The Face That Launched A Thousand Bullets (The Cartel Publications Presents) (12 page)

“You gonna be okay?” Tina asked sensing her fear. “Cause you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“Uh…I’ll be fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” Beads of sweat formed on her head even though it was in the dead of winter. “We just passing out papers. Right?”

Tina and Modell looked at one another and laughed.

“She says she’s gonna be okay so I guess she’s gonna be okay. Let’s go.” Modell jumped out the van and opened the door for Tina and then Carolyn.

Carolyn eased out of the van nervous and afraid of them…the people she’d been taught to hate her entire life.

“Come on!” Tina said, waving at her. “Stop bein’ scared.” She thought Carolyn’s apprehension was funny especially since she was so big and bold in class.

“I’m not afraid!” She gripped the papers to her closely and walked toward the other side of the van next to them.

Carolyn watched Modell and Tina pass out the literature printed on blue paper. Some people took it, but most told them to leave them alone.

But when they walked up to a row house where six young guys were out on the corner, Carolyn was on edge.

“Fuck ya’ll doin’ around here?” One of them yelled hopping down off a wall he was sitting on. “I thought I told you not to come around here no more?!”

“You not gonna stop us from comin’ around here, Melody,” Modell said to him as boldly as he told him to go away. “These kids have a right to know that they’re other alternatives instead of slinging drugs and I’m gonna see to it that they know about it.”

“You got a fuckin’ death wish!” Melody said, so closely to him, he could feel his breath. “I run these mothafuckin’ streets and whoever’s in em. All you doin’ is bringin’ unwanted attention round here!”

“Listen…I don’t want any trouble, but how many young kids have to die before you realize that there’s a problem? I know you don’t want no drama around here and I’m not tryin’ to bring it. All we wanna do is help.”

“If I tell ya’ll to get the fuck from around here, than believe that I’m doing you a favor. Because there’s other ways to make you disappear.” Melody opened his coat and revealed his weapon.

“Ohhhh, God!” Carolyn screamed, bringing attention to herself after seeing the gun.

“Who’s that bitch?” Melody questioned Modell while glaring at her. Without waiting for an answer, he barked, “J, get her ass out of here.”

J-Swizz walked up to her, grabbed her by the arm and took her toward the van. Once there he opened the door.

“Get in.” She did. Tina and Modell looked on as he walked her to the car. “Look…I don’t know who you are, but you need to stay away from ‘round here. You gonna fuck around and find yourself in a situation you won’t be able to get out of.”

With that he closed the door.

Carolyn sat in the back seat breathing heavily, trying to focus on what she’d just seen. She was nervous. Scared and confused. And through it all, there was something about him she liked.

J-Swizz returned to the group. And as she watched Modell and Tina talking to the dealers she thought about J-Swizz. There was something that peeked her interest. She was curious. She wanted to know what pulled him to the streets. She wanted to know what kind of person he was. All of these things ran through her mind until Tina and Modell returned to the car. She had to learn more about him, but what she didn’t know was how.

Kavon Cartier

Washington D.C.

Best Man

K
avon sat inside Tara’s hospital room and watched Mayor Gibson get dragged away in hand cuffs, after being caught coping drugs from an undercover agent. It was the only thing that played nonstop on the news ever since the operation was blown open a few days ago. As interesting as the story was, all he thought about was his future wife and the fact that she was laying in a hospital bed.

Placing crushed ice over her lips, he thought about the night before, when he realized he didn’t have his house keys. And when he thought about losing them fucking with Candy’s skank ass, he felt guilty. He still remembered rehearsing his lies over and over as he approached the door to their home. But instead of having to knock, it was wide open. His heart raced and he suddenly felt woozy. His worse nightmares were realized and he knew he’d been robbed, but with his girl inside.

His fighter instinct kicked in and he was preparing to murder whoever had the audacity to step foot into his crib. He had three weapons in his home. One tucked under the bed in his room, one in the kitchen and one under the living room sofa. He dipped in the living room and grabbed the one under the sofa.

He crept through the living room and then up the stairs. All he wanted was for Tara to be okay. They could have everything in that mothafuckin’ house but his future wife. But instead of finding Tara safe, he found her bruised, bloodied, and unconscious on the bathroom floor. His body slumped over hers as he gripped her languished body. All kinds of thoughts entered his mind…but it was revenge that dominated his thoughts.

