by Roy Glenn
But despite all that, there were moments when Carter still believed that there was some hope.
I’m sorry.
Those two words were what he based his hopes on. To Carter, if she felt sorry, then she still felt something. And if Mileena still felt anything for him at all, then there was still a chance.
“A slim one, but I’ll take it,” Carter said softly. He would take whatever he could get.
And do what with it? He asked himself.
“What you say?” Jackie asked as she parked the car in front of the bodega that Kerwin Miller hustled his product for Barnes.
“Nothing. I was just thinking out loud,” Carter said and checked his weapon thinking, You’ll just end up breaking her heart again. “Let’s go do this.”
“I’ll take the back,” Jackie said and went around to the back of the store.
The second Rain and Carter walked through the door, a man behind the counter fired at them. Carter and Rain ducked in an aisle for cover and they pulled their guns. As Rain returned fire, Carter dropped behind the shelf for cover and he opened fire. When one of the shooters stood at the end of the aisle and sprayed it with shells, Carter and Rain ran for better cover.
“Where’s Jackie?” Rain asked.
“I don’t know, but she needs to get in here,” Carter shouted as he stuck his head out to take a look and was immediately shot at. “We gotta make a move. We won’t last long here.”
“Cover me!” Rain shouted.
Carter fired his gun at the shooter before following Rain down the aisle. That was when Miller came out of the back room and opened fire at them with a semi-automatic. When a third man emerged from the back of the store firing, Rain hit the floor for cover and Carter took a couple of shots before he dropped for cover too. They were taking heavy fire from all sides.
Neither Carter, Rain nor the three shooters noticed that Jackie had come out of the back room. She saw that a fourth man had gotten around behind Rain and Carter and was ready to shoot. Jackie came up behind him and fired two shots to the back of his head. With the shooter down, Jackie stayed low and moved toward Carter and Rain.
“Everybody all right?” she asked.
“There are three more of them. All of them blasting with heavy weapons,” Rain said as she reloaded her weapons. “I’m going after Miller. You two work your way toward the front of the store.”
Rain came up firing at the shooters with the HK433 and it forced Miller to move for better cover. Once Rain moved out in pursuit of Miller, Jackie and Carter both stood up and fired at the other two shooters. They moved to either side of the store and returned their fire.
With her back against the wall, Rain moved through the store looking for Miller. Fuckin’ store ain’t but so fuckin’ big, she thought and peeked around the corner. When she didn’t see him, she moved out. When she did, the shooter that Jackie was pursuing came out of the next aisle and raised his weapon.
“Look out!” Jackie yelled and fired and hit the man in the back.
Just then, Carter saw Miller heading toward the back. He fired at Carter and then Miller ran through the back door.
“I got him!” Carter yelled and followed him.
When he reached the doorway, he stepped in and opened fire on Miller the second he saw him. Miller stopped, turned, and fired at Carter. He took cover behind some boxes and continued firing back. He took cover and returned Miller’s fire. Carter fired a couple of shots blindly at him. Miller fired back as Jackie and Rain reached him. Rain reached in her pocket and came out with a concussion grenade.
“Cover your eyes,” she said and tossed it.
The sudden burst of bright light and sound forced Miller to stop firing. When Miller staggered out from cover, Carter fired at him and hit Miller in the chest with three shots.
With the shooting concluded, there was just one thing left to do. While Carter cleared the bodega and the stores nearby, Rain and Jackie set explosives throughout the store and blew the place up when they were done.
Chapter Four
While Rain, Carter and Jackie wrapped things up at the bodega, Black and Bobby were at JFK to pick up Wanda. Earlier in the evening, they had arranged to meet Rain at J.R.’s, but after the coast-to-coast flight, and knowing that she needed to fly out again for Nassau in the morning, Wanda decided that she would forgo the trip uptown and she would stay at a hotel in midtown for the night. Now that there was a change in the agenda, Black called Rain.
“This Rain,” she answered.
“Change of plan,” Black said.
“What’s up?”
“Meet us at Wanda’s office.”
“What time?”
“Same time. That cool?”
Rain looked over at Jackie. “Take me downtown to Wanda’s office.”
“You got it,” she said and headed toward the Cross Bronx Expressway.
“Yeah, that’s cool. We on our way,” Rain said.
“We’ll see you when you get here,” Black said and ended the call. “She’s gonna meet us there,” Black told Bobby and Wanda.
“How was your trip?” Bobby asked.
“Everything went well. It was a very productive trip,” Wanda said enthusiastically. “I got a lot done to move the project forward. Overall, it was a very productive trip.”
“Productive is good,” Black said.
“What does she wanna talk about that won’t keep until morning?” Wanda asked as they exited the terminal after returning from a day trip to L.A.
“No idea, but it must be important. Rain isn’t one to overreact,” Black said, and Wanda laughed to herself because she knew better. She had real issues with the way Rain had conducted the war and expressed her concerns to Black and Bobby.
“Honestly, I think we all need to be a little more hands-on in this war … don’t you?”
And since their silence always meant that Wanda was right, they were now all fully engaged in fighting the war.
