The Syndicate (18 page)

Javon slammed the door then looked at all of us as Inez and Cory sped away in one of the Forty Thieves' trucks.

“I'm not playing with any of you. Go the route they took and you're out of here,” he said with finality.

Most people would have thought he was angry behind the snarl and furrowed eyebrows. I knew better. There was hurt and pain there. There was regret. That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

“Jojo, you knew about this? You knew they were in this jacked-up junkie love relationship?” Javon asked our youngest brother.

Jojo cast a glance down at his feet then back up at Javon. “I ain't want to tell because I promised Inez I wouldn't,” he said.

“Let me tell me you something . . .” Javon started then stopped. “Did any of the rest of you know?”

“I didn't,” I offered up quickly.

“Neither did I,” Uncle Snapped added.

Monty shrugged. “I suspected they had some kind of thing going on but I didn't know nothing 'bout no drugs, bro.”

Melissa's face was red. “We got high together a few times. But . . . but it was just weed. I swear,” she clarified when Javon tilted his head and stared pointedly at her.

“I saw her hit him before, Von. She went crazy on him. Tried to stab him and he shoved her off him, but I never saw him hit her,” Naveen said. “She like was mad because some chick from work called his phone so she went off. I saw her fight him, but I never saw him hit her.”

I shook my head. Obviously Cory and Inez were abusing one another and on drugs. They were able to hide that shit so well that neither Javon nor I knew and that bothered me. Javon had no words, which was obvious in the way he punched several holes in the wall then kicked over the small round dinette table Mama kept in the corner of the kitchen.

Just as I was about to say something else, we heard a loud crash in the distance. Uncle Snap set the Mason jar down quickly and headed out the door. As soon as he did, we heard a few of the Thieves yelling for us to get down. Seconds later, bullets riddled the house. Pictures fell over, dishes rattled, flower vases screamed as they cracked open, cotton from the furniture flew through the air as Javon grabbed me and hit the floor. Uncle Snap fell back into the house.

“Get down,” Javon screamed, eyes on Jojo and Naveen.

It was too late for Naveen. Bullets knocked him backward and he went flying over the staircase.

“Nooooooooooooo!” I screamed. “Ahhhhhh, Navy!”

Jojo dived over the stairs and hit the floor while covering his brother. Monty had grabbed Melissa. They clumsily fell down the stairs in the basement behind them. Uncle Snap had taken a bullet to the shoulder. Thieves had us surrounded as they returned gunfire.

“Baby, let me go,” I whispered to Javon. My eyes were wide as I looked at him.

He nodded, knowing what I needed to do and I army crawled to the sofa. Naveen had shown me what he was able to do the other day. I pushed a small brown button and watched the couch come undone and reveal a secret compartment.

“Always cheat. Always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose,”
Mama always told me when she was with me at the gun range.

I pulled out a full-auto mini Uzi then tossed it to Javon. I grabbed the full-auto Uzi then rushed to the window facing the street but it was cattycorner so I had the protection of a brick wall and the three Thieves flanking me. I put it on semi versus auto so I could have more control of the gun. I put my right leg back, leaned on the seal, and put all my weight forward on my hip before unleashing a hail of bullets that sent the men on one motorcycle head first into a parked car. The sound of the gun rocked my eardrums and made bells ring. I leaned forward a bit more, and spotted another motorcycle with two riders coming up the rear. Before they realized what was coming, I released rounds that sent the bike skidding across the road. One of the gunmen got up to run and I let the rounds from the gun light into him. He did a “Thriller” kind of thing with his body as the bullets rocked his body then hit the ground.

“Damn, shorty, handling a full auto like it's lightweight,” one of the Thieves commented.

I couldn't be bothered by sexism at the moment. I glanced to my left and saw Javon had rushed through the back door around the side of the house.

“Shit,” I said as I focused back on the Escalade that had turned around and come back down the street.

