Best Laid Plans

  Best Laid Plans:

  A Hood Misfits Novel

  Brick & Storm

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue - Jewel

  Chapter 1 - Antonio

  Chapter 2 - Kenya

  Chapter 3 - Antonio

  Chapter 4 - Kenya

  Chapter 5 - Antonio

  Chapter 6 - Kenya

  Chapter 7 - Antonio

  Chapter 8 - Kenya

  Chapter 9 - Kenya

  Chapter 10 - Antonio

  Chapter 11 - Kenya

  Chapter 12 - Antonio

  Chapter 13 - Kenya

  Chapter 14 - Kenya

  Chapter 15 - Antonio

  Chapter 16 - Kenya

  Chapter 17 - Father Rueben

  Chapter 18 - Antonio

  Chapter 19 - Father Rueben

  Chapter 20 - Kenya

  Chapter 21 - Father Rueben

  Chapter 22 - Antonio

  Chapter 23 - Antonio

  Chapter 24 - Antonio

  Chapter 25 - Antonio

  Chapter 26 - Kenya

  Chapter 27 - Antonio

  Chapter 28 - Kenya

  Epilogue - Antonio

  Urban Books, LLC

  300 Farmingdale Road, NY-Route 109

  Farmingdale, NY 11735

  Best Laid Plans: A Hood Misfits Novel

  Copyright © 2018 Brick & Storm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.

  ISBN: 978-1-6228-6631-1

  First Trade Paperback Printing February 2018

  This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.

  Distributed by Kensington Publishing Corp.

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  Prologue

  Jewel

  Help Me . . .

  I wish I were dead. Already, my body had become a husk, so why not the rest of me? I wish I were dead. My worth was now nothing but good enough to fuck, to sell, to cause chaos and death. I was nothing but an object now.

  Bang, bang, clang. Cri-eeeeek, bang, bang, clang.

  The springs of the dirty mattress pressed against my spine. I felt sick to my stomach and my body responded in kind. Vomit slipped from the corner of my cracked, swollen lips; piss soaked into the wet, already-dingy bed now that he was out of me. Forget the fact that I was soaking wet with a mixture of his sweat and mine from the heat, because there was no air conditioner in the house, and his sex. His anger was like the devil himself. He hated when I messed myself. That was why he threw over my body a bucket of scorching water that was sitting on a radiator.

  Now he was back. His sinister hands were all over me. Now he was back to bring me nothing but pain. Tears falling so much that all I could see was the glossy haze of a nigga I wished I could kill with my bare hands. But I couldn’t. He was too smart for that. Around my wrists this time were ropes that sliced against my flesh. He said it made it easier for me to give up the pussy that way.

  I hated him. Help me.

  I couldn’t believe that I’d thought I loved him. Why was I so stupid? He was nothing but a liar and monster. He made me forget my own training by my daddy and mama not to fall for the games of a nigga coming for your excellence. By “excellence” they didn’t mean my body by itself but all of me: my spirit, my mind, my soul. But, I didn’t listen. Couldn’t listen.

  All I saw were his words on the computer screen:

  You’re beautiful.

  Damn, why are you so pretty?

  I bet you have all the niggas around you wanting you. I wish you were with me.

  I wish I could kiss those lips and feel that waist.

  I bet you taste like bubblegum.

  Let me see you.

  Let me near you.

  We need each other.

  I can give you everything you want and not what your daddy gives.

  Tell me your address.

  Leave me those digits.

  We can go wherever you want.

  This is me and you and we’re one.

  Be my ride or die.

  Come live with me.

  You’re a sexy little mama. You don’t need your daddy.

  Your mother would want this.

  She’d love the type of prince you have.

  Leave with me.

  I need you.

  His touch, the gifts of money and whatever I wanted, and the way he looked at me as if I were his universe were all I needed to give myself to him. I felt right leaving with him and loving him, but I was fucking wrong. He claimed all of me, and made it into what he wanted: his fuck piece, whore, and bitch he hated because of some blood running through my veins. Orlando.

  I despise him. Help me.

  My body screamed at the weight on me, at the pain scissoring in and out of me due to the stupid choice I made by hooking up with the wrong nigga. I wished I were dead and I wished I had listened to Daddy and that he were here to protect me like he always did. But, above all, I wished I were home, back with my mama, eating her famous red velvet cupcakes and feeling her arms wrapped around me in love and protection.

  God. I wish I were dead. God forgive me.

  I figured God must have heard me. My captor stopped his assault on my body. I looked toward the nightstand. Saw the phone that I so desperately wanted to reach.

  “Ugh. You stink,” he spat at me. “That water didn’t help nothing.”

  His cold gaze searched my body. I could barely make him out through the tears and my injured eyes. Everything that I’d thought was sexy about him repulsed me now.

  “I’ma untie you just so I can wash your funky ass, but you bet’ not try no shit this time,” he warned.

  I gave a nod. At least, I thought I did. I wasn’t so sure my head could even move. My heart raced as I watched him grab a black hunting knife then walk over to cut the rope from my left hand. I felt my body shiver as he straddled me then freed my right hand. I could barely contain my desperate need to get to that phone as he freed my feet.

