“Ay, yo! Chill, mama!” Ranger said, as he struggled with the feisty female.
Cartier watched as the stranger backpedaled toward the door before he made his exit. He glanced at Cartier one last time, took his index finger and made a sweeping slit your throat gesture, sending a creepy chill down her spine. He had New York written all over him. She knew he could be trouble.
“Did you see what he just did?!” she screamed. “He said he’s gonna kill me!”
The Ghost Ridas looked at the young troublemaker and shrugged off her theatrics. She wasn’t one of them.
They came out tonight to have a good time and at the moment she was blowing everyone’s high. They flexed their presence and authority and was shown respect without busting their guns or creating chaos. Truth be told, neither one of them was ready to make the papers defending a black chick from up North.
Cartier was furious. She sulked around the club until she found Quinn, hemmed up against a wall with some dude whispering in her ear.
Cartier roared, “Where the fuck you been?”
Quinn was taken aback. Surely Cartier wasn’t talking to her. “Huh?”
“Yo, I’m out.”
Quinn blinked a couple times. “Why you leavin’, chica? You just got here.”
Cartier rolled her eyes and pushed her way through the crowd. Originally, she was going to ask Quinn to gather up a few Ridas and walk her to her car. But at the moment, she was so heated and filled with so much anger and rage that she didn’t want any backup. She was in I wish a nigga would mode.
Cartier exited the club and rushed home to check on her family. She entered the condo and found her mother sleeping on the couch and Fendi, Prada, and Christian asleep in their bedrooms.
She was somewhat relieved, but she couldn’t get over the creep from the club. What was that all about? And why wasn’t Quinn around to have her back? Did she not notice all the commotion in the club? For Quinn to have all of a sudden disappeared didn’t sit too well with Cartier.
As Cartier peeled off her clothes and hopped into a much-needed hot shower, the only silver lining was that her one true friend, Li’l Mama, would be arriving, tomorrow. She couldn’t wait for their reunion.
Chapter 2
Cartier navigated her truck toward the busy terminal of Miami International Airport. She couldn’t stop beaming. She was moments away from seeing Li’l Mama again. It was a beautiful day, and the weather was a gentle calm, the vast blue sky covering all of Miami.
Quinn rode quietly in the passenger’s seat as Alicia Keys’ “Brand New Me” roared through the speakers of the truck. Cartier still wasn’t feeling Quinn from last night. She kept glancing over at Quinn and her big-ass pie-face and wanted to bash her teeth in. But she chilled. Flipping on Quinn would cause all types of unwanted heat from the Ghost Ridas.
Quinn placed a wet daddy — weed soaked in formaldehyde — between her lips, lit it up, and took a few pulls. She then passed it to Cartier as she drove into the airport’s parking garage.
The two ladies stepped onto the garage pavement and made their way toward the busy terminal, their eyes a bit seedy from the laced weed. Cartier couldn’t enter the terminal fast enough. Quinn trailed right behind her.
The two ladies were immediately swallowed up in the south terminal by the buzz of arriving passengers and their family and friends, employees, and security personnel.
Cartier searched for Li’l Mama’s flight detail on the large board. “It already landed,” she said to Quinn.
“Where she at then?”
Cartier turned her attention to the hoard of passengers that poured into the terminal like a flash flood, with scattered cheers from individuals reuniting with family or friends. She focused her attention on every last passenger, trying to pick out Li’l Mama. The corners of her mouth curled up when she finally saw Li’l Mama walking behind the crowd, pulling Louis Vuitton rolling luggage while chatting on her cell phone, dressed in black leggings, a Stella McCartney halter top, and stilettos.
Their eyes met, and Cartier hurried toward Li’l Mama and embraced her longtime friend in a strong hug. “Bitch, it took you long enough to get here,” Cartier cried out.
“Shit. Look who’s talking . . . wit’ ya paranoid ass. Took you long enough to invite a bitch down,” Li’l Mama replied lightheartedly. “But I know you were only being cautious.”
They continued to embrace each other like schoolgirls, talking shit. Cartier couldn’t believe her eyes. It was about time. Finally, a familiar face from her old circle was there to join her in Miami.
