Authors: Eric Pete,Carl Weber

The Family Business (28 page)

BOOK: The Family Business

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London

“Just wait here.”

“You keep leaving us behind,” my bodyguard said. “Ma’am, our orders are—”

“I don’t care what your orders are,” I said, cutting off the man who was supposed to protect me. “I’m not walking into my daughter’s school with armed men. That’s where I draw the line. I still want Mariah to at least think she’s having a normal childhood. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they both agreed, no attitude apparent. One exited the vehicle and went around to open my door for me.

“But we’ll pull up to the entrance when you come out,” he informed me as I exited.

I smiled and nodded, allowing them at least the appearance that they were in control. It was a two-way street, after all. They hadn’t told on me yet, so I let them feel like they were doing their job, even though I’d been ditching them pretty often to be with Tony lately.

I entered the school and signed in to pick up Mariah. Even though they knew me, they always asked for identification, which I didn’t mind at all. A lot of wealthy parents sent their children here, so nothing was taken for granted.

“Any problems with my baby today?” I asked Miss Abernathy, the head administrator. I could swear the woman had a computer inside her head the way she remembered everyone.

“None at all, Mrs. Grant,” she replied. “Just the usual sweet bundle of energy. Want to kiss her to death.”

I grinned, thinking how glad I was that Mariah had such a joyful spirit. Looking at how Paris and I turned out, I sometimes wondered if perhaps my baby had been switched at birth.

After a few minutes, Mariah was delivered to me, her uniform still clean despite her love of cookies.

“Hi, Mommy!” She jumped into my outstretched arms for a kiss.

“How was your day?” I asked as I led her outside and down the stairs to where our escort waited.

“Good,” she said, making that adorable face of hers. It meant she was about to ask for something. Maybe she was related to Paris, after all. “Dora’s coming to town. Ayanna told me. Her mommy’s taking her and her sister. Can we go see Dora too?”

I pretended to consider her request, even though I already knew my answer. “As long as you promise to behave, we might be able to do that,” I said, squatting down to face her and adjust her shirt collar in a motherly fashion. Of course I would take my daughter, but I had to teach her that you couldn’t just get anything you wanted. My daughter would not be growing up to be like my spoiled sister.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she gushed, hugging me tightly.

I buckled her into her car seat, and we headed away from the school. As soon as the car was moving, Mariah had another request. “Can we go see Grandpa today?”

“No, baby. Grandpa is kinda busy today.”

Saying he was busy was an understatement. As bad as things were sounding, I wondered if maybe I should head out to the Hamptons, or perhaps Florida, to get my daughter clear of what was becoming a militarized zone at the mansion. It bothered me that I should have to be thinking of those plans on my own. Harris was supposed to be the man of the family. Pity he hadn’t considered moving us out of there long ago.

At the red light, a scraggly-looking panhandler was coming up to cars with a bucket in hand. I wasn’t paying him any mind, until he became aggressive at our window. The driver motioned for him to go on, but the man in the old army jacket and cheap sunglasses kept knocking.

“C’mon, help a vet out,” he chided our driver as he shook his bucket again.

“If you blast his ass, he’ll stop,” the other escort joked, until he remembered Mariah was present. “Oh. Sorry, Mrs. Grant,” he offered as he looked back, regaining his professional demeanor.

The man continued knocking even after the light ahead turned green. Traffic had snarled in front of us, so we had no escape from his persistence.

“I’ma just give him some change so he can be on his way,” our driver said.

“Ain’t he in the wrong part of town?” our other escort joked, leaning over to better see the panhandler.

“Probably makes more money on this side,” our driver joked.

“Bless you, sir,” the man said before the window was fully down. He tilted his bucket inward, giving us a glimpse of his success—several crumpled dollars. As our driver reached to drop some loose change, his head suddenly exploded, sending a gruesome spray of blood onto the dashboard. The shotgun blast that killed our driver had rung out from the bottom of the panhandler’s bucket, peppering the front cab with pellets and torn remnants of the dollar bills.

I screamed and covered Mariah’s eyes, trying to shield her from the horrible sight of the twitching body slumped over the steering wheel.

“Oh, shit!” The bodyguard in the passenger’s seat reached for his gun. That was when I noticed the three ski-masked men coming up along both sides of our van. I screamed for him to look out, but he didn’t have a chance as they sent a hail of bullets in his direction. The poor man howled in pain from the pellets that ripped into his body.

Mariah was my sole concern now, and I unhooked her seat belt as fast as I could. One of the masked men turned his gaze inside the van, toward us, and motioned to cease fire. In addition to my daughter’s sobbing, I could hear people outside as they screamed and ran for cover.

