by Kiki Swinson
Eli’s eyes narrowed. Had it been any other nigga who’d said that shit to him, he would’ve blasted a hole in the center of his fucking forehead. “I’m just informing you the new realities out here. Midnight ain’t no joke, he’s got a military mind—and he’s ruthless with his shit.”
“Yeah, yeah, I done heard about his methods. Decapitation, disembowelment—I get it.” The don shifted in his chair as he took another healthy gulp of his drink. For the first time in twenty years, Eli thought he saw a crack in his godfather’s bravado. Midnight did worry him.
“There’s a new word out on the street,” the don said, refilling his glass. “Have you heard?”
Eli blinked. Had he already heard about the ordered blackout?
“A snitch.” Anger stiffened Mafia Don’s jawline. “Can you believe that shit? It’s one thing for the nigga to try and get at me with guns blazing. It’s a whole ’nother thing to try and label my ass a snitch. I done caught more than a few niggas looking at me sideways tonight.”
“Who?” Eli barked, glancing around and reaching for his piece.
“Too many to muthafuckin’ count,” he spat. “I didn’t cut any fuckin’ deal to roll up out of that shit hole. But with King Cobra out of the picture and Whitlock, Bell, and Graham recently locked up, this muthafucka puttin’ unnecessary questions in ignorant minds. That shit is what worries me.”
Teardrop kept bouncing his head like he was listening to a preacher on Sunday morning.
Truth be told, it worried Eli too—especially since he was a little hazy on how the trafficking charges disappeared. However, he learned a long time ago to not ask too many fuckin’ questions. He sat up straighter and reached for his drink. Once he chugged half of it down, he figured that it was time to drop this latest bombshell. “Look, Don. There’s something else you should know.”
“Aww, shit. Can it keep?” The don stretched back in his chair and pulled out one of his favorite cigars. “Talking about this muthafucka is already affecting my mood.”
“It may be nothing.”
“Do you think it’s nothing?”
Eli hesitated and then shook his head.
“Then let’s hear it.”
“Midnight ordered a blackout.”
“Give me a muthafuckin’ break.” He laughed and then glanced over at his boy.
Teardrop grinned, but he clearly took the news more seriously.
Eli nodded until his godfather’s laughter died out.
“Humph.” Don tilted up his drink again, growing angrier. “Somebody needs to get me that bold muthafucka’s head on a platter.” He slammed his glass down on the table and then ignored it when it shattered in his hand. “I don’t care if we have to look under every brick in this city. I want that son of a bitch found!”
“Believe me, I’m working on that shit.”
“Not fast enough,” Mafia Don snapped.
The waitress rushed over and attempted to clean up the glass.
“LEAVE IT!”
She scrambled away as fast as she came.
Jaw clenched, Eli mentally counted to ten before he spoke again. “Look. Midnight is barking up the wrong tree on this shit. Dutch said those niggas at the drop-off tonight were heading out to California. Clearly somebody fed . . .”
Mafia Don’s walnut complexion paled six shades.
Mafia Don is a man with many secrets. Eli allowed Omar’s words to float through his mind while his godfather struggled to compose himself. Teardrop didn’t look too good either.
“How in the fuck?” Mafia Don spat, and glared over at Teardrop.
He shook his head, looking equally dumbfounded.
Despite the questions racing through Eli’s mind, he held his tongue and waited until his godfather decided whether to volunteer any information.
“You’re going to California,” Mafia Don announced matter-of-factly.
Eli’s expression remained stony. “Yes, sir.”
“No bullshitting. I want you on the first flight out to L.A.”
Without missing a beat, Eli reached into his jacket and whipped out his cell phone and looked up flights online.
The don glanced over at Teardrop. “Give us some privacy.”
“You got it, Boss.” Teardrop hopped out of his seat and melted into the crowd.
Once they were alone, Mafia Don reached for the Hennessy in the center of the table with his bleeding hand and chugged from the bottle.
After assessing a time he needed to be at the airport, Eli returned his phone to his inside pocket and waited.
