Blood Ties

by Shaun Sinclair

  “What crazy bitch?”

  “I believe he is talking about me.” Carmen sauntered inside the barn wearing a full-body Lycra catsuit with black boots. Her long hair swung freely about her shoulders. Her makeup was flawless. If not for the long Chinese sword she held in her left hand, it would’ve appeared that she was going on a date.

  “And he’s right, I am crazy. Let me tell you why.” Carmen proceeded to reiterate the same story she’d told Glenda before she sent her to her bloody death. The entire time Carmen retold her story, Justus listened intently, while Leader searched for a way to escape.

  “I see death has finally found its way to your doorstep,” Carmen commented after completing her story. “Your father is right. He didn’t kill your mother, but her death is just as much his fault as it is mine. You see, he made me what I am.” She raised her arms grandly. “I used to hate it, but now I love it! I have ultimate power and I owe it all to him. A strong love fueled by tremendous respect . . . which is why it’s so special for me to bring to an end a legend, and a possible legend-tobe. Little ole’ me. Can you believe it?” Carmen was obviously ecstatic with herself as she pranced around the barn just out of reach from her prisoners. Then she grew serious.

  “Now it’s time to end this. A lifetime of sadness, a lifetime of seeking revenge. It’s finally coming to an end. But first . . . you must die,” she pointed her blade at Justus. “I set you on a path to claim your destiny. The ultimate plan foiled because you can’t remove your heart from your sleeve. When you thought Leader killed your mother you was supposed to retaliate! But I watched you at the funeral cower like a mouse. You will never be the man your father—or stepfather—was. E-yah!” Carmen slashed Justus’s torso with her blade, peeling his chest open like a zipper. “You must pay for your weakness.”

  “Carmen! Leave him alone!” Leader thrashed violently in his restraints. “It’s me you want.” Leader motioned his head at her large belly, accentuated by the tight clothing she wore. “We can raise that child to be the best assassin this world has ever seen. Me and you. We can do it doll.”

  Carmen offered a smile. She knew when her leg was being pulled. “Sounds sweet, my love, but unfortunately, it doesn’t sound true.”

  “No, no, it is true. Me and you, babe. Just let the boy go. Look at him, he’s bleeding to death.” For the first time since his grandfather had passed, Leader was beginning to feel something he never felt before: remorse. So, with every tactic he could muster, he begged for young Justus’s life, as it slowly slipped away in a fountain of blood. “Look at him Carmen. He had nothing to do with this. I did that to you. He’s innocent.”

  “So was O!” Carmen screamed but she regained her composure. “But you know what I learned? In war there is always collateral damage. My child was collateral damage.”

  “Do you want what happened to you to happen to his family? He has twins. Do you want them to grow up seeking revenge?” Carmen chuckled, “Funny you should seek pity for a life. Have you ever spared a life?”

  “I spared yours.”

  “Did you? Did you?” Carmen was right upon Leader, jabbing the point of her sword into his stomach hard—but not hard enough—to puncture. “Nah. You didn’t save my life. You gave me a new one. Back then and now,” she rubbed her stomach. To her left, Justus moaned in agony as his life slowly slipped away by the second. “Now, it’s my turn to give you a new life, my love. First pain then love.” That said, Carmen glided over to Justus in one stride, cupped his face in one hand while plunging her sword through his stomach with the other.

  That was how she left Justus. Staked to the wall. To his credit, Justus didn’t scream or whine or holler. He took his blow like a soldier, looking into Carmen’s eyes for as long as she would allow, just as he did to his countless victims.

  Beside him, Leader broke down. His insides were crushed, and he began to see the error of his ways. He thought he was imparting a gift to his son. Something to make up for what he took. Something to make him as close to being a god as this world would allow. Ironically, Leader didn’t feel very god-like now. He felt helpless. That, to him, was almost more cause for remorse than his own son’s life. Leader had always called the shots. Even his name suggested so. Now, to feel so inferior was alien to him. He couldn’t save Glenda’s life. Or Justus’s life either. . . just like he couldn’t save his grandfather many years ago also. It seemed like he had come full-circle, all because of the beautiful woman who stood before him.

