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CHAPTER 3

Stephon

I was sitting in my office, twirling a pen between my fingers. I sat there staring at a picture of myself in a University of Carolina football uniform. I’d just gone up to catch a ball over a defensive player. Sighing, I finally dropped the pen and reached my hands up to cradle my head, running them through my curls. My life has gone through many changes. The most recent started with a simple conversation that filled my mind.

“You sure you want this shit, Rock? Because once we’re out, we’re out. Everything we had that’s connected to this shit, we’re done with it,” One said as he waited for my response.

“Aye, man, we’re serious. You won't be able to call us for shit because we are not answering any calls that aren’t about HCS. You feel me?” That was Three speaking. HCS was Haven Computer Sciences. It was their powerhouse tech company that they’d started once they had taken over drug distribution for the entire US.

“That’s fucking facts,” One spoke again .

“I got it. One, you should know, with how long we've been rocking. The game is the game, and this shit is a well-oiled machine. I don't plan to make any noise. My presence will be felt but never seen or heard.” I answered confidently.

I often thought about the day and remembered everything that was said word for word. It had been two years since Devin passed the reins to Brice Washington and me. Devin and his brothers had begun to start families and wanted out of this lifestyle. I didn’t blame them because this was a dangerous game. To appease The Cartel, One, Two, and Three had to die. At least the namesakes and legend did, but they were alive and well.

I handled the East Coast, while Brice, who went by Ice, dealt with the West. No one knew the extent of Devin and my friendship. He’d purposely kept it close to the chest. Because of that, I’d had some trying times and doubts from his brothers. However, we were now the new mythical masked beings who ran everything. Ultimately, it all went through me, and Devin had put me there. I was number one, and the transition had been easy.

I met Devin Haven at our first-year orientation. I want to say that we were best friends if niggas even called each other that. Our circumstances had evolved us into more of a brotherly role. He was family, so he hadn’t hesitated to hand over his empire to me. The fact that we’d even held a conversation back then still baffled me because we were both two intimidating motherfuckers who didn’t talk much. We had many of the same quiet, introspective qualities that were off-putting to most, but for some reason, we clicked .

After a few minutes of conversation, I found out that they lived not too far from my mother, Adriana, and me in Cypress in a neighborhood called The Grove. We’d moved down from Brooklyn when I got my football scholarship at CU. There was no way I was leaving her there alone. She had no rebuttal or fight in the game either, considering the way she hurried up and started packing all our shit the day I told her I was committing to their football program.

We were pretty well off then, considering it was just my mother. My father, Sean Rockwell, passed when I was fifteen. I was Puerto Rican and Black, even though a lot of people thought I could pass for Mexican. Although I was an only child, my mother made sure I never wanted anything, and we lived nicely. So, I always assumed we were living off the life insurance policy my father left behind. That was until we came to NC, and suddenly, she struggled to make ends meet in a cheaper locale. We were no strangers to living in the hood. My mother had started from humble beginnings in NY, too. She’d moved from Puerto Rico, holding her own until she met my father.

I guess insurance checks and her selling the house can only last so long.

Although my mother never asked me for help, she often tried to hide what she needed. I took notice and started to move differently to help her. I started selling. Devin saw the change in my demeanor. That’s just how he was. He didn’t miss shit. At least, he thought he didn’t. I was surprised I was able to get it past him that long. After some time, he finally trusted me enough to let me in on his lifestyle. That shocked me because he didn’t trust anyone outside his family then. I told my mother it was a work-study program the team had hooked me up with that worked around my football schedule. At the time, that was the only way. I lied because she was adamant about never selling drugs and how she hated people who did. She spoke so strongly about it, almost as if she had firsthand experience. Because of that, I would take how I truly amassed my riches to the grave when it came to her.

As I thought, I unconsciously rubbed my hand back and forth over my left knee before I caught myself.

“You sure you want this shit?” was the same question Devin had asked that motherfucker in that dingy-ass office that day. That scenario should have forewarned me because that game didn’t go well. It was the day my football career ended. Ironically, it was the same knee that he’d almost injured. After blacking out on the field, I woke up in the hospital. I was surrounded by team doctors and medical staff telling me that I had suffered a torn meniscus, an ACL tear, a shattered knee that was also dislocated, and, to top it all off, a broken tibia.

Shit hadn’t been the same since, and I damn sure wasn’t running like I had in college. I knew when I woke up to that sterile hospital smell and bright fluorescent lights that it was all over. I wouldn’t say it was all bad because I finished college and immersed myself in this lifestyle. It was a very dark time for me, though. Instead of putting my all back into rehab to get my dreams back on track, I funneled all my dread, despair, grief, and disappointment into my alter-ego .

I became a menace and was even more merciless than before. In my eyes, everyone I encountered in the streets was the sole reason I couldn’t play football anymore. My wrath was despicable. I came off as quiet, but I was the deadliest man in the room. I’d spent most of my adult life encompassing as proxy the identities of three of the most notorious men in North America. That made me the worst of them because I was all three, although Devin would try and shoot my ass if he heard me say that shit.

