CHAPTER 24

Eric

Eric sat in his office sipping on a cup of coffee as he paced back and forth. It had been forty-eight hours since he’d last heard from his mother and he was beginning to think the worst. “Still no word from her?” Eric asked when Pistol Pete entered the office.

“Not yet. I got Nicole out looking for her now,” Pistol Pete replied.

“Yeah, I just spoke to Nicole and she hasn’t heard anything either,” Eric huffed. At the moment, the only thing good going for the Mason family was that the streets were buzzing about the new product that Brady provided them with.

“Brady came through with that fire,” Pistol Pete said. “Streets been loving this shit.”

“Facts,” Eric replied quickly. “Any word on the Black Dragon?” 

“Nah, it’s been real quiet.”

Eric knew that just because the Black Dragon hadn’t shown his face in a while, it didn’t mean that their beef over and he wasn’t about to let his guard down. Eric sat on the edge of his desk when he heard his cell phone vibrating across the desk. “Yo,” he answered.

“Hey, baby. It’s me,” Nicole’s voice sounded a little nervous.

“What’s wrong, baby?” Eric asked sensing that something was wrong.

“I tracked your mother’s phone like you asked me to do and it led me to some raggedy looking warehouse,” Nicole said, as she scoped the place out from her car. “From the looks of it, this seems to be one of the Bloods meeting spots because there’s about a million of them out here.”

“So, you think my mother is in there?”

“It’s definitely possible,” Nicole countered as she noticed a red Range Rover pull up in front of the warehouse. Out stepped a tall handsome dark skin man who wore all black with a pair of red Converse on his feet. Hanging out of the man’s right back pocket rested a crisp red bandana. Nicole didn’t know who the man was but whoever he was, she knew he was important from how all of the other Blood members suddenly got in line when he showed up. “I don’t know what’s going on but I’m about to go and check it out.”

“No, wait until your back up gets there,” Eric demanded.

“No time. I’m going in.” Nicole ended the call.

“Shit!” Eric cursed as he grabbed his keys and ran out the door.

* * *

Millie woke up in some sort of dirty warehouse. On the floor next to her was Knuckles. He laid on the floor next to her badly beaten and all bruised up. “You alright, baby,” she whispered as she reached out and rubbed his head. Knuckles wasn’t able to speak due to the broken jaw he received so all he could do was nod his head. “Don’t worry. I’m going to get us out of this,” Millie said then slowly stood to her feet. She was immediately met by Big Blood.

“Where am I?” Millie asked. She looked around the warehouse looking for an escape route. Without warning, Big Blood slapped the shit out of her.

“You don’t speak unless you’re spoken to!” Big Blood growled.

“What the fuck is going on in here!” a voice boomed and immediately everything stopped. Maniac stepped in the warehouse flanked by four rough-faced goons. “What have we here?” Maniac said as he approached the battered and bruised woman.

“This bitch came to the block talking about she wanted to speak with you,” Big Blood explain. “I told her to bounce and her big goofy friend here swung on me.”

“Speak your peace,” Maniac said, looking Millie up and down.

“My name is Millie Mason and I came here to talk business with you,” Millie explained. “Me and my family used to control all the real estate out here on these streets but when I went away on a little vacation things changed,” she said. “But now I’m back and I have a smoking product and I’m willing to give you prices you can’t refuse.”

“I appreciate you coming here to talk business with me,” Maniac said politely. “And I apologize about what happened to your friend here,” he nodded towards Knuckles. “But I already have a solid connect.”

“Listen, Maniac. I really need you as a partner because I need my real estate back and I’d rather partner with you instead of going to war with you,” Millie stated plainly. “We can both walk away winners and no one has to get hurt.”

Maniac smiled. “I’ve heard a lot of wild stories about you and the Mason family when I was younger. I always wanted to work for your family.”

“Well, now is your chance.” Millie smiled. “Work with me and I’ll forget about all this nonsense that has taken place.”

“I would love to work with you but unfortunately I can’t,” Maniac said. “I already have an agreement with my connect. But I would like to make this up to you so we don’t have any bad blood.” Maniac knew that going to war with the Mason family would be horrible for business so if there was a way for him to squash any differences they had between one another, that’s what he planned on doing.

“I like how you handled this so there won’t be no hard feelings. I’ll just chalk this up as a misunderstanding,” Millie extended her hand. She liked how he had handled the situation and respected his straightforwardness. Maniac smiled and reached out to shake Millie’s hand when a bullet exploded in his shoulder dropping him instantly.

Big Blood looked on in shock as he watched several members from his organization drop like flies. He and the rest of his team quickly took cover and opened fire in the direction of the gunman.

* * *

Nicole held a two handed grip on her gun as she dropped four of the gang members with headshots. She moved through the warehouse like a ghost hiding behind the shadows using her pinpoint accuracy to kill as many gang members as possible. 

Once Millie saw the gang members start to drop like flies, she quickly grabbed Knuckles and made a dash towards the exit. Millie didn’t see Nicole but she knew that this was definitely her work. Once Nicole saw that Millie was out of the warehouse safely she tossed a smoke bomb towards the middle of the warehouse then took off in a sprint as the sound of multiple guns being fired at the same time went off loudly. Nicole made it around the corner just as several bullets ricocheted loudly off the wall.

Outside, Millie and Knuckles ran until a black Range Rover came to a screeching stop in front of them. The driver window rolled down and Eric stuck his head out. “Come on! Come on! Come on!” Millie and Knuckles quickly piled up in the back seat.

“Where’s Nicole?” Eric asked in a panic.

“I don’t know but we gotta go!” Millie said only thinking about herself. Eric got ready to pull off when he saw Nicole burst around the corner in a full sprint. Her chest heaved up and down as her arms and legs worked overtime. Millie opened the back door and Nicole dove into the backseat. Once Eric was sure that everyone was in the truck safely, he stomped down on the gas pedal. The tires burnt rubber as the sound of bullets pinging loudly off the truck could be heard. Eric made sure to keep his head down until he finally made it to the highway.