The Family Business 3 (9 page)

After we left Lojack in his hood, Paris and I switched cars and changed into black jeans and yuppie T-shirts to head over to Brooklyn Heights. Montague Street, the main drag, might as well have been on the other side of the planet, with its high-end clothing shops, quaint cafes, and overpriced juice bars. As you can imagine, locating Samuel's six-foot-tall Puerto Rican tranny sidepiece in a gentrified neighborhood like this was not hard at all.

It turned out that Darlene worked in a chi-chi salon called Beauty, which could conveniently be watched through the window of a coffee shop across the street. Two lattes and a corn muffin later, a flaming ball of Puerto Rican attitude exited the salon, scurrying down the street. We got in our car and followed those five-inch heels until Darlene ducked into an apartment building two blocks away. Shortly afterward, we watched a six-foot-something, bald-headed brotha wearing a black bow tie get out of a sedan and enter the building. The assumption was that we had just unofficially been introduced to Brother Samuel.

“You think gay men really give the best head?” Paris asked, her eyes on the building as if she could imagine what was going on behind the closed door.

“Maybe better than you, but my dick-sucking skills are world class,” I said with a laugh, waiting for my competitive cousin to weigh in.

“Please. I was sucking dick when you were in diapers,” she boasted.

“That is so foul. You just can't stand to not win.”

She laughed with me, which was a relief. She had been so wound up ever since Lasalle mentioned Niles Monroe that I was beginning to worry about her.

Twenty-two minutes later, girlfriend came switching her hot-to-trot ass out of the building in a new outfit and wig. Guess old boy had made a mess of the last one. Darlene headed back in the direction of the salon, and not long after that, Samuel came through the door and out to his car with a big grin on his face. When he pulled off, we stayed on him.

“You're tailing him too close,” I snapped, worried that Paris would blow our cover and lose the one opportunity we had to find X.

“Hey, I got this, okay?” She gave me the side-eye, although she did drop back a little.

We'd been tailing Samuel for forty minutes when he finally pulled over at a small store. Paris parked half a block away. I already had the binoculars out and was adjusting the focus to see what was going on. I laughed out loud when I saw what he was putting on the counter in the store.

“Ha! He's buying mints,” I told Paris. “I guess he doesn't want to be around the brothers smelling like Darlene's nuts.”

“Whoa . . .” Paris muttered, but it wasn't because of my comment. “Check it out,” she said, and I looked in the direction of the store again.

Samuel was coming out of the store, but now he had two other bow tie–wearing brothers with him. From the bulges in their jackets, I knew they were all strapped.

“Looks like Samuel stopped here to get more than just breath mints,” I said.

“Yeah,” Paris agreed. “This just got real interesting.”

We watched as one man got into the passenger seat of Samuel's car, and the other followed in a separate car. Paris, who was always ready for action, reached for her piece. She opened the glove box to retrieve some more ammo.

I would never admit it to her, but I was glad to have Paris with me. She was a true bad-ass, and that's who I would want to have my back—even if she was also a pain in the ass who reminded me often that she was the older cousin, and therefore superior at everything.

We followed Samuel and his partners onto the Grand Central Parkway, where they exited at LaGuardia Airport, confusing the hell outta me. If they were getting on a flight, that could mean that Brother X was somewhere outside of New York, which would make it much harder to get at him.

I breathed a sigh of relief as they passed by the airport and drove down Ditmars Boulevard to the Marriot hotel. In the parking lot, they pulled in next to a black van. It looked like the driver of that van had been waiting for them, because they all got out and spoke to him.

“What do you think they're up to?” I asked Paris.

“I don't know, but it can't be good. I think we need to get in that hotel lobby before they do.” We grabbed our baseball caps and headed for the hotel entrance.

“Oh, shit!” I grabbed her arm, stopping her twenty feet from the entrance.

“What?”

I directed her attention to a souped-up 1975 Plymouth Duster. “Isn't that one of Junior's cars?” This was really bad.

“Shit. Junior must be in there with Sonya.”

We rushed to the lobby and posted up in a couple of chairs that gave us a great view of the front desk, lobby, and elevators just in time to see Samuel and his two henchmen enter. They headed straight for the front desk, where they were greeted by a smiling reservations clerk. She wasn't smiling for long, though, because Samuel started getting agitated. We weren't close enough to hear the conversation, but it looked like it was easily solved once he pulled out a wad of cash and slid it across the counter to her. Her smile returned as she typed something into her computer then handed Samuel a key card. Samuel snatched up the card, and he and his men turned toward the elevators.

Paris shot me a look, and we got our asses over to the elevator bank in a hurry. Just as the door was about to close, Paris reached her arm in to stop it.

