This was Choppa’s world—murder and violence was his forte. It’s what he woke up in the morning to be, and that was a cold blooded killer. He and his crew racked up homicides in every borough. But the recent death of his partner, AJ, sent Choppa into a deeper and darker spiral of chaos and not giving a fuck.
A few feet away from the target, and Choppa was ready to spring from the vehicle and attack—so were his armed thugs in the backseat. Choppa’s gloved hand was wrapped around a Glock19 loaded with hollow-point bullets. His eyes were fixed on Spank and his goon. Every split second counted. They had to quickly get the drop on them before Spank’s goon could pull out his pistol and shoot.
“Fuck it!” Choppa uttered.
Nearly a few feet away, Choppa thrust open the door and sprung from the vehicle with his gun in hand. His bloodthirsty cohorts followed, gripping an Uzi and a 9mm. Spank had his back turned to them, but his soldier immediately saw them coming. He frantically reached under his coat for his gun—but seconds mattered and Choppa had the drop on them.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Five rapid shots went into the soldier, pushing him back and violently spinning him around before he collapsed against the concrete. It was Choppa’s kill. Spank swiftly dropped his cell phone, ducked, and ran for cover behind a parked car. The man with the Uzi opened fire wildly but missed. Bullets tore into several vehicles and shattered car windows, the heated gunfire echoing through the streets.
Spank was in a full-blown panic. His man was dead. He searched for his pistol, but it wasn’t on him. He was fucked.
It didn’t take long for Choppa and the others to find him cowering and hiding between the cars. His eyes were wide with fear. He rose his hands up in a desperate plea for his life and stared at death. “C’mon, man, don’t do this! Don’t do this, please!”
Choppa simply smirked at him and coldly replied, “Fuck you, nigga!”
Choppa and his gunners opened fire, and Spank’s body was riddled with bullets from head to toe. His disfigured body twisted on the street as his blood pooled on the crimson stained asphalt. Folks in the barbershop were left aghast after witnessing the cold-blooded killing of two men. Spank was known, but now he was dead. They saw three masked gunmen flee the area and climb into a Durango. Everything happened so fast.
The Durango took off, and a block away, Choppa and men finally removed their masks and rejoiced in the killings. Message sent. The West organization was still strong on the streets. It was about to get ugly for a lot of people.
7
It was hard leaving Scott alone, but Maxine couldn’t do much for him. The agents were up his ass and hers, and they were watching everything. She grew uncomfortable after some time there and decided to take Scott’s suggestion to go home and get some rest. Her hair was loose and disheveled, her droopy eyelids showed her tiredness, and there were dark circles under her eyes. The past day had been an exhausting, emotional trip.
She descended to the first floor and moved through the lobby to the two men Scott assigned to protect her, Mason and Avery. Upon spotting Maxine, the men stood up abruptly, like Secret Service agents do when the President enters the room. She had become the first lady of the organization.
“Just take me home,” Maxine told them.
They nodded.
They exited the atrium and were met with a harsh reminder that it was January in New York. It felt like forever since she had breathed in the cold air.
“I’ll get the car,” Mason said.
Maxine fastened her long pea coat and stood and waited with Avery serving as her shadow. Before her was a busy metropolis—people going about their business and city traffic that swarmed from north to south and east to west. Maxine wanted to get away from it all. She wanted to coil inside her apartment and hide from everyone and everything.
Scott would live, and she was grateful and relieved. But now she had to worry about the indictments. His freedom was at stake. Scott going to prison would worsen her situation. Just when she had readied herself to receive her reparations, this happens. Maxine had so much unfinished business that all hinged on Scott’s freedom, his legal businesses, and drug money. Would she have access to it? Would she be the de facto boss? Would his men take orders from her? She had so many questions and worries knowing that his children would always be her opposition. If he received a lengthy prison sentence, could she do it? Could she travel many miles and visit him daily? Could she support him behind bars when he never supported her? And what about Wacka and his threats? Maxine was having a full-on pity party for herself, and she wasn’t the one locked up this time.
