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Escapism Entertainment
© Copyright 2019 Roy Glenn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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.
Chapter One
For Rain, the reign of Rain Robinson had been a tale of unrelenting war and an irritating annoyance named Marita Bautista.
It all started when Rain killed David ‘DP’ Petty … but when you really stop and take a very close look and think about it, the death of DP wasn’t the only reason that The Family had lost two captains, a bunch of big earners and a large number of their soldiers. It really started years before when FBI Special Agent McCullough introduced herself to Shy.
I like you, Mrs. Black, so I’m going to do you a favor.
The favor that Agent McCullough was referring to was the removal of Jada West from Shy’s daily existence.
That favor set in motion a chain of events that began with the arrest of Jadonna Marin and three other women; Jenna Bobbit, Moriah Watts and Sheneka Solis for solicitation, which led to Jada being arrested and her eventually having to move her operation to Nassau to avoid prosecution. In order to protect Jada, each of the women were offered and accepted an extremely generous buyout and relocation package to leave New York City and not be available to testify.
Problem solved.
However, in violation of that agreement Jadonna Marrin returned to the city, got herself arrested and was forced to become Detective Bautista’s confidential informant. Jadonna took the skills she had learned in her time working for Jada to get close to and then manipulating both Lucus Hill and then Jab Baldwin into exposing sensitive information about parts of their operation; information that Jadonna shared with Bautista.
The plan was for Hill to unwittingly set up Baldwin in a gun buy from members of El Decreto de Guerra. Bautista was confident that once she had entrapped Baldwin, she could use him to get Rain. The only reason the plan failed was Jada got wind of it. After getting Rain’s permission, she handled the situation.
“Terminate them,” was what Jada ordered, and although that settled the matter, it was only a piece of why The Family was at war. The other piece of the puzzle was Carmen Taylor.
For the life of her, she never could resist sticking her nose where it didn’t belong and poking the hornet’s nest. Therefore, when Jada killed the hit man that was sent to kill one of her informants, Carmen began an investigation that almost got her killed more than once and led to DP’s father, Milton Petty and his illegal businesses. In the end, he found that messing with Carmen Taylor was a death wish.
So, Rain had tempted his son to a madness that made him believe that he could kill her and take over The Family. The move was ill-advised because Rain easily crushed him.
“She handled that shit hopping on one leg with one arm tied behind her back,” Black told Bobby when it was over.
However, it was a perfect storm of events that came together at the wrong time and exploded when Rona King stuck her hand in. Truth be told, it all started with her and a promise that she made to herself years before any of those events ever occurred.
You see, Rona was away at college when she got the call that her brother, Ronnie had been murdered and that her father, Robert King had been arrested for conspiracy to commit murder for his role in the murders of Byron Winter and Cameisha Collins, Mike Black’s son’s mother. When Rona returned home to bury her brother and get a lawyer for her father, she was told that Rain was believed to have killed her brother and that she was working for Mike Black. Shortly after she buried her brother, Rona received the news that her father was murdered on the yard by another inmate and the hit was ordered by Mike Black.
After burying her father alongside her brother, Rona spent the years since rebuilding her father’s legitimate businesses. As for his illegitimate businesses, rebuilding those were another matter entirely. On the orders of Wanda Moore and under Rain’s supervision, The Family had taken over or burnt to the ground everything her father and brother spent years building.
Rona, very quietly, opened new spots and began rebuilding her family’s operation from the ground up. But while that was going on, Rona never lost sight of what was important to her.
Revenge.
So, Rona watched and waited patiently for her opportunity to get revenge against
the people responsible for the murder of her father and brother – Mike Black and Rain Robinson. She spent the time wisely; getting her money right, getting strong, making alliances that would serve her in her purpose, and positioning herself to be ready when the right opportunity presented itself.
That opportunity came when Rain Robinson killed David Petty and RJ and Marvin executed Evander and Big Frank. In retaliation for the murder of his brother, Derrick Mobley went hard at The Family and DP’s partners, Barnes and Hawkins tried unsuccessfully to assassinate RJ. When that didn’t work, their men tried to firebomb The Four Kings and that was unsuccessful as well.
In that, Rona saw her opportunity and she formulated a plan that didn’t involve her people getting in shoot-outs with The Family every day. When the time was right, she’d put her plan into operation.
In the days following, Rona’s representative, AD, who had worked for her father for years, paid a visit to Barnes and Hawkins. At that meeting, AD offered them access to a purer product at a lower price than what they were getting it from Sterling. When Barnes and Hawkins wanted to know what they had to do, AD told them.
“All you have to do for it is keep going hard at Rain Robinson.”
It was an offer that they could not refuse and gladly accepted the terms of the agreement. That same day, AD made Mobley that same offer, but he surprisingly refused and demanded a sit-down with Rona. She was expecting Mobley to ask for more access to her and lower prices, but at the sit-down, Mobley gladly accepted the same offer AD made him.
With her greedy, but stupid pawns in place and well financed, Rona sent them out to fight her proxy war against The Family. And it all went well for a while. Rona targeted several high-profile and high-earning members of The Family for termination, forcing Rain to expend time and resources fighting them off.