“I’m not one of God’s children, because I’m too much like the devil.”
– Mecca
Carter embraced Garza and patted the old man on the back as they said their final good-byes. It was the inevitable day that they both had orchestrated, and now Carter was leaving with his freedom, while Garza would be left behind.
“Enjoy those cigarettes, old man,” Carter joked as he pointed to the boxes that Garza had stacked up in the corner, courtesy of Carter.
“Visit the priest for me. Make sure you give him what he has coming to him, and please ensure that my name is the last one he hears,” Garza replied in a low tone.
Carter nodded, letting Garza know that no further words needed to be spoken.
The tier of prisoners erupted in loud, boisterous cheers as Carter made his last walk down their halls. They were giving him praise for beating his case. Carter took it all in stride, never appearing arrogant, and simply making his exit.
Carter emerged from the prison gates with a luxury Lincoln town car awaiting him. Mecca emerged from the back of the car, and the usual tension that dwelled between the halfbrothers was non-existent in this moment. Mecca was genuinely happy to see Carter free, because he knew that Carter was the only one who could reorganize The Cartel. Things would be business as usual under Carter’s reign.
“Good to see you, boy,” Mecca stated.
Carter slapped hands with Mecca and then embraced him tightly. “It’s good to see you too, fam. Real good,” Carter replied as he stepped inside of the car.
Carter gave the driver Miamor’s address. Now that his freedom had been reestablished, hers was the only company he wanted to keep upon his first night home. Her absence from his life had been slowly driving him insane.
He had sent Zyir by her place a few times, only to be told that she never answered the door and was nowhere to be found. He wanted to find out for himself, because he knew Miamor well. It was not in her character to leave him on stuck when he needed her most.
With the Garza Cartel connection being secured by Zyir, he knew that all of the pieces of his life were about to realign. She was the only thing missing. The center of his puzzle was lost and he had to find it, because without her, everything would be for nothing.
Mecca rode silently as he looked out of the window. The sooner this ol’ lovesick nigga get over this bitch, the easier it’s gon’ be on him. Ain’t no coming back from the place I sent her, he thought. A part of him just wanted to tell Carter the truth, but he knew that it would only complicate things. So, he allowed Carter to go on the dummy mission of searching for a girl he would never find.
“I had Zyir looking for Miamor while I was locked up. He said you told him she had skipped town,” Carter said as they pulled up to Miamor’s high-rise building.
“That’s what I heard. The bitch is bad news, bro. The way you were wife’n her before you went in, she should have been the one by your side through it all. She didn’t stand tall, my nigga. Before the ink on the indictment papers dried, she got ghost on you. Fuck her, fam. It ain’t worth the headache. You’re out, and it’s time to move forward.”
Mecca’s advice would have resounded loud and clear if had been any other woman besides Miamor, but she was like an infection of the heart. Letting go would not be so easy.
Knowing that Mecca was too callous to understand the connection he shared with Miamor, he changed the subject. “When Zyir arrives, it’s back to business. Until then, I’m going to lay low and get my mind right. I have a couple of loose ends to clip before the shipment arrives,” he said.
Mecca nodded. “Your car will be delivered tomorrow morning.”
Carter exited the car and made his way up to Miamor’s condo. Although he had a key to her place, he knocked politely, not wanting to intrude. When he didn’t get an answer, he opened the door anyway and stepped inside. He immediately knew that she had not been there lately. The smell of rotting food permeated through the condo, and she had twenty new messages on her answering machine. As he moved through the apartment, his suspicions arose.
Where are you, ma? he asked as he inventoried her bedroom. Her closets and dressers were still filled with clothes. He knew that she didn’t leave town, because she would never leave her possessions behind. As he collapsed onto her bed, his gut twisted in premonition. He had a feeling that her disappearance was not coincidental, and he was determined to find out exactly where she had gone.
But first, he had a message to deliver. Josiah Garza was about to reach out from behind the prison walls and seek vengeance for an unspeakable crime committed against him many years ago.
Leena’s words haunted Mecca: God is the only one who can take the burden away, the guilt. You need to talk to Him.
He knew that she was right. He had never been a religious man, but the crimes that he had committed against his own family were torturing him. If there really is a God, I need Him to take the pain away, Mecca thought.
Although he had no regrets about killing Miamor, he did hate himself because he knew that by doing so, he had taken away someone who had meant the world to his brother. Carter was all he had left, and he feared that if the truth were ever revealed, he would have no one. For the first time in his life, Mecca felt remorse for things that he had done that hurt other people.
