The Hustler's Daughter Volume 2

by Pinky Dior

  “I’m going to ask you one more time.” Vicente lifted up the knife and placed the sharp edge of the knife on her cheekbone. “I’m sure you want one side to look pretty, at least.” A devilish grin appeared on his face. The men that surrounded her all laughed at his comment. “So where is she?” he questioned, hoping she had already suffered enough pain and would just cooperate.

  Maleese’s face was bloody and her whole body was in pain. “I’m not telling you where she is.” She halfway smiled. Her deformed lip was pushed over to the side when she talked or made any lip movement.

  “Oh, really?” Vicente asked with his eyebrows arched in disbelief. “You want to play that guessing game and shit? This bitch must not know who she’s fucking with.”

  Maleese watched as Vicente got up and walked down the hall. He went into the bathroom and came back with a clear bottle. Maleese didn’t know what it was until he got up close to her and she stared at the label carefully. It was alcohol. Before she could even say anything, Vicente already had the bottle open. He poured it on her open wound and the alcohol ran down her face, burning her.

  “Arghhhhhhhh!” Maleese held her head down and squeezed her eyes tightly together as some of the alcohol got into her eyes. She endured the pain as the alcohol burned her face tremendously. The pain was unbearable.

  “Now are you going to talk?” he questioned. Maleese coughed, holding her head down. Vicente pulled her head up with her hair in his hands. “Where the fuck is my daughter?”

  “Okay, okay!” Maleese cried. “Please don’t kill me! I have a life to live.”

  “You’re already fucking ugly. Don’t nobody want your ass!” Vicente said sourly.

  “She’s in New York City!” Maleese cried, as she talked with her eyes closed.

  “With whom?” Vicente’s nose flared up once she told him who it was.

  “Don…Don Carter,” she admitted. She had promised Maria she wouldn’t tell anybody where she went or that she was pregnant. She had kept Maria’s secret of her pregnancy from Vicente, but she exposed her relationship with Don Carter.

  “That motherfucker!” Vicente yelled. “I fucking knew it! You lucky you told the truth.” Vicente looked at her with a pitying look on his face. “But if I find that you’re lying, I promise I will find you, Maleese, and I will kill you,” Vicente warned her.

  ***

  “Oh my God!” Maria covered her hand over her mouth. She knew her father would be capable of doing something terrible of that nature, family or not. If he wanted you dead, you were dead. It was just that simple. “I’m so sorry, Auntie,” Maria apologized. “I feel as if this is my fault. If I had followed my father’s rules, none of this would have happened.” Maria covered her face in shame.

  Maleese quickly slipped a pill into Maria’s glass of wine and watched it dissolve. “Don’t say that, Maria. Your father is sick in his head.”

  Maria lifted her head up, grabbed her glass of wine and sipped. “I know; that’s why I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t take it anymore after what he did to my mother…and did to me…” Maria held back the tears as she tried not to think about it.

  “I know; I’m so sorry. You did the right thing.” Maleese placed her hand on top of Maria’s. “If you ever need me, I’m here.”

  “Thank you, Auntie.” Maria got up and hugged her aunt, and then slowly pulled back from the embrace. “Are you sure you didn’t tell my father anything?” Maria asked as she stared her aunt in her eyes.

  “Of course not! I would never do such a thing!” Maleese said, sounding sincere. “Well, I have to be going now. It was nice seeing you.” Maleese smiled.

  “All right, see you later, take care.”

  “Bye,” Maleese said in a sheisty tone. She knew she would never see Maria again.

  Maleese quickly got in her car and reclined her head against the head rest. She pulled out her cell phone, quickly dialing Vicente’s phone number.

  “Hey, Vicente.”

  “Who’s this?” he questioned.

  “It’s Maleese.” She was afraid to admit it.

  “I thought you’d be dead by now.” She could hear him smiling over the phone. “What the fuck do you want?” he asked.

  “I know where your daughter is.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Is that reward money still up for grabs?”

  “Yes. Where is my daughter?”