Her legs agape told him off the back she’d been violated sexually. Who would cross him by coming into his home, and raping his girl? For some reason, he thought about everything that happened right before finding Tara in that condition. Kavon didn’t know that when Candy dismissed herself from him at the cabaret earlier that night, that she met up with Shy in one of the stalls in the men’s restroom.

  “You got em?” Shy asked, peering over at Candy.

      “He ain’t suspect nothin’, did he?” Shy placed his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Cuz, I can’t have no mistakes,” he continued, lines forming in his forehead.           

“Look at me…would you be thinkin’ bout anything else but Candy?” She boasted.

“You ain’t ansa the question. Did he suspect anything?” he was stern with her now. “Did he act funny in any sort of way?”

“No. Trust me, honey. He don’t know nothin’ and ain’t thinkin’ bout nothin’ but me.” She punched her fists onto her hips. “You gotta remember…he don’t know you’re the reason I left him when I was with him. He’s clueless and green. Relax.”

“You mean he don’t know that I snatched your ass.”

“You are so cocky.” Her smile told him she loved his attitude.

“But we can never be too sure.” Shy wanted her to be a little more serious.

He wasn’t feeling her bullshit. He knew if he told Candy he was trying to make Kavon stay in the business with him and that he’d been lusting after Tara for two years now, she’d flip.

“I was just askin’,” she said, waving him off. “I mean, I thought ya’ll were cool that’s all. It don’t make me know never mind.”

“Good. And just so you know, that nigga’s not about business like he use to be.”

“Ummm…Hmmmm.” She flipped her hand in the air.

She could be a sassy little bitch when she wanted to and Shy couldn’t stand that shit about her. On the other hand, she did whatever he asked her to.

“You still gonna stop by and see me tonight—right?”

“It depends.” He said looking her up and down like he wanted to eat her alive.

     “On what?” she said, growing angry with his lack of attention towards her lately. She couldn’t count the number of times he’d say he was on his way over her house and never came.

   “On what you willin’ to do to convince me to come back tonight.”

He stroked his dick. Shy’s dick was larger than most women could fathom. And because Candy fucked so much she barely had walls inside her pussy, they meshed just fine.

  Knowing what the deal was, she dropped to her knees and placed his dick inside her mouth. She stared up at him. With the power of a Hoover, she sucked him until she made him weak to his knees. As big and as bad as he was, he needed the help of a cane when it came to enduring Candy’s sex game. He placed his hands on the sides of the wall in the stall and allowed her to go to work. It took all of two minutes before she made him bust, swallowing every last drip.

  Wiping her mouth she stood up and faced him. “Is that enough to convince you?”

“What you think?” he smiled as he zipped his white pants. “But if you don’t start takin’ better care of lil Shawn, I’ma cut you off for good.” He continued adjusting himself.

“Shut yo’ ass up and get yo’ self together.” He opened the bathroom door. “And put some more of that lip gloss and perfume on and shit. I don’t want him to smell my dick on your breath.”

“I got it, baby. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not, but if you fuck up, you should be.”

     Kavon glanced over at Tara’s battered face. He’d paid the staff over fifty thousand to be sure she was given the best of care. He also requested the best plastic surgeon to repair the damage made from the bite mark on her beautiful face. And to be sure it was money well spent, he found out who the surgeon was and dropped 10g’s on him.

      As he looked at her, a white nurse walked through the door to check her vitals. She noticed Kavon’s eyes were bloodshot red from crying.    

“You okay, son?” she asked as she changed her I.V bag.

      “I been betta.” He took his black Kangol off, and wiped his face with his hands.

     “She’ll be okay, son. Plenty of people come back from comas. Besides, you have a lot to be thankful for. The baby’s doing well.” She added.

     He grinned when she said those words. Yesterday he found out she was pregnant and he wondered why she hid it from him when she knew how much he wanted a little girl.

   “I know.” He smiled, focusing on the thought of his baby. He had a name for her and everything. Tiara Cartier. “It still fucks me up that somebody would do this to her.”

“I understand, but everything will be okay. Now let me leave you two alone.”

  When she was gone, he kneeled down by her bedside and kissed her hand. Holding it lovingly he told her if she pulled through, he’d never leave her side again, no matter what. And for the first time since he’d been there, she gripped his hand.

“Baby?” he said as if it were a question more than anything else. He couldn’t believe she was showing signs of consciousness. He was told it could take anywhere from a month to a year for her to pull through. “Can you hear me, baby? If you can grip my hand.”