Even he had to admit that if he had not murdered Miamor’s sister, then she would have never come after his family. He had lived his life recklessly, without regard for others. Any way he tried to spin the situation, everything, all of the chaos and misery, led back to him. He had been the spark of it all. Mecca was the root of all evil. Bullets had been the answer to all of his problems, and now all of the lives he had taken were coming back to haunt him. He could barely sleep at night because he was afraid to close his eyes. If he could make amends, he would, but there was no reversing the things he had done.
As he sat in front of the Catholic Church, he knew that there was only one thing left to do: give his burdens to God and hope that his soul was capable of being cleansed. He wasn’t a Catholic, but knew that he could never confess his wrongdoings to a black minister. His business would travel through Miami’s gossip grapevine for sure. So, he chose a place where he could be low key. Confessing to a white man in a white church, he was confident that the conversation would go no further than the four walls of the cathedral.
As he stepped out of the car, he felt his gun on his hip. As many people as he had murdered, it would be foolish to leave it behind. But he removed it from his waistline anyway and placed it beneath his car seat. Despite the fact that his conscience screamed for him to stay strapped, he did not want to carry the weapon inside of the church. He took a deep breath as he headed for the entrance, feeling as though his judgment day had arrived.
Carter walked side by side with the priest of St. Jude Catholic Church as he explained the concept of forgiveness and redemption. Carter had spent the past hour speaking with the old man at the request of Garza. Garza wanted to know if the priest displayed any remorse for the children he had betrayed in his past, and Carter followed his directions precisely. He was given specific instructions: “If the priest shows remorse, kill him quickly. If not, then a slow death will be better suited,” Garza had said.
“Have you ever done something that you are not proud of, Father?” Carter asked as they sat down near the front of the church.
“Son, no man is without sin. There are things that I have done in my past that God will hold me accountable for,” the priest replied as he became slightly emotional. “Some things that I have done I can never take back.”
“Father, I’m here to hold you accountable for those actions,” Carter stated in a low, serious tone. “Josiah Garza sent me.”
The old white man’s eyes widened in paralyzing fear as he allowed the emotion in his eyes to fall down his wrinkled cheeks. He knew exactly who Carter spoke of, and his mind flashed back to the acts of molestation he had committed against Garza when he was only a small boy. It was then that he realized that today would be his last day on this earth. The priest began to weep as he leaned forward, resting his head on Carter’s shoulder.
Carter didn’t speak as he closed his eyes. He removed his.38 pistol from the jacket of his Brooks Brothers suit and placed the barrel directly against the priest’s chest. He allowed the old man to weep on his shoulder as he pulled the trigger, sending a bullet piercing through his heart.
“Forgive me, Father,” Carter whispered.
Even the dull sound of the silenced bullet echoed slightly against the walls of the cathedral. Carter caught the old man’s body as gravity took it to the floor, and he laid him down to rest behind one of the church pews. The old man’s eyes stared up into space, and Carter closed them. It wasn’t a task that Carter had wanted to do, but he had given his word. The old man had it coming to him for all of the abuse he had inflicted on the young boys of his parish over the years.
The clanking sound of the doors opening startled Carter.
“Fuck,” he whispered, knowing that he could never make it to the back door without being seen. He made sure that the priest’s body was out of sight, and then slid into the confessional. He hoped that the intruder would come and go quickly, without throwing a wrench in his program. He had planned to execute the priest quietly, without interruption. Carter did not want to have to hurt an innocent bystander for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tension in his body was so high that he could hear his own heartbeat.
The other side of the confessional opened and Carter prepared himself to take another life. He saw the shadow of a man sit across from him on the other side of the lattice. Carter pointed the gun to the center of the shadow’s face, but the voice that he heard come from the other side stopped him from shooting. He froze as he listened to a confession that he was never meant to hear.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Mecca stated. “I don’t know how this usually works, but I’m just gonna speak my piece. I feel like this is the only place where I can admit the truth without being judged. I know I’m not a good man. I’ve known it all along… ever since I was a kid. There was always something evil living inside of me, but I kept it dormant for a long time, until the day I killed my twin brother. I have a lot of blood on my hands, Father, but the blood of my brother I can’t seem to wash away. It’s like I see it on my hands all day.” Mecca lowered his head into his hands. Even admitting his sins behind the protection of anonymity was hard.
