This crap was just another stressor on my already full plate. If we couldn’t get Ink out and distributed, then it could mean a problem for me with the other Syndicate members.

  “Since you have a history with what we are doing, Jai, tell me, do you think we can get our product back?”

  “Yes,” she said with a quick nod. “If we can find out who took it.”

  “Then, I need you to rectify our loss and get our hands back on Ink. Can you do that and get our brothers out?” Locking eyes on her, I waited for her response. Jai licked her lips and my body almost responded to the simple move.

  She tilted her head to the side, looking at the roof in thought; then she glanced at Trey, who gave her nod. “I have you covered as security,” he said to her.

  Jai gave a sexy laugh then scribbled in her planner. “Manipulating gangstas to do my bidding for the family is what I’m good at. Yes, I can. I’ll contact—”

  “Shanelle. I want you both working on this,” I interrupted.

  I watched my baby’s eyes widen. “Really?”

  “Yes. I’m the head of the table and Mama put us all in a place to run the Syndicate from that spot.” Resting my ankle on my knee, I tapped my fingers on my knee. “I got my hands full with other things as you see, so I need you to work your business mind and get Ink sorted out on my behalf.”

  “Then I’ll do it,” she said with a wicked smile.

  Jai gave a nod and a smile. “I’ll do my part as well.”

  “Good. Craft a team and report through the appropriate circuits.”

  Locked in my thoughts for a moment, I rolled my shoulders then ran my gaze over everybody. Uncle sat studying me, with weariness in his gaze. I then reached over to Trey and took the flash drive from him. Reaching up, I pulled down the viewing monitor from the roof then set it up.

  “Let’s watch the video. Before I do, you good, Unc?” I asked.

  “I’ll be good, nephew. Let’s just see what happened to my woman,” he said while noticeably clutching his glass.

  Rolling my shoulders, I turned the video on and quietly watched the soundless video.

  “There’re two different camera angles from where everything went down: one outside of the juvie detention center and one near the bus stop. Had she not been thinking quickly, we wouldn’t have anything,” Trey explained. “If you look closely, you can see the area where she was attacked,” he pointed out.

  Studying it, my eyes narrowed. Whoever came after Mama knew the area well enough to know how to get to her. They understood that if they sent a nigga after her to take her purse as she walked to the bus stop, then all that they had to do was direct her away from the cameras. Which was what they did. However, Mama Claudette was smarter. She turned it around and I was now watching her run into an area where people were allowed to park cars on the side of street that had cameras.

  Eyes widening, I realized from how she’d occasionally glance around then up that she was assessing the area and checking for the cameras. At my side, I felt Shanelle lay her hand on my thigh then squeeze. Through it, I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t turn my eyes away. Our mother was fighting for her life. Mama was pulling out all the stops to make the fight last long enough to leave clues, I assumed, while unsuccessfully trying to escape. She must have known someone would get us the footage or one of us would ask for it.

  “My woman could hold it down,” Uncle Snap said, affection and pain in his voice. “Stick that bastard.”

  We watched as Mama slid her blade in the side of her attacker after she had sliced his neck. A black car came through spraying bullets. Each bullet that slid in her felt as if it had hit me too. My fists gripped my seat and I felt myself ready to rock back and forth until Shanelle’s hand landed on my back, grounding me. I had an image to uphold in front of company who didn’t know me that well, who was Jai. So, I reined in my emotions and continued watching, studying the tape.

  I stopped it once it got where she looked in confusion at the person who stepped before her near a huge trashcan. All that we could see were the feet and a side glance at their torsos. The video distorted some, but my mouth dropped at Mama’s confused face softening.

  “Wait, wait! She knows them,” I said, shifting forward, coming to that realization.

  I reached out to hit the rewind button, then watched it close. I stared at the one in front of her then the one who showed up behind her to shoot her in the head. That bastard. I craved to find out who it was. “I need the one who put a cap in her skull.”