When the man reached to open the door, I kicked against it with all my might. It came open, bowling him over. I yanked Mariah up with me and darted out of the van.

I bounded over the downed man, holding Mariah like a sack of potatoes. He reached up and grabbed my ankle. Robbed of my momentum, I suddenly tumbled forward. My poor daughter fell from my grasp, yelping in pain as she bounced off the concrete. I went down face-first near her feet.

As the other masked men and the panhandler came around, I tried to get up and grasp a hysterical Mariah. Instead, I was viciously stomped and tumbled back down to the ground again.

“Mommy!” Mariah shrieked. My poor baby. The panhandler chambered another round with his shotgun and took aim at me, smiling with pride over being the most effective of them all.

“No,” said the one who’d just stomped me, commanding my would-be executioner to stop. “Get the girl.”

“No ... no! No!” I pleaded as I crawled toward Mariah, her arms outstretched and begging for me. I was shoved aside as I watched my daughter get scooped up by one of them.

“Mommyyy!” My panic-stricken daughter screamed just before they covered her mouth and threw her into an old van that had driven alongside us. The masked one in charge quickly followed them.

Adrenaline took over, and I rose to my feet, quickly closing the distance behind him. He swiftly turned around, as if sensing my approach. He had to know a mother wouldn’t just give up, despite the odds.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said as he pointed a nine millimeter at me. “She won’t be hurt as long as you do what we want,” he said in a voice that was both chilling and calming, for reasons unbeknownst to me.

“What do you want? Whatever it is, I’ll give it to you.” I could still hear her muffled screams, yet I was powerless to advance.

“We’ll be in touch.” When he turned and jumped into the van to leave, I swiftly lunged at him, stabbing him in the back with the pen I’d snagged off the floor while shielding Mariah.

“Ow! You black bitch!” he yelled as he swiveled and kicked me dead in my stomach. I fell over, barely able to breathe as the van’s doors shut.

“Mariah ... ,” I called out before succumbing to the pain. Curled up in the fetal position, I helplessly watched them pull off as tears streamed down my face.

Rio

“Rio! You okay?” Paris reached over from the driver’s seat to feel if I had any bullet holes in me. The Suburban that had just shot at us had been joined by another, following in close pursuit, probably trying to herd us into a trap.

“No, dammit! Will you keep your eyes on the road?” I pleaded, trying to open my eyes sparingly. Even if it was keeping me alive, her intense driving was making me sick to my stomach.
Just let it end already,
I prayed.

“Bro, I’m almost out of gas. And these putas know L.A. too well for me.”

“What are you saying?” I almost yelped as we took another freeway exit at speeds way in excess of the limit.

“Three options,” she said, calmly checking the rearview mirror.

“Other than dying right here? Okay, I’m listening.”

“One, I get the po-pos involved and we go to jail. Their helicopters are gonna be out soon anyway. News choppers, too. But that doesn’t mean we don’t get shot up before the arrest.”

“On the plus side, we’d be famous,” I offered. “And maybe die on camera. Next option.”

“Two, I go somewhere crowded like a mall, and we probably get away. Probably. But it would be wet for civilians. Very wet,” she said. “Don’t matter to me, ’cause I’m down for whatever.”

“Going out as baby-killers. Tasty. And the final one?”

“We find somewhere secluded, like under the freeway, and play hide-and-seek. Give me a chance to do what I do. Pop, pop, pop. Can’t guarantee that one, though, ’cause I didn’t do any advance recon. All I can say is I’ll do my best, bro. Maybe we get lucky and my team gets here before it’s over.”

I opened my eyes just in time to see that we were drifting sideways into oncoming traffic on Venice Boulevard. I clenched the door handle in a death grip and stifled a scream, squirming at the sight of passing cars swerving to avoid us.

Once we straightened out and got back into the correct lane, I reached over and touched my sister’s arm, acknowledging my choice to her.

“Suit yourself,” she said, although I knew my sister well enough to know she would have picked the same one with or without my input.

The SUVs drew closer, and one of the drivers shot off the door mirror near Paris’s hand. She cursed out loud over the near miss. Our choice made, she began looking for the right conditions to end this.

As the low-fuel indicator light came on, our search became a little more desperate. Paris made a hard right turn onto a side street off Sepulveda, then crashed through the chained gate of a warehouse complex near the airport.

“Paris, they’re speeding up!” I yelled as the two black Suburbans in hot pursuit moved quickly to close the distance between us.

“Thanks. You’re such a fountain of information, bro,” my sister spat as she made a beeline for a warehouse and office building that reminded me of LC’s back home. She was gunning the Mustang’s motor, which seemed to be suddenly failing us. “Overheating,” she stated grimly.

“Give me a gun! Give me a gun!” I screeched.

