20. The Devil We Missed
The folder slipped from Kenya’s hand and landed against Carmen’s desk with a soft thud. Out of every name that could’ve been inside that file, it had to be Ty’Quan fuckin’ Michaels.
I stared down at the paperwork spread across the desk while trying to make sense of it.
I studied the dates, disciplinary reports, and the sentence reductions despite it being documented that he was involved in countless murders inside.
I stared at the favorable recommendations with the signature Juliet Anderson.
All of it painted the same ugly picture: Cameron, with the help of her punk ass sister Carmen, had been keeping that Nigga comfortable for years.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Chanel whispered. Her voice sounded hurt more than angry. “He could have turned on y’all when he was arrested. Why wait until now?”
“Because when he was arrested, there wasn’t shit he wanted. But after living in desperation and this fuckin’ hell hole, someone offered him something he wanted,” X chimed in.
Xavier looked like he was trying not to put his fist through the wall.
His eyes never left the file. He didn’t blink and barely moved.
He was staring off into space, and I knew his Angel and my wife were about to see a side of X he kept tucked away, because X wasn’t explosive when he was truly angry.
He got quiet. The same way he got quiet the night at the arcade.
The fuzzy footage of him being caught on tape defending Chanel showcased a quiet but calculated beast.
I understand Quan’s motive, but I still haven’t made the connection with Jared. Everybody on the inside crossed paths with Jared. He was the old head inside that protected you and put you on the up and up. What did his deal have to do with Jared’s campaign?
Why choose the wedding to shoot him when Jared frequented the barbershop, the grocery store, and countless other places on the south side of Crestwood, where he could be shot, and the media would easily blame it on gun violence because of the area? Something still wasn’t adding up.
Chanel lowered herself into the chair behind the desk like the weight of everything we’d learned was finally settling on her shoulders.
“I don’t think it started now.”
Everybody looked toward her.
She pointed toward the file. “I think it’s always been happening.”
Deep down, we all knew she was right. The Price family hadn’t suddenly become obsessed. They’d been studying us since 2004, hell, maybe even sooner. They were watching us and collecting pieces of us for decades.
A noise suddenly echoed down the hallway. We heard footsteps clinking in heels. Her walk was steady and measured. We knew that meant Carmen was here.
I immediately looked toward the door. Xavier crossed the room first. He peered through the narrow glass panel beside the door. He confirmed that it was her by mouthing her name to us all.
The room went still. After all these years of lies and these dumb ass aliases, we were one step closer to getting their sister.
I moved beside X and looked through the glass.
She wore a tailored navy suit. Her prison credentials hung from her neck, and a tablet rested beneath one arm.
Her heels clicked against the tile floor with the confidence of somebody who thought she controlled the entire building.
And maybe she did once upon a time, but tonight all that shit changed.
X opened the door before she could reach for it. Carmen stopped cold. Her eyes immediately found Xavier, then turned to Chanel, landed on Kenya, and finally turned to me.
Shock froze her where she stood, but she turned towards Chanel and Kenya with disgust in her eyes.
“Well, hello.”
The word barely escaped her mouth.
“Disappointed?” Chanel asked softly.
Carmen’s eyes never left her. And suddenly I saw it. The thing that had fueled all of this. She had pure ugly envy in her heart. The kind that hollowed a person out from the inside.
“I should’ve known y’all would be here,” Carmen said.
Her voice sounded calm, as if she’d spent years rehearsing this moment.
“You and your sick ass family spent decades stalking my wife and my sister.” I scoffed at her. “You really think we weren’t gon’ find you eventually?”
Carmen looked toward Chanel again and gave a deranged smile.
“You bitches got everything. A mom who kept our father wrapped around her well-manicured finger. Y’all got full scholarships while we had to take out hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of student loans, and y’all got to escape a justice system when y’all were playing god for decades. My family just evened the damn score.”
Chanel stared at her, and her voice cracked slightly. “No, what we got was trauma. Besides, you should be thanking us for taking Sharon’s evil ass off y’all hands.”
