by Carl Weber
“You make it sound all mystical and shit,” Kayden chuckled and leaned against the table behind him. He crossed his arms and shrugged his shoulders. “She may be related to me by blood, but that doesn’t make her my family. I already have one person to split the pie with. I’m not trying to turn it into thirds. Now you have what you want, please make sure that neither me nor my father sees you again. Or her. He named her Regret for a reason.”
He watched her jaw clench and saw that his words hit her somewhere unseen to his eyes. She pursed her lips and scoffed.
“I see that it is true what they say. A selfish man breeds selfish-ass children. Maybe it was a good thing that she wasn’t brought up with you and your brother, because that girl has a heart of gold. But I will tell you something. Greyson Vincent is not the first kingpin to touch this city, and he won’t be the last. Everybody knows that the game has an agenda, and the final page in every book is written the same way every time. He is going to meet the same sticky end as all of the rest. Either in jail or dead. Same with you. So enjoy the half of pie that you want so bad while you can.” She patted the briefcase and held it up. “We’ll settle for the crumbs like we’ve been doing. Have a good night, Kayden.”
Turning her back to him she got on the elevator and pressed the button to take her back to the place she’d originally come from. As the doors shut, Kayden locked eyes with her, sending an eerie smile right when they touched. When he saw the number light up above the closed doors telling him that she’d made it to the main floor, he pulled out his phone and dialed a number.
“Yo. What’s up, Boss?”
“Dino,” Kayden said, standing up straight. “She’s heading your way.”
“Got it.”
The phone clicked, and the call ended. He had given Chrishelle a head start, and even an empowering moment. Little did she know, it would be her last moment. He hoped that she felt fulfilled with the millions she had in her possession, because she would only have them for about five more minutes. He went back down to the lower level and saw that the commotion hadn’t let up. It was still busting, and everyone was having a good time. A few people called his name, but he was too focused on making it to the side door.
He was mentally timing everything. Chrishelle should have already made it outside by that time, and when he didn’t see her in sight, he knew he must have been right. He reached the side door and, as he had informed, the bouncers were no longer there. He told them before Chrishelle even showed up to be gone by the time she made it back downstairs. The less witnesses, the better. He opened the door, expecting to see her already laid out at the side of the building, but saw that he had opened the door a few seconds too early.
Chrishelle had only taken a few steps away from the building, but when she heard the door open behind her, she turned her head.
“What, did you come up with the rest of the money?” she asked when she saw that it was Kayden.
“No, I came to get mine back.”
On the last word, Dino, who was wearing an all-black hoodie and jeans, brought a metal bat down hard on the back of her head. The force from the hit was so powerful, Kayden heard the cracking of her skull. She didn’t even know what had hit her as she fell to the ground. Her body began to twitch violently, and it seemed as though she was having a seizure. The back of her head was gushing blood onto the concrete next to her, and Dino went to hit her again, but Kayden stopped him.
“Nah, fam. She good. Ain’t no way she’ll survive that,” he said, digging into his pocket and handing him a roll of hundreds. “Get ghost. I’ll take it from here.”
When Dino ran off, Kayden stepped toward Chrishelle’s body. He watched her for a few moments, wondering when she would take her last breath. He wondered if she would do it while he watched her. There was something about death that intrigued him, especially when he was the cause of it. It made him feel powerful and in control.
“What a waste of a beautiful woman,” he said, spitting on her. “You just couldn’t leave well enough . . . alone!”
He kicked her savagely in her rib cage, causing her to gasp in pain.
“We don’t care about your little Regret, but I’ll make sure I find her and do her just like I did you!”
He kicked her again, harder, before he placed his last call for the night.
“Detective Winthrop,” a masculine voice answered.
“It’s me.”
“Look, man,” the detective said once he heard Kayden’s voice. Kayden heard some movement and some background talking before Detective Winthrop got back on the phone. He spoke in a hushed and quick tone. “The last time you called me, I had to cover up the murders of three teenage boys.”
“I paid you well that time, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing. I paid you well then, and I’m going to pay you better this time. You see, Detective, you’re just like me. An opportunist. It could be the smallest crack, but you’d still try to slip through it. Fifty thousand dollars, cash. Right now.”
There was a pause.
“What do you need me to do?”
“You’re about to get an anonymous tip,” Kayden said, feeding him the story. “There is a woman who was mugged on the side of the building. She’s lying here dying right now. I need you to be the lead on the case.”
“Why don’t you just clean it up yourself?”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Kayden said. “Cleaning it up the legal way. This isn’t the first dead body that has been found outside of this club. It won’t be the last, either. Handle it.”
He hung up the phone before the detective could say another word. Like he’d said on the phone, Detective Winthrop would do anything for the sake of a dollar. That was why Kayden had recruited him awhile back. He had pull, power, and most of all, the drive to do whatever was necessary to make his name look good . . . even if that entailed getting his hands a little dirty in the process. Kayden took one last look at Chrishelle before disappearing back into the club. He was so high off of the fact that he’d just gotten rid of a major problem for his father that he didn’t for one second think about the tiny security camera on the side of the wall . . .