Mafia Don got straight to the point. “I have a daughter.”
Eli hid his shock. At his silence, his godfather continued. “Don’t take it personally that I kept it from you all these years. I only tell muthafuckas my business on a need-to-know basis. You feel me?”
Eli bobbed his head.
“Now you need to know,” the don said. “And I need for you to go out there and protect my little girl. She doesn’t have nothing to do with this street shit. Her mother . . .” His voice choked off, and he snatched up his drink again for another chug. “Her mother, Angel, took off after an ambush attempt over on Lombard. Shit. If it wasn’t for your father, Beecher and his niggas would’ve taken me out that night. Probably woulda been ruling all this shit on the east side.”
Eli’s lips hiked upward into a proud smile. Hardly a day went by that someone didn’t tell him how much of a street superhero his father had been back in the day. He’d snatched a lot of niggas out of the jaws of death but blasted a whole lot more.
“Anyway, Angel and I survived the ambush. I took some lead, but my girl got shook and took off out west. She didn’t tell me about my daughter until her second birthday. And that was only because I popped up unannounced. Shit got dicey and complicated real fast, but in the end we continued on in our separate ways. It was probably for the best. A few years later, she married some slick-talking lawyer and tried to pretend my ass never existed.”
Mafia Don glanced off thoughtfully.
Eli waited through the silence, which included another chug of Hennessy and the don pulling out two cigars. “Smoke?”
“Sure.” Eli accepted the fat cigar and bit off the back.
“I’m telling you all this because your presence may not exactly be welcomed when you get out there.”
“Is that right?” Eli said, leaning forward to accept the offered flame for his cigar. After a few tokes, he eased back with thick billows of smoke coiling between them.
“Yeah. Just because things didn’t work out between me and Angel doesn’t mean that I shirk my responsibilities. I mean . . . I’m a man. I take care of mine. You feel me?”
“I hear what you’re saying.”
“We didn’t talk much, but she never turned down the money.” He grunted. “At the same time, she kept me away from my kid.” Mafia Don reached into his jacket again. This time, he pulled out a picture from his wallet and slid it across the table. “That’s my little girl. Named her Blake.”
Your government name.
“I hated it at first, for a girl, but it kind of grew on me.”
Eli glanced down, but then his brows sprang up.
“She’s quite the looker, ain’t she?” the don baited.
Eli’s gaze took in a breathtaking redbone with seductive green eyes and a Playboy smile. His chest tighten up when he also took in baby girl’s perfect Coke bottle frame.
Mafia Don snatched the picture back. “Show the proper respect, nigga. That’s my lil girl you’re drooling over.”
Chuckling off his embarrassment, Eli tried to clean up the damage. “Nah. It’s nothing like that. I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
“What? That I can have a daughter this beautiful?” The don looked back down at the photo while another smile hugged his lips. “She’s the spitting image of her mother.” He sighed. “God rest her soul.”
“She passed away?”
“Yeah. A couple of years back—about a week befor
e I got busted.”
Eli remembered his godfather taking a trip out to the West Coast back then. He was really hush-hush about it.
“Car accident,” Mafia Don said. “Took out her and her husband. Muthafucka was drunk at the time and got T-boned at an intersection. I went out for the funeral. Thought I could be a shoulder for my lil girl—even thought that it would be a chance for us to establish a real relationship. Turns out, she inherited her mother’s stubbornness and temper.” He sighed. “Last time I talked to her, she yelled that she never wanted to see or hear from me again. So . . . don’t expect a red carpet to be rolled out for you when you get there.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.” Eli digested the information. “How many niggas know about her?”
“Counting you and Teardrop? Two.”
Eli’s lips twitched. “Then how?”
“I don’t know but I ain’t gonna sleep on this shit. You get out there and you protect my lil girl whether she wants you to or not.”
“Done,” Eli said simply.
“And another thing.” The don took a long toke off his cigar. “Keep your dick in your pants.”
The men’s eyes locked.