  A light thudding at my temple had me narrowing my eyes in tandem with my frown. I was trying my best to catch any clues about who it was Mama recognized and who had finished her off. Head tilting to the side while my mind worked like a processor, I shook my head, then rewound the video to watch it again, only to hit pause again. I had found something. “Did the station look into who owns that black ride?”

  Jai shook her head with red eyes. She worked her mouth to speak but ended up staying quiet as Trey spoke for her. “No. For now they are sitting on it,” Trey explained.

  “Why?” Shanelle asked.

  “Probably paid to ignore it by the same people who came for her,” I quietly stated. “Let’s run down what we caught.”

  “Two bullets to her back. From the make of the ride it was a 1973 Cutlass Supreme,” Uncle Snap started.

  “Three shooters. One in the car, one in combat boots, the other, smaller build in black Nikes,” I said, glancing at my uncle.

  Uncle Snap nodded, then continued, “The one behind my . . . my . . .”—he paused then cleared his throat—“behind Claudette, had a mark on his wrist. Couldn’t see that clearly, though.”

  “I caught that the one who shot her from behind was left-handed,” Shanelle added.

  “If you go back to the first angle, the Cutlass was parked around the corner. Still couldn’t see the face but we might be able to catch the license,” Jai pointed out. “Also, I noticed in that Honda, right there, if you look closely you’ll see another person.”

  Surprised, I paused and looked closer. “Shit, it sure is. Who is that?”

  “Oh, my God. Good eye, Jai,” Shanelle said, staring at the monitor.

  “Damn, where?” Trey slid from his spot to study the video. “I see them. Hmm.” Rubbing his chin in thought, he shook his head. “From the video, you can also see that she had a blade; but it wasn’t found at the crime scene or just wasn’t recorded. Yet, you see it there in the video.” He pointed.

  “Someone took it. Maybe like a trophy?” I asked in thought.

  “It’s a possibility. Either way, we’ll figure this out, Von.” Trey gave me a look of seriousness. “On my word. I already have it running through our system to break it apart and study every part of it to get more clues.”

  A low, guttural wail sounded and we all looked up to see Uncle Snap clutching his head, shaking in pain and tears. “They killed my woman in cold blood! Struck her down like she was nothing.”

  Pain shot through me and I reached out to Uncle Snap and pulled him into my hold. We all sat in silence as he let his pain out. I vowed that we’d get our revenge. “Do whatever you can to give us more details and find us that possible witness.”

  Meeting over, we all went home in silence. The image of Mama being taken down like an animal was burned in my mind. It was clear that a hit was put out on her and that it had gone foul thanks to Mama’s quick wit. Whoever was trying to kill her had to take the matter into their own hands because Mama had picked off the man who went after her. Since that was the case, they chose to blow their cover, which was a major flaw.

  Never reveal your hand, even in the last hours of death.

  Either way, I needed to think of a plan. “We need to put ears to the street; and I want hands on the goons who survived Mama’s attack.”

  Chapter 6

  Jojo

  “Watch out, li’l bitch.”

  The tall dude damn near knocked my shoulder off as I passed him on the way to the round silver table with my food tray. Three days later and we were still locked away.

  “Sure as fuck hope you get shipped to the same prison as me, pretty boy. That asshole gon’ be a pussy when I’m done,” another inmate said. This one was an old head. His wild hair looked like a used Brillo pad and he gave a literal meaning to the phrase “long in the tooth.”

  I’d been dealing with comments like that since I set foot in the jail. I was sick of it. I wanted out of this place. I knew damn well Mama would have been disappointed in me. Shit, I was disappointed in myself. I never thought about what would happen if I had gotten caught. Guess I wasn’t thinking long term. It fucked me up mentally to know that as soon as I said I was out, shit had hit the fan.

  I got to the table, hoping Monty and Navy were let out soon. They let us out to eat by levels. I was on the bottom while Navy and Monty were up top. Everything about the place annoyed me, from the light blue thick steel doors that separated us from the rest of the prisoners at night to the buttercream-colored stone walls.