“I murdered my brother out of rage, out of jealousy, and then I lied to my entire family to cover my tracks. It feels like I’ve been lying ever since. I murdered my older brother’s girlfriend, and I look him in the face every day, watching the hurt in his eyes. I pretend like I don’t know why it’s there, when in actuality I caused it. When he asks about her, I plant seeds in his head to make him think she left town, when I know I left her in a basement in pieces.
“The sick part about it is that I enjoyed it. I know only God has the power to judge, but I was that bitch’s judge, jury, and executioner. She took too much away from me to let her live.
“My father would be ashamed of me. He put family above all else, and all of his sons were built just like him-except for me. Money was a good nigga, Father.” Mecca choked up and stopped speaking momentarily to get himself together. “He was my other half.
“My older brother is so much like our pops that it scares me. I know I’m not one of God’s children, because I’m too much like the devil, but I’m tired, Father. I just want the demons in me to die. I want to be like my father-good.”
Carter sat on the other side of the booth with his finger wrapped tightly around the trigger of his pistol. Disbelief clouded his brain as he pictured Miamor’s face in his head. He pointed the gun directly at Mecca’s face. All he had to do was let off one shot to make things right. With one bullet, the deaths of Miamor and Monroe could be avenged, but the fact that Mecca was his brother made him hesitate. They both came from the same bloodline. They were the last of a dying breed. Carter wasn’t sure if he would be able to live with his decision if he chose to kill Mecca.
Carter put his hands to his face as he felt the hot tears threaten to fall. He was in utter turmoil just at the thought of Miamor’s death. She had been his life, his everything, the woman that he had wanted to marry. He had planned to spend an eternity with her, and in the blink of an eye, she had been taken away. Mecca had robbed him of his only chance in life to be truly happy. Miamor was his happiness.
Carter already knew of the basement that Mecca spoke of. It was The Cartel’s torture chamber, and he knew that Mecca had made her suffer a horrible death. He could hear Mecca crying as he poured out his sins, and Carter closed his eyes, allowing his own silent tears to fall. Both brothers sat on differences sides of the booth in turmoil.
The nigga deserve to die. All of this, this entire war started because of the lies he told. Everybody would still be alive if it wasn’t for Mecca. We broke the truce with the Haitians because we thought they were responsible for Money. All along it’s been him, Carter thought. His rage was so prevalent that it burned his insides, making him feel as though he would explode at any moment. Hearing Mecca’s confession and finally finding out the truth caused his stomach to turn violently. He was sick with grief. He had loved Mecca and trusted him.
How could he kill Money? He was our brother, Carter thought. How did I miss what was right in front of my face for so long? Mecca murdered Miamor.
Carter couldn’t grasp the fact that two people he had cared dearly for had been ripped from underneath him. It was unfathomable, and even though he had heard the words come directly from Mecca’s mouth, he still did not want to believe them. Carter remembered all of the lies that Mecca had told to cover his tracks as he watched Mecca rise and begin to walk away. It was up to him to end Mecca’s reign of terror, but he could not do it. Sitting underneath’s God’s watchful eye, all he could do was mourn the deaths of those he had lost at the hands of his only remaining sibling.
When Mecca exited the church, Carter stood to his feet and stumbled out of the confession booth. He stepped over the priest’s dead body and down the long aisle of the church. He palmed his gun tightly in his hand; the security of having it locked and loaded reassured him. He had no idea what his next move would be, but there was one thing that he was sure of: his brother, Mecca, could not be trusted.
The nigga has destroyed everything around him. It’ll only be a matter of time before he comes for me.
“What’s the matter, Zyir? You’re not used to riding in things this big?” Illiana asked as she lit a cigarette and blew the smoke into the air. “You’re going fifty-five miles per hour. The limit is seventy.”
Zyir sighed as he reached over and pulled the cigarette from between her lips. She had been talking nonstop since they left Mexico, and he was more than tired of hearing her talk slick out of the side of her neck.
“Hey!” she objected as she turned in her seat and looked at Zyir in irritation.
“I said no cigarettes,” Zyir replied as he kept his eyes fixed on the road in front of him. Driving from Mexico back to Miami was a four-day trip, and he was sure to go crazy with Illiana riding shotgun.
Illiana rolled her eyes and crossed her hands over her chest. She pointed at the highway sign and said, “Pull over at the next stop.”
“What the fuck for?” Zyir asked. “I can’t keep stopping every hour. We’ll never make it back at this rate.”
“I have to piss, so unless you want me to soak these fucking seats, pull over at the next stop,” Illiana replied bossily.
