. “It better be good since you had us sitting here for an hour. Nobody keeps my father waiting.”

  “Actually, I'm right on time. Amos knows how unprepared you all can be, so he made you show up an hour early,” I quipped, plopping down in my chair and observing her through the loop of the bag.

  Amos shot Drea a warning look before giving me his undivided attention. “Quill, what is the purpose of this meeting?”

  “I've proven myself to be an asset in this entire operation, but I don’t feel like I've been receiving what I'm due.”

  “What you're due?” LaKeith barked, nostrils flaring. “You better be happy you're still living and breathing, lil’ nigga. Fucking my baby sister, getting her pregnant, and then making some other bitch your proxy? I told my father to let me handle you right in that hospital, but he sees something in you I don’t.”

  I clenched my jaw. “Bull, you gon’ let this nigga come at me like that?”

  “You the one who wants to be in charge,” Bull shot back, taking his eyes off of his phone long enough to get a look at me. “That comes with taking criticisms from all sides. Plus, I haven’t seen much loyalty from you being that I had to find out about this meeting from LaKeith. If n
ot for him, I would still be sleeping on the couch.”

  It was like that? Bet. “Touché.”

  Amos made an impatient gesture with his hand. “Get on with the meeting, Quill.”

  “As promised, I have the men who murdered Deon,” I said as Eric and I passed the bags down through Amos’s men.

  In true Winthrop fashion, Drea and LaKeith decided to mind business that wasn't theirs. Amos received the most important duffle bag, taking his time unzipping it. Too bad his children weren’t so patient. Drea screamed, shoving the bag away from her, bolting out of the conference room. LaKeith played it cool, wrinkling his nose in distaste as he got a good look and whiff of Alberto Veracruz’s severed head. Amos grinned at Eugenio’s head, shaking with laughter.

  “I put my own team on an investigation into Deon’s death. They managed to track down the bitch who set him up, sliced her up real good, and she never revealed who she was working with. Not even with her last breath,” he said, zipping the bag. “For a moment, I thought you were down with these motherfuckers, Quill, and I thought I was going to have to raise my grandson myself. Today is the first time in a long time that I'm happy to be wrong. Good job, son. What is it that you desire?”

  Nine sets of eyes swiveled to me. LaKeith had a murderous glint in his eye. My own brother was looking at me like I was an enemy, as if him taking care of me my entire life up to this point had been to his detriment. I sat up a little higher. Eric and I had went over my list of demands on the ride here. All I had to do was go after what I was worth.

  “I want my position back. I also want the power to select my own team; I have a lot of good workers that I trust to handle business with discretion.” My confidence blossomed as I rattled off my list, unflinching as the hostility in the room grew so thick it could be cut with a knife. “As for laundering, I want complete control of the business we chose. And a cut. With all due respect, you run shit in the south, Amos, but niggas run different up here. I know how to connect with my people; let me make this money for you and then some.”