CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE #2
"Yeah."
"Check it."
"Hold on."
I heard movement on the other end. A few seconds passed.
"It's showing Target."
That didn't tell me shit.
"I'm almost there."
"Jokah, what the fuck is going on?"
"I don't know yet."
"Is my sister missing?"
I didn't answer.
"Jokah!"
"I'll call you back."
"Don't you hang up on—"
I hung up.
I couldn't deal with Armani panicking until I knew what the fuck was going on. When I pulled into Target, I saw the Wraith before I even reached the row. It was sitting exactly where the tracker said it was. Hulk pulled in behind me. I parked crooked and jumped out.
"Kaior!" I shouted.
I walked around the Wraith and checked the doors. They were locked, but Kaior was nowhere in sight. Then I noticed the bags on the ground. One was lying beside the car, while another had been knocked over, leaving shit scattered across the pavement.
"Hulk."
"I see it."
Then something near the back tire caught my attention. It was Kaior’s phone. I picked it up. The screen was cracked. Everything inside me went still.
Hulk looked at me. "Jokah."
I called Armani back. She answered before the first ring finished. "Where is she?"
"Her phone here."
"What?"
"Her phone is on the ground. Her bags too."
"Oh my God."
"Armani."
"Jokah, where the fuck is my sister?"
"I don't know."
Her breathing changed. "Somebody took her?"
I looked around the parking lot, people walking, cars pulling in and out, everybody going about their fucking lives while somewhere between Kaior walking out of that store and me getting here, somebody had put their hands on my woman.
"Yeah."
Armani started screaming. "Oh, my fucking God. I’m coming."
"Listen to me."
"Jokah—"
"ARMANI."
She stopped screaming.
"Don’t leave that house. Stay put."
"What about Kaior?"
"I'm getting her."
"How do you know?"
"Because I'm getting my fucking woman back. I’ll call you back when I find her."
I hung up. Hulk was already on his phone, so I called Poncho.
"What's up?"
"Get everybody on point."
"Everybody?"
"Everybody."
"What happened?"
I looked down at Kaior's cracked phone in my hand. "Somebody took Kaior."
"What?"
"I want Broward shut the fuck down until I find her."
"I'm on it."
"I need eyes everywhere. Motels. Houses. Warehouses. Everybody we know. Anybody see some shit, hear some shit, I wanna know."
"A’ight. I'm on it."
I hung up and made another call. The detective answered.
"Sinclair."
"I need you."
"What's going on?"
"Somebody took Kaior."
"You sure?"
"I'm standing beside my Wraith. Her bags are on the ground. Her phone is cracked. She ain't here."
"Where?"
I gave him the Target location.
"I need cameras."
"Jokah—"
"Parking lot. Intersections. Traffic cameras. Businesses around this motherfucker. Whatever you can get."
"That's gonna take some time."
"Then you better start now."
"Send me a picture of her and exactly where you found the phone."
"I'm sending it."
"I'll call you."
"Don't call me without something."
I hung up. My hands were shaking, and that pissed me off.
I couldn't remember the last time my hands had shaken like that.
I looked down at Kaior's phone, and the screen lit up.
Her wallpaper was us, a picture she'd taken on the yacht.
She was smiling at the camera. I was looking at her.
Fuck! I closed my eyes for one second. That was all I gave myself. Then I opened them.
"Jokah." I looked at Hulk.
"Poncho got everybody moving."
"Good."
"You think this got something to do with Pooh?"
"I don't know."
Pooh, Marquez, Dre and every nigga I touched over that stolen work started running through my head, one after another.
Had we missed somebody? Did somebody know more than we thought?
Had one of them gotten word out before we cleaned everything up?
I didn't know, and I hated not knowing, because Kaior didn't know anything about this shit.
She didn't know how to watch for somebody following her, didn't know when a car had been behind her too long, didn't know which faces to remember or when somebody standing too close wasn't an accident.
She lived a regular life until she met me.
I looked at Hulk. "Whoever did this been watching her."
He nodded. "They knew where she was."
"They knew she was alone."
My jaw tightened. And they'd waited. That meant this wasn't random. My phone rang. It was Detective Reynolds. I answered immediately.
"What you got?"
"I'm looking at the Target footage now."
"What do you see?"
"Your girl comes out at 7:43. Walks directly to your Rolls."
"And?"
"Dark-colored SUV comes into frame a few seconds later."
My grip tightened around the phone. "Plate?"
"Can't see it yet."
"How many?"
"Give me a second."
I heard keys clicking.
"Two that I can see. Both of them approached her. There's a struggle."
My stomach turned. "What the fuck you mean a struggle?"
"She fought them."
I closed my eyes. Of course she did. My stubborn-ass baby.
"Then what?"
"They get her inside the SUV. Vehicle exits toward the south side of the lot."
"Which way?"
"I'm pulling traffic cameras."
"How long?"
"Jokah, give me—"
"How. Fucking. Long?"
"I don't know yet."
I looked at Hulk. "Dark SUV. Two or three niggas."
He was already texting.
The detective kept talking. "I'll get you whatever I can."
"I want everything."
I hung up, and for the next twenty minutes, my phone didn't stop ringing.
Everybody knew. Kaior's picture was moving through every connection I had, every nigga who owed me, every nigga who feared me, every motherfucker who wanted to stay on my good side.
I didn't give a fuck who found her. I just needed somebody to.
Then my phone rang again. It was Poncho.
"Talk to me."
"We got something."
"What?"
"One of my people saw a dark Tahoe matching what Hulk sent out."
"Where?"
"Headed west."
"How long ago?"
"Maybe thirty minutes."
"Plate?"
"Didn't catch it."
"Then how the fuck we know it's them?"
"We don't." I clenched my jaw. "But he recognized the driver."
I went still. "Who?"
"Some nigga named Reek."
"You know him?"
"Nah. But I know somebody who do."
"Where he stay?"
"Working on it."
"Work faster."
"I got you."
I hung up. Hulk looked at me. "Reek?"
"That's what he said."
"You know him?"
"No."
That was about to change. My phone rang again before I could say anything else, Reynolds was calling.
"Got the SUV."
"Where?"
"Traffic camera caught it westbound. I got enough of the plate to run possibilities."
"Do it."
"Already did."
I waited.
"Chevy Tahoe registered to a woman in Lauderhill."
"Name."
He gave it to me, but it didn't mean shit.
"Address."
He gave me that too.
I looked at Hulk. "Let's go."
"Jokah, hold on," the detective said. "That doesn't mean your girl is at that address."
"I know."
"So don't go doing anything stupid."
I hung up. Hulk was already heading toward his truck. I stopped him.
"Call Poncho. Tell him meet us there."
He nodded, and I looked down at Kaior's cracked phone one more time before putting it in my pocket. I didn't know who Reek was, didn't know who sent him, didn't know where the fuck they had taken Kaior. But I had a vehicle, a name, and an address. That was enough to start.
I got behind the wheel. Whoever had my woman better pray I found her alive, because if Kaior had so much as a scratch on her when I got there, finding her wasn't going to be the end of this shit. It was going to be the beginning.