She looked into the small mirror to watch if the doorknob moved. She would start blasting before they even stepped through the door. Another lesson she’d learned from Uncle Rock.
Candice slid up against the wall closest to the office to listen to their conversation. Her life depended on it.
* * *
Tuck bent over and threw up the contents of his stomach. He tried to reach for his weapon, but the wave of nausea was too overpowering.
“Fuck!!” Junior growled. He couldn’t stop the tears from coming. He kneeled down beside his brother’s dead body. He lifted Broady’s battered head into his hands and rocked. “It’s my fault. I got you in this game. I shoulda left you alone with your dreams. I fucked up your life. I was angry, but I wasn’t gonna kill you, son.” Junior cried like a woman, his voice high and quivering.
Tuck was struck silent. All along he’d thought Junior himself wanted to off Broady. He was sure that business and keeping up his relationship with the uptown cats were more important to him than Broady’s life ever was.
“This nigga Phil is a dead man,” Junior growled, still holding Broady’s head tightly to his chest. “That nigga crossed the line.”
Tuck had just witnessed Junior on the hunt for Broady, talking a lot of shit about snapping his neck with his bare hands, yada yada. Now Junior wanted to kill Phil, even though he knew Broady’s death was a revenge kill for Phil’s little brother.
Tuck just shook his head. There was no use in fighting for a career that was completely slipping away now. He had no idea what to do now that his most important case had gone to shit, and his family now belonged to his traitor-ass coworker.
“C’mon, son. He is gone. We need to get going and call somebody,” Tuck said softly, placing his hand on Junior’s shoulder.
Junior looked up at Tuck.
“C’mon, you don’t want the cops to get to your moms first. You gotta be the one to break the news to her,” Tuck said, knowing that would get Junior to move.
Junior started pulling himself up off the floor, blood covering both of his arms and his hands.
“Stay right there, son. I’ll get you something to get that cleaned off before we bounce.” Tuck walked over to the small door next to where Broady’s body lay. He twisted the doorknob and pushed the door in.
Tuck looked up into the mirror in front of him, and his heart jumped into his throat. His ebony skin turned ashen white as he stared through the mirror at two guns pointed at him by the one woman he truly cared about.
He slammed the door back and turned around like he’d seen a ghost. Still holding on to the doorknob, his heart raced painfully against his sternum.
“What happened, son?” Junior asked, noticing Tuck’s facial expression.
“Too much blood in there, son,” Tuck huffed, thinking quick on his feet. “Let’s get the fuck outta here, nigga!”
“They worked a nigga over like that? Same shit they did to Razor. Maybe my baby brother was right. Maybe I been tricked. That nigga Phil probably did all this shit. He probably sent that little fuckin’ blue card, talkin’ shit.”
“I don’t know, son, but we need to get out of here.” Tuck couldn’t take a chance on Junior asking to look inside the bathroom. Tuck was kicking himself. He should’ve known when Candice just appeared out of nowhere that something wasn’t right about her.
“A’ight, you right. I need to go see my moms.” Junior smeared the blood from his hands and arms onto the front of his pants.
“We can grab you a change of clothes and shit,” Tuck said, making small talk to keep Junior preoccupied. “You gonna have to get rid of that outfit, son.”
Junior exited the office first, and Tuck walked backward out the door behind him, more sick to his stomach now that he knew the identity of the real killer.
Chapter 12
Junior and Tuck filed out of the doors of Club Skyye onto the street, both disturbed by the turn of events. Tuck held his phone up to his ear with a shaky hand. He dialed 9-1-1 to report finding Broady’s body.
Junior pressed forward toward his parked car, preoccupied with thoughts of how he would give his mother the news. He didn’t think it mattered that she didn’t care for her youngest son, but he knew witnessing his mother’s pain was going to kill him inside. Her guilt over the way she’d treated Broady over the years would probably hurt her more than the knowledge of his death.