  “I wore my make-up for you,” Carmen was saying as she removed a revolver from her bosom. “This was the date of dates. A date with destiny. I hope you like it.” She coiffed her hair. Walking up to Leader, she placed the revolver to his temple. This made him jump, but then he positioned his temple to the barrel of the revolver, prepared to go out like only a trooper could.

  “I have now completed my mission,” Carmen rhapsodized. “Good-bye.” She blew his brains all over the wall.

  Pinned to the wall, Justus heard everything. When Carmen blew Leader’s brains out, Justus cried on the inside. He waited for his last moments to arrive, but they never came. Instead, he heard Carmen sobbing profusely. She stood sobbing for what he judged to be minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. Then there was silence.

  After a few moments, Justus heard Carmen’s steps as she left the barn. He attempted to move, but the stakes drilled into his body prevented any movement. So, pinned to the wall, hatred rooted in his heart, he vowed to pay Carmen back. If he survived. His body was numb, and the excruciating pain shooting through his brain short-circuited his sight. But he still had his hearing.

  And his breath.

  And a will to live.

  DON’T MISS THE FIRST BOOK IN THE CRESCENT CREW SERIES

  Street Rap

  For Reece and Qwess, being rap superstars was the dream,

  but in real life, nothing moved without the money. So they

  formed the Crescent Crew, an outfit of young, ruthless

  hustlers that locked the Southern drug trade in a

  stranglehold. They’re at the height of their power when

  Qwess is offered a record deal from a major label. He accepts

  and makes plans for his whole crew to go legit, but Reece

  enjoys his position as king of the streets and has no desire to

  relinquish his crown . . .

  Available wherever books are sold

  Enjoy the following excerpt from Street Rap . . .

  Chapter 1

  The black Tahoe crept onto the rooftop of the parking garage overlooking downtown Fayetteville and stopped. The driver lumbered his hefty frame out of the truck and stood to his full six-foot-seven-inch height. He flipped the collar up on his heavy mink coat, readjusted the sawed-off shotgun tucked beneath his arm, and scanned his surroundings for danger. Satisfied that the area was clear, he tapped on the passenger window of the truck. The tinted window eased down halfway, and a cloud of smoke was released into the air.

  “It’s clear,” the giant reported.

  “Good. Now go post up over there so you can see the street, make sure no funny biz popping off,” the man in the truck instructed.

  The giant hesitated a moment. “You sure about this? I mean, I don’t trust these dudes like that,” he said.

  The man smiled. “You worry too much, Samson. Nobody would dare violate this thing of ours again. Look around you, it’s just us and them. This is crew business, and this shit has gone on long enough. Tonight, it ends, one way or another.”

  The window glided up, and the giant assumed his position near the edge of the parking garage.

  Behind the dark glass of the Tahoe, two men sat in the back seat sharing a blunt while a brooding hip-hop track thumped through the speakers. The men casually passed the blunt and enjoyed the music as if they were at a party, and not on the precipice of a drug war for control of the city’s lucrative narcotics trade. Although partners, each of the men was a boss in his own right. Their leadership styles were
different—one was fire, the other was ice—but it was the balance that made their team so strong.

  In the back seat of the Tahoe sat Qwess and Reece, leaders of the notorious Crescent Crew.

  “Yo, that beat is bananas, son!” Reece remarked to Qwess. “You did that?”

  Qwess nodded. “You knowww it,” he sang.

  “Word. You already wrote to it?”

  “I’m writing to it right now,” he replied. He pointed to his temple. “Right here.”

  “I hear ya, Jay-Z,” Reece joked. “So, anyway, how you want to handle this when these niggas get here?”

  Qwess nodded. “Let me talk some sense into them, let them know they violated.”

  “Son, they know they violated.”

  “Still, let me handle it, because you know how you can be.”

  Reece scowled. “How I can be? Fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “You know how you can be,” Qwess insisted.

  “What? Efficient?”

  “If you want to call it that.”

  Headlights bent around the corner and a dark gray H2 Hummer came into view. The Hummer drove to the edge of the garage and stopped inches in front of Samson. He spun around to face the truck. The giant, clad in a full-length mink, resembled King Kong in the glow of the xenon headlamps.

  Inside the truck, Qwess craned his head over the seat to confirm their guests. “That’s them,” he noted as he passed Reece the blunt. He climbed from the back of the truck and tossed his partner a smirk. “Stay here, I got it.”

