Carl Weber's Kingpins

by Raynesha Pittman

  “Hell nah, but we can keep her around. I want you to fuck me while you eat her pussy and she sucks on my titties.”

  That was the straw that broke the floodgates. Julio jumped up and shot his dick at her face as his nut came shooting out. He could have died when he felt her lips wrap around him to replace the hand he was using to squeeze his head. With thirst, she finished drinking his load. After watching her lick and play with his shaft, he was tired of the games.

  “Look at me,” he demanded, but her eyes never met his. With his free hand, he grabbed a lock of her hair and forced her to. “Bitch, you heard me. Look at me when you suck this dick, you hear me?” he asked, securing his grip and tugging at her hair. She looked into his eyes with helplessness etched in her own and nodded. It was a turn-on. The power of watching one of the baddest bitches he’d ever nutted in taking pride in her submissive role polished his ego. “Now suck the head faster.” She bobbed, and, feeling like Tony Montana in a Florida floral button-up in front of a mountain of cocaine, he lit and hit the blunt. He was sure the weed would assist her with getting him back hard.

  If he’d had that ring on him, he would have proposed. Both of their plans to crack each other for information were thrown out, at least for the moment. They found something better to focus on than Temper. They found their secret fantasies in each other.

  Chapter Twelve

  The beach house was lovely at night, though it didn’t compare to its beauty in the daylight.

  “Do you remember Kevin?” Matthew asked as he poured them a glass of orange juice to go with the breakfast he’d cooked. Eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toast made for a good breakfast any day, but they tasted a lot better as Temper ate alfresco by the pool with a view of the ocean.

  “Yeah, the scrub I dated when I lived out there. We broke up because Isabel caught him trying to buy pussy. Oh, my God, he didn’t kill her, did he?” Shock stole her breath and held it until he answered.

  “No, he didn’t kill her, but we do have him in custody, and he will be charged as an accomplice to her murder.”

  “Oh, okay, so . . .” she said, winding her hand for more information. “It can’t be that cut-and-dried, or we wouldn’t be here. What’s Kevin’s part in it?”

  This was the part Matthew wasn’t looking forward to, the part where he had to tell Temper she was in danger and, in that same breath, tell her that was all the information he had.

  “We used media outlets to announce the case was reopened and that we had a huge lead on the people involved. For seventy-two hours after that, we ran everyone who bought a plane, train, or bus ticket out of there with any ties to Isabel or her past cases, and we came up empty-handed. About forty-eight hours after that, I got a call from the television station. They said they received a call asking if there was a reward for information on her death and if they could get off for their part in it if they shared what they knew but hadn’t killed her.”

  “How stupid is he?”

  “Real stupid, because the station asked him to hold on while they looked into it, and his stupid ass did. By the time we tracked down the address and made it over there, he was still sitting on his couch with the phone to his ear. Even after he confessed his part, he asked if he’d still get the reward.”

  “And what was his part?”

  Temper had never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she did speak and comprehend bullshit on an advanced level. She knew Matthew was dragging his feet, and she was ready to hear the truth.

  “From his statement,” Matthew said, retrieving a folder from the stack of them on the chair to his right. He handed her Kevin’s written statement so she could read along as he summarized it. “He received a text message. Under the impression that it was sent from you, he went to the location, but you weren’t there. When he made it back to his car, there was a car parked next to his. Supposedly it had broken down, and the driver needed help. He lent his phone, a text was made, and a text came in. He was given his phone back, and he went home.”

  She applauded. “Great act, but I’m here for the full show. You’re holding back. There’s something you ultimately don’t want to tell, but we both know that you will and that you have to. How about we skip the pussyfooting and you give me the gut punches? Trust me when I say I can handle anything at this point in my life. Now go back. Why did he think the text came from me?”

  “Read his statement—”

  “No. I want you to tell me.”