Tuck grabbed the door handle of Junior’s Benz and began to pull the door open. Suddenly, the sound of glass shattering cut through the air, and Junior’s windshield glass rained into the car’s interior.
Tuck sucked in his breath and snatched his hand back like he had touched fire. “What the fuck!”
Just then a bullet whizzed past his face. Instinctively, he dropped to the ground, taking cover behind the passenger side of the car. More bullets flew. This time one of the headlights popped.
“Oh shit! Junior, get down!” Tuck screamed, as the bullets flew overhead.
Junior ducked behind the open driver’s side door, and more bullets slammed into the side of the car, barely missing his head.
“What the fuck!” Tuck belted, crouching down with his gun in his hands. He didn’t know where the bullets were originating. It seemed to him like shots were being fired at both sides of the car.
“Yo, son, can you see where they’re coming from?” Tuck asked as more bullets whizzed through the air.
“We gotta get the fuck outta here!” Junior screamed, taking a chance by lifting himself up and climbing into the car.
“Get down! Stay down!”
It was too late. Junior screamed out in agony. Then more bullets.
“Junior!”
Not knowing the source of the gunfire, Tuck decided he was going to just start shooting back. If he took care of his side of the car, that might stave off the shooters and buy them some time to get away. His mother would be devastated by another line-of-duty death, especially her only son’s.
Tuck reverted to the mind-set of Avon Tucker, DEA agent. Cover, cover, cover, scan, cover. He wasn’t trying to die in the middle of the street. He peered from behind the car’s front bumper and let off five rounds. The shots cut through the Manhattan air with no immediate destination. He just needed a distraction for the shooters.
“Get the fuck in the car! I’m hit!” Junior ordered, feeling a fire erupt in his arm.
Tuck tried his luck with opening the passenger side door. He was able to get in, but as soon as he did, he heard bullets hitting the car’s metal frame.
“Fuck! Drive, nigga!” he hollered at Junior.
“Agggh, son. I’m hit. I think it’s my shoulder! I can’t feel my hand!” Junior winced.
“Nigga, it’s either drive, or we gonna die right here in this fuckin’ car!” Tuck bellowed, the sound coming from some place deep.
Junior lifted his almost numb arm and cried out in excruciating pain.
“Drive!” Tuck screamed.
With bullets raining down on them, Junior gritted past the pain and wheeled the car out of the spot in front of the club. Both men were breathing so hard and fast, they threatened to steal all of the oxygen from the car.
The car’s tires screeched down the street as the back windshield exploded.
Tuck ducked, and Junior swerved in response to the last couple of shots that pierced the car before they made it off the block. Tuck swallowed hard, and Junior moaned. Neither man said a word at first, but silent assumptions were made.
“That nigga Phil is going hard right now. He gotta die before he gets me,” Junior proclaimed, his words laced with anger, fear, and hurt.
Tuck didn’t believe Phil was responsible for any of the deaths related to Junior and his crew, but he knew there was nothing he could say to change Junior’s mind. He was starting to believe they were all just simply casualties of war, that Candice had orchestrated this entire bloodbath. He just had to find out why.
* * *
When Candice saw Tuck in the bathroom
mirror, her heart almost exploded. The feelings she had for him caused her to hesitate, something that might cost her her life. Tuck could’ve called her out or shot her. Candice couldn’t help but think now that he had feelings for her, too. He was probably now convinced, from the looks of things, that she had killed Broady.
She was also the last person seen with Razor, and now she was hiding in the midst of a crime scene, holding two guns, with a dead body right outside the door.
Candice could only imagine what Tuck must be thinking. From what she’d overhead in the bathroom, Junior believed that Phil killed Razor, Broady, and Shana. She knew better and was starting to have her own suspicions about the identity of the killer.
Candice waited a few minutes after Tuck and Junior left the club’s office to come out of hiding. Candice knew she’d have to give them a couple of seconds to get into the car and pull off before she got the fuck out of the club, just to be on the safe side. She couldn’t chance Junior doubling back for anything.