  I was hoping Javon would have us out by now. I didn’t want to spend another night in here. I didn’t try to cause any trouble. I didn’t want it to find me, either. Just the thought of being locked away for a long period of time scared the shit out of me. If and when I got up outta here, I was never coming back. No matter what!

  I looked at the bland food on my plate. The oatmeal looked like vomit. I bet the apple had worms and I refused to drink milk from a carton. However, I was hungry as fuck and the apple looked like the safest thing on the plate.

  Just as the thought crossed my mind, someone snatched the apple from my tray. I took a deep breath and looked up to see, biting into my apple, the man who had all but threatened to butt fuck me if we ended up in the same prison.

  “Problem?” he asked me while spittle flew from his mouth into my face and on the lenses of my glasses. He wanted a fight, I could tell. He was the type who got off on hurting people.

  I didn’t say anything. Just stared up at the man. The nigga looked like he was in and out of prison for fun. Damn it, I missed Cory more than ever. He could easily turn his crazy on and off when the time called for it. I didn’t have that kind of buck in my system.

  “Nah, fam, you got the problem,” Navy said as he dropped his plate on the table next to mine, then stood toe-to-toe with the man. “You need to back the fuck up out my little brother’s face or I’m about to walk the dog with your Billy Goat Gruff–looking ass.”

  Somebody yelled, “Oh shit. Think we got us one, fam!”

  Another inmate yelled, “I put my lunch on pretty boy. Homie look like he ’bout that life.”

  We had an audience. Wasn’t no need for me to tell Navy to chill because I knew he wouldn’t. When people first looked at Navy, they probably didn’t see the monster I knew lived just beneath the surface. Life had groomed him to be a chameleon. By the time people figured out my brother had the devil in him, it was too late.

  The man sized Navy up. “You sho is pretty like a li’l bitch. All that pretty hair you got. Hope we make it to the same cell too. Make you lick my asshole while I’m fucking that li’l—”

  I watched Navy’s face contort. I knew the look. Knew what it was to relive the terror from our pasts. I thought Navy got it worse than I did when he was a kid. Just by listening to his story, by the time Mama had gotten to him he had already learned to defend his manhood by any means necessary.

  Before Brillo pad could finish the sentence, Navy had punched the man in the throat. I jumped up from my seat, grabbing my plate as a weapon just in case I had to help Navy. I had to wonder where Monty was. The inmates were loud as Navy yelled out when the man punched him in the chest. I took my tray and cracked it over the man’s face. Blood shot out from the man’s nose as he hollered. He went down to one knee. Navy grabbed him by the collar of his jumpsuit. He brought the man’s face to his kneecap over and over and over and over again.

  Someone grabbed me from behind. By now, I thought I’d hear alarms going off and correctional officers yelling for us to get on the ground, but I heard nothing. It felt like a setup. I wrestled with whoever had grabbed me from behind, but a punch to the gut took me down.

  I kept having flashbacks of the woman my real mother had sold me to coming into my room with men holding me down so they could do shit to me that shouldn’t have been allowed. I heard something metal hit the floor beside me. It had thick tape wrapped around the handle and a long, sharp object protruding from the end. I knew a shank when I saw one. Navy had knocked the Brillo pad man out. But now two more guys were on him. I looked up to see Monty rushing in. He was naked and wet, but he jumped in the middle of the fight like he was fully clothed. Bodies went flying as soon as he started swinging. Blood soaked his face, which told me something had happened to him. Had he been in the shower and gotten jumped too?

  Didn’t matter. I couldn’t think about that. It felt as if the men attacking me were trying to rip my clothes off. They may not have been, but in my mind I was that seven-year-old little boy again. A kick to my side sent me sliding but not before I grabbed the shank. It would have hurt but my mind was on survival. My glasses fell off and I couldn’t see anymore. Any other time, this would have frightened me, but I couldn’t afford to be scared. I wasn’t about to let that woman or none of her friends do that to me again. Never again. I placed my back against the wall. All I saw were shadows and blurs, but as soon as they came for me, I tried to send every last one of my demons back to hell.

