The Family Business 3 (The Family Business #3)(10)
When Jefferson had told me he’d take care of the screws, he wasn’t playing. I whistled at Lenny and Squiggy, scooping them up. Less than a minute later, I spotted him coming my way, and my heart rate sped up, my body tensed, and my palms became sweaty. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. I glanced over at the screws, who weren’t paying any attention to me or him as they tried to break up the fight.
When I looked back, he was less than twenty feet away. I tensed, tightening the grip around my shank, ready to spring into action. This was do or die time. I was on a mission, and I wasn’t going to let anyone stop me from accomplishing my goal.
“Get in and bring the rake,” he ordered when he was in front of me. He had parked the prison van to block the view of both the tower and the COs.
“I have to admit, Nugent, I didn’t think you had the balls to pull it off.” I jumped in the van and hid behind the seat. He threw a blanket at me, and I covered myself.
“I didn’t, but you gave me half a million reasons to grow a pair.” He chuckled as the van moved toward the gate. Next stop for me: a visit to my wife and Junior Duncan.
Chippy
6
Even as I listened to LC fill Paris, Sasha, and Rio in on the Brother Xavier debacle, I felt like I could finally breathe again. For the first time since Junior told us about Sonya being married, I had my entire family safely under the same roof. As a mother, nothing was more important to me, especially after Vegas informed us that our situation with Xavier was far worse than we’d expected. In spite of the fact that Minister Farah was a high-ranking member of the Nation of Islam and a mentor to Vegas, it turned out that there was little he could do to help us other than make a few pointed phone calls. For all intents and purposes, we were now on the verge of war with a lovesick Islamic radical who had an army of well-trained Black Muslim hit men at his disposal.
As LC spoke, I felt a pair of strong hands massage my shoulders. I turned, smiling at Orlando, my middle child and our company’s CEO. He leaned down and kissed me. My momentary calm was interrupted as Harris stomped into the room with a scowl. Not that it should have worried me. As legal counsel and the only immediate family member who wasn’t born a Duncan, Harris always seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. Today was no different, except his facial expression and body language told me that something was horribly wrong.
He motioned for Orlando to join him then headed across the room to LC. “We’ve got a big problem.”
“What now, Harris?” I could hear the stress in LC’s voice. This whole situation had him under a lot more pressure than he wanted to admit, and it was starting to show.
“I just got a call from one of my guys with the New York State Department of Corrections. Charles Brown, aka Brother X, escaped from prison four hours ago.”
“What do you mean, he escaped? I thought we had people with eyes on this guy twenty-four/seven, Orlando?” LC turned to our son.
“We do, Pop,” Orlando replied, maintaining his calm. “At least we’re supposed to. I’ll check with our people.”
“You do that,” LC demanded. “Harris, how reliable is your source?”
“Very. He’s one of the deputy commissioners.”
“Yeah, I’d say that was pretty reliable.” My husband scanned the room, making eye contact with everyone present. He had their attention. “Okay, nobody leaves the compound without a bodyguard and my consent. And that especially means you, Paris. We’re the hunted, not the hunters this time. I don’t want anyone going off the reservation until we know what we are up against. Is that understood?”
LC locked his gaze on Paris until she nodded. “Yeah, I understand,” she said, “but why don’t you just let me and Sasha take his ass out? I don’t like the bitch, but she does come in handy in a fight.”
Sasha rolled her eyes as LC answered Paris. “Because killing him will only make him a martyr to his men. The last thing we need is for them to take up his cause. That would be even worse than blindly following his orders like they do now.”
“He’s right, Paris,” Harris said. “But what I wanna know is where the hell is Junior? It’d be nice if we had our head of security to coordinate things, considering this is his mess.”
“He drove Vegas and Marie to the airport about an hour ago, Daddy,” Paris replied.
My heart sank as I realized that I did not, in fact, have all of my children safe at home with me. No one had even told me that Junior and Vegas were going out.
Apparently LC was not pleased either. “Rio, get Junior on the phone. I don’t want him taking any detours on his way home,” he said grimly.
“What is Vegas doing at the airport?” I was trying to stay quiet and listen, but I didn’t like the direction things were going. With this man Xavier escaping from prison, I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize his next stop was to put a bullet in my son’s head. This was not one of those times I was going to sit back and shut up.
“All I can tell you is that Marie was sporting a dope-ass DKNY sundress, Tory Burch sandals, and a fly-ass pair of Prada sunglasses, like she was going somewhere warm,” Paris offered.
Sasha stood up and handed LC what looked like a postcard. “Uncle LC, Vegas said to give you this if you asked where he was. He said you’d understand.”