The Syndicate Read online

  The Syndicate:

  Carl Weber Presents

  Brick & Storm

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prelude

  Part 1 - In the Beginning . . . Who the Hell Was This Woman?

  Chapter 1 - Shanelle

  Chapter 2 - Javon

  Chapter 3 - Shanelle

  Chapter 4 - Javon

  Chapter 5 - Shanelle

  Part 2 - Things Will Never Be the Same

  Chapter 6 - Javon

  Chapter 7 - Shanelle

  Chapter 8 - Uncle Snap

  Chapter 9 - Shanelle

  Chapter 10 - Cory

  Chapter 11 - Javon

  Chapter 12 - Jojo

  Chapter 13 - Shanelle

  Chapter 14 - Javon

  Chapter 15 - Jojo

  Chapter 16 - Shanelle

  Chapter 17 - Inez

  Chapter 18 - Cory

  Chapter 19 - Javon

  Chapter 20 - Uncle Snap

  Chapter 21 - Shanelle

  Chapter 22 - Javon

  Chapter 23 - Javon

  Chapter 24 - Shanelle

  Outro - Uncle Snap

  Urban Books, LLC

  97 N18th Street

  Wyandanch, NY 11798

  The Syndicate: Carl Weber Presents

  Copyright © 2016 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: 978-1-6228-6987-9

  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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  Prelude

  Claudette McPhearson walked out of the Clayton County Juvenile Center with a smile on her beautiful face. At sixty years old, the woman still had a youthful disposition about her. She loved children; more specifically, she loved disadvantaged youth. Claudette had been taking in children since she was thirty years old after her husband died in a suspicious fire. They had never gotten a chance to have kids and, even after that, she never had a chance to have children with anyone else.

  “I’ll see you all next week,” she said to the guards as she waved and walked out into the stifling night’s summer heat.

  Atlanta’s weather can be so muggy and wet, she thought as she looked up to the sky. Looks like rain, she thought while waving one more time at the guards. They all loved Ms. Claudette, as they called her. The woman had been a staple in the juvenile facility for many years, often taking in some of the children once they were released by the state.

  Claudette stuffed her bag underneath her arm after she pulled her umbrella out just in case. She smiled as her black Mary Janes clacked against the steel gray concrete. Normally she would call a cab or one of her foster sons would pick her up, but Jojo, her youngest, was late that day. He either was always late or couldn’t make it. She sent him a text reminding him but decided that she’d just take the bus. It was no big deal to her. She enjoyed the quietness of the bus this time of night. She chuckled thinking that the Lord knew the bus was better than riding with Jojo and listening to some song about a trap queen. Whatever the hell that is, she mused.

  She stumbled a bit as she walked. Her ankle was killing her. Old age had come calling and she hated it. She was still spry but she couldn’t deny that her body was telling her to slow down. She was a buxom woman. Not fat in the least, but definitely not small either. Most people claimed she looked like a plumper version of the model Iman. Age and good eating had added an extra twenty pounds over the years but she didn’t have diabetes or high blood pressure, things that plagued most black women her age. For the most part, she had done well for herself. She had eight remaining foster children, the youngest one being seventeen. She had raised them, loved and nurtured them into young adults and she was proud of that. Jojo, Melissa, Shanelle, Inez, Lamont, Naveen, Javon, and Cory were her pride and joy.

  Javon and Cory were her oldest. Blood brothers, she took them from a life of crime and now both were upstanding citizens, one working for corporate America and the other a law student. Naveen was good with his hands, always building, fixing, or making something. She’d sent him to a tech school for civil engineering. Lamont, well, Lamont was hood and there was no way around that. The young man just had it in him. He would fight at the drop of a dime, was fiercely overprotective of his brothers and sisters and, no matter how hard Claudette had tried, she still couldn’t get him not to fight. The boy was a fighter at heart. So she put him in the ring and had a professional boxer training him for his first fight.

  Inez, oh, her beautiful Inez sometimes gave her heart attacks. She, too, had anger issues, but they stemmed from a life of always having to fight to prove her right to be seen as human. Just shy of twenty-one Inez was a pre-med student who was well on her way to becoming a great surgeon. Shanelle was a business woman. She could convince any man or woman to buy anything she had to offer. But she was also good with a gun. With her eyes closed Shanelle could take a deer down even if the deer was running full speed ahead. Yes, yes, Claudette had to hone that craft as well as Shanelle’s business savvy.

  Melissa was her math guru. The girl could look at any number once, remember it, or solve an equation without so much as blinking an eye. Not to mention she was good with money. The girl could count money quicker than your eye could see and she was also good at saving it. Melissa also had a problem when it came to sex. She couldn’t say no. She had been introduced to sex way too early and, as a result, she was hypersexual. Claudette had a long talk with her child about the consequences of her behavior as well as other things that would remain a secret between her and Melissa. However, Melissa’s accounting degree would come in handy; yes, it would.

