Chapter 43
The morning after the shooting and the carjacking, my mind wasn’t right.
I couldn’t sleep. All I could do was watch Farrah curled against me, soft, warm, and safe.
That safety could disappear so fast if Trell got his way.
The nigga was escalating. Yeah, our trap had collapsed yesterday after Farrah’s conversation with him, but that conversation also spurred him to get bold…
and sloppy. That could be good, because sloppy made him easier to find and finding him made it possible to kill.
I was ready to end him.
He and his partner had left the Suburban in the parking lot.
The police hadn’t noticed it. Ajani and Braeden had that thing broken down better than any crime scene investigation show I’d ever seen.
Fingerprints and Prime’s connections revealed that Trell’s accomplice was Maurice Dale.
He usually worked with Ramón Black. No surprise there.
The other set of fingerprints matched those of a man wanted for questioning in a couple of disappearances, but he had no record.
A ghost, for real. That didn’t stop our searching for both of them.
I spent the day with Farrah around the house. Shorty knew I was still pissed off, so she was all sweet, trying to be in a nigga’s skin. I liked it all right, but I knew tomorrow that mouth would be back. Low-key, I was looking forward to it.
We were in the middle of a Spades game with Mekhayla and Seth when my phone rang. Shit was a relief because Farrah and Mekhayla were whooping our asses and bragging about.
“You must’ve grown up in a different house from his sorry ass,” Farrah teased.
My traitorous ass sister smirked. “He really embarrassing.”
I shook my head as I stood and walked off to take the call. It was Saquin.
“Quin, you slipping! I went to see Mama Aline the other day. She said you missed your visit. You can’t be doing Granny like that, now,” I scolded as I walked into my office.
He was already breathing hard, scared for his life and his grandmother’s. Ms. Aline had grown on me. My Shorty OG would be here until the good Lord called her home. Saquin… well the jury was still out on that.
“I-I know you wanted one thing, but I think I got the other,” he said hurriedly.
“We’ll be there in ten,” I promised. “Seth—”
He cut me off before I could finish what I was yelling. “Already got my keys and my gun. Where we going?” he asked as he joined me.
“Saquin’s. Then we moving on Black,” I said.
He smiled. “Thought you’d say that.”
By the time Ajani, Braeden, and Prime met us outside Saquin’s house, I had the address: a private back room inside a cigar lounge Ramón used for meeting suppliers and discussing his money-laundering “consulting firm.” Black had run out of town but came back because business demanded it.
He no doubt planned to be in and out. There’d be no out for his ass.
We walked in at the same time. The hostess froze when she saw us, like she knew instinctively that we were trouble. We kept moving.
“Looking for the private rooms,” I said.
She didn’t ask which one. Just swallowed hard and led us down the hall. When she opened the door, Ramón Black looked up and went pale.
Good.
He stood too fast from his seat in a plush, blue wingback, knocking his drink over. “Mekhi. Son. You didn’t call—”
“Sit,” I said.
He sat.
“If you gentlemen would excuse us,” Seth said in his most cordial voice.
It didn’t hurt that they knew we had the gunpower to back up the request. They scurried out like roaches startled by light. Prime closed the door behind them, locking it. Ramón swallowed, adjusting his jacket, trying to regain his composure.
“There must be some misunderstanding—”
“Same shit I said when I realized you were letting Trell use your organization like it’s a rental car,” I said, stepping closer to him. “Explain that to me.”
Ramón looked at me, then Seth, then the others. Fear crawled across his face.
“Mekhi… you don’t understand. It’s not simple.”
I smiled, crossed my arms over my chest. “So, make it simple.”
He hesitated long enough for my patience to evaporate.
I grabbed his collar and slammed him into the wall so hard the paintings rattled. The two men he had with him approached but stopped as Braeden cleared his throat.
Prime chuckled. “Let ‘em. You know how long it’s been since I got to be the muscle.”
“Talk,” I snapped at Ramón.
His breath hitched. “I didn’t want to do this.”
“Bullshit.”
“I didn’t!” he hissed. “I didn’t have a choice.”
I pulled back enough to glare at him. “Everybody got a choice.”
“No,” he whispered, voice cracking. “Not when your child is missing.”
The room went still. Even Ajani’s tapping stopped. My grip eased, but only slightly.
“Missing? Fuck you talking about?”