I heard a fight going on in the backyard and knew Javon had spotted gunmen trying to sneak around the back. I heard the rat-a-tat-tat of the Uzi Javon had and felt my heart rate speed up. I unleashed a barrage of bullets on the Escalade and watched it crash into the old lady's house across from ours. I heard Javon yell out. Tossing the Uzi, I grabbed a Glock .30 with a .45 caliber and rushed out back. Just as I did so, I saw Javon take down a masked man with a riddle of bullets to his chest.

“You okay?” I asked when I saw the five bodies lying around.

“Yeah,” he said.

I watched as Javon ripped the masks off several of the men. The four-leaf clover tats on their necks told who they were.

“Fucking Irish,” he spat. “These niggas won't quit.”

Just as quickly as it began, it stopped. The streets were quiet. Sirens were in the distance.

“What are we going to do?” I asked him.

“Deal with it,” was his response.

“Yo, boss, you better get down here and look at this,” one of the Thieves said as his chest heaved up and down. “It's your brother and Inez, fam. This ain't good.”

My heart dropped to the ground as Javon and I took off running. Out of all the shit the family had just gone through, to have Cory and Inez snatched away from us was sobering. I was right behind Javon as he ran full sprint to Willowbrook Street where we saw the truck Inez and Cory had driven off in.

“We found the truck like this,” the guard said.

There was blood everywhere, but there were no signs of Cory or Inez.

“The Irish had to take them, fam. All this blood and no sign of them?” the guard said.

Javon brought both his hands to his head and let out a roar that would have intimidated even the alpha in a pride of lions.

“Fuck, fuck fuck,” he yelled.

I knew there was regret mixed with his frustrations. He'd been so angry after fighting with Cory that he hadn't been thinking clearly. He'd forgotten that he had stepped into a whole other lifestyle. He'd had tunnel vision when he should have been seeing the bigger picture. I could see it in his eyes when he gave me a wild look that he was blaming himself.

“Boss, you need to get back to the house. Cops near. Get back to the house and let us handle this,” the guard said then looked at me when he realized Javon wasn't listening. “Get him to the house.”

“Javon, come on, baby. We gotta go,” I said pulling on his arm.

“Give me your gun,” the guard said to me.

I'd forgotten I even had the thing. I tossed him my weapon and Javon's. Javon grabbed my hand and we hightailed it back to the house. We rushed in to find Jojo, Melissa, and Monty surrounding Navy, who was laid out on the floor. Uncle Snap was at the table holding a bloody white towel to the wound in his shoulder. My eyes watered. Just that fast, I'd forgotten Navy had been shot. I rushed in and kneeled beside him. If we had lost three siblings in one day, I'd need Jesus to help me keep it together.

“He ain't bleeding,” Jojo said. “I saw him get hit, but he ain't bleeding.”

Javon walked over and kneeled down.

“That's because I got on a bullet blocker, you stupid piece of shit,” Naveen croaked out then strained to sit up.

A sigh of relief swept through all of us.

“A what?” Melissa asked.

“It's a bulletproof fleece,” he said. “Got it when Mama was killed. Ordered it online. Was scared to get gunned down in a drive-by shooting like she did.”

Only Navy would have been paranoid enough to do such a thing and, in that moment, I was glad he did. Sirens outside the house silenced us all. I rushed over to the couch to push the button so it would go back to being an unassuming sofa. We knew the cops would be inside of the house soon. I looked at Javon wondering how and when we were going to break the news to the rest of them that Cory and Inez were gone and, most likely, dead.

* * *

The next few days were hectic. Between police interviews, the media camped out in our neighborhood, and no news of Inez and Cory, the family was a wreck.

“I'm sorry, Javon, but with that much blood loss, it's safe to say they're dead,” Detective Monroe had said one day after the shooting. “Who would do this? What enemies, if any, do you have?”

“I . . . I don't know who or why. I don't know anything other than someone came into our neighborhood and shot it up. I don't know why,” Javon lied.

“Yeah, but why would they target you and your siblings?”

“Why you think they targeted us? Couldn't we just happened to be caught in the crossfire?”

Stillwaters scoffed then said, “Yeah fucking right.”

