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“I wanted to talk to you about Rain.”
“What about her?”
“Me and her hit some drug dealers for Gavin Caldwell,” Jackie said.
“She got me in on the same shit.”
“I don’t think that anybody recognized us,” Jackie laughed. “We had on wigs and shit, but that ain’t the point. She’s draggin’ us into a drug war.”
“I know,” Carter said, but he wasn’t worried. He trusted that Rain knew what she was doing. He laughed. “You know what’s up with that, right?”
“No. What’s up?”
“Gavin’s fuckin the shit out that ass,” Carter said.
“Whaaaat?”
Carter clapped his hands together. “Bang, bang, bang on that ass.” He laughed.
“No, shit,” Jackie laughed because she wasn’t the only one sprung on some good shit.
“But I got her. I won’t let her get too far out there,” he said, knowing that it was his responsibility to protect The Family, even if it was at Rain’s expense. “What you gettin’ ready to do?” Carter asked.
“Nothing, why?”
“You wanna ride with us?”
“Where you goin’?”
“To see Benny Jones. He’s been coming up short for Hassan, so we’re going to send a little message.”
“You know I’m down,” Jackie said.
After speaking with Baby Chris and telling him what to do with the money, Jackie left Jimmy’s with Carter. Once she was gone, Baby Chris exchanged a few words with Chet Bright before he was outta there too. Once they were gone, he went back to the bar.
“You ready?”
“Ready for you to stop fuckin’ around and give me my money,” Rynnelle said and got in his face. “I swear fo’ God, you just don’t know how tempted I was just to walk my happy ass up outta here with that case. Nigga, you just don’t know.”
“And you don’t know how close your bitch-ass came to dying’ tonight.” Chet Bright shook his head. “Let’s go.”
The two made their way through the crowd and walked out of Jimmy’s. As soon as they were outside, a car drove by firing. When the shooting stopped, Rynnelle screamed franticly as she looked down and saw Chet Bright stretched out on the ground with a bullet in his head.
Benny Jones was a pimp, a number runner, and a straight up hustler who knew how to make money. Or at least he used to. He had benefited greatly when Carter killed Kenard Turner. That enabled him to ease right in and pick up that money before Hassan, Ryder or Howard’s brother, Richard stuck their greedy hands in and picked his bones dry. After that, things were good for Benny until he ran into a run of bad luck named Omeika. Her obsession with clothes, shoes, jewelry and anything with a high price tag, not to mention her vacuum nose damn near broke Benny before he got rid of her by passing her off to Terrance Jackson. Now she was driving him crazy. But that didn’t change the facts. He had been coming up short with Hassan’s money. All he needed was a couple of days and for things to fall perfectly into place for him to get right.
Since all the free pussy you want had a haunting pull on most men and with Kennard dead, Benny had set up shop at Veneshia’s, where unbeknownst to him, he was waiting for Carter to come and inflict pain upon his body. So, he was surprised when Veneshia opened the door to his office and in walked Carter, Jackie, Hassan and Geno.
“You folks have fun,” Veneshia laughed and closed the door behind her. With a lot of pent-up anger and frustration to take out, Carter stepped up quickly, grabbed Benny by the back of his head and slammed his face into the desk.
Jackie sat there watching Carter work. He was good, but it made her think of a story.
“Hey, Carter, you ever hear the story about how Rain made her rep?”
“No, I never have. Rain ain’t big on tellin’ old stories.” He slammed Benny’s face into his desk again. “You ever hear this story?” Benny shook his head and Carter slammed it again.
“I have,” Geno said.
“Rain found out that a number runner named Teddy Pegram was skimming … like you, Benny. So Rain decided to make an example, so everybody knew that Rain Robinson wasn’t no fuckin’ joke. She and The Purple Gang—”