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“He’ll be alright,” Rain said, and settled into her seat.
They were on their way to see a man named Rex Steward. He was a bookmaker and a loan shark who owed Carter fifty thousand dollars. Baby Chris had said that he’d seen Rex a couple of times around the way. Earlier in the evening, Rain had sent her bodyguards, Alwan and Ricky, to look for him. They caught up with him at Tony’s Pizza, waiting on a couple of slices. It took a bit of discussion and a bit of gentle persuasion, but it wasn’t long before they dragged Rex out of there and had him tied up and waiting at the warehouse where Rain made her knock-off purses.
With Black officially retired and Wanda managing the bank in Nassau, Rain Robinson was truly the boss of The Family now. With the Rona King wars behind her, it was a time of peace. The longest period of peace that she had known since Nick first brought her in. Since then, her story had been a tale of unrelenting war. Some might say that a lot of it was her fault, and for the most part, she accepted that criticism. Now that they were no longer on a wartime footing, everybody had gone back to making money.
But she was alone too.
Rain had made the decision not to see Gavin Caldwell anymore. There was a task force investigation in place, and they had questioned her about their association while she was in jail. She understood clearly, dick or no dick, Gavin was somebody who she needed to stay away from. No phone calls, no meetings, nothing. Nothing that would tie her to him for any reason other than the mutha fucka got a big dick and he eats the fuck out some pussy. And now that was over with.
So Rain was alone, and she was bored, so she decided to come along to watch her men work.
When they arrived at the warehouse, Alwan and Ricky had Rex gagged and tied to a chair. He looked up when the door opened and Geno walked in, followed by Carter, but his eyes opened wide when he saw Rain come through the door. Now he was no longer thinking about the beating that he was about to take; he could take a beating. But now that Rain was there, he was thinking about torture.
Rex had heard the stories; Rain had learned the craft from Nick, and she was good at it. He breathed a sigh of relief when she sat down, and Geno took off his jacket and began loosening his tie. He knew why he was there; he owed Carter a lot of money and he was about to take a beating for it.
Rex Steward had been a consistent earner in The Family for years. He worked for Howard Owens; and while Rex wasn’t blowing anybody away with the numbers he was bringing in, he made enough money to take care of his family and earn his captain’s respect.
The problem began when two of his customers hit the trifecta for big money on the same day and he needed to borrow money from Carter to cover it.
“No problem, Rex. I got you,” Carter said that night, getting up to get the money from his safe.
“Thanks, Carter. You know that I’m good for it,” Rex assured, because under normal circumstan
ces, he would be good for it. “I’ll have it back to you with points in a week, ten days at most.”
Rex was as good as his word. A week later, he had the money; but then something went wrong—terribly wrong. Having had worked for Howard for years, Rex was well aware of Mike Black’s rule: no drugs. Period. Drugs in The Family get you killed. It had been proven time and time again. Why people kept trying, was hard for some to understand. To others, it was easy.
“The lure of that money is powerful. And you say to yourself, that nigga ain’t gonna find out, but you’re wrong. Somehow, someway, sooner or later, he always finds out and then you die,” Rex had been quoted as saying once. Therefore, like most people in The Family, he stayed away from the drug business, until he met a woman named Jaylinda Harvey.
Like Rex, she had been around for a while, and like Rex, she wasn’t blowing anybody’s mind with the money that she was making, but she was able to live well on what she was pulling in selling cocaine.
Cocaine?
No problem.
“Mike Black married a drug dealer. He can’t hold that against me. I heard the nigga say that he don’t care how a man makes his money as long as it doesn’t interfere with mine,” Rex said.
That separation ended when Jaylinda’s supplier became the target of a narcotics sting and a couple of her people got arrested. Fortunately for Jaylinda, they didn’t snitch on her, but she needed a new supplier. Rex knew somebody who could help her out, Hareem Epps. He was one of Jackie’s soldiers who Rex had known for years. Epps had no involvement with drugs either, but he did grow up with Twan, one of Gavin Caldwell’s people.
Based on the strength of their friendship, Twan gave Epps such a good price that he was able to put a ten percent tax on it, and Jaylinda was still getting it cheaper than she was from her old supplier.
Everything was all good until Jaylinda got robbed, and Twan brought her to Rex’s house and threatened to kill her in front of him if he didn’t get his money. So instead of giving the money he owed to Carter, he gave it to Twan to save his woman’s life.
“He had this on him,” Alwan said, and handed Carter an envelope as Geno put on his gloves.
“That’s twenty grand, Carter,” Rex said, but he was looking at Rain. “I just need a couple of days and I swear I’ll get you the rest.”
“That’s what everybody says when they get dragged out of whatever hole they’ve been hiding in,” Geno said, punched him in the face, and the beating began.
“Your boy’s pretty good,” Rain leaned close and said to Carter after a few minutes. “He doesn’t hit as hard as you do, but he’s good.”
“But don’t tell him that,” Carter said and stood up. He walked over to Rex and got in his face. “You wanna tell me what this is about?”
“What do you mean?”
“Me and you have known each other for a long time, Rex. You don’t fuck up with the money. That shit with the mutha fucka’s hitting the trifecta,” Carter shook his head, “I’ve seen you recover from worse and still be right on time with the paper.” Carter punched Rex in the face, and it snapped his head back. “So, you tell me what the fuck is going on right fuckin’ now, and this shit ends.”
“I swear, Carter, ain’t nothing going on. I just need a couple of more days, that’s all,” Rex pleaded, but he knew what would happen if he told them his story.