He had to get that recording and destroy it. He had been green and placed too much trust in Detective Winthrop. The detective had slipped up, but then again, he didn’t know the true nature of why Chrishelle was murdered. He wasn’t sure that anybody else did, and he wanted to make sure nobody found out either. He had just gotten his father’s trust back and was on his last leg.
The real reason why Kayden was so hell-bent on proving himself to Greyson was because it was no secret that the man was thinking about stepping down for a while. In the meantime, only one of his sons would take his seat and oversee all of his business operations. He didn’t want anything to come between his chances of being the king of it all; he couldn’t risk it. He would wipe out anyone and anything that got in his way—just like he did Slime.
When he got back to New York, he saw all of the things that Jayden was in charge of. A year made one hell of a difference, and his brother was the man on top in the streets when Greyson wasn’t around. Before he left, when he moved around, people would ask which twin he was. But when he came back, everyone just assumed he was Jayden. It was the most irritating feeling in the world, and when Jayden told him to lie low for a while, Kayden wasn’t having it. He wasn’t in the business of being in anyone’s shadow. He went to his father to pitch himself for a new opportunity, like manning the warehouse, but Greyson shut him down, telling him that Slime had that on lock, but told Kayden that he could “help out” if he wanted to. He then gave Kayden a set of keys and told him the code to get in the warehouse. Greyson told Kayden to prove himself by making sure that all of the work was distributed correctly, like he was some sort of street runner or something. In other words, Kayden wasn’t happy with the arrangement, but he made do with it until he figured out his next move. He almost felt bad that Slime got the short end o
f the stick in his plan, but if it was ever a choice between himself and another, so be it.
He began to rob his father blind, replacing the good cocaine with some stuff he’d brought back with him from Chicago. He originally was going to trap out of Kitten’s apartment for a few months, just until he had enough clientele to really set up shop. Dino and the rest of them were in on everything, and when finally he made the choice to off Slime, he called Jayden to make everything normal. His first mistake was letting his twin meet him at the spot. His second mistake was moving so hastily and forgetting about the other problem on his hand. He was supposed to be searching for the sister he had so that he could get rid of her. However, it looked like she was doing his job so he didn’t have to.
She was coming to him.
Chapter 11
Jayden
The small squeak in the spinning chair didn’t bother Jayden as he spun in it. He was so deep in his thoughts that he barely saw any of his surroundings. His mind was on the night before and trying to decipher exactly what had happened between him and Lee Lee. It was only sex, he kept trying to tell himself, but a part of him didn’t feel that way. Since he’d met her, something about the way she held herself sparked a flame inside of him. And when he was inside and swimming in her sea, he was sure that she had felt it too.
He had waited for her like a fool, not knowing that she’d already run out on him. But why? He couldn’t figure it out. Why did she leave without saying good-bye? Did she have second thoughts about letting him sex her on top of the table? Was she embarrassed? Or maybe she had to get back to her friend. The shy friend that didn’t want to turn around. Or maybe . . . Maybe she didn’t want to show her face. But why would she be scared for Jayden to see her?
His thoughts were what led him to watch the security footage from when Lee Lee was in his office. He saw that she never even went to the bathroom. He watched her go through his things and pick the lock to his tall file cabinet. She rummaged through there for a few seconds before she found what she was looking for. She was smooth, sliding the disk under her dress. It was even smoother how she was able to get on the elevator without him seeing or hearing a thing. The power of her pussy had him on cloud nine, in the kitchen cooking for her like a sucker.
Now there he was, spinning in his chair the next afternoon with the empty disk case in his hands. He had no idea what was on the disk, but that wasn’t what had him so distraught. Whereas he didn’t have the footage to the outside camera, he still had the footage to the inside. It took him awhile to find anything, but before he knew it, he was watching his brother bring a woman, an older woman, up to the restaurant. Now, Jayden knew that Kayden couldn’t stand being up there. He was upset that his father hadn’t allowed him to decorate it or choose the menu, so Jayden was curious about what he was doing.
At first he thought that maybe his brother had a thing for older chicks and just wanted some privacy. But when Jayden saw the briefcase of money, his attention spiked. What was he doing? And why did Lee Lee want the disk that had the footage from the side camera of the building? No one ever even went over there except the bouncers when they wanted to smoke their weed on breaks. The most that ever happened over there was a month ago when a woman was mugged. But what did that have to do with Lee Lee?
A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts, and when he finally stopped spinning, he saw Kayden standing there.
“Damn, man, you look like shit,” Jayden told him.
“I could say the same thing about you,” Kayden said, commenting on Jayden’s unbuttoned shirt.
It was true, Jayden hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep. He also hadn’t had time to shower, so he was still in the same getup as the night before. He subconsciously tried to smooth the wrinkles out of his shirt.
“Touché,” he said.
“You watch the news?” Kayden asked, but then looked and saw that the TV was off.
“No,” Jayden answered, and then raised his eyebrow at his brother’s face. He looked unsettled, and that was an expression Kayden never liked to show. “I’ve been up here all day. What’s up? What did you do?”