When she thought the coast was clear, she tiptoed out of the bathroom and averted her eyes away from Broady’s bludgeoned corpse. In the process, Candice ran dead into someone right as she reached the office door. She was infamous for this shit now. Panic struck her like a one-ton boulder. Instinctively, she raised her two guns, one in each hand.
“Whoa, little lady!” the man said, raising both hands in surrender.
Sweat ran down Candice’s face now. She didn’t recognize the man.
“We ain’t got no beef with you, ma. We came here for a nigga.” The man motioned for her to move out of the way. He was also holding a gun.
“Yo, Dray! Them niggas got away!” another man called out, his voice moving toward them.
In a knee-jerk reaction, she lifted her gun and slammed it into the head of the man in front of her. He crumpled to the floor like a deflated balloon, and his gun misfired.
The sound of the shot gave away their location, and she could hear someone running toward the office.
“Dray!” the man cried out from beyond the room.
Candice turned her full attention to the office door as a man ran into the office.
“What the fuck you did to Dray?”
The man held a gun at his side, but didn’t have time to raise it before Candice charged into him. She hit his gun hand with a brachial stun, just like Uncle Rock had taught her. The man’s hand went limp, and his gun skittered onto the floor. Candice hit him in the throat, a direct blow to his windpipe, and the man stumbled backward, his eyes wide with fear as he clutched at his neck.
Candice let off a warning round. The man dropped down to his knees. He didn’t want any trouble with her. As the man cowered on the floor, Candice lifted her gun and knocked him on the back of the head.
“I—I wasn’t gonna hur—hurt you.” The man gurgled out his words.
Candice needed him to be completely unconscious. Biting her lip, she gave his head another solid crack, and he flopped down flat on his belly like a washed-up sea turtle.
Phil had sent his lieutenant and another one of his workers to get Broady, and they ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Candice’s legs felt like jelly. Her body was shaking all over. She had never really used her skills before. Although she felt a surge of power from overtaking all of these thugs, a feeling of dread washed over her all at once. Vomit crept up her throat as her stomach muscles seized repeatedly.
Candice could hear the faint sound of police sirens in the distance. The sound jolted her, and she pulled herself together. She ran for the club’s back doors, where her car was parked. As soon as she made it out into the fresh air, Candice let it rip. She hunched over and threw up.
Shaking off the spooked feeling, she slid into her car and revved the engine. Police cars whizzed by as she pulled out of the back alley. Candice froze until the last car had gone. Then she eased out of the alley and onto the street, going in the opposite direction.
Candice was too preoccupied with her escape to notice that she was being watched. Tuck wasn’t the only person to know she was at Club Skyye and suspect her of killing Broady.
Candice thought about Uncle Rock as she drove like a bat out of hell. Once again, he had been right. Cleaning should rid the world of bad people and not be used for selfish reasons like revenge. The bodies were piling up, and Candice still had not gotten the retribution she sought. She could only imagine the nightmares she was going to have now. She had seen too much death in her life already. Candice wasn’t sure how much more she could take.
Candice might be as sweet as candy to her uncle Rock, but she was definitely “Hard Candy” on the streets. She still had one last important mark left, and she planned on getting to him before anyone else could beat her to it.
* * *
Uncle Rock rolled over onto his back, his chest rising and falling rapidly. His heart raced, and his chest burned. The tip of his gun was still hot from the shots he’d let off. The shoot-out was a necessary evil. Rock knew he was being watched by the Agency. They could have hired any number of their trained cleaners, but they’d chosen him. It was a form of control.
Rock’s flying bullets had caused flesh wounds at best. If he’d wanted to take out his mark, he could have. He had several chances to take the perfect shot, but he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill an innocent federal agent who had been used as an expendable pawn in a deadly government game. He had seen shit like this happen over and over again.