  Without even thinking, I drew strength from somewhere and kicked him in his dick. He howled. The knife dropped to the floor as he grabbed his nuts. I made a mad dash from the bed to the nightstand. I needed that phone.

  “You fucking bitch,” he roared behind me.

  I fell out of the bed scrambling across the floor. I’d no idea where my energy had come from, but I took advantage of it. My whole body ached. My private area screamed for reprieve. I yelled, kicked, and screamed as I raced on my knees to the nightstand. I could feel my captor closing in on me just as I made a leap for the phone.

  He grabbed my left leg, nails digging into the skin. I drew back with my right and kicked him square in the nose. That sent him flailing on his back. I couldn’t explain what came over me when I saw that it was my phone that had been on the nightstand. I pressed the emergency speed dial button and watched my daddy’s face light up the screen.

  While my captor tried to get his bearings about him, I yelled into the phone, “Daddy, Mommy, I’m so sorry—”

  My words got cut off as a meaty fist to the face stunned me.

  “Aahhhhhh!” I cried out.

  Nothing but blackness and stars now. I
shouldn’t have whispered that plea.

  “Help me,” was the last thing I remembered hearing.

  Chapter 1

  Antonio

  July 2012 . . .

  “I need your help.”

  The fragrant scent of various spices, rum, and tobacco flowed around me in a breeze. A crash of waves, warm rays from the sun soaked into my skin, which would have relaxed me any other time, but today wasn’t that day. I was on the brink of madness and I had traveled out of the States just to get the help I wasn’t finding back home in Miami.

  “Tell me why I should help you,” was nonchalantly thrown at me before the subtle sound of drinking started.

  Squaring my shoulders, I stood like the proud man I had been raised to be and the warrior I had taken it upon myself to become. The moment I made the choice to fly to Cuba and breach everything my mother had worked hard to protect me from was the moment I had decided to shed my responsibilities as an average man, a doctor, and become whatever this man needed me to be. I had to.

  I stood there without an ounce of fear in me and stated a saying my mother made sure I knew since I was an infant in her arms: “La familia es la sangre. La sangre es vida y la vida es la familia.” Essentially, I had said, “Blood is family, family is life, and life is family.”

  “Hmm. Pretty words, but do you understand what they truly mean? Or are you just regurgitating what you think I would like to hear?”

  The man I vaguely recalled from my youth as a child playing on the island of Cuba watched me with no regard. His mannerisms were those of a man who didn’t have a care in the world and who, at any second, could end my life if I bored him. Inwardly, a smile played in my mind. In my five years as a trauma surgeon, I had the privilege of patching up men like this as they lay bleeding from either bullet wounds or other injuries.

  From my research on this man, who visited me occasionally as I grew up, I knew that he was nothing to trifle with. He was not the type of man you’d make the assumption of labeling like other criminals or kingpins. No. This man was an enigma on his own who deserved the respect to be labeled nothing less than what he was: King Caltrone Orlando. My father.

  “I’m not the type of man who would waste your time on pretty words. I am an Orlando. The thirty-two-year-old son of Carmen Ortiz and Caltrone Orlando, and I am here before you because I live those words, nothing more,” I explained, keeping hidden for the time being the urgency of the reason I had come.

  My father sat back in his chair behind a small table full of various types of food and drinks. He was in casual wear: a white, breezy linen shirt that showed the white beater under it, and white pants. His feet were bare but the mat under them was clean. The sun soaked into his bronze skin.

  In his features, I saw my own. We both had the same facial bone structure with firm, large lips. I also had a light beard along my chin. Though he had lighter eyes, and graying curly hair, I had longer, thick hair pulled back into a ponytail with a fade along the sides. It was a texture that was a mixture of my Afro-Cuban ancestry. My eyes were also a nutty light tone that contrasted against my cinnamon brown skin, and I had tattooed sleeves on my arms.

  “Explain that to me, son. First, I am impressed with how you came through these doors unscathed. It shows that my blood does run through you. You were but a boy of eight years when your mother left the familia in order to fly like a bird and share the gift of her dancing with the world.”

  Caltrone paused and languidly leaned forward to grab a piece of fruit and take a bite, then continued to speak. “I attended almost every performance she had until she decided to live in Miami. But you know that, my son, for I visited you as often as I could. So, please, have a seat and share with me how, after all these years, you find yourself at my door speaking the family motto instead of being back home . . . Where is it now? And does my beautiful Carmen still dance?”

  Licking my lips, I stayed where I was in thought. I came from this man who was King of the Underworld. A man who had as many wives and children as he had houses, cars, and guns. My mother became a part of that dynasty due to her best friend, my aunt Mariposa. When Mariposa returned to Cuba from New York then decided to leave for good to pursue her singing, my mother packed up our things and we left with her so that she could dance for Mariposa’s band. After that, she became a dance teacher and she and I settled in Miami where, occasionally, I’d be visited by my father Caltrone.

