The Family Business 3 (The Family Business #3)(67)

Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a peach. “It’s organic. I know how you care about what goes in your body.”

There was something else I wanted inside my body at the moment, but I stopped myself from saying it out loud. Instead, I just said, “Thanks. You going to feed it to me?”

He looked down at the ropes that bound my hands. “Oh, yeah.” He got up and untied one of my hands and then gave me the peach.

“Thank you.” I took a bite of the peach, savoring the sweet juice. My tongue darted out of my mouth to keep the juice from dripping down my chin. Any other time, I could eat a piece of fruit and turn it into a whole sensual show, but Elijah barely even noticed. He clearly had something heavy on his mind.

We sat together in silence for a while, and I thought maybe he was about to get up and leave, but instead he exhaled hard and said, “I have something I need to ask you.”

“Okay,” I said, and then, because I didn’t feel threatened by him, I added, “but before you even ask, you know I can’t tell you much about my family.” Whatever weird connection was developing between me and Elijah, my loyalty would always remain with the Duncans.

“What exactly is H.E.A.T?” he asked.

I was a little caught off guard by his question. H.E.A.T was old news as far as I was concerned. “Of all the questions you can ask me, why would you ask me about H.E.A.T.?”

He shrugged. “I just want to know.”

“Nobody just wants to know about H.E.A.T. Where is this coming from?”

“Someone brought it up today in association with the Duncans.”

I took another bite of the peach, contemplating how much I should tell him. I decided that since H.E.A.T. was a dead issue for the Duncans, I wasn’t betraying anything by telling Elijah about it. “H.E.A.T. is a drug my family developed.”

“Like crack?” he asked.

“No, it was way better than crack. It was on its way to being the most successful drug ever. H.E.A.T. makes Molly look like aspirin. It was the answer to every weekend partier’s dreams. It would have made the Duncans much more than multi-millionaires. I’m talking billionaire status. We had the game on lock with H.E.A.T.”

Elijah was hanging on my every word, and I was enjoying his attention, so I continued my story. “People all over the world have tried to buy the formula from us. You wouldn’t believe how much money we’ve been offered—enough for generations to come to be set for life. But we turn them down every time.”

He sat quietly for a while, probably trying to process the story. I didn’t blame him. Sometimes it was still hard for me to believe the Duncans had turned down so much money, and it was my family I was talking about.

“So what happened to it?” he finally asked.

“Cancer,” I said, taking another bite of the peach and wiping the juice off my chin. He wasn’t noticing anyway, so no reason to keep up the sensual act. “We found out it causes liver cancer. We didn’t want that shit out there because ultimately the powers that be would make sure it settled in the black community like every other drug.” He frowned, and I couldn’t tell why. Maybe if I knew how he’d heard about it, I’d understand his motives better. As it was, though, it was a mystery to me, so I wrapped up my story quickly. “Long story short, despite the money, we didn’t want to be responsible for all those deaths.”

Elijah sat quietly, marinating on what he’d just heard. “Wow. I just can’t imagine shutting down a billion-dollar enterprise.”

“Yeah, not a week goes by that someone doesn’t offer to buy the formula, but hey, the Duncans are drug distributors. For us, this is just business. We’re not trying to kill off our entire race—or any other race, for that matter.”

He looked truly stunned. “So the Duncans aren’t as bad as I thought they were.”

“No, we’re hardworking people, just like everybody else. Your camp included.” I wanted him to see me as no different than him.

“Just one more question.”

“This is about your fifth one, but who’s counting?” I said with a flirtatious smile.

“Why would Junior sleep with another man’s wife?”

Now, this was the first question I would have expected him to ask, considering that was what started this war anyway. “I don’t know. Junior’s not the type to do that kind of thing. Maybe he didn’t know Sonya was married at first. But now he’s in love.” I leaned in and shot him a seductive look. “If you were in love, would you give up so easily?”

He opened his mouth to reply, but we were interrupted by a knock on the door. Another soldier poked his head into the room and said, “Brother Xavier wants to see you.”

Elijah got up and retied the restraints around both of my hands. “Thanks for the conversation,” he said then left the room.

“Thanks for the fantasy,” was my reply.





Daryl





47


“We’ve spotted his men on Jamaica Ave, Merrick Boulevard, and over by both airports,” I said. “My guess is he’s still got Sasha in Queens somewhere.”

With Vegas’s security detail getting killed in the restaurant parking lot, Kennedy dead, and Junior walking around with a price on his head, I’d been asked by Ma Chippy to bring in some of my Israelite brothers and head up Duncan security. I told her I couldn’t commit to the job long term, but I was there until this whole situation was resolved. Truthfully, I was thankful for the work, because the distraction helped to keep my mind off of Connie.