  Claudette’s smile widened as she thought about her youngest son, Jojo. Her little chemist, she called him. Jojo had been with her since he was eight. He was a precocious child. Throughout the years, he had almost blown up her kitchen mixing chemicals he shouldn’t have had. Not to mention he almost killed himself in her bathroom when he decided that closing the door while he was mixing ammonia and bleach was a good thing. Since then, Claudette had found every kind of science program in and out of school she could place him in. From science fairs to chemistry camps, Jojo was always in attendance.

  Claudette stopped at the walkway of a four-way intersection. She saw one other person standing at the bus stop, a man. That didn’t bother her. The old woman was rarely afraid of anything other than losing her children. The smile as she thought of them was still plastered on her face as a black car slowly turned the corner behind her. Claudette was just about to cross the street when the car sped up a bit. The man at the bus stop looked up and started to walk toward her.

  She slid her hand into her purse to grip something that she always kept near and dear to her. While she didn’t fear any man on God’s green earth, Claudette was no fool either. The man was dressed in all black. The cap on his head hid his face. Claudette kept an unassuming smile on her face as she strutted forward. She knew what was about to happen before the man made up his mind to do it. He bumped into Claudette, grabbed her purse, and tried to shove the old woman to the ground. What he didn’t see coming was the sli
ce across his carotid artery. One smooth slice widened his eyes. However, it was the look of unmitigated pleasure in the old woman’s eyes that sent him reeling. The man clumsily stumbled back, choking on his own blood while trying to catch his balance.

  They hadn’t told him the old woman would be armed. Nobody told him to watch her smooth sleight of hand just as no one had told him the real reason they had sent him to kill Claudette McPhearson and to make it look like a robbery. They’d only paid the man ten grand and shown him her picture. As he fell to the ground clutching his throat trying to stop the profusely bleeding wound, Claudette McPhearson stood over the man as if taunting him.

  She smiled like she hadn’t just sentenced a man to death and said, “You’ve gotta be quicker than that.”

  Just as she kneeled to jam another blade the man hadn’t seen between his ribs to pierce his heart, the black car increased speed. The first bullet hit her shoulder, knocking her backward. Claudette was nimble for her age. She rolled over onto her shoulder and grabbed the gun that had fallen out of her purse. She fired off a few shots, two of which hit the driver, and rushed to hide behind a parked car on the side of the street. Two more bullets hit her in the back and kidney.

  She had known the day would come sooner or later when someone would be bold enough to try to take her out. Claudette had no fear and no qualms about it. It came with the territory, she often told herself. She stayed down as tires squeaked and skidded. She knew they were either turning around or the injuries to the driver had made them come to a screeching halt. She saw no plausible escape route, which meant they had thought their plan out thoroughly. They waited until she had gotten to a spot where there was little chance of escape and a far less chance for her survival.

  Her mind was on the eight children she would leave behind if she didn’t make it out alive. She’d raised them well. Had taught them all she knew on survival. All the lessons, the talking, and the teachings, honing their crafts. She desperately hoped they understood the method to her madness after all was said and done.

  The wound to her shoulder hurt immensely. The injury to her back and kidney were damn near causing her paralysis. It was almost unbearable. She heard when the car stopped. It hovered just beside the car she used to hide. The doors to the black old-school Cutlass Supreme opened. Two different sets of shoes hit the ground. One had a soft thud and the other clacked like the person had on combat boots.

  This was the end and she knew it. She wouldn’t give them a chance to take her out on her knees though. Claudette stood and faced her adversaries. She’d take one of them with her, she knew that for a fact. So as soon as the first one stepped around the car where she had been hiding, she took aim, but the shock of who the person was stopped her in her tracks. Before her mind could catch up with her reflexes, or before she remembered there was another shooter behind her, a bullet to the back of her head put her to rest.

  Her lifeless body hit the ground in a slow thud. Her last thoughts were on the eight children she left behind.

  Part 1

  In the Beginning . . .

  Who the Hell Was This Woman?

  Chapter 1

  Shanelle

  As the heavy rain pelted down on us in Georgia, I couldn’t get over the fact that my mother was dead. The only mother I’d ever known, who took a little piece of shit like me and turned me into the young woman I was today, was gone. How did she of all people deserve to be killed in a drive-by shooting? I couldn’t wrap my mind around that shit. It ate away at me each day and night.

  The way the authorities told the story, Mama just happened to be walking to the same bus stop where a gang member from another area was also waiting. She got caught in the crossfire when rival gang members spotted the boy at the bus stop and opened fire. I always told Mama she needed to drive or be sure one of us could pick her up. I never liked her walking, but the old woman never freaking listened. Never. Now we were left alone.

  The wind blew angrily around us, whipping the ends of jackets, sweaters, skirts, and dresses. Many people had to hold down their hats and keep the programs from the funeral at the church held tight. Brown, red, and orange leaves danced around our ankles as trees swayed in the music of the wind.

  The eight of us stood silent as the crowd thinned out. Our hands intertwined, grief pulling us closer together.

