The Family Business 3(26)

Gurgling through blood-stained lips, he gathered the strength to tell me, “Go. Go to Vegas, now.”

I shook my head. “I can’t leave you like this. I’m going to call for help.”

“No! You’re a Duncan. You’re too valuable. Just go. Go to your brother. Lincoln is on the way.”

“I’m not leaving you. No way, not going to happen. I refuse.”

Barely able to move his lips anymore, he mumbled, “Rio, I would have come out for you. Please go. Please.” He closed his eyes, and I knew it was only a matter of time before he would drown in his own blood.

Gently resting his head on the floor, I got up and ran to the car. It was unlocked, and the keys were still in it. Clearly Kennedy had known there was a chance we would have to make a quick getaway. I looked back toward the house and silently thanked him for looking out for me.

I had no idea if more of X’s men were on the way, so I jumped in the car and wasted no time getting out of there. Fumbling for my phone as I drove, I dialed Orlando’s number.

“Kennedy is dead!” I cried out. “Fucking sons of bitches killed him. O, man, we need to get that motherf*ckin’ Brother X.”





Sasha





16


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.