“I hope she wants to tell us that she single-handedly put a stop to this shit,” Bobby said and held the door for Wanda to get in.
“No shit,” Black said, but as he got in the Escalade, he knew that wasn’t happening. Once they were all in, Treshaun, who was usually Pam’s bodyguard, took them to Wanda’s office. He was driving for Black and Bobby in Chuck’s absence while he recovered from being shot saving Shy and Jada. Treshaun was just happy to be out the house and actually doing something useful.
When Jackie parked the car in front of Wanda’s downtown office, Rain started to get out. When Jackie and Carter started to get out to go with her, Rain stopped them.
“Y’all wait here,” she said, slammed her door and walked toward the building.
“Yes, mommy,” Jackie said.
“You kids wait here while the adults talk,” Carter said and they both laughed as Rain went inside. He felt his phone vibrating in his pocket and pulled it out.
When he saw that it was Glenda calling, he looked at Jackie.
“Excuse me. I gotta take this.”
“Do you,” she said as Carter got out of the car.
“Hello, Glenda,” he said, surprised that she was calling at this time of night. “Is everything all right?”
“Where are you?”
“Downtown waiting on Rain to get finished talking to Mike, Bobby and Wanda.”
“Then I won’t bother you,” Glenda said, and Carter could tell that she’d been crying.
“What’s wrong, Glenda?”
“Me and Perry had a fight,” she sniffed. “And he put me out.”
“What? He put you out?” Carter questioned. “What was the fight about?”
“I told him about you and me.”
“You did what?”
“I told him about us,” Glenda repeated.
“What did you say to him?”
“I told him about you and me before you went to jail. I’m not stupid enough to tell him what’s going on between us now,” she said, knowing that if she had, that Pe
rry would have confronted Carter and that would not have gone well, especially for Perry.
Carter leaned against the car and exhaled. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, Carter.”
“I’m sorry, Glenda,” Carter said, feeling like he had ruined their marriage.
“I know that you think it is, but this is not your fault, Carter. Me and Perry have been over for years. You know that. I should have left him years ago,” Glenda said and thought back to the days when she was with Carter and she used to talk about leaving Perry all the time. She’d always wondered if Carter hadn’t gone to jail would she had left him then instead of enduring all these years. “You take care of your business and I’ll talk to you later.”
“Wait. Where are you?”
“In the car driving.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Get a room, I guess.”
“Call me when you get settled.”
“I will,” Glenda promised, and she ended the call.
Carter got back in the car with Jackie thinking about how ugly that would have gotten if she would have told Perry the whole truth. Despite what Glenda said, he knew that he had a hand in the breakup of their marriage, knew that he had damaged more lives.
“You okay?” Jackie asked.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Carter said, but he was anything but good. He thought about Fantasy and Yarrisa. He was fucking Fantasy for no other reason than she was young and fine, and she threw it at him each time she saw him, made him want it every time he saw her until he fucked her. He was fucking Yarrisa for pretty much the same reason; she made it obvious that in spite of Mileena being her best friend, she was willing to set it out for him and all he had to do was ask.
Carter knew that he needed to be done with both of them. He hadn’t seen or heard from Fantasy in days and he already made up his mind that he wasn’t fucking Yarrisa anymore. What he had with Glenda was different.
Different because unlike Fantasy and Yarrisa, he liked Glenda beyond her sex. They had known each other for years and they had spent time together talking over those years at this or that family function.
Nothing inappropriate until the night it became inappropriate. Now, she had finally left her husband as he had encouraged her to do many times in the past. Back then and currently, his relationship with Mileena was over and they were feeling each other and getting closer, as they are now. Carter being the first person that Glenda called told him that she was thinking about moving on with him as they used to talk about all those years ago.
Chapter Five
“Rona King,” Black said and settled into his chair.
“Like I said, it’s nothing I can prove, but I know,” Rain said definitely. “I know that bitch is behind them niggas. I’m sure of it.”
“That makes sense,” Wanda said.
“What makes you say that?” Black asked.
“I’ve been thinking all along that the level of sophistication and precision that it took to plan the attacks,” she paused. “And the long-term thinking it involved, it had to be somebody other than three corner boys and it had to be a woman.”
“I know, right,” Rain said.
“Definitely had to be a woman,” Wanda said, and they shared a little laugh.
One that’s smarter than you, Wanda thought.
Her personal feelings, which were based on their relationship with Nick aside, Wanda had always questioned the poor judgment that Rain showed at times. She thought Rain could be irresponsible at times and it impaired her ability to make appropriate decisions. Everybody knew that Rain could be rash and needlessly cruel at times. She could be wild, thoughtless, and her temper caused her to make hasty and careless decisions that could potentially fuck up The Family’s near to long term plans.
Rain Robinson is out of control, and that was why Wanda put her personal feelings aside and kept Rain close when she was the boss of The Family and was now as one of her consiglieres. But more importantly, Rain was family, her family, so Wanda would do whatever she had to do to protect her.
Even if it’s from herself.
“All three of them niggas is too stupid to pull this off,” Rain and Wanda laughed as Black and Bobby looked at each other.