  Maleese gave him the address and he told her he would be sending something to her account once he got Maria back. Maleese was sheisty. She had turned her own blood sister’s daughter over to Vicente, because she wanted the fifty-thousand dollars he said he would give to whomever uncovered his daughter’s whereabouts. Maleese pulled off, smiling from ear to ear with money on her mind.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Kidnapped

  Mercedes exited the airport and quickly loaded her luggage into the car. She took a deep breath as she drove home. Her phone started ringing. She gripped the steering wheel with one hand and rummaged through her Chanel purse with the other, looking for her phone. She noticed it was her mother calling, so she flipped it open and answered.

  “Good morning, Ma.”

  “Hey, baby,” Maria whispered.

  “What’s wrong, Ma?” Mercedes sat up in her driver’s seat. Her mother sounded as if she was weak and could barely talk. “Are you okay?”

  “No, baby, I’m feeling a little sick.” Maria coughed. “I woke up feeling really dizzy and I have this huge headache; I can barely move.”

  “Oh my God, Ma, do you want to go to the hospital?” Mercedes asked.

  “No, baby, I’m okay. Can you just stop by the store to pick me up a few things? My Aunt Maleese was supposed to stop by this morning, since I told her I wasn’t feeling good, but she hasn’t made it here yet.”

  “Your Aunt Maleese?”

  “Yeah, baby, my aunt who took care of me when I was pregnant with you,” Maria informed her. “Now are you going to ask me a million questions, or are you going to go to the grocery store for me?”

  “Fine, what do you need?” Mercedes pulled over. She got out a piece of paper and pen and began writing the items down that her mother needed from the bodega. “All right, Ma, I’ll be home soon.”

  Mercedes hung up the phone and headed to the store. She grabbed some soup, some crackers and some meat to cook for that night. Mercedes grabbed a bottle of aspirin, just in case her mother hadn’t taken any medicine. Mercedes made her purchases and then headed home.

  ***

  Back at the house, Maria was lying in her bed, feeling very dizzy. She placed her hand over her forehead, noticing she was sweating profusely and that her head was extremely hot. She dozed off to sleep, but felt someone staring at her. When she slowly opened her eyes and looked over to her right, she noticed a man sitting on the chair next to her bed. She saw about four of him. Maria shook her head, closed her eyes, and then opened them again, thinking that she was dreaming.

  “Morning, Princess. How did you sleep?” the man asked, with a devilish smirk on her face.

  Maria immediately knew that her father had sent him. He was Cuban; she could tell from his accent. Maleese stood behind him, smiling from ear to ear. Maria jumped up and inched away from the guy, who was all dressed in black and had a mask covering his face. Maria instantly knew that her father was still searching for her, and that he wasn’t going to give up either.

  “Get away from me!” Maria barked. “You’re a part of this too, Maleese?” Maria shook her head in disbelief. “How could you betray your own niece?”

  “I’m sorry, Maria.” She cared about her niece, but she cared more about getting the money Vicente owed her and getting on his good side.

  The guy tried to grab Maria, but she kept going to one side of the bed, trying to escape from him. He finally pulled out his gun, rushed over to her, and grabbed her up by the back of her neck. He shoved the gun in the side of her neck.

  “Shhh, it’s going to be all right.” The g
uy slowly put away his gun.

  “Help!” Maria was kicking and screaming, trying to get out of his hands. He quickly covered her mouth with his gloved hand to stop her from screaming, but she bit down on his hand as hard as she could and kicked him in the nuts.

  “Argh!” He dropped down to his knees, holding his manhood.

  Maria made a run for it. She passed Maleese and exited the room, dashing downstairs. As she ran down the stairs, she stopped in her tracks when she saw a group of Cubans dressed in all black and waiting for her.

  “Get that bitch!” the guy yelled out from the top of the stairs as he held his manhood in agony. He slowly started limping down the stairs.

  Maria looked over her shoulders for another way to escape. She turned around and tried to run down the hall through the back, but one of them quickly grabbed her and held her down. Maria kicked over the vase and flailed wildly, knocking the pictures off the wall.

  “Let me go!”