“Hello.” She smiled flirtatiously as we entered the elevator, joining the men. She got a big smile in return from one of Samuel's henchmen. Not to be outdone, I pushed my breasts out until they were straining against the fabric of my tight top.

“How are you gentlemen?” I purred. There was nothing like playing oversexed bimbos looking for dates. I had to admit it was my favorite act.

“We're great,” the shortest one answered quickly. He was clearly the one least accustomed to two hot sistahs giving him the time of day. Yeah, he was definitely the one to focus on. The taller, skinny one, who looked to be all about business, barely cracked a smile. I would have to step up my game, but I didn't mind. I always enjoyed a challenge.

“You ladies might want to familiarize yourself with the Koran.” Samuel sound disgusted, staring at us as if we were gum on the bottom of his shoe.

Paris ignored him, turning all her attention to the short one, the easiest target. “Mmmm. Big feet,” she said. “Is it true what they say about big feet?”

I had to hand it to Paris; she definitely had some game. She was so seductive that I swear dude was reaching for his zipper like he was about to show her just how true it was. Samuel was having none of it, though.

“You two really need to get right with Allah,” he barked at us.

“Oh, you not into women?” Paris poked at Samuel with a straight face. I swear if that brother was white he would have gone bright red. “A'ight. Guess that means two for two instead of three for two.”

“I'm just not into nasty, dirty whores,” he snarled.

She brushed him off with a shrug. “I guess you're not into these, then,” she said, shocking even me as she pulled down the V-neck on her shirt, exposing her damn near perfect tits. I say
damn near
because since her pregnancy, they hung just a little lower than mine. “You gotta be a pussy who is just not into pussy to not be inspired by these.”

Samuel refused to even look in the direction of her bare chest, but the other two dudes, their eyes were damn near bugging out of their heads. Seeing where she was going with this little act, I joined right in, flipping my tits out too.

One of the guys groaned like he was about to explode in his pants. I knew he wanted to reach out and touch them, but Samuel's stone face made him retreat.

“Don't act like you don't like them,” Paris prodded. “Go ahead. You can touch them.”

“Not interested,” Samuel spoke for them all.

“She wasn't talking to you,” I said, turning full frontal to his associates. “What about you boys? You interested?” I jumped a little to make my breasts jiggle.

The two other brothers looked at each other like they were wondering which one was going to defy Samuel first, and that was the moment of distraction Paris and I needed. We pulled out our silenced guns. The two horny ones never even touched their weapons before we made kill shots. Samuel, on the other hand, was a whole lot more experienced and closer to his weapon.

He aimed his gun at Paris. I leaped for his hand, spoiling any kind of shot he might have. I saved her life, but he was strong as hell and threw me across the elevator like a rag doll. By the time, I looked up, he had his gun pointed at me. I braced myself, twisting my body to make myself a smaller target like I'd been trained in school. I heard the sound of two silenced shots, and the back of Samuel's head exploded against the elevator wall.

I turned to Paris.

She shrugged, the smoking gun still in her hands. “What? You saved my life, so I had to save yours. You know I don't like to owe nobody, and knowing you, your ghost would haunt me the rest of my life.”

“Whatever. Bitch, you know you love me,” I said as she helped me up.

She bent down to search Samuels's pockets, pulling out the key card the reservation clerk had given him. “Come on. It's time to find Junior.”

 

“You ready? Because this is it,” I whispered into Sonya's ear as we entered the LaGuardia Airport Marriott. Her face lit up as she rolled her suitcase, which was a whole hell of a lot bigger than mine, into the lobby. I glanced over at the black van that had parked in a handicap space, probably so that the driver could get the best view of the lobby. So far, so good.

“You sure this is going to work?” she asked nervously.

“It's going to work. Trust me,” I replied, heading for the desk.

“I do trust you, honey. I'm just scared.”

The desk clerk glanced up, and seeing us approach, he handed me my room key, just like I had instructed him earlier. Who said you needed to be at a five-star hotel to get first class service? This place was about to meet all of my expectations and more.

Taking a quick visual inventory of the lobby, I spotted a few obvious tourists: Asians with expensive cameras hanging around their necks; badly-dressed, pale Europeans; a few Africans; and some locals, no doubt doing their dirty business where they wouldn't get caught. The coast was basically clear of interference, at least inside.

“Is it working?” Sonya asked, and I nodded in response, letting her know that I planned to honor my word to keep her safe. This woman was my life, and that meant protecting her the same way I would myself.

As we walked to the elevator bank, I turned to smile at Sonya. What I was really doing was looking through the large windows to make sure Brother X's man in the van hadn't followed us inside yet. He may have thought that he was slick, staying a few car lengths behind us, but he didn't know that by following us, he was simply following my plan.