“How well do you know her?” Wanda asked.
“Me, her and Analisa Chavis used to hangout until she introduced me to her brother,” Rain laughed. “Then she started hating me.”
“And then you killed him, and I ordered his father’s termination,” Wanda said. “That gives her more than enough motive,” Wanda paused. “But, is she capable of this or is somebody else in it with her?”
“Oh, yeah, Rona King’s a sneaky manipulative, stab you in the back kinda bitch.” Rain pointed and nodded her head. “This her shit.”
“But can she afford it?” Wanda asked. “Like I’ve been saying, it takes a lot of money to fight a war on this level.”
“That’s the one piece I’m not sure of. I’ve got Carla digging into her to see if she got the kind of paper it took to come at us like this.”
“Until then, I think we need to develop a plan to take her apart,” Wanda said, and Rain nodded in enthusiastic agreement.
“You know what, Mike?” Bobby leaned close to Black and asked.
“What’s that?”
“We might have just as well stayed in the car.”
“Not necessarily, Bob. If we stayed in the car, Wanda would just have to explain all this again.”
“Slowly … so our dumb asses could understand it,” Bobby said, motioning with his hands. “The level of sophistication might be too much for me.”
Wanda shook her head. “Men.”
“Yeah, men,” Black said. “Can’t live with us.”
Bobby laughed. “Can’t kill us.”
Black smiled. “Now that we’ve all had a good laugh, you wanna tell me what’s going on with Hawkins?”
“We haven’t found him yet; we spent the day shutting down his people. We’ll be back on it tomorrow,” Rain promised.
“What about Mobley?” Bobby asked.
“We’re hitting his old crew too. By the time I’m done, there won’t be anything for anybody to rebuild.”
“And maybe that was the problem,” Black said.
“What do you mean, Mike?” Wanda asked.
“If this is Rona King, and this is her revenge for us killing her father and brother, it’s because we left her something to rebuild.” Before Rain could say anything, Black held up his hand. “What we did was cherry-picked what we wanted and burned the rest.”
“I believe that’s you’re thing,” Bobby said to Rain.
“But we left their legitimate businesses alone and that gave her the money she needed to rebuild,” Black said. “I know Rona too. And if she is anything like her father and her brother—”
“And she is,” Rain said.
“She is ruthless, and conniving and I agree, she is smart enough. Robert always planned for her to take over and run his legit businesses while he and Ronnie stuck to what they knew. But she was the future of their business.” He looked at Wanda. “Like you were before you got all gangster.”
Wanda laughed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mike, I was always a gangster.”
“And that’s exactly my point, Wanda. Even though you’re a lawyer, you’ve always been a money-making gangster.” He paused. “Suppose Lyric Sky killed me and Bobby, but he left you alive and with money. What would you do?” Black asked, and everybody in the room already knew the answer.
Wanda nodded her head. “I’d rebuild and when I was ready, I’d come after him with everything I had.”
Black shook his head. “But his plan was to take over from within, it’s all his. So, you have nothing to rebuild and no resources to come after him with. What would you do?”
“I’d have the resources because he left our legitimate businesses alone.” Wanda smiled and nodded her head. “It would take me longer, but once I had my mone
y right, I’d recruit an army to destroy him for me.”
“Just like the bitch is doing now,” Rain said. “We should have killed her too.”
“No.” Black shook his head. “What we should have done was taken over everything Robert had, brought her in-house and kept her close.”
“And if she didn’t go along, then you could kill her,” Bobby said to Rain. “I believe that’s your thing.”
“I’m on her, Black,” Rain said and stood up. “I’ve got Carla following the money. If it is Rona King, and I’m sure that it is, I’ll know for sure soon enough.”
“I know that you will,” Black said before Rain left the office. Bobby sat back in his chair and pointed at Black.
“You know what, Mike?”
“What?”
“We are getting too old for this.”
“You’ll get no argument from me. All I wanna do is go home to be with my wife and kids.”
“I’ve been trying to take us completely legitimate for years,” Wanda said.
“Yes, you have. Except for those years that you were consolidating your power, you have been trying to take us legit,” Bobby said, and Black laughed. “But despite that, here we still are after all these years, fighting another war.”
“Maybe it is time that we stop trying to go completely legit and just do it.”
Wanda and Bobby looked at Black and then at each other before they both looked at him.
“What are you saying, Mike?” Wanda asked.
“What does it sound like I’m saying?”
“I know. I just wanna hear you say it.”
“I do too,” Bobby said.
“Maybe it’s time that we get out,” Black said and there was silence in the room as the three old friends quietly contemplated a future without war. “Tell me what’s up with the bank?”
“Now that Jada is no longer available to help me with Desmond Pennybrook, I don’t know. I will be able to give you a better answer when I get down there.”
Her efforts to buy the bank required several steps. Wanda had identified the institution in Nassau that she wished to buy, and she had negotiated a price. Once they had accepted her offer, she had conducted her due diligence to look at the bank’s operations, its financial performance, its legal and tax compliance, customer contracts, assets and other details within the time period specified in her letter of intent.