  He took a deep breath. “The text said, ‘It’s me, Temper. This is my new number. Can you please meet me?’ Kevin said he ignored it like Isabel instructed him to—”

  “What do you mean, instructed him to?”

  “She ran him off. When she found out he was buying prostitutes, she put her gun in his mouth and told him if he didn’t leave you alone for good, she’d come up with a legal reason for pulling the trigger.”

  Temper couldn’t believe what she was hearing, and if it hadn’t come out of Kevin’s mouth, she wouldn’t have. “Kevin told you that lie? He broke up with me because I didn’t tell him she was a cop, and he was paranoid because he smoked weed.”

  Matthew shook his head. “That’s not a lie. I was there when she did it. Isabel saw you as her daughter, and she made it her job to protect you. Kevin didn’t want to call it quits with you. He was threatened. He even begged her not to tell you that she had caught him in bed with a prostitute.”

  Unsure of what to think or feel, she asked, “Was that all the fake text from me said?”

  “No, it said that you knew he was done with you, but it was your birthday, and not even Isabel’s controlling ass could stop you from having him as your birthday gift.”

  “And he showed up?”

  “Yep. The mention of sex was all it took, and that alone made Isabel right for banishing him.”

  “I didn’t say she wasn’t.”

  “You didn’t have to. The look on your face said it all—relief that that scumbag didn’t reject you.”

  “Whatever. So he gets to the place, and I’m not there. He helps someone get help and makes it home. Fill in the gaps. If that’s all that happened, why is he in jail?”

  “Because we can’t prove his statement is true. As for the gaps in the story, he said that twenty minutes later he received a text that said, ‘I’m here, Kevin. Where are you? What tip do you have on my case?’”

  “Isabel texted him?”

  “We don’t have a record of that text, but if his statement is true, he would be the last person besides her killer to communicate with her.”

  “Why would she randomly text him about her case or assume that they were meeting?”

  “This is just speculation, but I’m guessing the text that the stranded person made from his phone was to Isabel and the text back was her response.”

  “All this technology and y’all can’t track those texts down?”

  “I said the same thing when I was given the report back. Kevin uses one of those refillable-minute phones from the grocery store, and because of Isabel’s undercover status, only the number the text came from was available. When we found her body, her phone had been factory reset, and there was only one number in it.”

  “The number that you tried to trace back to the manufacturer.”

  “Right.”

  “So Kevin’s story can’t be proven?”

  “Yes and no. We are holding him under that charge as protection, just in case her murderer has this planned out and executed. He kind of fucked himself when he said that the moment he found out she was dead, he knew the girl had set him up from his phone. He never said anything before. It took him all these years to come forward with that.”

  “Did he describe the girl?”

  “Yes, chubby with huge breasts. He said everything about her said she was from Cali, but he couldn’t remember her face.”

  “Did you show him a picture of Tyger?” Her stomach flipped as the words came out of her mouth. All it took was those descriptiv
e words, and she was ready to throw her best friend in jail for life. She hurt her feelings as the truth told the story.

  Thinking back, Tyger was in town for her birthday way before she knew it, and she did know her plans with Kevin for her birthday were canceled because of Isabel. Tyger could have sent him the fake text begging him to meet me, but Tyger was at the shelter with me when Isabel left early. Even if she was the girl pretending to have car troubles, Kevin gave a twenty-minute time frame from the incident to Isabel’s text. It sounds like Tyger, but if she did it, she couldn’t have been working alone.

  “I see your gears turning. All the dead ends you reached on naming Tyger as a suspect I reached as well. Who else did you tell about the circumstances surrounding your breakup with Kevin?”

  “No one. Tyger was my only friend back then. Could he have told someone, and is he sure of the twenty-minute time frame?”

  “He is sure, and I checked. His number was the other unidentified number that came up on the transcript of Isabel’s phone, and all of his times and time frames add up. He said twenty minutes. The records show twenty-six minutes. Still not enough time for Tyger to have been the girl. Around the time the first text came in, you and Tyger were out test-driving your car.”