As Quinn walked over to the joyous reunion, jealousy panged throughout her veins. Her deadpan stare gave Li’l Mama pause. She pulled herself away from Cartier and gazed at her.
“And who’s this?” Li’l Mama asked dryly.
“Li’l Mama, this is Quinn.” Cartier smiled. “Quinn, this is Li’l Mama.”
“Hey, I’ve heard a lot about you,” Quinn said, forcing a smile and extending her hand for a handshake.
“Really? I can’t say the same thing,” Li’l Mama replied matter-of-factly, leaving Quinn’s hand suspended in air.
Quinn forced a halfhearted smile.
“Enough of the small talk. We got shopping to do, ballers to meet, and great food to taste,” Cartier exclaimed excitedly. “In other words, we gonna run through South Beach.”
The trio walked toward the exit of the terminal. Li’l Mama and Cartier did most of the talking while Quinn walked a few steps behind, suddenly feeling like the stepsister. Cartier was telling her friend all about Miami, the people, and the weather, until her cell phone rang, revealing the same blocked caller. She stopped her conversation to answer, but there was no reply. Cartier became vexed.
“You okay, Cartier?” Li’l Mama asked.
“I’m okay,” Cartier replied faintly.
The trio continued walking toward the black-on-black Range Rover, Cartier’s mood changing from happy to annoyed.
When they entered the parking garage, Li’l Mama said, “Damn, bitch, you got a ticket on your windshield.”
Cartier sucked her teeth. “How they gonna ticket my ass and this is paid parking!”
She stared at the paper placed between her windshield and her wipers. Furious, she snatched it and started to read it. The more she read, the bigger her eyes became. “No!” she screamed out, before falling against her truck, feeling faint.
Li’l Mama and Quinn looked dumbfounded. All the theatrics over a ticket?
“Cartier, what’s up, yo?” Li’l Mama shouted. “How much is it?”
“They took her,” Cartier whispered.
“Huh? Took what?”
Quinn removed the note from Cartier’s hand and started to read it:
Go to the police, she’s dead. Contact your goons, she’s dead. Try coming after us and you’ll be finding your daughter’s body parts all around this city.
Cartier’s worst fear had just come true—her daughter had been kidnapped.
Chapter 3
Cartier’s foot was glued to the accelerator, doing 85 mph on the 395 highway. She swerved the Range Rover in and out of traffic like race car driver Danica Patrick, her cell phone against her ear. She called home over and over, but her house phone kept going to voice mail.
“No one’s pickin’ the fuck up!” she screamed out.
“Don’t worry,” Quinn exclaimed. “We gonna get there and handle this.”
With tears flooding her eyes, Cartier rushed toward her home, trying not to think the worst. She tried calling home again.
“Pick up! Pick up! Pick the fuck up!” she screamed out, hearing the house phone ring and ring.
Li’l Mama slid in the backseat as the truck made hairpin turns. “Cartier, just chill out.”
“Don’t tell me to chill out, Li’l Mama! They got my fuckin’ daughter!”
The event had all three girls clueless. Quinn wanted to call her brother, but Cartier was against it. She wanted to follow the note’s instructi
on, but her first priority was to go home to see if the note was a hoax.
She brought the Range Rover to a screeching stop in front of the high-rise, threw the gear into park, and bolted from the truck, with Quinn and Li’l Mama right on her heels. The girls ran into the lobby and thrust themselves into the elevator.
“Please, God, please let them be okay. Please, God, let them be okay, please let them be okay,” Cartier chanted with teary eyes.
Quinn and Li’l Mama were quiet, but the look on their faces spoke volumes. They had the same uneasiness as their friend.
The elevator came to a stop on the 35th floor, and before the doors were completely open, Cartier sprinted from the lift and ran toward her apartment, where she found the door ajar. She pushed the door open and rushed inside, only to witness the massacre that had occurred.
Cartier took a few steps into the apartment with its blood-spattered walls and collapsed to her knees at the sight of her slaughtered family.
