The Reluctant King: Book 1: The Book of Shadow

by K'wan

  “I’m aware of this, which is why I thought I was putting one of my most qualified young boys on the job. Maybe I was wrong in that assessment of you, J?”

  Judah’s jaw tightened. He glanced over at the girl, who had stopped scrolling through her phone and was now paying attention to the conversation. “Chelsea, take a quick walk to the store and get me a water.”

  Chelsea sucked her teeth, but didn’t argue, and stomped off in the direction of the store. When she was gone, Judah addressed Ghost.

  “Ghost, I respect you, but we need to be clear on something: I get busy in these streets, fam. I don’t give a fuck who it is or how strong—if they’re in the way of progress then they go. That’s on my kids. Now, I get it. Malice has pissed in your Cheerios, but you need to understand something. This ain’t some sucka-ass nigga trying to make a name for himself. Malice has been in position for years. He’s strong out here, so I need to move right on this so I can get close enough to him to do what you’re asking of me. This ain’t some random nigga who I can just pay off his bitch to leave the door unlocked so my boys can do him dirty.”

  This last line stung. Judah was referring to a rumor circulating about how Ghost managed to acquire a piece of contested territory in South Jamaica, Queens, held by a vicious gangster named Black Tone. Usually when the King family applied pressure, people folded without putting up much of a fight, but not Black Tone. He was willing to take Ghost to war for what was his. Tone was a savage and had a nice-sized crew behind him, so taking the territory by force was easier said than done. This was when Ghost got crafty with it. Instead of going at Black Tone head up like a real solider, Ghost paid off Tone’s girl to double-cross him. One night, while Tone slept over at her house, she neglected to lock the front door. Ghost slipped in and blew the sleeping man’s head off, then killed his girl. Whether this rumor was true or not could never be confirmed, since Ghost was the only one alive who knew what had happened. All the streets knew was that when Ghost planted the King flag in South Jamaica, there was no one to contest him.

  “If I were you, I’d watch my mouth,” Monster warned Judah now.

  Judah raised his hands in surrender. “My fault.”

  “Bottom line, you gonna push this nigga off the planet or do I need to reach out to someone else to give that turf to?” Ghost asked.

  “You know I want that hood, big homie. I’m gonna get this done. I’m just trying to move correct. I gotta wait until I catch him slipping, because my team ain’t deep enough for a straight-up war. I’d like to keep my casualties to a minimum.”

  “If you need some extra muscle, I got no problem having Monster or some of the other guys come through and help you out,” Ghost said. “The only thing about that is that you’d have to break bread with them on the spoils, and we all know how greedy my cousin can be.” He nodded in Monster’s direction.

  “I could go for a slice of that pie,” Monster said, licking his big lips. It was a bluff, he and Ghost both knew it, butjudah didn’t.

  “Nah, we’ll take care of it,” Judah responded.

  “That’s the go-getter attitude that made me recruit you in the beginning,” Ghost said, adjusting the lapel of Judah’s sweat suit jacket. “Change is coming. I’ll need people around me who I know can get shit done. Make this happen and I’ll make you the lord of all that you survey.”

  “I got you, Ghost,” Judah vowed.

  After a few last words, it was time to part company. Ghost had tested Judah, pushing his buttons to see what kind of reaction he would get from the young hustler. If he had bucked against him, Ghost would’ve known he wasn’t right for the position Ghost planned to put him in. But Judah handled himself well, which was a good thing. He probably thought Ghost was tight about him not taking care of Malice, but Ghost was hardly as upset as he pretended to be. It was all part of the test. Be it by Judah’s hand or someone else’s, Malice was dead and his neighborhood would soon come under the Kings’ rule. In truth, the few strips that Malice controlled weren’t even worth the effort. It was the principal of what he had done that required Ghost to make an example of him.

  “I can’t believe we going to war with them old niggas from the Stuy over a bitch,” Cheese mumbled under his breath. Judah shot him a look.

  “What did you just say?” Ghost said, turning to him.