  “Wait, how do you know that?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and then swallowed his cup of orange juice whole after letting it go. “Because I was Isabel’s man.”

  Temper blurted out, “Yeah, right. She hated you.” She laughed uncontrollably.

  He waited for her to finish before correcting her. “If you believe that, then we did a damn good job of undercover work together. Come on, Temper, think back to all those nights we said we were working on a case and locked ourselves in her room or the nights she called to tell you she wouldn’t be home because she was on a stakeout. Hell, even the night we caught Kevin walking into a hotel room hand in hand with a prostitute, we were there for a quickie on taxpayers’ dollars, but on paper, we were there to get a feel for johns’ hangouts.”

  She was speechless. It all made sense now that he’d revealed his hand. She remembered that she wanted to surprise Isabel by cleaning her room and private bathroom and saw a used douche bottle in her trash can next to an empty box that once housed condoms. She thought Isabel might have met a man she wasn’t ready to introduce her to, but when she called to check on her an hour later, Matthew answered her phone and gave a weak line about her talking to the sergeant. She chalked the items up as necessities for the undercover job she was working.

  “I loved her, and I’m not resting until her killer or killers are dead or in jail. I don’t have a preference which way justice is served. My badge means nothing without her.” Temper squeezed his hand, and he smiled at her. “When I get you back to L.A., I’m going to wait a few days and then bring Tyger in for questioning. I think we are barking up the wrong tree, and with her background and ties, it’s a dangerous tree to shake.”

  “How dangerous?”

  “Are you kidding me? Do you know who her father is?”

  “Honestly, I don’t. I don’t know anything about her or her past.”

  “I know you don’t, and that was always a concern of Isabel’s. Here, take this stack of folders. It contains her records, with info on both her parents and her uncles. You and Tyger are more closely tied than I believe either of you knows.

  “I have calls to make and leads I need to follow up on. Yes, I’m in it to solve Isabel’s murder, but your safety comes first. You’re in danger, and I don’t know the ins and outs quite yet, but I do know whoever is calling the shots doesn’t want you dead. They want to hurt you and then force you to rot in jail. Killing you seems to be their last option. We will regroup and go over everything at dinner tonight.” He pushed the chair with the folders closer to her. “Don’t skip any details. Read everything line for line. I’m beginning to think that, in the end, you’re the only person who will be able to save you.”

  * * *

  “Good morning, baby. After all the work you’ve put in over the last two days, I thought it was only right to feed you goodness other than me.” Tyger giggled.

  “I ate last night.” He smirked. “I think I prefer my food covered in your juices. Bring your sexy ass here.”

  Julio reached for her thigh, but she stepped back.

  “Eat, horny little man, while I get my clothes out for work tomorrow. Then you can do whatever it is you want to me,” she said, leaning in for a kiss.

  “I like how you said that.” He chuckled.

  They both had been sober for over twelve hours, and the energy between the two had intensified. However, her intelligence and his skills as a detective reminded them both that there were rocks neither could leave unturned.

  “Come here, baby, before you get your clothes out. Come lie on my chest.”

  “No, Julio, you need to eat. Your food is going to get cold.”

  “I’ll get up and put it in the microwave. I promise I’m going to eat it. Come here. I’m serious. I want to talk to you.”

  Sighing, she placed the plate on the nightstand and got into bed. He held her, rubbing his hands through her hair until the energy was right.

  “I’m a cop.”

  “Yes, this I know,” she giggled.

  “Tyger Rae Le’shay Washington, I’m a cop.”

  “I hear you, and what do you want that to mean to me?”

  “Nothing, but it means I know your past. Your father’s, mother’s, and hell, I grew up with your uncle.”

  She sat up. “You grew up with my uncle? My daddy’s little brother? I barely even know that dude. What does he have to do with me? Hell, what does that have to do with any of them?” Finally, he was talking Tyger’s language. It looked like having sex to loosen Julio’s guard worked.