“I love you like a son, but she ain’t for you. Got it?”
“Got it.”
3
Two weeks later . . .
Who in the fuck is this muthafucka? Blake’s gaze shot back up to the rearview mirror of her Jaguar convertible as she eyeballed the black Mercedes GL550 stalking behind her off Wilshire. Mercedes were a dime a dozen in Beverly Hills, but it was the blacked-out windows that caught her attention first thing that morning. Still she dismissed it. Maybe it was some celebrity or overpaid professional athlete who was getting their rocks off riding behind the illegal tint. The second time she spotted the vehicle, she dismissed it as being a coincidence. Then she spotted it a third time.
And now a fourth time.
Her mind flew through a list of potential shady characters she’d worked with in the past. The entertainment business had its share of dangerous and unscrupulous people, and she had crossed a few of them to take B. Scott Management firm to the top. A few illegal recordings and a couple of compromising photos had opened quite a few doors that would’ve otherwise been closed to her. Recently, one door blasted open when a certain studio head, Ajet Austin, with conservative family values had been recorded freebasing and fucking a snaggletoothed crackhead who went by the street name Juicy.
So what that Blake hired and paid Juicy for the lurid and graphic video. So what that she blackmailed the scum for $2 million and then forced his studio to hire a few of her clients for major features. Hardball was the only game played in this industry—and she was a champion at the game. Besides, only idiots and fools believed in luck—and she was neither. She believed in hustlin’ and creating the illusion of luck. Don’t pimp the player, pimp the game, right?
Blake smiled, but then her gaze drifted back to the tag rolling three cars back. Austin. Clearly he trusted her about as much as she trusted him to fulfill her end of their bargain. But he’d soon find out that she didn’t intimidate easily. Blake opened the glove compartment and removed the pink handled .38 Special and slipped it into her tote sitting in the passenger seat.
“Ms. Scott, are you still there?” her annoying, perky new assistant, Perri, chirped through the Bluetooth clipped onto her ear.
“Um . . . yeah. I’m still here,” Blake said, jerking her gaze back to the road in front of her and immediately slamming on her brakes. A blue Bentley was stopped at a red light. “Fuck!”
Tires screeched as her hand locked in a death grip on the steering wheel. She slowed the momentum down enough so that when she tapped the back bumper, her airbag didn’t deploy. However, the Bentley’s driver still jumped out from behind the wheel. “What the hell, lady?”
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” Blake snatched off her sunglasses, shifted her car into park, and killed the engine.
“Ms. Scott? Is everything all right?” Perri’s high-pitched voice penetrated.
“Does it sound like everything is all right?” Blake snapped, climbing out of her vehicle. “Call Mr. Braddock and tell him that I’m running late for our meeting, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Yes, ma’am. What happened?”
“Nothing I can’t handle. Just make the call.” The mysterious Mercedes slowed as it rolled past the fender bender.
She used the opportunity to try and peer into the vehicle, but the driver jammed the accelerator and zoomed off down Wilshire—but not before her photographic memory got a good look at the license plate.
“Gotcha, muthafucka.”
Did this chick just make me? Eli expelled a thick cloud of smoke from the corner of his mouth while his black gaze sliced back up toward the rearview. Despite the growing distance, he had no trouble at all making out the dangerous curves of Blake Scott’s Coke-bottle frame. Hell, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of it for the past two weeks. When he had headed out to the West Coast, he knew the don’s daughter was attractive, but the cute fatherly picture in his godfather’s pocket didn’t do justice to the real thing.
Kissing six feet, Blake Scott was one hell of a tall drink of water, with mesmerizing D-cups and an ass shaped like an upside-down question mark. She was the total package with cinnamon-kissed skin and haunting green eyes. He’d sat and watched her hypnotize every man she came in contact with. No doubt she’d get out of this little fender bender without the cops being called.
Elijah pulled over in front of Saks Fifth Avenue and then shifted his surveillance from the rearview to the side mirror. He was taking a calculated risk that the minor accident was what it appeared to be and that the muthafucka riding in the quarter-million-dollar car wasn’t one of Midnight’s henchmen ready to open fire the moment Blake stepped out of her car.