  And there it was, the elephant in the room. Ghost had been aware of Malice and his operation for years, but until recently the man hadn’t really been of much concern. That changed when Malice and Ghost’s fiancée ended up at the same party. Ghost was away on business and Kelly was having a girls’ night out. According to people who witnessed what happened, Malice was drunk and trying to hit on everything in a skirt, ineluding Kelly. When she blew him off, he took it personal and palmed her ass in front of everyone at the party. She tried to swing on him, but luckily some guys loyal to the King family stopped anything from going down. It wasn’t that serious. In fact, Kelly had never bothered mentioning it to Ghost. Someone else had. Ghost could’ve let it go, but he had a reputation to protect. A man who laid hands on his girl was a man not long for life. He could’ve simply killed Malice, but death wasn’t enough. He wanted to break him before he sent him on a oneway trip to the spirit world. This was why he had recruited Judah.

  All eyes were now on Cheese. He knew he had fucked up by speaking out of turn, but it was out there. He wanted to swallow his tongue, though he couldn’t run the risk of looking like a sucker in front of Judah. “No disrespect to you, Ghost. I’m just saying that there is a lot of blood about to be spilled because Malice pushed up on a broad you’re fucking.”

  “So that’s what you think this is about? Some random piece of pussy?” Ghost asked in an icy tone.

  “I figured the pussy must’ve been fire if you’re willing to go to war over it.” Cheese meant it as a joke, but the humor was lost on Ghost.

  “Say, Cuz,” Ghost called over his shoulder to Monster, “remember that mess I said we were gonna make?”

  “Say less.” Monster stalked forward.

  Judah stepped between Monster and Cheese. “Chill out, fellas.”

  “Move or bleed, lil’ nigga,” Monster said, shoving Judah to the side as if he were little more than a curtain blocking a doorway. By the time he got to Cheese, the guy was reaching for something in his pants, but it never made it out.

  Monster slapped Cheese with so much force that the dudes in the car across the street heard his jaw break. They fumbled out of the car and rushed over to where the fight was happening, only to be met by Ghost and his two 9mms.

  “Fuck is y’all lil’ niggas about to do?” Ghost challenged, leveling his guns at their heads.

  “Ghost, this ain’t necessary!” Judah said, watching as Monster mercilessly throttled Cheese.

  “Oh, but I think it is,” Ghost said without turning around. “See, when I speak softly, y’all act like y’all don’t hear me, so now I gotta raise my voice.”

  Monster punched, kicked, and stomped Cheese like he had just caught the man fondling his little sister. There was blood everywhere. When his arms finally tired, Monster reached into his jacket and produced a snub-nosed revolver. He roughly jammed it between Cheese’s split lips. “Sleepy time, shorty.”

  “That’s enough,” Ghost told him.

  “Fuck you mean? When we go, we go all the way!” Monster snarled over his shoulder. All day he had itched for some action, and now Ghost was trying to deny him his glory. He wasn’t feeling it.

  “I think Cheese has received my message. Ain’t that right, Cheese?” Ghost asked, but Cheese was unconscious.

  Reluctantly, Monster withdrew the gun from the guy’s mouth, but not before hitting him in the face with the butt for good measure.

  “You ain’t have to do all that, Ghost,” Judah said, barely able to control his anger. “Cheese got a big month, but he’s one of mine. If he was wrong then it was my place to chastise him, not yours.”

  Ghost shrugged. “No need to than
k me for doing you a favor. I like you, Judah. You’re gonna be a star out here one day if you can just learn to get out of your feelings. I told you when we struck our little bargain that you’re in the deep end now. You’re gonna either swim or drown. Your choice.”

  As Ghost walked back to the car, Monster lingered, watching Ghost’s back just in case somebody tried to retaliate for what had just gone down. Ghost strode along as if he didn’t have a care in the world. If he had bothered to turn around, he would have seen the look of death Judah shot him.

  * * *

  “That wasn’t smart, Ghost,” Monster said once they were back in traffic and far from the playground.

  “Cheese was out of line.”

