by Marcus Weber
Whoever had shot up the shop hadn’t taken any of the drugs, just killed all three drivers and all five guards. Antonio had apparently gone missing, but his car was found inside with a spray of bullet holes on its side.
By now, the shop was surely crawling with police and narcs. Emil and Jackson would probably have to deal with the cops and Feds since all of their businesses were currently under scrutiny. They’d also have to deal with Mo now that the heat was literally crawling up their asses.
“I don’t care how y’all do it. I don’t care who you gotta speak to. I want somebody that is key to Max King hit tonight! I need to know by tomorrow that Antonio is safe. And, where the fuck is Hayden?” Emil announced and asked at the same time. “Go! Everybody get the fuck to work!”
The men filed out of the room, except for Jackson.
“You all right?” Emil asked Jackson. He looked like he had aged ten years overnight.
“I almost got my fuckin’ head blown off and my brother is missing . . . probably dead somewhere. Nah, I’m not all right. Life as we know it ain’t never gon’ be the same. If you didn’t know it before, you damn sure know it now. Pop, this is a fuckin’ declaration of war.”
“Change happens every day. I was forced into this business when I was a boy. Now I’m responsible for my own empire. If it’s war they want, it’s war they will get,” Emil shot back. Even he wasn’t sure how he was really going to handle Max King, but he wasn’t about to let anyone know that he didn’t have all of the answers. Not even his son.
“Yeah, exactly. But we need to be smarter than them this time,” Jackson grumbled, pushing his chair back, putting a new dent in the wall. He stormed out.
The Cartwright empire was shrinking quickly. They needed to find more trusted knights to protect their castle before it was overrun by their many enemies.
Chapter 12
Ties That Bind
Antonio shivered as blood ran down his face, chest, and stomach. He couldn’t stop his legs from shaking, and he felt like his bladder would explode at any moment. Wherever they had him, it was literally freezing cold, like he was naked in Alaska.
“Hit him again,” a man’s voice boomed. Antonio braced himself, because he knew exactly what was coming next. “Please,” he whispered, but that was for nothing. It was clear that these very dangerous people were not going to have any mercy on him. It was also clear that if he ever got out of there, he would hunt down each and every one of them and kill them one by one, slowly and painfully.
Antonio let out another scream as he felt the shock waves from the oversized stun gun. His face folded into a pain-filled frown, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Sweat was pouring from every pore on his body. He gagged, but nothing came up from his stomach. His heart pounded painfully against his chest bone. Antonio was wishing for death, because even that had to be better than what he was feeling. Another hit with the electric current caused piss to spill from his bladder and splash on the feet of one of his captors.
“This bitch ass nigga pissed on me!” the thug growled. Then he took his huge fist and punched Antonio across the face so hard spit shot out of his mouth.
“Antonio! Help us!”
The words, the sound, the voice, almost made Antonio’s heart burst. Fuck the pain he was feeling from another hit from the stun gun, nothing was worse than hearing Paige screaming for his help. Then he heard his son’s cries. Antonio squinted and saw Christian and Paige huddled together, a gun at their heads.
“Please let her go,” he mumbled, his words coming out labored and almost breathless. “Just take me, but let her go,” he whispered through his battered lips. It was almost unreal what they were going through. As hard as the torture was, it was even harder for Antonio to see Paige and his son in a position of total helplessness. He had always been his son’s hero. When Antonio’s mother died, he’d promised himself that when he became a parent, he would be the best at it. He would make any and all sacrifices to take care of his son. Antonio thought he was always so strong and heroic to Christian, but now, he was just as weak and useless.
“Antonio,” Paige panted. “Don’t let them kill us.”
Antonio squinted through his battered eyes and tried to see them again, but the bright lights his torturers were using prevented him from catching a good glimpse of his family. Whether they were divorced or not, Paige and Christian were really the only family Antonio had. He’d fucked up, and he knew that now. All he wanted was another chance to make it right. He figured that he would probably never see them again. He could hear their voices around him clearly though, so he knew they were all in close proximity.
“Unfortunately for you, your father betrayed me. It is inevitable that the sins of the father fall on the sons,” a man Antonio couldn’t see said in an eerily calm voice.
“Agh!”
Antonio startled to the sound of Hayden’s screams. They had them all there.
“I tried everything in my power. But, that old Emil, he just kept on coming into territory that wasn’t his. I should have never trusted him as a business partner. I should have known that such a weak man, who would run from his being a father to his own son, who would betray his own fucking blood, could never be a good partner. And then . . . I tried another route. I tried to use your father-in-law to get at you. But, you . . . you got too big for yourself. I knew when you came all the way into this business and started making deals you would think you were the boss of everything. I let you have the shine for a little while. Yes, you were living like a boss for a bit, but you got too big,” the tall, ugly, man with red rat eyes hissed as he came into focus. He had stepped around the bright light, and Antonio could now see every feature of his face.