  It took all of the guys to hold her down. Maria breathed in and out, trying to catch her breath. She gazed with evil eyes at the guy who walked down the stairs. He came up to Maria and smacked her across her face, leaving a handprint.

  “If my father finds out you put your hands on me, you’re dead!” Maria barked, as she spit out the blood that was trickling into her mouth.

  “Your father told me to bring you back to Cuba, and that’s what I am doing. And he said to do anything that I have to do to get you back.” He chuckled.

  “Fuck you!” Maria barked.

  They grabbed her hands and handcuffed them behind her back, then covered up her mouth with duct tape. The guy who smacked Maria pulled out a note from his pocket and flung it on the kitchen table, with a smirk on his face as they walked out. They dragged her outside and placed her in the back of a van. They all hopped in behind her and sat by her side, making sure she didn’t try to jump out.

  ***

  Mercedes pulled up to her mother’s house, slowing down as she noticed an unfamiliar van driving down the middle of her street. She became very suspicious. She quickly hopped out of her Benz, made her way around the car, and popped the trunk. She grabbed the brown paper grocery bags out of the trunk, clutching them to her chest, and tried to carry her shopping bags in the other hand. Mercedes rushed over to the door and when she looked down, she noticed it was cracked open. She slowly opened it and sighed in relief.

  “Ma, I’m here!” she yelled out as she walked into the kitchen and placed the groceries down on the table. “Ma, you know you left the door open, right?” Mercedes said as she took off her jacket. She still got no response. She’s probably sleeping, Mercedes thought, as she started taking out the groceries and placing them in the cabinets.

  Mercedes thought that it was weird that her mother hadn’t responded to her, so she decided to check up on her to see if she was all right. After she finished putting up the food, she grabbed some medicine and a bottle of ginger ale she had purchased from the bodega. Mercedes walked down the hall and noticed that a vase was broken. Pieces were scattered all over the floor and a few pictures were knocked off the wall as well. Mercedes called out to her mother again, and before proceeding up the stairs, Mercedes quickly pulled out her gun.

  “Ma?” She slowly walked up the stairs, pointing her gun in different directions. Mercedes eyed her mother’s door, which was cracked open. She kicked it open as she rushed in with her gun, pointing around the room just in case somebody jumped out.

  In her mother’s bedroom, she noticed that everything that was on her nightstand was knocked over. Mercedes knew someone had been there and she could tell her mother had put up a fight. But Mercedes was still unsure. She placed her hands over her face as she ran all around looking for her mother throughout the whole house. She thought her mother was in the bathroom, so she pushed the bathroom door open, but she wasn’t in there.

  Mercedes ran back downstairs, looking around for anything that would say that her mother was taken or something. Her mother wouldn’t just disappear like that without calling her. She knew her mother too well. Mercedes looked around and walked back into the kitchen, where she noticed a white piece of paper on the kitchen table. She didn’t know how she could have missed it. Mercedes stared at the paper from a distance, and finally decided to pick it up. It read, “Best regards, Mr. Vicente.”

  Mercedes balled up the note. “That motherfucker!” she screamed as she picked up a glass of water off the kitchen table and threw it against the wall, shattering it.

  Mercedes paced back and forth in the kitchen, not knowing what to do. Her mind was rushing with many thoughts and her heart was beating fast. She couldn’t believe this; she couldn’t believe anything that was going on. She was so confused. Mercedes finally grabbed her car keys and decided to pay Alana a visit at the jail, since Alana had put Mercedes on the visitation list.

  As she pulled up in front of the federal prison, Mercedes checked in and took off her earrings and jacket, placing them in a locker. Apprehensively, she sat down as she ran her fingers through her hair and bit the bottom of her lip. She just couldn’t believe how shit happened so quickly. As soon as the guard called Mercedes, she got up and walked through the metal detector.

  Once Mercedes got in the visiting room, she looked for Alana and smiled when she saw her sitting down at a table. Mercedes sat down at the chair across from her.

  “What’s going on?” Alana smiled.

  “A lot is going on. I’m not doing good.” Mercedes shook her head.

