“Kai, listen to Mommy. We’re okay, baby.”

Her daughter stared at her blankly.

“I need you to stay down here and hold on to your brother. Do not get up until Mommy tells you to. Understand?”

Kai slowly nodded her small head in agreement.

Kisa climbed over the seat. She reached across Terry’s wide body and opened the driver’s door. With a rush of adrenaline, she pushed Terry’s lifeless body from the car.

Kisa slammed the door and threw the car into reverse. She grabbed her handbag from the backseat and retrieved the Boost phone that Sincere had sent her.

As she put the car in drive and sped away, she dialed Eisani’s number.

“Hello?”

“E, this Kane. I got instructions, you ready?”

“Give ’em to me, ma,” Eisani said, responding to the seriousness in Kisa’s tone.

“Call dude from Hunts Point with the wrecker service. Tell him to bring a tarp and meet me at the Hilton by Short Hills. I’ll be parked in the back. I need you to go to the hospital and get Lena and bring her to the Hilton, ’cause I gotta put her and my kids on the first flight out of Newark.” Kisa inhaled. “Tell Arnessa to make arrangements to get Butta on that medical flight, as we discussed. Make sure that she understands whatever the cost, we got it. E, I need this shit done like twenty minutes ago!”

“Cuzo, I’m on it. Like an hour ago!”

“E,” Kisa called before she could hang up.

“Yeah?”

“We need to get Mish up here.”

“You sure?” Eisani quizzed.

Sternly, Kisa replied, “E, call Mish.”

Chapter 14

I wanna make a toast,” Suef said, raising a champagne glass in the air. A ten-carat wide-band platinum bracelet dangled from his wrist, sparkling wildly every time the light hit it. Sitting at the head of a long table, he was dressed dapperly in dark slacks and a matching button-up shirt. Rellie stood immediately to the right of him, wearing a tight mint-colored minidress with camel-colored stiletto pumps. His younger cousin lil’ Black stood to the left. “A toast to showing them old clown-ass niggas who really run this city!” Suef boldly shouted. “Manhattan is ours!” The ten men, including Trenton and Abdul, clapped and cheered. At the moment Suef felt like the Nino Brown and Scarface characters whom he’d idolized since childhood.

Rellie watched Suef’s act with a blushing grin. Despite how hard she’d tried to fight it, Rellie had fallen for Suef.

She broke her number one rule: no falling in love. After some hard thinking, Rellie decided that it just might be time for her to settle down. Who better to do it with than Suef, a man on the come-up, well on his way to being the kingpin.