“Just let them go. I’ll do everything you ask, King. I was always loyal to my father. He gave me a job. I just did my job. I came into this business because I wanted to save my family. I did everything he asked of me, but I didn’t know anything about your deals with Emil. My wife and son had nothing to do with it. I gave up everything, even my wife. This business took the only woman that I ever truly loved from me. What more can I do? Now you’re about to take my family, I’ll give it all up. Just tell me what you want,” Antonio cried as another round of punches landed in his midsection. More cracks and coughs came as the men pounded on him, breaking bones and injuring his insides
Paige winced and turned her face away. Her heart was breaking, watching him suffer. It was worse than any pain she could ever go through with his lying and cheating.
“Daddy! Stop hurting my Daddy!” Christian screamed. Paige quickly slapped her hand over his mouth. It was killing Paige to know he was in all of that pain. After she discovered what Antonio had done, yes, she was devastated, but that didn’t change the fact that she loved him and that he was all she and her son had in the world.
“Just let them go,” Antonio rasped. It was his last-ditch effort to save them all. He recognized that the position they were in right at that moment was all his fault. Paige had once pleaded with him to leave the business and the Cartwright’s alone. She had asked him to stop being in the streets and to just get a regular job. Paige knew how stubborn he could be, and there was nothing much she could do about it. He was determined to show her he could provide for them. Antonio was the type of dude that never backed down from something that he wanted. As much as Paige hated it, she also admired it in a lot of ways. Now, they were all facing death with no clear way out of the situation. All because of Cartwrights. If anyone deserved to die, it was Emil.
“Paige, I’m so sorry! I just wanted the best for us. I just wanted to make things better. I never meant to have this happen to you. I told you, King! Just kill me and let my family go! It is me that you want! I was the one who worked with Emil and pulled the lid off of your business! It was all me . . . not them!” Antonio cried some more.
“Shut the fuck up! I’m tired of your fucking mouth. You and your brother here, and the rest of you bastards cost me millions of dollars b
ecause you motherfuckers wanted to stage a fucking takeover . . . now I want to see all of you bastards suffer. You’re a piece of shit, just like your father. You’re not worth sharing the same air with,” King barked, waving his hands.
His goons immediately surrounded Antonio. His heart rattled in his chest, but there was nothing else they could do to him that would hurt him more than the possibility of Paige and Christian dying at his hands. Antonio gave up at that moment. Whatever was going to happen must’ve been fate from the beginning, he reasoned with himself.
After a few minutes, one of the huge thugs dragged Antonio across the gravel floor. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. He didn’t know how after all of those hours of torture, he hadn’t slipped into shock. His entire body felt like someone had doused him with gasoline and lit him on fire. He could feel the skin on his legs shedding away against the rough floor. He didn’t want to die, but if he was going to die, he was going to go out fighting. He tucked his bottom lip under his top teeth and snarled.
“Get off of me! Get the fuck off of me!” Antonio growled so loudly his throat itched. “Fuck all of you! You’re all going to burn in hell for what you’re doing!” he continued, feeling blood rushing to places on his body that he didn’t remember even existed. Antonio bucked his body wildly, but all of his fighting efforts were to no avail. Of course they were stronger than him. Of course he wasn’t going to be able to break free, but it just made him feel slightly better inside that Paige and his son could at least see him try.
Antonio had never dreamed of going out of this life on his knees. The man dragging him finally roughly let go of and released him with so much force that his head slammed to the floor. Antonio felt something at the base of his skull come loose. He was dazed for a few seconds, but not for long. He was brought back to reality when he felt a boot slam into his ribs. The force was so great that a mouthful of blood spurted from his mouth.
“You don’t have all of that back up now,” the goon hissed.
“Please don’t hurt him anymore. I will get my father to give you everything we have if you just let him go,” Paige cried out.
There was evil laughter. “It is too late for that. Your husband, or whatever he is to you now, should’ve thought about that before he and his family betrayed me. Now, someone has to pay with their life. There will be no more talking,” the man said with finality. The next thing Paige heard was the ear-shattering explosion of a gun.
“No,” she belted out, and she shut her eyes. But when she opened them, Antonio was still there, panting, and one of Max King’s henchman was lying dead next to him. Everyone was whipping their heads around to find the source of the shot, when Paige heard a voice entirely too familiar to her.
“King,” boomed the voice of Gladstone Tillary through the room, and from behind a stack of boxes emerged Senator Tillary and three of what Paige recognized as high-ranked political consultants, who King and the Cartwrights knew as his muscle. But the gun was in Gladstone’s hand. Another shot rang out, and the man who had stood above Paige fell to the ground next to her, the blood leaking from his chest pooling around him and spreading out in a circle that touched her shoes. Another shot rang out, and the last of King’s crew hit the ground.
King looked at his dead protection and didn’t even shudder, he just stood up straight and kicked the body out of his way. “Hello, Gladstone,” he said with a smirk malicious enough to set his own face on fire.
Paige was wondering why her father hadn’t looked her way yet. Her mind was not in the place to process the implications of how her father had found them so quickly, or of how he had killed a man, she was only grateful to see him.