  Chapter 7

  Shanelle

  For the last three days, I’d been scouring the places where Jojo mostly sold his product. From the high school he went to, to the colleges he supplied, back to the rich folk side of town where all the preppy kids hung out. After cleaning and trying to salvage any- and everything I could find in Jojo’s room after the Feds left, I’d found notes and an old map in one of his science projects. In their overzealousness to scour his room for drugs, they completely overlooked those things. The warrant had said they could only search Jojo’s room and the basement, which meant not only was there a possible snitch in the streets, but there was a snitch in the house. How else would they know to search the basement specifically?

  Shit wasn’t adding up. My phone beeped. A message from Lucky came through. I ignored it. He’d been trying to get me to talk to him for days. It’s not that he wasn’t fine, because he was. It was just that Javon and I had already been down that road before. There was little to nothing that would make me step out on him again. Lucky caught me at a time when I had matured, and using other niggas to get back at Javon to make him mad was a thing of the past.

  Walking around the Georgia State campus didn’t yield me much, but it gave me enough to know that Jojo’s name rang bells around the college. Students thought I was coming to deliver drugs and they were sorely disappointed that I wasn’t. The weather wasn’t too hot and wasn’t too cool. It was hot enough to not need a coat, but not warm enough to not wear a light sweater or jacket. I was dressed in black: black leggings, a black turtleneck, and black combat boots. My hair was pulled back into a ponytail and my makeup was minimal. The college was alive with life. Students milled about, some wearing blue and white hoodies to show their school pride. Different kinds of music clashed when cars rolled down the street. All kinds of food rented the air as well.

  “So you guys know nothing about someone going to the cops on my little brother?” I asked the small group of students who had been sitting around the big tree in the middle of campus.

  “No, just know he’s been MIA since Crum and Calista were found dead. He used to sell to them all the time,” someone said.

  There was no need for me to ask who they were. X-clusive had been one of the gangs that Jojo had been selling his product to. When he wanted out, they decided that they’d rather kill him before allowing him to walk away from their business deal. While running for his life, Jojo had called Cory. Cory had killed Calista and Crum just before he was killed himself. They were two of the leaders of the X-clusive clique.

  I paid close attention to the dark-skinned black girl who had been watching me since I’d asked the group of people she was hanging with if they knew anything about Jojo. She kept trying to hide her face, and any time I looked in her direction she looked away. At first I thought she was trying to avoid me, but when she picked up her book bag and walked away, she glanced over her shoulder at me.

  I followed her until we made it a few blocks away from where all the students were. As soon as I rounded the corner, she was in my face.

  “Who are you and what do you want with Jo-nathan?” she barked at me.

  The fact she called him Jo-nathan, pronounced Joe Nathan instead of Jonathan, told me she knew him well. Jojo hated his real name. He would curse anybody to hell who called him by his real name as opposed to Jojo.

  “First off, back up out my face. Second of all, who are you?” I asked.

  The girl studied me for a moment. Distrust was all in her eyes. Her dark skin had a glow to it. Her natural hair blew wild in the wind. She was dressed like most of the kids on campus: skinny jeans, brown combat boots, and a coat that was way too big for the weather we were having.

  “She told me about you,” the girl said.

  I quirked a brow. “She who?”

  “The white girl. She said you would be coming down here, asking questions and shit. Told me not to tell you anything.”

  My mind immediately went to Melissa. “What did she look like?”

  “Why should I tell you anything? She said not to trust you. Said you always fussed at Jojo. You and your little boyfriend.”

  I took my cell from my pocket and pulled up a picture of me and Melissa at the gym. “Is this the girl?” I asked.

  The girl nodded. “Yeah, that’s her. What’s going on? Where is Jo-nathan?”