The Family Business 3(74)

With Paris and Junior on either side of the door, weapons ready, I ran up to that door, slamming my foot against it as hard as I could. The frame shattered upon impact. Don’t ask me how, but Paris’s overzealous behind scooted right past me, killing two assailants in no time. Junior and I rushed in and finished off the third. As bad-ass as Paris was, she softened up, squealing like a girl when she spotted the woman tied up on the makeshift bed.

“Sasha!” I could see the relief on Paris’s face. She and Sasha must have been close.

When Paris ripped the tape off Sasha’s mouth, the first thing Sasha said was, “Vegas! He’s in the basement with X.”

Before she finished her sentence, I was out of the room and headed for stairs, with Junior on my heels.

“Anybody go into the basement yet?” Junior questioned the second we hit the first floor. Two of our guys led us to the kitchen, where Kareem and James were having a firefight with at least one of X’s guys, who’d barricaded himself in the basement.

“Is it X?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” Kareem replied. “But whoever it is, they’ve got themselves barricaded in, so we can’t go down the stairs without taking a bullet.”

“What the f*ck’s the hold up?” We all turned to see Paris and Sasha standing behind us, holding guns. Junior quickly explained the situation to them, and Paris glanced over at Sasha. Whatever she communicated in that look, Sasha understood it, because without a word the two of them stripped their shirts and bras off like they were about to go on stage. I watched as both tucked their guns behind their backs and forced their way past us to the basement door.

“Move,” Paris said to a still-stunned Kareem and James, who did exactly what they were told.

I turned to Junior and said, “We really going to let them do this?”

“Dee, I’ve seen these two pull more rabbits out of their hats than Houdini himself. It’s a damn shame us dudes are so weak.”

“Hey, baby, please don’t shoot. I just want to talk,” Paris said sweetly before they headed downstairs.

I think I was holding my breath the whole time, until I heard a single shot. A few seconds later, Paris called up to us, “Y’all coming down or what? And someone bring us our tops. It’s cold as shit down here.”

I glanced at Junior, and he said with a smirk, “Told you.”

We ran down the stairs. Sasha was standing in the middle of the room, pointing at a metal door. “They’re in there. That’s where X was keeping me.” Her eyes traveled down to a pool of blood on the floor. There was no body, but whoever had been there had lost quite a bit of blood. I prayed it wasn’t Vegas.

We all jumped back and aimed our weapons when we heard the sound of a bolt sliding on the other side of the metal door.

I felt all the tension leave my body when a battered Vegas sauntered out of the room carrying a gun. “What?” He laughed. “Y’all were expecting Brother X to be walking out of here, weren’t you?”

Both girls screamed with joy, running to him, while I went inside the room Vegas had come out of. I was expecting to find X’s dead body. Surprisingly, he was out cold, but he was very much alive, with two big-ass rats running in circles around him.





Chippy





52


“Lavernius, the war is over, and your boys won. They did you proud.” I took my husband’s hand between mine, desperate for it to be strong and solid, the way it had been all these years. But that didn’t happen. It felt limp and absent of him, although I refused to give up hope that he was still in there somewhere.

“Sorry to interrupt, Mrs. Duncan. I need to change his IV,” Sonya mumbled. She stood in the doorway, looking too afraid to enter.

“Go on then.” I waved her in and waited as she tiptoed into the room and got to work, swapping out the empty bag of saline for a fresh one. As I watched her taking care of LC for the hundredth time since he’d been home, something deep inside me shifted.

“Sorry about that,” she muttered as she finished, ready to dart out of the room and leave the two of us alone.

“Sonya?” That had to be the first time I’d spoken to her directly since LC had been shot, so the look of fear she gave me was well deserved.

“Yes, Mrs. Duncan?”

“I need to thank you for all that you are doing for my husband. You have gone above and beyond to help him, and I want you to know that I notice, and I’m grateful that you’re here.”

A look of embarrassment crossed her face before she responded.

“Please don’t thank me. We all know that it’s my fault he’s in that bed in the first place. If I had just walked away when I gave you my word, then Mr. Duncan wouldn’t be laying here.” She lowered her head, refusing to meet my eyes.

I had been so busy blaming her and being angry that I hadn’t accepted a hard truth, but now it was time to share it with her. “You know the business that my family is in?” I asked her.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So you realize that danger and retribution is a very real part of this job. You don’t get all the rewards we have been given without a large degree of danger. There is a reason my son chose you. Most women couldn’t deal with this life, but you and I, we’re different. But that also means that we come with a history, one that makes this lifestyle an option. Yours just happens to include an angry husband. So yes, I needed to blame someone, but if I’m being honest, then I’m as responsible as you are for putting my husband in that bed.”