“King,” her father boomed again, walking further and further toward the center of the room where King kneeled over the bloodied Antonio. “I do not care about your business, in fact, all I have ever done is protect it, is to scratch your back while you scratch mine.” Gladstone was flying across the floor, it was almost as though he was possessed, Paige suddenly lost her father to this crazed man. He put his gun up again and suddenly he was standing right in front of King, Antonio on the floor, gasping under him trying to recover his breath.
“Welcome,” smiled King, looking like the devil incarnate, “I’m glad you could finally make it.” The two men stood eye to eye. Of all the years they had spent together, constantly on the edge of destruction, the one thing that had kept them accountable was that they both had everything to lose. King knew it, and Gladstone knew it, that this was the final battle. There would be no moving past this.
“My daughter,” growled Gladstone. His henchmen moved in behind him, and King was outnumbered. “My daughter,” he screamed, louder, his voice taking up every bit of air in the room. “My daughter, you do not touch. There is not much that we hold sacred, but you know better than this,” whispered Gladstone, but everyone could hear him from the pain and the bass his voice held.
“I know,” said King quietly, his smile slowly fading into anger, “but it is not my fault that this is the company your daughter has chosen to keep.” Antonio was still at his feet. He kicked him like a dog that has misbehaved, and Antonio barked out like one.
Even in his painful delirium, Antonio hated that his father-in-law was there. He finally knew for certain that he would have rather died than to have lost his dignity the way that he had. But it was too late now, there Gladstone stood above him, being the man in the situation. He hated it. Antonio fought against his own body to get up, to try and do something, to help. The body that for so long had been the key to his success, the body that had got him out the hood, that had got him his nice life and his beautiful woman, that body he was so proud of, was betraying him when he needed it the most. Antonio raised himself up onto his hands and then fell again, his body hitting the ground hard. King and Gladstone were so deep in their hate of each other that they didn’t notice him moving around at their feet.
“My daughter is not her husband,” said Gladstone, “she is not the Cartwrights, she is not in this business, in this world.”
“She became a part of this world the minute her stupid-ass fuck of a husband tried to get into his daddy’s business,” spit King back at him. They glared at each other.
“No,” Senator Tillary responded, “she is innocent. I don’t care what you say. You cannot do this to my daughter, to my grandson, and think that you can get away with it. Max, this is the last straw, I promise you this is the last straw.” He cocked his gun.
King began to laugh. He put his hands on his knees and threw back his head and he roared with laughter. Everything was quiet except for Christian’s cries and King’s gasps of hysterics. Gladstone kept his gun cocked and on him, but King just kept laughing.
“Motherfucker,” yelled King, “you think you can kill me? You honestly think you can kill me?”
Below the two men, Antonio was still struggling to move. There were so many bodies around him, dead and otherwise, he didn’t know where to put himself, but he was slowly, slowly crawling his way toward Paige and his son, to the only two things that mattered.
“We’ve been playing at this game for a long time, King. We have. And honestly, I have enjoyed our time together, but it’s time it comes to an end.” His gun was between King’s malicious, bloodshot eyes. King pushed his forehead against the barrel of the gun. Gladstone stood his ground, and the skin on King’s forehead moved in ripples against the pressure of Gladstone’s rage.
“Do it, motherfucker, do it,” King said, “I dare you.”
Gladstone considered the threat. He had just killed a man about five minutes before this moment. For all intents and purposes, he should have no hesitation, as murder was not something that was foreign to him. But he couldn’t pull the trigger. Antonio, who had managed to make his way out from beneath them, could feel the hesitation radiating off of his father-in-law, and from where he lay on the ground could see where Gladstone was looking, which was directly into King’s eyes, and not on his hands which were sl
owly making their way toward the gun on his hip. Antonio could feel that bad thing, that scary thing that had been living in him that he had been pushing down, rise up and take over his broken body. Gladstone pushed the gun harder into King’s forehead and King kept laughing and laughing, the whole time his hand moving. The bad thing in Antonio took over.
“Stop laughing,” Gladstone bellowed, and King pulled his gun in the loudness of his opponent’s yelling.
Paige, who had been watching the whole time, screamed and covered Christian’s eyes, sure that her father was about to die, taking the only chance of her and her son’s salvation with him. The crack of the gun rang out and she closed her eyes, screaming and screaming. From behind her eyelids, she could hear the thud of a body hit the floor. Her body shook with sobs and she shook Christian’s small body with her own as he buried his face in her chest. King may die at the hands of Gladstone’s men, but she could not imagine life without her father. She could hear low talking and wondered why there hadn’t been the second gunshot, the one that was needed to kill King. As much as it scared her, she opened her eyes. In front of her was a scene she could not believe.
On the ground, bleeding from the shot to his head, was Max King. Laying on the ground, panting with exertion, was Antonio, gun still in his hand. Her father was looking down at his long-time partner and was speaking quietly to one of his men. Paige grabbed Christian in her arms and had to make the decision between whether she would go to her father or to Antonio, but seeing him bloodied and beat the way he was, the wall around her heart broke down and she chose Antonio, almost instinctively, putting Christian down on the ground next to him. His eyes were still alert, even though the skin around them was swollen. He looked at his wife and his son, in disbelief that they had somehow made it out alive.