“Noooo!” she screamed out. “Nooooooo. God nooooooo!”
Quinn and Li’l Mama rushed into the apartment. Their eyes widened at the bloody scene.
“Ohmygod,” Li’l Mama stammered.
Cartier’s apartment looked like a scene out of Friday the 13th—the posh cream carpet coated with blood, broken glass everywhere, overturned furniture, walls smashed in, and her two sisters, Prada and Fendi, sprawled out naked on their backs, duct tape around their wrists, their throats slit from ear to ear.
The vision of the guy in the club making the throat slit gesture came bursting back into Cartier’s memory.
“He warned me . . .” Cartier said. “He fucking warned me!”
“Who warned you?” Li’l Mama wanted to know. “What are you talking about? Who did this?”
Cartier wanted to lash out at Quinn. She needed somebody to blame, but she quickly realized that she was at someone’s mercy. And if Quinn was behind this carnage, she needed to cage her temper until she got the answers she needed.
Ignoring Li’l Mama’s questions, she replied, “Where’s Trina and Christian?”
The three separated and went room to room. They found Trina naked in the master bedroom, numerous stab wounds, bloody from head to toe, her wrists tied to the bedposts, her face bashed in almost beyond recognition. As her chest heaved up and down, blood bubbles popped out. It was a frightening sight.
Cartier screamed out for her daughter, “Christian!” running from room to room, but there wasn’t any answer.
Quinn was ready to phone her brother, an ambulance, the police —somebody to help with what her brain was trying to process. Cartier snatched the phone from her hand and tossed it across the room.
“Don’t call anybody!” she screamed. “The first person who picks up the phone again is getting fucked up!”
Both women remained silent, until Li’l Mama said, observantly, “They were lookin’ for something.”
“Lookin’ for what?” Cartier shouted.
“Money, perhaps?”
“Money?” Cartier was bewildered. So many thoughts went through her mind. Was this a home invasion? Just as fast as the thought entered, it exited. Usually with a home invasion all victims were duct taped and shot execution-style. It was quick. In and out. Cartier looked around at the torture and carnage; it was too drawn out and painstaking. Couple that with the blocked phone calls and elusive stranger last night at the bar, and it wasn’t adding up to the average home invasion.
“We need to do something, Cartier,” Quinn exclaimed.
“I need to find my fuckin’ daughter!”
Cartier knew Li’l Mama was right though. The culprits were probably looking for money, but she didn’t understand who would want to do harm to her and her family in Miami. She’d assumed that all of her enemies were dead. And even so, she had taken extra precaution to maintain her family’s safety by moving to a building that was supposed to have some sort of security. And the only people, outside her immediate family, who knew she had drug money was Jason and Li’l Mama. And Jason was dead. It didn’t add up.
Li’l Mama said, “We gotta call somebody, Cartier. I know you don’t want to, but we ain’t got much choice.”
Cartier didn’t know what to do. Her luxurious top-floor apartment had been turned into a slaughterhouse, her family having been butchered like pigs, and her daughter was missing. She burst into tears. A heartfelt cry out of desperation. Her mother was dying in the other room, her sisters were dead, and her only child was missing.
“They said they would kill my daughter if we made any calls!”
Li’l Mama had to keep it real. “Cartier, your mother is clinging onto her life in the other room. One thing is a fact. And that is at this very moment Trina is still alive. We can’t say the same thing about Christian. We have to call for help . . .”
The harsh words and realization that Li’l Mama spoke truth sent Cartier over the edge. She was stuck between being a mother to Christian and a daughter to Trina. Whose life was worth more? Quinn was trying to console her friend, but Cartier was inconsolable. With her bloodshot, tear-stained eyes, she shot a wicked look at Li’l Mama and screamed out, “Who else knew you was coming to Miami to see me? Who you tell about comin’ down here, Li’l Mama?”
“What?” Li’l Mama said, dumbfounded by Cartier’s remark.
Cartier rushed toward Li’l Mama in rage and grabbed her violently, shouting, “You set us up, didn’t you?”
Li’l Mama pushed Cartier back. “Get the fuck off me, Cartier! What the fuck is wrong with you!”