Mason finally brought the black Escalade to the front of the hospital and Maxine slid into the backseat while Avery sat up front. The heat was on blast, transitioning the cold air to warmth, while Mason fought against traffic. It took what seemed like forever to get from Presbyterian to home.
Maxine finally arrived home to find the place was a mess—furniture overturned, items smashed—chaotic remnants of the FBI’s raid. The front door needed repairing. On top of that, the superintendent handed her a letter of intent from the board of directors for the condominium. They wanted Scott out of the building. Stories of his arrest, the shooting, and his indictment were all over the news. It was a high-profile case. He was an alleged drug kingpin, and everyone wanted to separate themselves from him and his businesses. In their eyes, he was guilty until proven innocent.
She turned on the shower and peeled off the clothing she’d had on for more than a day. The water was searing and Maxine stepped foot into the ornate shower and allowed the water to cascade off her skin. She outstretched her arms, placed her palms against the walls, and positioned her head under the stream of water. She lingered in the shower for almost a half hour, turning it all over in her head and trying not to think about it at the same time. She toweled off, threw a quick glance at herself in the lighted vanity mirror, and went into the bedroom. She was ready to crawl into her plush king size bed and get some needed sleep, but it dawned on her that she hadn’t checked her messages. She had a ton of missed calls on her phone and the burner phone that Wacka had given her. And there were dozens of messages on Scott’s phone.
She listened to Wacka’s threatening voice messages. They were angry and blunt. He felt that she was avoiding him. He wanted his five million dollars soon. She still had no idea where she was going to come up with that kind of money. It was asking the impossible of her. There was nearly no more money on her end. The measly thirty thousand in cash that Scott had in the suite had been bagged and tagged by the federal agents. She was fucked. How could it be fixed? Could it be fixed?
There was so much to think about and consider. She lay in her bed and cried her eyes out until she decided to not cry anymore. Her world had shifted in a nanosecond. It felt reminiscent of 1994—déjà vu. But this time it was her man that was facing hard time. Not her. Then it dawned on her; this wasn’t her fight.
“I feel so stupid.”
Maxine got out of bed and walked around Scott’s enormous penthouse and fixed herself a martini. She was being blackmailed, her money was gone, and Scott was in jail. What would she do? What she wasn’t going to do was allow life to fuck her over again. Max needed to reemerge and she needed to think street and examine her true feelings. Why was she crying over Scott’s trifling ass? Maxine had to admit to herself that she could never fully forgive Scott and that the possibility of him doing life in prison actually tickled her. Tipsy, she laughed out loud. In some ways, this was karma. And if Layla got convicted too, her prayers from so long ago would be answered.
Maxine realized that it was only a matter of time before Scott’s assets were frozen. Typical move from the feds when dealing with large sums of drug money. But she also knew the tactic would hardly cripple Scott. If Layla could steal fifty million from him and still be alive, then she knew that there was more where that came from. Sure, his kid
s would be a problem, but Maxine could handle herself.
If she continued to play her cards right, then Scott would make sure she was always taken care of. Now all she had to do was help guarantee that he spent the rest of his life behind bars.
***
The next morning Max woke up feeling smart. If prison taught her anything, it was to be cunning and to put herself first. She needed cash and not for Wacka’s extortion. His threats were on the backburner, for now. Just in case her cushy future with Scott went down the toilet, she wasn’t leaving broke. She was first in line at Chase, then Citibank, Bank of America, and a host of others trying to pull out whatever cash balances she could from her credit cards before the feds shut them down. It wasn’t a windfall, but she managed to scrape together just over sixty-one thousand. The money was stuffed into her Hermes bag Scott had gotten her. The bag cost over thirty stacks, and she had five of them. Oh, those babies were going up on ebay, letgo—wherever she could find potential buyers.