Heavy silence settled over the room, but what Chanel said was true. Every person standing in that office carried scars. The difference was simple: we chose healing. The Price family chose obsession.
Carmen’s eyes shifted toward the file sitting on the desk. She realized we had the evidence of what she and her sister Cameron were up to, and at the realization that we figured them out, her cool and calm mask cracked.
Xavier saw it, too. He stepped forward immediately. “Which block is Ty’Quan on?” he asked.
Carmen didn’t answer.
X took another step closer to her. “I’m only gon’ ask you one more time.”
The room suddenly felt too small. Carmen was looking around the room. Carmen swallowed, more than likely trying to decide what information was worth giving up. Kenya pulled a switchblade from her pocket that made Carmen swallow hard and turn to Xavier with an answer.
“He’s in the South Block.”
Xavier immediately reached for the radio clipped beneath his jacket.
His voice never rose or shook.
“Liem.”
Static answered.
Then, eventually, Liem spoke. “Yes, sir.”
“Find Quan in the South Block and end his life.”
A long pause ensued. Liem had been a soldier on the team since 2002.
Liem was more than likely coming to terms with a man he broke bread with in this life was another snake just like Miles, and that shit fucked with men who took a coat of arms together.
But eventually Liem responded with understanding.
“Copy.”
The line went silent, and Carmen looked afraid.
For one brief second after Xavier lowered the radio, nobody moved.
The only sound in the room came from the faint hum of fluorescent lights overhead.
Out of nowhere, Carmen made a mad dash around the office. She wasn’t running to the door but to her desk. Chanel grabbed her gun and aimed it at her head, thinking Carmen was going for a weapon, but instead Carmen had pushed the panic button behind her desk
“Damn it,” Kenya muttered.
Kenya had managed to grab her and pistol-whip her to stop moving, but we already knew the rest of our plan just went up in flames.
That button probably would lock down this jail, which meant that we all may have thirty seconds before CO’s with guns come blazing in here ready to protect their warden.
A piercing alarm erupted throughout the office suite, and red emergency lights immediately began flashing. The entire building woke up.
Xavier reacted first. The man had spent eighteen years learning how to read danger before it happened.
Carmen laughed. “You should’ve left when you had the chance.”
I hated that smug look on her face.
“Company,” Kenya warned.
The office door burst open. Four correctional officers rushed inside. Everything happened at once. The first officer froze when he saw us and did a double-take as if he recognized Xavier. That recognition was all it took for him to go into defense mode.
POW.
Xavier shot the officer in the temple as the second reached for his radio. The third started shouting orders. The fourth immediately moved toward Carmen, trying to protect her.
That was a huge mistake because anyone with the last name Price was ours to torture as we saw fit. The room exploded into chaos.
Chanel began throwing chairs at the officers to create the illusion of chaos.
Kenya began throwing files as well to create a panic in the men.
Just as the second officer grabbed for his gun, I used mine to shoot a hold into his hand.
As he stammered back, Xavier threw the third guard across the room into the second one.
They both lay on the floor, crying out in pain as Kenya delivered two shots to each of their chests.
The fourth guard held his gun up towards Chanel, hands shaking, and Xavier turned into the motherfuckin’ Hulk and tackled him at the knees.
The man cried out as X used his baton to strangle him to death.
Once he stopped breathing, Kenya called out, “We can’t stay here in this office, we’re sitting fuckin’ ducks. Grab that bitch and move.”
Just as I was about to grab the bitch, Carmen slipped through the doorway.
“Damn it!” The curse ripped from Kenya before she could stop it.
I grabbed her wrist.
“We stay together.”
Because splitting up was exactly how people got trapped, it’s exactly how people disappeared. And despite everything? I wasn’t losing anybody tonight. These Niggas would not make orphans out of my kids or my nieces.
The hallway beyond the office looked like absolute madness.
Correctional officers flooded toward the administrative wing.