Ramón’s eyes filled with shame. I let him go and moved back to give him space to talk. He walked to the bar, fixed another glass of bourbon. I waited as he sank heavily onto the chair he had abandoned earlier. Finally, he spoke.
“My daughter,” he said. “Seven months now.”
Prime frowned. “Runaway?”
He shook his head violently. “No. She was taken.”
Braeden swore under his breath.
Seth’s eyes narrowed. “By whom?”
Ramón’s face twisted, the rage in his eyes clear. “By the people Trell works with… or controls. I don’t even know anymore.”
A sick feeling crawled up my spine. I thought about Trell’s fingerprints linked to the other missing women. An ugly picture was emerging, even more reason for me to end this worrisome ass nigga.
“You telling me he kidnapped your daughter?” I pressed.
Ramón nodded. “My baby was sheltered. He dated her. Told her all the right things. Made her fall in love. Always had an excuse for why he couldn’t meet the family.
She told us they were going to San Antonio, shared locations and everything.
Then the calls stopped. The phone stopped moving.
He popped up a little while later. Told me he was the guy she’d been dating, and he knew where she was because he sold her himself. ”
“And he using that information to pull your strings,” Ajani concluded.
Ramón nodded, looking defeated. He kept talking, like a man confessing at gunpoint, like he’d been wanting to get shit off his chest and couldn’t.
“He told me if I didn’t help him—didn’t let him borrow my men, my resources, everything, he’d never give me the location.
He said she’d disappear into trafficking pipelines forever. ”
Prime cursed low. “Trafficking?”
Ramón’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “You know how that goes. Women who go in don’t come out. Not… not like they were. San Antonio is on the I-10 corridor. She could be anywhere. She could even be in Mexico.”
I felt disgust settle in my stomach. Trell wasn’t just crazy. The nigga was evil.
“And you believed him? Believed he’d had her?” Seth asked.
Ramón wiped at his face. “He… he sent me proof. A bracelet. Hers. And a picture of her tied to a chair, crying. And another of a man… of her… Jesus, I can’t—” His voice broke. “You don’t understand. She’s my baby. My only daughter.”
The room fell into a heavy silence. I stepped back from Ramón, jaw clenched.
“Why you didn’t come to me?” I demanded.
Ramón let out a hollow laugh. “How could you help? We have similar resources and I met dead end after dead end. What could you do that I haven’t, Mekhi?
Even if we catch him, torture him… he says he’ll never tell.
He’d die knowing.” His eyes closed for a minute.
“All I know is I want my daughter back. And Trell promised to give me the location once he finishes… whatever this is.”
Seth muttered, “He lying. That nigga ain't giving nobody back.”
Ramón’s voice cracked. “But what if he would? How could I not take the chance?”
I couldn’t touch that. I don’t know what the fuck I would’ve done in a situation like that. I couldn’t see handing my shit over to a menace like Trell, though. Ramón wasn’t off the hook.
I stepped back, grabbing my jacket collar and adjusting it.
“A’ight,” I said. “I’m gonna tell you something and I want you to hear me clear. You ain’t safe,” I told him. “But you ain’t my primary enemy. Trell is the problem. And I’m finna solve him. You know how I’ma do that?”
Ramón shook his head emphatically. I stepped closer to him.
“You gon’ give me every single detail you know about where that bastard is hiding. Every routine. Every man. Every move.”
He nodded quickly.
“And when I find your daughter, you gon’ owe me. You gon’ pay both debts.”
Ramón’s shoulders sagged like a man finally releasing a weight he couldn’t carry.
“I’ll tell you everything.”
Ajani moved toward us. “Start talking.”
He did.
Everything. Possible locations. Contacts. Patterns. The group who had his daughter. Things Trell had said about me. Ramón Black had a wealth of information. And when he finished, I only said one thing.
“Good. Now we going hunting.”
I was quiet on the car ride back to my place, my mind working overtime. Seth shared what we’d learned with Tex, and I knew Ajani was already working. This shit was about to be over. My little thug and I could breathe, figure out what came next.
The screech of tires pulled me out of my reverie. Seth was halfway in the intersection, stopping for a red light he miscalculated.
“You still can’t drive for shit,” I turned to frown at him
That probably was why I didn’t see the car coming. There was just the tearing sounds of the crash, my body jerking against the seatbelt, the sharp pain in my head…
And darkness.