Max rushed home and walked through her large walk-in closet, which was in shambles, looking for more sellable items. Clothes and shoes were strewn everywhere. Those jealous fucks had purposely trashed the place.
First she went into the kitchen and fixed herself a morning cocktail. The lime tequila hit the spot. Next she grabbed a couple trash bags and began tossing in what she could stand to part with. Red bottoms, YSL, Balmain gowns, Chanel shades—all the trappings of a hustler’s wife. When one trash bag turned into four, Max had a better idea, a smarter one. Going online to sell the merchandise would leave a paper trail. She remembered that she had done time with a female from Harlem named Skip. Skip was in her early thirties and had sticky fingers her whole life. By age twelve she was boosting, and by seventeen she was into credit cards. Skip was legendary in her hood and had a long list of clientele who paid top dollar for her merchandise. If you were a dude and you wanted a brown mink coat for your chick, Skip would get it and sell it to you for half the price.
Skip was doing a five year stretch for grand larceny when she met Max. It was her fourth bid. Max hoped that she wasn’t incarcerated again. She logged on to the missing person locator website—Facebook—and typed in Skip’s government name, Stacey Jackson, and five pages came up. Quickly she found, Stacey “SkipStillGettin$” Jackson, and grinned.
Bingo! It was going down.
The next items up for auction were Scott’s guilt gifts—well, that’s what Maxine liked to call them. Her expensive jewelry had to go. This morning she thought she would only pawn a piece or two, something she was sure Scott wouldn’t miss should he beat the case. But after taking a hard look at how the feds destroyed the apartment, they unwittingly gave her an alibi. Max could sell it all because, as far as Scott knew, some fed stole it during the raid. And the bonus was she would sell Scott’s jewelry too. He owned several Rolex watches that he had collected over the years. Plus there were diamond cufflinks with his initials and an array of gold and diamond chains that he never wore. Her payday was going to be big, but she had to do it right. She could take a risk, but she couldn’t be reckless. The flipside was that Scott could actually beat his case so she couldn’t move like she didn’t give a fuck even though she now cared less than that.
Once her plans were put into motion it was time to not live in squalor. Max called up Merry Maids, a handyman, and a locksmith. It was time to take full advantage of her newfound freedom. Within a couple hours the penthouse suite was buzzing with activity. Each person that came through those doors tried to hustle her. She hated when people tried to count her money and decide what she could afford. However, she allowed them to think they were playing her.
“I don’t know if I have this lock in my van,” the locksmith said and then scratched his head. “How did you say it got broken?”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, something like this is going to cost you extra. This is a specialty lock and will take time for me to do the install.”
“A specialty lock, huh?”
“That’s correct. But if you want me to fix it it’s gonna cost you a little more than I had originally quoted over the phone.”
“How much?”
He stared at the lock for a few more moments. “To fix something like this . . .” His voice trailed off and Max’s pressure rose.
“Yes, you’re here to fix it, correct?”
The locksmith ignored her sarcasm. He was still thinking. He was thinking a lot of things like what the fuck happened in that apartment? Why was she living in such opulence and not him? How did she get into such a posh building and on the top floor at that? Was she a celebrity? Maybe someone he wasn’t familiar with. And finally, would she pay his two months back rent?
“It’s going to cost you twenty-five hundred to fix this lock.”
“Twenty-five hundred?”
“Yes. And I will give you a year warranty on my work.”
Max exhaled false aggravation. “Do you take checks?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll get to work.”
Max smiled politely and went into Scott’s office. The once locked drawer was popped open and she located his business checks. It gave her great pleasure to write out a check to this prick that she was sure would bounce for one of two reasons. She was sure the feds would have Scott’s money frozen and although she signed Scott’s name—well, he scribbled his signature—she wasn’t Scott West.