  “That we can agree on, but pouncing on one of the niggas who you’ve just allied with to pull off a hostile takeover is sending mixed signals. In one breath you say you’re gonna feed these dudes and in the next you order me to beat the shit out of one of their own. How you think it’s gonna look on Judah if he lets this go? He’ll lose the respect of his soldiers.”

  “Then I’ll provide him with a new army,” Ghost said. “What? You feeling some type of way that I had you put hands on that nigga?”

  “Not at all. I couldn’t give a fuck about Cheese or Judah. We got an agreement with them young boys and the minute you put me on Cheese, you poisoned that deal. If you were gonna do it like that then we should’ve killed Cheese, Judah, and the rest of them, then started over. This could turn into a problem down the line.”

  Ghost knew that Monster was right. He had just acted off emotions and dressed it up as principle. As a result, he might have seriously damaged his relationship with Judah. Not that the partnership would make or break Ghost one way or the other, but he had gone too far to turn back. He was already committed to the takeover and would need to follow through. “I’ll make this right with Judah,” Ghost said. It was the closest he could go to issuing an apology.

  Monster let it die after that. He doubted that Ghost even realized the extent of the insult levied against young Judah. That’s because he could no longer recognize the signs. The same couldn’t be said for Monster. His street senses hadn’t been dulled by the finer things in life. He was a predator and could spot one of his own. And one thing was for certain—Judah was going to turn into a problem that would need solving. Monster planned to do just that.

  CHAPTER 13

  By the time afternoon came, Chance was worn out. He had been out and about all day, making sure that all his ducks were in a row. He and Maureen had spent the last few weeks going over his battle plan, checking and double-checking to make sure that nothing had been missed. She still wasn’t keen on the idea of him going all in with his political career, but she put her personal feelings to the side and stood with him as a true queen should. The process had been rough on her, which was all the more reason Chance wanted to make sure her birthday was one befitting a queen. Once he was done with his rounds, he was going to go home and make the rest of the night all about her.

  The last stop Chance had to make before leaving the city was one that hadn’t been on the schedule. Yet when Rocco Salvatore called and asked for a sit-down, it wasn’t a request he could ignore. Any other time, Chance would’ve taken the summons as a slight, but these were delicate times and he knew he was treading in dangerous waters. He swallowed a bit of pride and decided to answer the summons for the sake of keeping the peace. He didn’t fear Rocco like some of the other lords did, but he also knew better than to unnecessarily offend him. While Chance may have worn the crown of Five Points, Rocco was the tip of the spear. He sat at the head of one of the biggest Mafia families in the city. At full strength, he commanded at least one hundred hired guns, and so as long as Rocco was happy, those guns would all be at Chance’s disposal.

  When Stevie pulled up to the block, the first thing he noticed were two men lingering near the entrance of Rocco’s building. Another man sat lookout in the window of a third-floor apartment in the building across the street. He was trying to be inconspicuous behind the laced curtain that covered the window, but Stevie’s eyes were trained to pick out threats wherever they hid. “This shit smells funky to me, Chance,” he muttered.

  “That’s the fish market on Williams Street you’re smelling,” Chance joked. He too shared his friend’s uneasiness, but there was no sense in making an already tense situation worse. It was best to play it cool. “I should be back in about ten minutes.” He reached for the door, but Chippie stopped him.

  “If you’re not, me and Stevie are coming in after you,” she said.

  Chance smiled and patted her hand. “That’s good to know, darling, but I think I’ll be okay.”

  Chance slipped from the car and made his way toward Rocco’s current residence, an apartment building that had been there longer than either of them. Until several years ago, the mobster had lived in a modest house out in Queens with his wife and three kids. Has wife had passed two years back and both his daughters moved away, leaving only Rocco and his son Dickey in New York. And Dickey was a straight-up soldier. With all that he had sought to protect by moving to Queens now gone, Rocco decided it was time to get back in the thick of things. He wanted to live out the twilight of his life in the same neighborhood he had grown up in, in the apartment where his dad kicked the shit out of him and his siblings. The only difference now was that Rocco owned the building, and he was no longer the kicked; he was the kicker.