  Now, I was being asked to sit at this man’s table as he dissected me. I was pretty sure he knew the answers to every question he shot my way. No, I was confident that he did. But since this was his world and I came to him in need, I decided to play the game. Stepping forward, I quietly pulled out a chair and took off my jacket, then sat down. I crossed my arms over my chest and began talking.

  “Yes, Mama still dances. She has a club and restaurant now, where she teaches people to dance. It’s named after my daughter, Jewel. As of now, yes, sir, we are still in Miami. I am an ER doctor as well as a father taking care of my daughter and mi madre, the feisty phoenix, as she likes to call herself.”

  Caltrone laughed loudly. Only his laughter wasn’t that of a happy or cheerful man. His laughter always had a hidden meaning as he rarely laughed to begin with. He slapped a hand on a box then slid it my way. “Take one, my son, and enjoy it.” Caltrone leaned back with an expression of pride on his face.

  He gave me a nod with a wide smile. Wise lines hugged the corners of his lips as he spoke. “Carmen has always been my spicy phoenix since we were all children. When she was with Mariposa, she would always find a reason to dance. She was alluring, carefree, and passionate. It pleases me that she still dances after all these years.”

  I allowed myself to laugh with a man who used to make cherry lollipops appear in his hand with the slightest of moves, a man who I recall hearing say I would make an excellent prince for the family, and a man who used to train me in hand-to-hand combat until my mother felt that she had had enough of his unorthodox training. I reached in my jacket to pull out a picture and I handed it to him. I watched him study the image and I swore emotion flickered by his eyes.

  My mother was in the picture with me and Jewel in Hawaii. At fifty-five years of age, Carmen was still a stunner. Her short five foot four inch athletic but voluptuous body always reminded me of her obsession with health and keeping up an image that allowed her to continue to dance. Carmen stood with the same wide grin that matched my daughter’s. Her feisty personality was on display as her sun-kissed, clay brown skin shined while she twirled in a bohemian dress. Her thick, kinky hair was in a crinkled freefall lifting in the wind as we all stood with her laughing in the photo.

  It was a happy moment that we all cherished. Watching my father, I reached over to open the box. I pulled out a cigar, worked it between my fingers, and removed the tip, then lit it as I puffed in the smooth smoke. “Yes, she’s still full of life. She stays with me in order to give me the blues,” I said with love and respect in my voice for mi madre.

  “I must see her again,” he said locking eyes on me.

  Understanding that his statement was not one of casual fluctuation but a subtle order, I gave a nod. “Before I came, we both knew that you would want to see her. I’ll arrange it as soon as we are done here.”

  Caltrone reached over and, as he spoke, poured me a glass of the freshest-looking orange juice I had ever seen. “Good. From your words, I do see how you uphold the motto of this family. Now, tell me why you are here, my son. Your mother was insistent that she take you from the family and raise you her way. What of us do you still have in you?”

  Pushing the glass away, I reached for a decanter full of a golden-brown liquid. Uncorking it, I poured it in his glass then my own. I sat back and took a sip, and allowed smoke to curl around my lips while I savored the cigar’s smoky, bourbon-like flavor.

  “My daughter—your granddaughter—is missing. She’s seventeen. Jewel Carla Ortiz is a National Honor member, a gifted student, and a junior in high sch
ool. She’s a wonderful runner, and a budding Orlando beauty, whose looks have caused too much attention in my opinion, as a protecting father,” I explained.

  “I’ve raised her to be mindful and smart, yet at seventeen she is gone. Lured away by some vulture on the Internet who coaxed her through texts and phone calls, convincing her that she can be free of my strict rules if she would be with him. For four months, I’ve been searching for her. I’ve used up all that I know how to do to find her myself. I’ve traced them to Tampa only to have them disappear on me. My resources have run thin.”

  Clenching my empty glass, I paused then set it down. “This is a situation that now requires me to stop being a doctor and practice the principles you taught me, Father. Your blood runs heavy through me. This is why I’m here. I will do whatever to protect my family. No man should be accepting of being robbed. My daughter was taken from me, and whoever has her will learn that she is of the wrong family to take from.”

  Ocean waves crashed behind my father. My gaze took in the tropical horizon while I kept my emotions locked down. I hoped that he’d help me. As an adult, I understood that I was gambling with the devil.

  I had done my own investigation on this man; and when my mother learned that I planned to see him, she broke down, frantically trying to keep me home with the story of the corrupt power of the Orlandos. But, even with my mother’s confession about the dangerous way my father chose to live, I couldn’t stay away and not ask for his help. Jewel needed me, and though she had chosen to run away, there was no way that I would accept it. I had to get my daughter. I had to do this not only for myself but also for her mother, Kenya.

  The Orlandos were a group of trained killers and criminals. It was deeper than just Caltrone. His power and reign flexed over the U.S. and internationally. It was what made my mother run with his sister Mariposa, when she ran from the start of the battle in Brooklyn to Cuba and elsewhere. The tale of a family battle with another family, the Kulu Kings, only added to the stress I was feeling about Jewel. Men bent on going after each other over . . . well, plainly put, pussy.