With one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the chrome Colt in his lap, Eli sat on edge, praying that his hunch was correct. He didn’t mind playing babysitter, but this shit was damn near impossible to do on the DL. However, the Don was clear that he didn’t want to scare his daughter or intrude on her life. Eli was only to step in if there was a clear and direct threat. After all, they were operating on the word of a dead street hustler.
As he predicted, Blake charmed her way out of having the cops called to the scene, and she even gave the driver she hit an extra thrill by slowly sliding his number in between her breasts.
Eli laughed. Blake definitely knew her power over men. He didn’t know what he’d expected when he arrived, but in the weeks he’d been tailing the voluptuous businesswoman, he’d surmised that Daddy’s little girl didn’t fall too far from the tree. Sure, the hustle was in a different field, but the hustle was still the hustle. From his wiretaps, he surmised the beauty had a list of enemies as long as her father’s. But she handled her shit with a smile and a roll of her hips.
The Bentley and the Jag started up again, and a minute later, Ms. Scott blazed past him at a clip that was a good twenty over the speed limit.
Eli pulled off from the curb and rushed to catch up. A couple of minutes later, he parked outside of Spargo and watched Blake race inside. There was no stopping the erotic thoughts that flashed in his mind as her ass jiggled and her tits bounced as she made her way inside.
“Stop it, man. That’s the boss’s daughter,” he voiced aloud in order to break his trance. Problem was that at this point, it wasn’t working. He had never seen or met anyone like her. She stacked her own paper, kept herself up, and owned a multimillion-dollar crib in Denzel Washington’s neighborhood. Apparently all earned by her own hustle. What nigga wouldn’t be impressed by that shit?
In fact, more than a couple of nights, he had fantasized about kicking in her bedroom door and mussing up her perfect hair and funking up her silk sheets. She may look like an angel but something told him that baby girl knew how to put it down in the bedroom.
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” he warned again. B
ut that shit was easier said than done.
His “California Love” ringtone interrupted his private conversation with himself, and he pulled out his phone and recognized Omar’s number. “Holla at me.”
“Yo, nigga. You still out there enjoying your fuckin’ vacation?”
Eli smirked. “It’s hardly a vacation.”
“Nigga, if you ain’t dodging bullets, your ass is in fucking paradise right now.”
“Streets still hot?” he asked, missing the action like a dope fiend.
“The muthafuckas are on fire. We lost ten soldiers last night at a swap over off riverside. Fuck. I took one piece of lead to the hip and had another graze the side of my head.”
“Shit, man. Are you all right?” he asked, concerned. Resentment for being placed on babysitting duty set in.
“Yeah, man. I’m all right. But I tell you what—that nigga Midnight is putting a serious hurtin’ on our operation, man. I can’t wait for your ass to get back here. You have any idea when the hell that’s going to be?”
“No clue.” Eli expelled a long breath and then looked at his watch. How long is she going to be up in this bitch? It was damn near going on two hours.
“All I know is that we could’ve used your Terminator ass last night. I swear, some of our younger niggas learned how to shoot on a damn Xbox or some shit.”
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
Eli’s gut looped into knots. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll give the don a call. I think Dutch played our asses on this one.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. That nigga and the truth mixed like oil and vinegar.”
Eli chuckled as he glanced at his watch. He jaw-jacked with Omar for another thirty minutes before he started getting anxious again. “Yo, man. Let me holler at you later. I need to go check on my package. Keep me posted on what’s going on out there. Hopefully I’ll see you soon.”
“Sure. That or we can switch places. I know I wouldn’t mind sitting on my ass doing nothing for a little while.”
Instantly, Eli didn’t like the idea of his boy peeping out his girl—well, not his girl technically. He shook his head in the hopes of untangling his confusing thoughts. “Later, man.” He disconnected the call and then hopped out of his vehicle.