The government would paint Avon Tucker as a rogue agent who had lost his way while being undercover and gotten killed in the line of duty as a result. Unlike in the past, Rock couldn’t complete the job this time. He knew there would be consequences for his failure to complete the mission. The Agency would come after him, or they would come after those he cared about, Candice being one of them.
Rock pulled himself up off the concrete and leaned his back against the short ledge of the rooftop. He reached over with a trembling hand and dug his handgun out of his black bag. He put the gun up to his temple and slid his gloved index finger into the trigger guard. He squeezed his eyes shut and began pulling back the trigger. He pictured Candice’s face. He pictured the wrinkled-face head of the CIA’s assassin program. He pictured Junior’s face. He pictured Tuck’s face.
With a heavy sigh, he took his finger out of the trigger guard and dropped his arm down at his side. He punched the top of his bent knee with his other hand. Angry, Rock blamed himself for not keeping Candice out of this game. He had let her live with the lies that the government had fed to the media about her father’s death. He had a responsibility to Candice. To Easy. He had to stop her from murdering an innocent man.
Rock knew, by process of elimination, where Candice was headed. He would just have to get there before she did. Candice needed to hear the truth once and for all. Whether she hated him or not, Rock had to tell her the truth about her family’s murders.
He threw his supplies back into his black bag, and a slip of paper floated to the ground. It was a photograph of his newest mark.
“I can’t kill you if I die first,” he whispered to the crumpled picture.
Rock had a plan that would satisfy everyone, including the CIA. He rushed down the roof ladder, agile as a cat, but suffered from the burst of energy when a coughing fit assailed him as he reached the bottom rung. He doubled over, spat out the blood that came, and told himself that his days were numbered, either way he looked at it.
Rock was prepared to sacrifice his life to protect the ones he loved. For the first time in many years, he let go of his anger and resentment toward love and embraced what he experienced over the years with Candice.
Maybe he should have never stopped believing in love to begin with. Candy’s love, over the years, had certainly healed many of his emotional wounds, yet the scars still remained.
* * *
The day after the government released Rock back onto the streets of New York, he had a green military bag, an old driver
’s license, and one thousand dollars in cash in his pockets. In his assessment, there was little else he needed. He was a free man, after all.
Rock stood outside of the train station on Thirty-fourth Street and Seventh Avenue, right outside of the largest Macy’s in the United States. Things had changed since he’d left for the war. It was 1980, and although the war had been over for five years, he had remained with the CIA, carrying out missions and paying his dues.
Standing on the New York street corner, Rock looked out of place in his army fatigues and combat boots. As the city’s residents whipped by him, he felt discombobulated by the frenetic pace of life. His mind was still a bit fuzzy from the drugs he’d been given, making it difficult to remember his way home.
Finally, with the assistance of passersby, he boarded the number 3 train and headed to Brooklyn. He needed to go home and reclaim what was his.
When Rock arrived at the Wortman Houses, he banged on the heavy metal door. Anxious, he shifted uncomfortably at the front door.
The door flung open, and a woman stared at him, dumbfounded. Rock stared back, his heart pounding in his chest. Neither of them spoke a word for at least thirty seconds.
When the shock wore off, she twisted her lips into a scowl and folded her arms across her chest.
Rock stared at the black eye she wore like a fashion accessory.
“What the fuck you want?”
“Betty, I—I—I . . . ,” Rock stammered. The drugs still messed with his mind. He felt as if his brain was short-circuiting. Most days he had an entire sentence in his head, but today he couldn’t get the words to come out of his mouth.
“You come back here after almost six years, and I’m supposed to greet you with open arms? You think I don’t know the fuckin’ war been over since seventy-five? Where you been?”
Just then a little boy ran to Betty’s side and tugged on her hand.
“Go back inside, Junior. This ain’t nobody you know,” Betty said, scooting the little boy away from the door.
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