  “Somebody please tell me this is a dream, a horrible fucking nightmare,” my sister Melissa begged. She didn’t care that tears mixed with snot ran down her upper lip. Her normally pale face was reddened with sadness. She was tall, at least five foot ten inches. Most people would look at her white skin and my black skin and wonder how we were sisters. It was quite simple. Mama Claudette was the foster parent to eight of us children, all different races and ethnic makeup. She took us in and didn’t care one way or the other what race we were. She loved us. Educated us. She sheltered and nurtured us when nobody else wanted or cared to. I glanced to the right of me at the rest of my siblings. Javon, black like me, my fiancé, stood to the left of me, hand so tight around mine he was darn near hurting me, cutting off my circulation.

  On my right was Cory, Javon’s younger blood brother. He was black and Filipino. He, too, had my hand in a death lock. His locs curtained his face as his head hung low. Next to him was Inez, who was Dominican. Her head was held high while she tried like hell to cry silently. As her lips trembled, I knew she was seconds away from breaking down. Next to Inez was Lamont. He was Native American. For as long as he had been my brother, I’d never seen the boy cry. He found other ways to show his emotions, normally by kicking someone’s ass. But today, today, Lamont shed tears freely. The tall, hulking fighter looked miniscule against the pain we all felt.

  Next to him was Naveen, who was Bangladeshi. His skin was brown, and his silky auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail. He was sniffling as he stared blankly at the beautiful white and gold coffin. Melissa stood next to him; the tall blonde looked as if everything on her body hurt. Then there was our youngest brother, Jojo, who was black as far as we knew but clearly mixed, we just didn’t know with what. He took Mama’s death the hardest. He was guilt-ridden. He was supposed to pick Mama up but had been running late. I hadn’t seen him eat or sleep since the call came in that she had been killed.

  “It’s not a dream, Melissa,” Javon said.

  My handsome king’s voice came out with more confidence than I knew he felt. While his eyes watered, I’d yet to see tears fall. As soon as we had gotten the news, he went into protector mode.

  The phone rang out late in the middle of the night Tuesday. I jumped awake, sheets tangled around my waist, as Javon sat at the desk in my room typing away on his laptop. We each had our own places, but often spent the night with one another. We’d been together since I was fifteen and he was seventeen. Had we been through ups and downs? Yes. There had been breakups, other women, and other men, but for the last two years he and I had been on the straight and narrow. No cheating. There was still some cussing and fussing. Javon was a leader, an alpha, and so was I. We butted heads often, but I was learning to let a man be a man. It was hard work, but I was coming around to it.

  I’d come to live with Mama Claudette at thirteen and he was the first kid I saw. Tall and lanky, he had a look on his face that said he wasn’t to be fucked with. Cory had been twelve at the time. I was scared and angry at the world. Didn’t want no woman claiming to care for me then force me to leave. So I came in with the attitude that I was going to raise as much hell as possible since I was going to get tossed out like trash anyway. Javon wasn’t having it though. Nobody was going to disrespect his mama Claudette.

  “Baby, grab the phone,” I said groggily. “And then turn that damn laptop off and get in the bed, Javon,” I fussed. “Always working,” I mumbled.

  He cut his eyes at me, but said nothing. He stood, in only boxer briefs and nothing more, and gallantly walked to the table by the window to answer the phone. The muscles coiled in his thighs with each powerful stride. We agre
ed that when we were together after the night had wound down that our cells would be left in the kitchen on the counter on silent. That way we wouldn’t be distracted when it came time to spend quality time with one another.

  The fact that my house phone was ringing told me it was one of the brothers or sisters, or Mama Claudette. She often called when she couldn’t locate Jojo. That boy was always into something. Luckily most times it wasn’t trouble; but, she had received phone calls from cops in the middle of the night when they would find Jojo out with friends doing things he shouldn’t have been.

  “Hello,” Javon answered, baritone deep. The scent of our lovemaking was still in the air, which made me smile a bit. His voice always did something to me. Deep and molasses thick, it flowed over any woman like molten chocolate.

  “Who is it, baby?” I asked.

  He was facing the window away from me. He had been relaxed. The muscles in his back tensed as the seconds ticked away.

  He ignored me and paid attention to the phone. “This is he,” he responded. “Yes,” he answered. “Excuse me? Say that again.”

  The tension in his voice alarmed me. I threw the sheets back and got up to walk over to him. I was worried as I stepped to the side of him and laid a hand on his arm. There was a frown on his face that stopped me in my tracks. “Javon, what is it?” I whispered.

  “Are . . . are you sure?” he asked then looked down at me.

  My hands gripped his forearms as I studied his face, searching for a clue as to what was happening.

  “Yes, yeah. We’ll come down,” was all he said before hanging up the phone.

  Javon stared at me for a long time, then frowned like he was seeing me for the first time. There was no life in his eyes and something akin to shock was registered there. I started to feel dizzy. I knew something was wrong. All of a sudden I wasn’t really sure I wanted to know what that phone call had been about. What if one of our brothers or sisters had been hurt? The last thing I needed or wanted to hear was that something had happened to any of them. It would kill Mama. Would crush her soul. She’d rescued all of us, taken us from the brink of nothingness, and breathed life into us. If one of us had suffered the fate of death, it would drain the life from her.