Over the years, I started several businesses, including my security firm, Rockwell Security, and Hard Rock Gym. Only a few knew, but I also owned Cypress Brew. I had many gym and coffee shop locations throughout Cypress. All of which were highly lucrative. I for damn sure didn’t want for a thing, and neither did my mother. She was living nicely up in a high-end neighborhood called Cypress Crest now. Once Devin moved his family, I moved her near them as well. I wasn't going to leave her there without her friends. I’d never told her about my alternative lifestyle, and I wouldn’t. She also had no idea what Devin’s father did. At least she never brought it up to me. Like I said, my involvement in all this shit, I would die with.

Light taps on my door brought me out of my musings. It was Brody. I’d known Brody Triggs since I moved to NC to attend college.

“Good looking out on that meeting the other night,” Brody said.

“It ain’t nothing, man; I wasn’t doing shit anyway. It’s not like I got a lil’ link to go home to. ”

“Aww, man, there you go with that New York shit.” I laughed because I’d lived in North Carolina longer than New York, but sometimes the accent and slang came out of nowhere.

“Did you get everything taken care of on the home front?”

“Oh yeah, yeah, you know I got that taken care of.” I sat quietly, studying him because he was being cryptic. Brody was a man who told all his business all the time. On many occasions, I’d stopped him from coming off with too much information. Some shit was left better unsaid. He’d also been on the other side of business since I’d taken over. He wasn’t new to the game and was my second on the East Coast, without Brice being closer. We called him Trigger, or Trig for short, when business was being handled. Bringing him on as a top was a no-brainer. I had a small circle, and they both worked in this office with masks ready. After he didn’t follow up with anything more, I figured I’d reach for it.

“Well, let me know if I can do anything to help,” I said.

“Actually, there is...” Before Brody could finish his statement, another knock was on my open door. It was Pierre, my cybersecurity analyst. He monitored the home security systems we offered exclusively to high-end clientele for this business. For the other business, he was a hacker. He was also what I liked to call a street manager. He was hyper-focused on his phone and hadn’t realized that he’d interrupted our conversation until he looked up.

“My bad, Steph, I, um, just sent over the footage from Porter’s that you asked for earlier. I also deleted it from Porter’s servers,” he said .

“Thanks, man,” I said, pulling up my email to confirm it was there.

“If you need help looking through it, just let me know what you’re looking for, and I can help.”

“I got it, P. Good looking out.” He nodded and then turned to leave. Because I had started queueing up the video, Brody assumed that was also his dismissal.

“Steph, I’m gonna let you get to it. I gotta check on Jade.” I looked up from my computer and saw him standing to head out. So, I tipped my head to his exit.

What in the hell is going on? I really need to work on my trust issues.

These guys had been working for me for years, and now I was looking at everyone sideways. Brody was not telling me why he missed work, and this nigga P wanted to know what I was looking for. I could have retrieved the footage myself, but that’s what I was paying him for. Now, I was wondering if I should have just done it myself. My mind was trying to spiral.

Before reviewing the footage, I accessed Porter’s computer servers to ensure it was deleted. I also accessed the servers here and Pierre’s computer and deleted those as well.

Fucking paranoia.

After years of working with Devin, Dorien, and Demitri, I had picked up several skills. For Devin, that was a requirement. In this instance, I could thank Demitri for what I’d just done because he’d taught me how to hack. I didn’t want anyone else to see what I was looking for, or better yet, who. If she were a problem for me, I would handle it myself. It hadn’t escaped me the conversation that was being had just before she entered. I didn’t believe in coincidences; I just needed more information.

As I sat reviewing the footage from the restaurant. I reveled as she walked down the hallways unnoticed. When she couldn’t avoid being seen, she kept her head down out of the camera’s vision. I studied her as she expertly took down the waitress, dragging her to the storage closet and exiting wearing a waitstaff uniform. She stopped before entering the private dining room to push up her breasts, but she didn’t need to do that. She would have gotten the attention of every man in the room, even if she was still wearing that damn coat she had also discarded in the closet. I reviewed the feed until she left Porter’s. She hadn’t made any mistakes to the naked eye. To me, she’d made two.

One I caught as I was scanning the video for the third time. Standing at the bar to see if she could locate the bartender, she held her head up a little too long. I could freeze frame her side profile enough to plug and scan inside my facial recognition software, Bio Scan. It was an underworld program similar to one used by the government, but better. Few had access, which included the original three tops and me. I’d invested millions into its creation with Devin. It had flaws because it didn’t know everything, only what it could find online, and its tracking reach was US-based only. I didn’t use it much and didn’t feel the need to, but for this scenario, it was perfect. I put the partial face scan in the software and waited for it to return the results .

Her second mistake was that I’d seen her, and I never forgot a face, especially not one that fucking beautiful. Who was she there for? Was she working alone? If not, who sent her? What did she know?

More fucking questions that need answers.

The ding interrupted those questions, letting me know the software had rendered its results. I sat staring at a photo of the beauty I’d committed to memory.

What the fuck?

I knew he had a sister, but I’d never met her in the two years I’d been acquainted with the man. The need for introductions had never come up. She wasn’t a part of this side of the business, even though I knew she helped her brother from time to time. I’d only heard that she did through Demitri. He called her the muscle. Like ours, her identity was to remain anonymous, especially from underworld members. Devin felt I should accept and offer the same trust I gave him. However, this fucked me up. My face immediately balled up in disgust.

Jourdan Nichelle Washington. Code name: The Lioness. Gun for hire. Are Brice and his sister trying to take me out?