  “Do you remember the two rules?” he asked.

  “Do you remember them? No lies, no secrets. I guess you’ve dug through my life, or an FBI agent gave you intel that I’ve reunited with my father. So the fuck what? The restraining order expired on my twenty-first birthday. I’ve seen him once a year since then, and he sends me a shitload of money. That’s not a relationship.” She’d rehearsed her words three times before she said them. She wanted to gain his trust by making him feel like she was trusting him with her secrets.

  “Tyger, you are the only person who ever got close enough to kill him, and from what I read, it was only his money that kept him alive. Eight shots, from the chest to his jaw. No one lives after those types of bullet wounds, nor is anyone forgiven for pulling the trigger on that type of man.”

  “Are you trying to figure out what makes me so lucky? How did I come close to killing the first true black monster of the mob and get to live afterward? Simple. I’m his daughter, and that’s the only reason I’m alive. As sick as it may sound, he respected me more for having the guts to pull the trigger. That solidified that I had more of his blood flowing through me than my mother’s.”

  “Who told you to take him out? I don’t believe eight-year-olds even have those types of thoughts yet.”

  “An eight-year-old who never sees her father because he’s preoccupied with killing, drug smuggling, and fucking up politics does. I was certified as gifted young. Smarts mixed with his DNA made me feel like a ticking bomb. I loved spending time with my nerdy-ass uncle because I forced myself to. Nothing in this world, and I do mean nothing, felt better to me back then than knowing I can control life based on what I do with my hands or speak with my mouth. I’m Capone’s daughter. You can’t fathom the power that came with my birthright. If you want to know my past, then erase everything you read in the books the government wrote about me. The first time I watched my father shoot a goodhearted, hardworking family man in his face over a parking spot that belonged to no one but the city and tell the cops to clean it up, I knew I wanted to do the same. The only difference was that I wanted to do it to all the bad guys in the world. My daddy was first on that list. No one had to pay me, although I’m
sure checks would have come flooding in if I had.”

  “So you did have a gun that day at your mom’s?”

  “Wrong again. After I shot my father, they placed me in witness protection. Everyone there was already on my daddy’s payroll and happy to tell me that I was only alive because he forbade retaliation. That’s how I got PICS. My uncle brought in the best therapists from all over the world on my father’s dime, and after years of sessions, I was handed a clean bill of mental health. Now that there was a restraining order in place, it gave my mom the freedom she needed to get away from him. By that time, she’d already grown to hate me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was a part of him. I shot my dad to rid the world of an evil villain. I hit my public defender to get away from my mom. Those are the only crimes I’ve ever committed in my life.”

  “What about this shit with Temper?”

  “What about it?” she snapped, standing. “I want to solve it. I want to fix her life and make sure she’s straight, then cut her off. She told me that she’s a bad guy. After all these years of her thinking that life chose her to fuck over, I found out a lot of it is her karma. That’s why I got you to come here, because I didn’t know if you are friend or foe—”

  “What?” he interrupted, climbing from underneath the covers.

  “You heard me. Are you a good guy or another evil villain? I asked my dad’s people to look into you, and because I was given the same book the government gave you on me, I decided to bring you here to make my own decision. You got secrets you’re hiding too. Must be why your two rules are based on your own inadequacies. I don’t know. I’m here for Temper, and once I know she will be okay without me, I’m transferring to a museum out of the country. I made my plan the day I met her, and I’ve reached the last step. You’re the only part of all of this that I’m questioning.”

  He fell back on the bed, laughing and shaking his head. From the moment he saw Journee, it was the mystery around her that attracted him. Less than five minutes later, she’d approached him with the woman of his dreams at her side, and he knew he had made a mistake, but he rode it out. Learning that Journee was Temper, the girl who had cost his closest friend everything, was the irony that showed the depth of his mistake, and so was Tyger.