  Qwess joined Samson while men poured out of the Hummer. When the men stood before Qwess, someone very important was absent.

  Qwess raised his palm. “Whoa, whoa, someone’s missing from this little shindig,” he observed, scanning the faces. “Where is Black Vic?”

  One of the minions stepped forward. He wore a bald head and a scowl. “Black Vic couldn’t be here tonight. He sends his regards.” The man thumbed his chest with authority. “He sent me in his place.”

  Qwess frowned. “He sent you in his place? Are you kidding me? We asked for a meeting with the boss of your crew, and he sends you?”

  The man nodded. “Yep.”

  Qwess shook his head. “Yo, get Black Vic on the phone and tell him to get his ass down here now.”

  The minion chuckled. “I see you got things confused, dawg. You run shit over there, not over here. Now are we talking or what?”

  Samson took a step forward. The other three men took two steps back. Qwess gently placed a hand on Samson’s arm. The giant stood down.

  “I need to talk to the man in charge,” Qwess insisted. “Because we only going to have this conversation one time.”

  “Word?”

  “Word!”

  Suddenly, the back door to the Tahoe was flung open, and all eyes shifted in that direction. Reece stepped out into the night and flung his dreads wildly. Time seemed to slow down as he diddy-bopped over to them, his Cuban link and heavy medallion swinging around his neck. He pulled back the lapels on his jacket and placed his hands on his waist, revealing his Gucci belt and his two .45s.

  “Yo, where Victor at?” Reece asked.

  Qwess scoffed. “He ain’t here. He sent these niggas.”

  Reece looked at each man, slowly nodding his head. “So Victor doesn’t respect us enough to show his face and address his violation? He took two kis from my little man, beat him down. My li’l homie from Skibo hit him with consignment, and he decided to keep shit. Now, we trying to resolve this shit ’cause war is bad for business—for everybody, and he wanna say, ‘fuck us’?”

  “Black Vic said that you said ‘fuck us’ when you wouldn’t show us no flex on the prices,” the minion countered.

  “Oh, yeah? That what he said?” Reece asked. He shook his head and mocked, “He said, she said, we said . . . See, that’s that bitch shit. That’s why Victor should’ve came himself. But he sent you to speak for him, right?”

  The bald-headed minion puffed out his bird chest. “That’s right.”

  “Okay.” Reece nodded his head and looked around the rooftop of the garage. “Well, tell Victor this!”

  SMACK!

  Without warning, Reece lit the minion’s jaws up with an open palm slap. Samson lunged forward and wrapped his huge mittens around the neck of one of the other minions, who wore a skully pulled low over his eyes. Qwess drew his pistol and aimed it at the other minion in a hoodie, while the soldier in the passenger seat of the Tahoe popped out of the roof holding an AK-47.

  “Y’all thought it was sweet?” Reece taunted. He smacked the bald-headed minion again, and he crumpled to the floor semiconscious. “I got a message for Victor’s ass, though.”

  Reece dragged the man over to the Hummer and pitched his body to the ground in front of the pulley attached to the front of the truck. He reached inside the Hummer to release the lever for the pulley, then returned to the front of the Hummer. While the spectators watched in horror, Reece pulled bundles of metal rope from the pulley and wrapped it around the man’s neck. Qwess came over to help, and when they were done, the two of them hoisted the man up onto the railing.

  “Wait, man! Please don’t do this!” the minion pleaded. He was fully conscious now, and scrapping for his life. Qwess cracked him in the jaw and knocked the fight right out of him.

  Reece fixed him with a cold gaze. “We not doing this to you, homie. Your man, Victor, is,” he explained. “His ass should’ve showed up. Now, of course, this means war.”

  Reece and Qwess flipped the man over the railing. His body sailed through the air, and the pulley whirred to life, guiding his descent. His banshee-like wail echoed through the quiet night as he desperately tugged at the rope around his neck. Then suddenly, the pulley ran out of rope and caught, snapping his neck like a chicken. Both Qwess and Reece spared a look over the edge and saw his lifeless body dangling against the side of the building.

  Reece turned to face the others. Slowly, he slid his thumb across his naked throat, and the AK-47 sparked three times. All head shots.

  This was crew business.