Detective Monroe smiled. “I'd like to believe that. I want to believe that, but your mother was killed in a drive-by. Your sister, fiancée, or whatever y'all are, got assaulted in the parking deck coming from work. Cory's and Inez's bodies are gone and, I can't say for certain, but I'm sure I saw Jojo over there hanging out with those two members of X-clusive we found dead some days back. So, now see, Javon, I can't believe your family just got caught up in anything.”

Javon and the detective stared one another down. “Tell you what,” Javon said, “if you want us to keep talking, do so through our lawyer. We got nothing else to say otherwise.”

“You sure that's the route you want to go, son?”

“I ain't your son. You want us to talk, call my lawyer.”

“Told you, Monroe, you can't be nice to the likes of him,” Stillwaters said.

Javon shot daggers through Stillwaters with his eyes.

“We'll be in touch,” Monroe said then walked out calmly.

The day after that Javon left Mama's house at six in the morning and didn't come back until two the next morning. He didn't say much. Ate even less. The stress that was on him could be seen with the naked eye. I had no idea what he was doing while he was out until he told me.

“Can't find them nowhere, baby. Nowhere. I've looked high and low,” he said.

We were in Mama's room sitting on her bed. I hadn't left the house since the shooting. It was safe to say, with so much police presence, the Irish wouldn't be back anytime soon.

“I been to that apartment they got in midtown. Praying and hoping they were alive and would show up. Pooled in all my resources and nothing. Can't find them.”

“I'm sure the Irish have them . . . their bodies. They want you to come to them on some ‘falling on your sword' type shit,” Uncle Snap said.

We hadn't even realized he was in the doorway. His arm was in a sling and he had that Mason jar close to his chest. Uncle Snap had been trying to get Javon to reach out to the Irish for days now.

“It's okay to lose one battle, nephew. But they, Cory and Inez, deserve a decent burial. Mama deserves to hold them again,” Uncle Snap told Javon.

I wouldn't let on I agreed with Uncle because, with all the stress Javon was under, he needed me on his side no matter what decision he made. The house had been quiet. There had been no fighting between Navy and Jojo. Everything had been hush-hush.

“Send word to them that I'd like to meet and get my brother's and sister's bodies back,” Javon said. “I'll lay the guns down if they just let me have their bodies back.”

Uncle Snap nodded and set out to do what Javon had ordered. Two days later, the Irish responded. Two dead raccoons were sent to Mama's address with pictures of Cory's and Inez's faces taped to them. The raccoons had been shot then sliced down the middle with the guts flayed open. Javon's eyes didn't leave that box for a long time. Melissa started crying loudly. Jojo dropped his head then locked himself in his lab in the basement. Navy sat stunned on the couch. Monty had been hiding somewhere only Javon knew and Uncle Snap couldn't be read. I swallowed back bile at the disrespect shown. My stomach twisted in knots knowing Cory and Inez were dead and that we would never see them again.

Javon disappeared for two days after that. It had been five days since the shooting. He didn't call. He didn't text. Uncle Snap had no idea where he was. I had to step in the role Javon normally filled. Monty came home and told me he had been chilling with the female leader of Rize. I didn't even question him. Just told him he wasn't to leave the house, not until Javon got back. I'd never too much believed in God or prayed much, but for two days and two nights, I prayed harder than I ever had. I prayed for my surviving brothers and sisters. I prayed for Uncle Snap but, most of all, I prayed that God brought Javon back home to me.

God must have been on stand-by for me. He must have just been waiting on me to reach out because Javon walked in soon after my prayers that last day. As soon as I woke up and realized he was in the room, I jumped from Mama's bed to his waist. He was dressed in black from head to toe.

“Oh shit, baby. Don't do me like that ever again,” I whispered in his ear.

He held me just as tightly as I held him. “I won't. I'm sorry,” he said.

We stood that way for the longest.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

His only answer was to put me down. He walked over to the chair by the bay window in Mama's room and undressed in silence. “How is everyone?” he asked me.