Zyir glared over at her. He had to bite his tongue to stop himself from barking on her. It was obvious that she was used to men catering to her every whim. This bitch is going to drive me crazy, Zyir thought as he pulled over at the next rest stop. “Hurry up,” he instructed.
Illiana purposefully took her time as she watched Zyir through the window of the truck stop. She enjoyed giving him a hard time. It was foreplay for her. Since the moment she had seen him, he held her attention. He was focused, powerful, and had a dominant personality that piqued her interest. It was she who had convinced Felipe to send her to Miami. It would be the perfect opportunity for her to get to know Zyir. She was a woman who did not understand the word no, and when she saw something she wanted, she went after it relentlessly. Zyir was in her line of sight and he did not even know it.
As she finally emerged from the rest stop, she noticed Zyir standing outside of the truck, waiting impatiently and looking around cautiously.
“Relax. Nobody’s watching, Zyir. You American boys are so paranoid. You watch too many gangster movies. My brother has moved shipments like this for years and nothing has ever gone wrong,” she stated as she stood directly in front of him. She was standing so closely that she could feel the imprint of his penis rubbing against her. The thin linen fabric of her sundress blew in the wind, and she made no effort to move.
Zyir smirked at her blatant attempts at flirtation. “Get in the car. We’re not stopping again,” Zyir stated in a firm tone as he pushed her gently away from him and hopped back into the truck.
Zyir got back onto the Interstate as Illiana reached for the radio to turn it up. Zyir immediately switched it back off.
“What, the radio isn’t allowed either?” Illiana asked. “I’m supposed to ride for days without any entertainment?”
“I can’t hear the sirens if the radio is blasting,” Zyir answered simply. “Read one of your magazines or something.”
“I guess I’ll have to entertain myself then,” she replied with a mischievous smile as she opened her legs and slipped her fingers up her dress. She played with her clit as one of her straps fell off her shoulder. Zyir peered over and almost slid off the road as he swerved in surprise.
“What are you doing?” he asked as he cleared his throat uncomfortably and regained control of the wheel.
“You told me to read or something. This is something,” she whispered. The look in her eyes radiated lust as she put on a one-woman show for Zyir.
He couldn’t help but to look over at the lovely sight as she closed her eyes and worked her fingers in and out of her wetness. He could see her juices flowing onto the seat.
“You can touch it, Zyir. I know you want to.” Everything about Illiana was inviting; even her words teased his ears as he struggled to keep his attention focused on the road. His manhood hardened at the visual Illiana was providing him with.
Illiana was a seductress, and she laughed slightly because she knew that Zyir was trying to resist the inevitable. She crawled across the front seat of the cabin and climbed into Zyir’s lap, straddling him.
“Yo, fuck is you doing, ma?” Zyir asked, his voice low with indecision as he continued to drive. “You gon’ make me crash this big mu’fucka.”
Illiana reached down and massaged his hard-on through his cargo shorts before removing it from its confinements. “Hmm,” she moaned as she kissed his neck.
The scent of her invaded his nostrils as he gave in to the temptation. She was too beautiful to resist, too enticing to turn away, and although he knew that mixing business with pleasure was for the foolish, Illiana was too hard to turn away. Just like all of the other men she had encountered, he could not tell her no.
“Let me pull over,” Zyir whispered as his breath caught in his throat when she slid down on his shaft. She was so tight that it felt as if his dick was in a glove specifically sized for him. “Damn, ma.”
“No, keep driving. Don’t stop,” Illiana moaned as she worked her hips in circles, enjoying how he filled her up perfectly, taking up all the space in her pussy. The girth of him took her breath away as she rode him slowly.
The ecstasy was so great that Zyir could not stop his eyes from closing. He was high off of the feeling that Illiana was giving him, and the harder she rode down on him, the faster he pushed the large Mack truck. The mixture of speed and sex tickled his loins as his adrenaline rushed him. He removed one hand from the steering wheel to grip her voluptuous behind.
“Ooh, Zy, cum with me, papi,” she urged as she felt the intensity building between her thighs. The sound of her voice in his ear as she rode him only heightened his lust for her. Zyir was ready to pull over and beat it up.
“Ride it faster, ma,” he coached.
Illiana began to work her vaginal muscles, tensing them around his thickness until Zyir could no longer take it. He lifted her off of him with one hand just as he exploded. He closed his eyes, and his mouth fell open as he rode the powerful wave of the orgasm.
“Zyir!” Illiana yelled as the truck veered into the next lane. She grabbed the steering wheel, laughing hysterically, until Zyir regained his composure.