  “Why? What’s wrong, Mercedes?” Alana asked with a worried tone.

  “They took my mother,” Mercedes said bluntly. “They took my fucking mother!” she said furiously, as she banged on the table.

  “Oh my goodness, what happened?” Alana panicked.

  “I came back home this morning from Jamaica and she was gone. Then he left me a note saying ‘Best regards, Mr. Vicente’.” Mercedes shook her head in disbelief.

  Alana slowly balled up her first, shaking her head. “I knew he wasn’t going to stop until he found her. My father loves your mother more than life, but yet he doesn’t give a shit about me.” Alana revealed her true feelings as they just rolled off her tongue.

  “They killed my best friend weeks back. I knew it was Vicente’s people, looking for my mother.” Mercedes sighed as the memories popped back up of Candy, flying back from the shotgun blast that hit her in her chest. Mercedes rubbed her face as she tried to shake the memories out of her head

  “Damn. I’m sorry to hear that,” Alana said, feeling sympathy for her.

  “I need your help, Alana.”

  “How can I help you if I’m in here?”

  “Alana, but I’m pretty sure that you can get out.”

  “I don’t know though. I go before the parole board on Monday morning, but my lawyer said they think I’m a danger to society. They might deport me back to Cuba, but she said most likely, I will be in here another ten years.”

  “Damn,” Mercedes whispered. “I’ll tell you what. If I get you out, you have to go with me to help find my mother.”

  Alana started laughing. “Girl, is you crazy? How are you going to find your mother?” Alana inquired; eager to know how Mercedes was going to pull this off.

  “I’m going to Cuba to bring my mother back. I can’t just let him take my mother from me. She’s all that I have left.” Mercedes tilted her head to the side. Alana saw the pain through her green eyes and felt sympathy for her. “So are you going to help me or what?”

  “Mercedes, I-I don’t know. This isn’t something that’s going to be easy.” Alana placed her hand on the back of her neck and sighed. “You can’t just go to Cuba, thinking that you can just grab her by the hand, get on a plane and leave. It’s going to be a war if you go down there. My father let her slip out of her hands one time already. There won’t be a next time, and if there is, he’s not going to stop at any cost.”

  “Alana, I don’t give a fuck!” Mercedes barked. “You don’t u
nderstand what I’ve been through these last couple of months, or since I was fucking sixteen years old! I lost the love of my life, my father, my uncle, and I almost lost my mother once. I’m not trying to bury my mother anytime soon. I’m only eighteen years old, Alana, and I’ve killed five people already. I don’t give a fuck about a war. I straight up don’t give a fuck! I will kill anyone who stands in my way. My life is a war and I’m a solider. I’m a Carter—Mercedes Carter,” Mercedes said with pride and the look of death in her eyes. “If they want a war, then they got one!”

  “All right, Mercedes, if I get out of here, I will do all I can to help you. Plus that is my sister and I don’t want to see her with my father.” Alana shook her head as if she was trying to shake out some bad memories.

  “Oh, you will be out of here, real soon,” Mercedes smirked. “A free woman.”

  Alana didn’t even know what Mercedes was going to do, or what she was capable of doing, but she complied. Alana looked at her niece as if she was an innocent girl who kept to herself and didn’t harm anybody. She didn’t know that Mercedes was just like her father Don Carter. It ran in the family and flowed through the blood.

  Mercedes had a plan and she knew she could work her magic. She had no choice but to get Alana out of jail. She was the only one who could help her get back to her mother.

  ***

  Havana, Cuba

  Maria walked down the steps off her father’s private jet. She lifted up her head and saw a black limousine slowing down and halting in front of her. She knew it was her father. The guards held onto her arms and walked her over to the car, then released their tight grip from her arm. She stood in front of the limo, scared to death, scared to even step foot in the same car as her father. She hadn’t seen her father since the year she escaped: 1989. Before she got in, she looked though the tinted windows and flared up her nose, making an evil face at her father. Maria nervously opened the door and got in the car, sliding into the leather seats. She turned around and saw her father.