Chapter 1
Manhattan, 1978
“One day you’re going to wake up and everything you thought you knew will be different.”
Eighteen-year-old Caesar King heard the sound of his father’s voice replaying over and over inside his head. He’d interpreted the words many different ways, but never did he think he would wake up one day and end up on the wrong side of a holding cell. From where he sat on the wall, Caesar looked past the bars and clenched his jaw at the officers walking by. Some stopped to taunt him by smiling triumphantly while others sneered his way. See, Caesar wasn’t a small catch. He was a big fish. Him being in their clutches made them feel powerful, and they let it show. There was one officer who walked by the cell, however, and looked like he saw a ghost when he spotted Caesar sitting there. He looked around quickly, like someone was there watching his every move, and then was gone. Caesar didn’t think too much of it. He was trying to figure out what he was going to tell his dad.
The cell had five other men who took up space on the other side of it. They were having their own conversation, but every so often one of them would glance over toward where he was sitting. Caesar paid them no mind because, as far as he was concerned, he was there alone. As he sat, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, thinking about what transpired that evening. His eyes went to his boots and focused on the drying blood stains on them.
“You’re over here lookin’ like you lost ya puppy dog. It must be ya first time here,” a voice said.
It belonged to a heavyset black man who took a seat next to Caesar. The others remained engrossed in their own conversation, ignoring the two of them. Glancing down at the blood on Caesar’s shoes, the man pointed at them.
“That why you in here?” he asked. When Caesar ignored him, his voice got louder. “I said, is that why you’re in here?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Because I want to know, that’s why. No need to be hostile. Let me school you on some manners. I’m Jontae. Now it’s your turn. Who are you?”
“I’m a man who’s in a jail cell,” Caesar responded blandly.
“Man? Ha! You don’t look like nothin’ but a boy to me. No older than seventeen!” Jontae noted and caused Caesar to groan.
“Eighteen,” Caesar corrected him.
“Same difference.”
“You obviously came over here for a reason besides getting on my fucking nerves. What do you want?”
“Here you go with this hostile shit again. But to answer your question, I don’t want nothin’. I guess I’m just tired of seein’ you young cats throw ya lives away behind stupid shit.”
“And I guess it’s okay for older people like you to do it then.”
“I didn’t say all that. It’s stupid as hell for me to be here too. And I bet you I wouldn’t be if I didn’t hit that motherfuckin’ bottle tonight. Asshole caught me sleepin’ with his girl and pulled a knife on me. And everybody knows you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. I shot that motherfucka where he stood! I ain’t kill him though. I should have, because now I’m here since he lived to tell the tale.” Jontae shook his head. “Now I’ve told you my story. What’s yours, huh? Let me guess. Based on the blood on your shoes, somebody came at you wrong, and you had to teach them a lesson. What did you do, beat him up bad?”
“I killed him,” Caesar answered flatly.
Jontae looked quickly around to see if anyone was paying attention. When he was sure nobody had heard what Caesar said, he turned his attention back to him and spoke in a low tone. “Are you crazy? You can’t be sayin’ shit like that out loud in here! Not if you want to be innocent until proven guilty.”
“Now do you really think I would tell a motherfucka I don’t know and just met if I really killed somebody? Stop talking to me.” Caesar’s voice was rough and serious. He just wanted the man to stop talking to him and to leave him to his thoughts. He wasn’t there to make friends. He was waiting.
“That’s the last time I let you be disrespectful. Now I done tried to be nice to your stupid young ass. But who the fuck do you think you’re talkin’ to?” Jontae stood to his feet and puffed his chest out.
Suddenly the cell got quiet, and the men on the other side looked over at them. One who had a scruffy and dirty beard tried to get Jontae’s attention by shaking his head quickly, but Jontae’s fiery eyes were too busy glaring at Caesar.
“I’m talking to you,” Caesar told him.
“You must think I’m some sucker off the street. Well, I got a news flash for you, kid. I’m not one of them. Apologize.”
“Apologize?” Caesar was truly amused. He glanced over at the men tuned in intently to the scene at hand and pointed to them. “You know the reason why those men over there haven’t bothered me one time? It’s because they know who I am.”
“And who is that exactly?”
“Somebody whose bad side you really don’t want to be on.”
“Ay . . . ay! Man. Leave him alone. You really don’t know who that is?” the man with the scruffy beard asked Jontae. “That’s Caesar King, man!”
At the mention of his name, Jontae’s demeanor instantly changed. His chest went back down, and he actually took a step away, almost in fear. It seemed as though Caesar’s name spoke for itself. Jontae put his hands up as if to usher in an apology.
“My bad. I . . . I didn’t know.”
Caesar grunted in response, and Jontae hurried back to the other side of the cell, leaving Caesar to his thoughts. Some might have seen that exchange and wondered how a grown, full-sized man was frightened by a teenager. The answer was simple. Caesar was the son and underboss of Cassius King, New York’s biggest drug kingpin, which meant he was the closest thing to untouchable. Not just because he was protected, but because he was no stranger to murder. He and the grim reaper spoke the same language fluently, and Caesar wasn’t afraid to get rid of anything that stood in his way.
Caesar was sure that, by then, Cassius knew of his situation and most likely wasn’t too enthralled about it. Mainly because a lot of people questioned his judgment to put someone so young in charge of anything business related, but Cassius trusted his son. And for a long time, Caesar had become a master of flying under the radar. However, that evening he’d been in the right place at the wrong time. Caesar thought he’d done a good job at keeping his grass cut low, but somehow a snake still managed to slither into his yard and make a home. The name of said snake was Gerald, a young guy from the Lower East Side. Not quite as young as Caesar, but not too much older.
Gerald was hungry, and Caesar could tell by the naps in his hair and the ratty clothes he wore that he was ready to make some money. So Caesar gave him an opportunity to make some with one of the crews he oversaw. Gerald proved his worth right away, getting off the little bit of cocaine provided to him so fast that Caesar felt it was time to up his supply. That night, the two men were meeting so Caesar could front him two kilos of New York’s finest. What Caesar didn’t know was that Gerald was working with the cops, who were working with the Feds the whole time. Apparently he was hungrier than Caesar thought. What was supposed to be a simple drop had turned into Caesar getting busted. It was bad, really bad. But the only thing working in his favor was that Caesar didn’t have any of the drugs on him. That wasn’t how he conducted business, but the cops assumed he was walking around dirty and jumped the gun. They ran down on him but not before Caesar was able to get a few kicks to Gerald’s skull.
Caesar was angry at the fact that he had sullied what had been, until then, a foolproof operation. But he was even more upset at the thought of letting his old man down. He tried not to think about what Cassius would have to say to him if he ever got out of the hole. But Caesar could guess that his rank would be snatched. It was his fault that Gerald had even gotten into the fold. Caesar’s problem was that, although he dabbled in illegal things, he still wanted to feed the streets and present opportunities. That way of thinking had come back to bite him where the sun didn’t shine. He couldn’t help but feel like his father had been right with his own way of thinking. See, Cassius wanted to bleed the streets dry and not provide too many opportunities. He wanted to keep them starving so that there would always be a place for him. He always said that in order to separate the bottom from the top, there had to be a clear line that people knew not to cross.
The sound of keys jangling followed by the cell door opening caught Caesar’s attention. He glanced up and saw the officer who had acted strange earlier standing there, but he wasn’t alone. Caesar’s father was there as well. As he suspected, Cassius didn’t look too happy.
“Caesar King, it’s your lucky day. You’re free to go,” the officer told him.
One wrong decision can end everything.