“Here,” she said, tossing me something other than a gun.

“A phone? What the hell do you want me to do with this?”

“It’s off your buddy back at the hotel. Figured he had no use for it.”

“Oh! Wait! He told me stuff before Alejandro’s man busted in and killed him. I need to tell you—”

“Tell me later,” she blurted out in a tone that worried me.

I looked in the rearview mirror. The lead van looked like it was going to ram us.

“We gotta run as soon as I stop,” she said.

With the last surge of the Mustang, Paris brought it into a sideways slide, leaving the driver’s side exposed to Alejandro’s people, who’d declared open season on us. When it came to a halt ten feet away from the front door of the warehouse, I felt adrenaline surge within me.

“Get out! Go! Go!” Paris yelled, almost jumping over the center armrest as she shoved me ahead of her. Our remaining windows exploded just as I got the car door open. I rolled onto the ground, afraid to stand up as bullets sprayed the car, popping some of the tires.

Paris closed her eyes, talking to herself at a volume I couldn’t hear as she gripped her gun firmly in both hands. Was that a prayer? When the tiniest of breaks took place, she popped up and fired a shot toward the closest Suburban. The single bullet went through the windshield about where the driver should be. The van rolled to a stop just as she began dragging me along.

I could hear bullets whizzing by our heads as we came upon the locked door. Again, my sister fired a single shot, this time directly into the door’s key cylinder. With a huge tug, the door came open and we darted inside.

On the first floor, Paris had me wait while she ran down the first-floor hall, knocking things off the wall. Then she ran back toward me, yanking me up the stairs two at a time. Even I was smart enough to realize she was trying to slow Alejandro’s men and throw them off our trail.

Ignoring the sounds that might be either behind us or below us, we darted down one entire hall and around a corner before finding an open break room on the right. Paris told me to remain still. After getting our breathing under control, she looked at the remaining weapons she had, checking the clips of two guns and some knife she had stowed God knows where.

“I’m running real low on ammo, Rio. I’m going to have to get the jump on one of them and draw them away,” she said in between gulps of air. “When I leave out, move that table in front of the door. Take this gun and hide, but don’t let anyone come in. Stay low, and I’ll try to be back as soon as I can.”

“But I gotta tell you,” I blurted out as I grabbed her arm to prevent her from running off. “That guy back at the hotel, he’s with the Italians back home. We’re all being manipulated. This whole thing has been a setup.”

“Damn, that’s good shit to know, but I can’t deal with that right now. Use the phone. Call Daddy and tell him what’s up. Love you, bro,” she said, kissing me as she removed her expensive Manolos, then disappeared into the darkness outside.

“Ditto, sis,” I whispered, scared as hell for both of us. But she’d already gone. I just hoped she was as good as LC thought she was.

I tried to quietly slide a break table against the door, then hurriedly stacked several water cooler jugs atop it. In the far corner there was a snack machine and a Coke machine. I ran over there, wedging myself in the space between the two as if willing myself to disappear. At least from this location, I could shoot at them first.

For several moments, the silence was deafening. It was like every swallow I took was the loudest noise ever and my heartbeat was a thundering drum. After what felt like an eternity, I heard footsteps. I closed my eyes so tight, it hurt. I had no idea what kind of nine millimeter she’d handed me, but my fingers were going numb from gripping it so hard. Before long, a barrage of shots rang out from somewhere in the building.

There was a loud bump against the wall outside, and then a bloodcurdling scream erupted that almost made me piss in my pants. I could hear more yelling coming from different places, then someone calling out in Spanish for someone else.

This wasn’t going to get any better anytime soon. Using the phone she’d given me, I called Orlando back in New York.

“Paris?”

“No, it’s me,” I said in a near whisper as I locked in on the barricaded door for any sign of movement.

“She found you. Thank God,” Orlando said.

“Look. Listen to me. You have to stop them, Orlando. They’re trying to kill us, but I know what happened.”

“What are you talking about, Rio?”

“Gawd, I don’t want to die,” I moaned, succumbing to the stress.

“Rio, you gotta get it together and tell me what’s going on,” Orlando said.

He was right. My sister was out there risking her life. I had to man up and keep my head on. “Orlando, you gotta make them stop, or Paris and me are dead. She’s good, but she ain’t got but so much ammo. It’s not the Mexicans we’re up against.”

“You mean the same ones trying to kill you right now?”

“Yeah. Right. But wait,” I said, confusing even myself. “Listen. It wasn’t Alejandro that jacked the shipment. It was the Italians.”

“Italians. You mean Sal Dash and them? Are you serious?” Orlando asked, his attention heightened.

“Yes, that’s exactly who I mean.”

BOOK: The Family Business

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Read Book Download Book

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