Merry Maids was the same deal. It took four women six and a half hours to clean up. They were moving slowly in Max’s opinion. Too busy being nosy looking through her and Scott’s shit. They peeped the bags of clothes she had put to the side. One female kept asking if Max wanted her to unpack the bags and hang up the items.
“Are you moving out?” another asked.
“I paid for maid service, not chitchat,” Max snapped. She also watched them like a hawk. Maxine wasn’t a fool. She had all her and Scott’s jewelry along with her money in her Hermes bag, which she held onto firmly.
The women left with a large check that would also bounce. After they cleared out, Maxine crawled into her king size bed, and that night she slept peacefully.
8
Fitzgerald Spencer had a smooth but demanding voice and was one of the top criminal defense attorneys on the east coast. His specialties were federal cases, dealing with magistrate judges, negotiating bail bonds, and getting his criminal clients acquitted.
Lucky called him after she listened to the message Layla had left on her cell phone telling her that she’d been arrested by the FBI and to contact her attorney right away. Her mother sounded shaken up and a bit frightened.
“I already have my people on her case,” he told Lucky.
“Already? How? Did she call you?”
“I saw the arrest on the news. Your parents are high-profile.”
“So what are we looking at?” she asked him.
“Listen, come down to my office this afternoon around two and we’ll talk further.”
“Okay.”
When Layla stole the fifty million from Scott and broke off into her own faction with Lucky and Meyer, the first thing she did was hire Fitz and put him on retainer for one million dollars. She figured his services would come in handy one day for her hot-headed son or Lucky, and a million dollars was more than enough if a case ever went to trial.
Layla figured herself to be smart and to think ahead. She’d heard enough stories about drug dealers who became indicted and incarcerated and found themselves in boiling hot water because they didn’t have enough cash saved for lawyers, bail, and a trial. It wasn’t going to be her story. She understood that her world was a game of chess and you always had to think four or five moves ahead of your opponent.
It was another Antarctic day in New York. Lucky dressed warmly in a short, tan Burberry double-snap quilted coat, a warm sweater, blue jeans, and knee-high boots. She exited her building with her g
unmen and climbed into the backseat of a lavish black Escalade and headed toward lower Manhattan. They fought against city traffic and crawled through the west side of the city before the truck came to a stop in front of a towering, modern glass building with a glass-and-bronze entrance.
Lucky exited the vehicle alone and strutted through the vast marble foyer and examined a directory of who’s who of NYC law. She ascended to the 14th floor of the building and entered the lush law office suite, where the firm name and logo was displayed in tall bronze letters—Spencer, Donnelley & Bridges—and the furniture was sleek and Italian. The young receptionist at the desk was expecting Lucky. She smiled and immediately allowed her through the doors.
Lucky walked into the lawyer’s pristine office and was met with the aroma of high-priced leather. Law degrees from Harvard and Yale decorated the walls, along with a bookshelf swollen with law books. Fitz sat in his high back leather chair behind his exquisite wooden executive desk and smiled at Lucky. Behind him was a picturesque view of the city from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
He stood up and greeted Lucky with a firm handshake. His grip was reassuring, and his blue eyes were concentrated on her. Fitzgerald was handsomely dressed in a dark blue tailored three-piece suit. He was tall and attractive with his tanned skin and sandy brown hair, and he looked like he could be a Kennedy. He was cool as a cucumber and self-confident. His resume of acquittals and favorable plea deals spoke loudly from the streets to the courts.
Lucky sat opposite him in the low ancient leather chair and quickly asked, “So, what are we lookin’ at? The FBI’s got my mother on lockdown.”
Fitz was always a tell-it-like-it-is attorney. His eyes didn’t falter.
“Unfortunately, the judge didn’t grant her bail. The U.S. Attorney fears she could be a flight risk, and a judge signed off on the feds freezing her accounts. The raid on her home didn’t produce any contraband, but the search warrant included paperwork. Hopefully Layla didn’t have any incriminating documents lying around.”
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