We traveled up the elevator to the seventh floor and hustled into our room. Once inside, we threw open the suitcases and quickly changed clothing. In fact, the clothes we were changing into were the only outfits in the nearly empty suitcases. Even Sonya's big-ass suitcase was just for show, because we needed X and his men to think that we were leaving town. The best way to make them believe that was to check in to the largest hotel near the airport. I was sure X figured we'd be easy targets, but he would be surprised, and pissed, when he found out what we had planned.

Seeing Sonya half naked as she changed into muted colors, I had to take a deep breath and try to control my urges.

“Stop,” she warned, catching me leering at her. “If you're really, really good and get us out of here safe, I may have something a little extra for you later, though,” she teased.

“I'm going to hold you to that,” I crooned, patting her on the ass. Damn, I loved all that ass in my hands, but it would have to wait. Timing was everything tonight. “Girl, you are distracting as hell.”

“Good.” She laughed as she finished dressing and picked up her purse.

“Wait.” I stopped her at the door. “Give me your phone.” I held out my hand.

“But all of my numbers are in there,” she said with a pout.

“If we're going to do this, we have to leave our pasts behind. They can track us with our phones.” I took out mine, waited a few more seconds until she reluctantly handed hers over, and tossed them both onto the bed. “Now, let's go start our lives anew.”

I grabbed her hand and led her down the hallway in the opposite direction from the elevators. We'd just gotten into the stairwell when I heard the elevator ping. Damn, we were cutting it close. When we reached the main floor, we turned left and slipped into the kitchen, where a full staff hurried about, handling the needs of the large clientele. We were greeted by José, a professional waiter who used to work at one of my favorite spots in Queens before it shut down a year ago. I'd helped him get this job at the hotel, so he was repaying the favor.

“Junior, this way.” He led us through a maze of activity, past a whole bunch of people too busy doing their jobs to care what the hell we were doing. When we got to the end of a long hallway, he opened the door to an alley outside.

Before we left him, I reached into my pocket and handed him a nice little bundle of cash.

“Nah, I can't take this,” he insisted.

“You earned it. Just keep your mouth shut and we're good,” I said, reminding him of my cardinal rule.

“You got it. Good luck.” He pocketed the cash.

A yellow cab sat waiting outside the door. As José left us to go back to work, I opened the back door and let Sonya slide into the cab first.

“Where to, Mr. Sutton?” the driver asked.

“Corner of Patchen and Jefferson in Brooklyn,” I answered. We weren't actually staying in Brooklyn, but I'd stashed a car near there a couple of days ago.

 

 

We were actually staying in a safe house that I kept at the residences at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Battery Park. By the time I'd parked the car in the garage and led Sonya into the private elevator, I could see the stress on her face. It had been a long and difficult day as we made moves to throw X off our trail. I could see that she was in serious need of some stress relief, which was why I'd had room service deliver food and champagne.

“I've never stayed anyplace this nice,” Sonya said as we sat down to eat. She was staring out the window at the Statue of Liberty across the water.

“Yeah, it's beautiful. Just like you,” I said, reaching for her hand.

We ate in silence for a while, lost in our own thoughts about the ordeal we were enduring. I, for one, felt confident that X and his men were still scratching their heads, wondering when we were coming out of our hotel room. Even if they'd figured out that we were gone, there was no way for them to pick up our trail again. I'd had the cab driver drop us off in front of a small bodega, and we didn't get into my car until long after he was gone. If anything, they might guess that we were hiding in one of the apartments above the store.

“I'm just glad we got away from X and his men,” I said, but Sonya still looked uncertain.

“Babe, don't worry,” I told her. “There's no way anyone could know where we are right now.”

“What about your family? Don't they know you'd come here?”

I shook my head. “Even they don't know about this place. When I bought it, I didn't tell anyone.”

She looked surprised. “You own this place?”

“Yeah,” I said with a smile. “I might not spend lavishly like Paris or Rio, but once in a while I like to buy nice things.”

“Okay, but, I mean, why would you buy a fancy place like this and then not live in it? And why would you keep it a secret?”

“For a situation like this,” I explained. “I didn't buy this place to live in it. My brother Orlando came up with the idea years ago, that each one of us needed a safe place we could go to if things ever got dangerous, and this place was perfect for me. No one would ever come looking for a simple guy like me in this kind of luxury. ”

She nodded like it all made sense to her now. “So, this is basically a hideout?”

I laughed. “Yeah, I guess you could call it that. And since not even my family knows where it is, you can relax and consider yourself completely safe tonight.”

I saw some of the tension leave her shoulders. “Feel a little better now?” I asked, and she nodded. “Good. Now, about what you said earlier . . .”

“What did I say?” she asked.

“You said if I got you out of the hotel safely you'd have a little something for me tonight,” I said, raising my eyebrows suggestively.

A sultry grin emerged on her face as she reached for the buttons on her blouse. “Let's get busy christening this secret hideaway.”