Quinn quickly stepped in before they could tear each other’s throats out.
Li’l Mama was mad. “You like a fuckin’ sister to me, Cartier. You think I had a fuckin’ hand in this? Are you crazy?”
Cartier knew she was right. She wasn’t thinking rationally. She fell against the wall in defeat.
Quinn went up to her with concerned eyes, but before Quinn could say anything, Cartier shouted, “Stay the fuck away from me, Quinn!” Cartier’s paranoia was getting the best of her. “You could be down with this shit too!”
“I’m gonna ignore that ’cuz I know shit just got crazy for you.”
“Bitch, you sayin’ that like you giving me a warning or some shit!” Cartier began to walk toward Quinn when her phone rang loudly. The three women stared at the purse on the floor, hearing the cell phone buzzing and ringing inside.
Cartier rushed to answer it. She snatched out the phone and hurriedly pushed the answer button. She heard somebody say, “Have we gotten your attention?”
“Where’s my fucking daughter?!” she shouted.
“She’s in one piece . . . for now.”
The voice on the other end was distorted purposely. Quinn and Li’l Mama went to stand next to Cartier. They tried to listen in on the conversation, but it was hard to understand what was being said.
“What do you want?” Cartier asked with deep grief.
“One million in cash. You have six days to come up with it.”
“I don’t have—”
“Don’t lie to me, bitch!”
“I don’t have a million dollars in cash. I swear on my life! I have properties, investments but not that much liquid.”
There was a deep, hearty laugh. “Then she will die.”
Cartier cried out, “Wait! Let me talk to my daughter. Let me talk to her!”
“You have six days. Not one moment more.”
“Please, let me speak with Christian. I need proof of life!”
The caller abruptly hung up.
“What did they say?” Li’l Mama asked.
Cartier was too heartbroken to reply. She felt faint. She stumbled on her feet. Li’l Mama grabbed her by the arm.
Quinn said, “Cartier, why are they doing this? Talk to us. What the fuck they told you?”
Quinn and Li’l Mama both tried to soothe Cartier, but their own tempers were flaring up. They were aching to see all those responsible for this slaughtered. How could you
come in and kill two kids and their mother over money? And then kidnap a little child? They had to be monsters to do something so low. It was one thing to go after those in the drug game. That was always expected. But when you started murdering and kidnapping babies, you’d crossed the line.
The two ladies continued asking questions, but Cartier was at a loss for words. She just placed her head into her hands and began sobbing as only a mother could for her child.
Chapter 4
Miami-Dade police and homicide detectives flooded the lavish apartment. The gruesome scene would make even experienced officers cringe. Two suited professionals wearing latex gloves were crouched over the mutilated sisters, Prada and Fendi, inspecting the naked bodies closely.
One cop let loose a deep sigh. “Damn shame. Fuckin’ city overrun with animals.”
Detectives also dusted for fingerprints and snapped pictures of the bodies and the room. The coroner was bringing in body bags, but surprisingly, EMS workers were pushing a gurney into the bedroom.
“We got a pulse in here,” one of the EMS workers shouted.
Miraculously, Trina was clinging to life, even with all the trauma her body had sustained.
Cartier stared hopefully at her moms, praying she’d pull through. She felt helpless and lost. Quinn and Li’l Mama refused to leave her side. She sat slumped in the living-room chair, the horror of her family’s murders making her visibly sick. With her place teeming with unfamiliar faces, she wanted to wake up from her nightmare, but the crackling of a police radio and the smell of dried blood kept her in the moment.
Two detectives approached Cartier with uneasiness in their eyes. Detectives Lam and Sharp were both fifteen-year veterans on the police force, spending ten years in homicide. Each had seen his fair share of horror.
Detective Lam was a tall white man in his early forties. He had dark, deep-set eyes, and his head was bald. He also had a thick, grayish goatee. Clad in an Italian wool flannel suit, he flanked his partner Sharp and said, “Miss, our condolences, but we need to ask you a few questions.”
Cartier Cartel, Part 3 Page 2