  The place sat just above a Chinese bakery, so the build ing and all the apartments always smelled like fresh pastries. The two men guarding the outside of the building nodded in greeting to the king of Five Points. They moved aside and allowed him to enter without patting him down. (Something only known to a select few was that when Rocco purchased this building, he evicted all the tenants and installed his most trusted capos and killers in the apartments. You’d have a better chance of getting next to the president than you would Rocco.)

  Chance took his time walking up the three flights of stairs that led to Rocco’s apartment. When he stepped onto the third floor, he immediately smelled weed, which was odd because Rocco didn’t allow drugs in his presence, especially where he laid his head. It didn’t take long to identify the source of the smell. A card table was set up beyond the landing. A few of the younger mafiosi lounged around playing poker; Chance recognized one of them. He was young—not as old as Ghost but older than Shadow. His black hair was tapered on the sides. A red sweat suit two sizes too big hung on his lanky frame. Around his neck lay a gold chain with a large medallion depicting St. Nicholas, the patron saint of thieves. The young mafiosi stood as a sign of respect, all except the man with the chain, who glared at Chance.

  “It Ain’t the Boot Who Sat by the Door,” the man said. “Ain’t that what the book was called?”

  “You and I both know that isn’t the title, Dickey,” Chance replied, “just like we know I don’t tolerate disrespect. Not even from Rocco’s kid.”

  Dickey let his scowl slip into a smile. “I was only busting your balls, Chance. I meant no disrespect.”

  “Sometimes I wonder,” Chance said. “I gotta say, I’m surprised to see you here. Last I heard, that temper of yours had landed you in some trouble. Attempted murder, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s more of a he said, she said. Only she never showed up in court to say anything. You ain’t the only one who knows Jews in high places,” Dickey boasted.

  Something about this last comment didn’t sit well with Chance. He kept that to himself and tried to stick to business. “I’m here to speak with your father.”

  “He told me you got some things to whisper about. Face-to-face conversations are big-boy talk. I guess I gotta wait until I’m officially sitting at the table before I can tap in on those.”

  “What’s for us is for us and what ain’t, ain’t,” Chance said. When he stepped around the table to get to Rocco’s apartment, Dickey rose to block his path.

  “I’ll need to pat you down,” Dickey informed
him.

  “You can’t be serious.” Ever since Chance’s first time visiting Rocco in this building, he had never been subjected to a search.

  “There’s a war going on outside that no man is safe from,” Dickey said, referencing the lyrics to a Mobb Deep song. “Bad things happening to good people, so I’m just trying to make sure my pops is good. You understand, don’t you?” He took a step in Chance’s direction, but the king moved out of his reach.

  “The only thing I understand is if you put your dick-beaters on me, we’re gonna have a problem,” Chance said. This had nothing to do with security; this was Dickey attempting to disrespect Chance and expecting him to sit for it, which he wouldn’t.

  The other mafiosi now circled him. Each of them knew that Dickey was playing at some bullshit, but he was also their boss so there wasn’t much they could do except fall in line. Chance was unbothered. Though Dickey was a dangerous young man, without his father’s backing he wasn’t anywhere near the level of Chance. He was a baby stumbling around the house in his father’s shoes, and sometimes he had to be reminded of that.

  A wall of tension built between the men as they eyed each other. Dickey had never cared for the Kings because he believed that when the monarchy of Five Points was established, it should’ve been a Salvatore wearing the crown, not a King. The Salvatores had history and pedigree, but it was the Kings who had the plan. Even Dickey’s father had stood with Chance on this because he understood the long game. Crowning Chancellor King the king of Five Points was a business decision, not a personal one. Unfortunately, Dickey Salvatore had never managed to see it that way, nor was he very good at hiding his feelings.

  “You two done jerking each other off?” a voice called out, cutting through the tension. At the end of the hall, standing in the doorway of Rocco’s apartment, was Vincent Apora. In his prime, Vincent had been the Salvatore family’s high executioner, but two heart attacks and Father Time had relegated him to a sort of personal assistant for Rocco. He didn’t get his hands dirty much because of his age and condition, but you’d be a fool to think Vincent wasn’t still dangerous. Everybody respected the old-timers, even the young mafiosi.