Before Kayden could stop him, Jayden already had the remote in his hand. He flicked the TV on and turned to one of the news channels. The drug bust was still the main topic of the day, and Jayden was quiet when he turned to another news station. It was the same thing there.
“Nigga . . .”
“I know, bro. It’s all bad. But I have it handled. It ain’t even gon’ touch Pop’s front door.”
“Handled? I told yo’ ass days ago to dead that fucking operation.”
“I told you I got the shit handled! I’m tired of you treating me like I’m some type of little boy or something. Don’t forget we’re the same person, nigga!”
“We aren’t,” Jayden growled. “Not even close. You may look like me, but we are nothing alike.”
“Man, whatever,” Kayden waved a hand at Jayden and went to the file cabinet. “I’m just here to grab one thing; then I’m out.”
“You looking for this?” He held up the disk case so Kayden could see it.
“How did you—”
“What’s on this disk, Kay?”
“Man, nothing.”
“Yo, you lying, son,” Jayden said. “Nigga, I always know when a lie comes from your mouth. What the fuck is on this tape, man?”
“Look,” Kayden sighed and balled his fists in frustration, “just give me the damn disk, and I’ll handle it, a’ight?”
“Yea, since you’ve been so good at handling everything else. I must look like a fool to you.” Although the case was empty, Jayden could see in Kayden’s eyes how much he wanted the disk that was supposed to be in it. He used that as leverage. “I ain’t giving you shit until you tell me what’s on here.”
Kayden’s fists tightened, and he looked at Jayden like he wanted a piece of him. He let out a loud shout before punching the file cabinet, leaving a dent in the top drawer.
“A’ight, fuck it,” Kayden said. “I had to tie up some loose ends for Pops.”
“Loose ends that I don’t know about?”
“Loose ends that he doesn’t even know about. Or that he tried to forget.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you even wonder why he don’t never talk about our mother?”
“Because who the fuck wants to talk about their dead wife all the time?” Jayden said, wondering what that had to do with anything.
“But he don’t never say shit about it. It’s uncharted territory, and I know why. He’s been hiding a secret from us all these years. We aren’t twins, my nigga.”
“What? Nigga . . . get out,” Jayden had enough and was starting to think that maybe his brother was getting high off of his own supply.
“I’m dead ass. We aren’t twins,” he said, pulling a folded up white envelope from his pocket. “We’re triplets.”
He tossed the envelope to Jayden who looked down and saw the words From Chrishelle written on the outside of it. He opened it and pulled the contents out. Jayden was about to open his mouth and tell his brother how crazy he sounded until he read the birth certificate in his hands. Dropping that to his lap he read the letter out loud, and as he read, all of the dots began to connect.
“We have a sister?”
“Apparently.”
“How could Dad not tell us about this?”
“Look at her name, nigga. She’s the reason that our mom died. Her body couldn’t handle the third birth. No one even knew she was in there.”
“But that’s not her fault,” Jayden said. “Why would he hate her? That doesn’t even sound like Dad.”
“That sounds like him now. Dad was a savage back then. One thing never changed, though: his ego and his pride. He let her grow up with a name like Regret and never tried to find her.” Jayden looked at the name on the envelope, at his sister’s adoptive mother’s handwriting, and his brother’s words suddenly dawned on him. He slowly rose to his feet. “That woman I saw
you with on the surveillance. . . If Dad never got this letter, then . . . Then you met her. That woman on the video was Chrishelle, wasn’t it?”
“What are you doing watching footage of me?”
“I was just trying to figure out why anyone would want to steal this disk that you want so badly.” He opened the case and showed Kayden that it was empty. “Now I know why. You murdered that woman. What the fuck are you on, my nigga?”
“She was threatening to ruin us!”
“She was trying to get what our sister deserves! And you killed her, man?”
“Yes,” Kayden answered without hesitation. “And I’m going to kill Regret or Faye—whatever she’s calling herself. I’m going to kill her too.”
“Our sister?” Jayden asked, thinking back to Lee Lee’s friend. Could she have been right under his nose, and he didn’t even realize it. “You’re trying to kill our sister?”
“Just tying up all loose ends.”
“Yo, you’re bugging.” Jayden became fully aware that he didn’t recognize his brother anymore.
“See?” Kayden shook his head, “I knew you done went soft on me. Look at the bigger picture, brother.”
“What bigger picture? That you’re going around killing people that you have no reason to kill? These women aren’t our enemies! And our sister is family, whether we know her or not! You moving around like a maniac searching for his chance to shine. I bet . . . I bet Slime ain’t even do that shit. I bet you set that shit up!”
He was just speaking out of anger, but when he saw the smile spread across Kayden’s face, he knew he was right.
“Slime was in the way,” Kayden shrugged. “I’m trying to make my way up in the ranks, brother. And you and I both know there is only room for one of us at the top.”
Jayden didn’t know what had happened until he heard the gunshots and felt the burning sensations multiple times in his chest. It was a pain that he’d never felt before because he’d never been shot before. That’s what the goons around him were for, to take and make shots for him. He fell out of the chair and slumped into the corner, clutching his chest. His vision blurred, but he could see Kayden putting his gun back on his waist and walking toward him.