Radios crackled, and code red orders echoed.
Emergency lights strobed across polished floors.
The entire prison, which had been sleeping and quiet when we arrived, now felt alive.
Xavier’s walkie-talkie blared at us.
“Your target is moving east.”
“She’s moving towards the older administrative corridors,” X yelled. “It’s the part of the prison most people forget exists; there’s more space for her to hide.”
The radio on my shoulder crackled.
“Liem to one of the Kings.”
I grabbed it immediately.
“Talk.”
“South Block has been taken care of.”
I felt pride in my team. “Help clear the perimeter. Handle anyone in your way.”
I felt an ache in my chest. I couldn’t believe this shit was Quan the whole time.
He had just as many bodies under his belt as we did; he was the one who kept the corner boys like Lil’ Nate in line.
This Nigga, Quan, didn’t give a shit about years of friendship or years of loyalty. I’m glad his bitch ass was dead.
We pushed forward through the corridor, past locked offices and past empty conference rooms, having to lay out several correctional officers on the way.
I covered Kenya’s back as we moved down the hall, as Xavier covered Chanel.
We moved as one, determined not to let another Price slip through our hands.
The deeper we went, the more the prison seemed to change.
The clean administrative wing disappeared, replaced by concrete instead of carpet.
Steel doors replaced glass, and the air itself felt colder.
The state should fuckin’ be ashamed of itself. Workers deserved heat, and the prisoners’ wing was cold as if they didn’t deserve humanity.
Then suddenly, Carmen appeared at the far end of the hallway. For one brief second, she froze. She hadn’t expected us to catch up to her so fast and track her to this forgotten part of the prison.
The distance between us couldn’t have been more than forty feet. Yet somehow it felt like twenty years.
Twenty years of manipulation.
Twenty years of obsession.
Twenty years of damage.
All standing at the opposite end of a corridor.
“You don’t get to run anymore,” Kenya said. Her voice echoed around the concrete.
Carmen laughed. The sound was brittle and tired.
Then she looked directly at Chanel. And in her face, I didn’t see confidence but desperation.
“Y’all still don’t understand,” Carmen said quietly.
“Help us understand then.” Chanel stepped forward with a gun trained on her. Kenya stayed by her side with her gun also aimed at Carmen.
The alarms continued screaming around us. The prison continued moving. But for a moment, everything felt still.
This was about three women standing in the wreckage of choices none of them made. Two of the women were in a war they had no idea their mother caused, and the other was tarnished by the suffering that same woman caused her family.
Carmen’s eyes flickered. “Even if you kill me, Cameron will stop at nothing to beat you. She’s so far gone, I couldn’t even tell you where she is.”
Looking at Carmen, I believed her. As much as I wanted to take her back to the war room and torture her for more information. We wouldn’t make it out of here with her. I looked at Kenya, and she instantly understood my nonverbal cues.
Kenya reached into her pocket and handed Carmen a pen and paper. Chanel’s gun remained pointed at Carmen’s forehead.
“Write a suicide note. Tell them your family was involved in illegal activity with the Spanish Cartel, and everything that happened today is a result of you being caught.”
Carmen looked up, tears in her eyes, and stared at Kenya. “You know, you look just like Sharon. You’re as ruthless as that bitch is, and I hope you rot in hell.”
Chanel shot Carmen in her knee. “Bitch, write the fuckin’ note.”
Liem walkied us. “I have the perimeter secured on all sides. But shit is a blood bath. You need to get out in five minutes.”
Carmen began writing as X grabbed a chair and began securing the rope. Carmen had to die this way. She ingrained herself in a system that tortured Black men instead of rehabilitating them. It was only right that she died like so many of them did.
Carmen finished the note and hobbled on her one good knee to the chair.
I lifted her up to the chair as Xavier put the noose around her neck.
Once Chanel secured it, Kenya kicked the chair from under her feet.
The four of us ran out of the corridor to the SUV that Liem had waiting outside.
Three Price family members were gone, one remained.