“Is it too much to ask for you to pull over again at the next stop so I can clean up?” she asked.
Zyir nodded and gave her a rare smile, turning his usual serious face into the most handsome one she had ever seen
“Yeah, ma. Whatever you want. I got you,” he replied.
Carter stood outside of the house where Mecca had murdered Miamor. It wasn’t hard to find. The Cartel had used the dilapidated structure many times before. Things didn’t make sense to him. He did not understand why Mecca had taken such extreme measures.
What did she do to deserve this? he thought as he stepped foot inside. The stench of death invaded his nose instantly. It was almost too much for him to stomach.
Making his way down the basement steps, he saw the remnants of Miamor’s murder. The floor was painted with stains of her blood, and the entire room only gave him unwanted images of her death. He stood in the middle of the room as he absorbed it all. He could feel Miamor’s ghost lingering over him. It pained him, because he would never even get to lay her to rest properly.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered aloud as he turned to leave. As he looked back one last time, he noticed something on the floor. A necklace, one identical to the one that he wore, lay near the wooden chair. He walked over to it and picked up. His hands instinctively went to his own neck to touch the small cross that hung from it. It had been a gift from their father, and because they were the only two left, he knew that it was Mecca’s.
The walls of the basement began to close in on him as his grief threatened to swallow him whole. Not only had he lost his woman, but his brother as well. No matter how he chose to resolve the situation, things would never be the same. With a new connect, things were supposed to be looking up, but deceit was threatening to tear The Cartel apart from the inside out.
His cell phone rang just as he made his exit. He answered it immediately, already knowing that it was Zyir.
“Zy, I got to talk to you about Mecca.”
“I just got off the phone with him. We about to get this money, fam. Mecca’s on his way to the warehouse. Meet me there.”
“I’m on my way, but do me a favor, Zyir. Don’t trust Mecca. Be careful around him. I’ll explain later,” Carter replied in a tone of warning.
“No explanation needed. It wasn’t a day that I didn’t move carefully around him anyway, fam. A nigga with a body count like that you gotta watch, nah mean?”
Carter walked into the warehouse to the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Three thousand kilos of cocaine sat lined neatly side by side, one on top of the other, composing a wall of riches before him. The math was easy to do. Flipping that many birds meant that they were about to be stupid rich.
“Yeah, boy, you can crack a smile. No need to be the boss at all times,” Zyir joked as he slapped hands with Carter and embraced him briefly. He missed Mecca with the introductions. He had no desire to show his brother love when all he was feeling in his heart was hate.
“We’re back. I can put this work out a.s.a.p. Let niggas know the drought is over,” Mecca stated.
Carter stared at Mecca for a long time and found it hard to conceal his rage. Fire burned in his eyes, and even the stature of his presence was stiff, cold, as if Mecca were the enemy.
“What’s good, Carter? You a’ight?” Mecca asked. He had no idea that his secret was out, but as he looked in his older sibling’s eyes, he felt that the times of treachery were headed his way.
“Everything’s good. Just thinking about how niggas might want to steer clear of stepping on my toes. I made the mistake of trusting Ace too much. It’s always the closest niggas to you that do the most harm,” Carter replied while never averting Mecca’s gaze.
“Nah, baby, you don’t put in work. You just sit back and drive this ship. Take us to the money like only you can do. Me and Zy can handle the beef. All snake-ass niggas have been taken care of,” Mecca replied.
“It’s always one left hiding in the grass,” Carter responded.
The tension in the room was high and put Mecca slightly on edge. He felt as if he were staring into the eyes of his father. It felt like Carter was looking straight through him, and the only other man who had ever been able to make him feel so transparent was their father.
Zyir was silent because he knew Carter well. He was speaking in codes, and Mecca didn’t even have a clue that the beef Carter had was with him.
Larcenous-ass nigga, Carter thought.
Zyir pulled two keys from his pocket and handed one to both men. “I had the locks changed. Only the three of us have access to this building, so each and every bird should always be accounted for,” Zyir stated. “Felipe sent his sister Illiana back to Miami with me. She’s here to protect their investment… a set of eyes for the Garza Cartel.”
“Where is she now?” Carter asked.
“I took her to my crib. I didn’t know if you wanted her to know the location of the warehouse. Three thousand joints are too many to take any risks,” Zyir stated.
“You can show her, and only her, where we keep ‘em,” Carter stated. “She doesn’t need a key, however. If the Mexicans want her here to make sure everything is moving right, then we have nothing to hide from them. It’ll show good faith.”
Carter began to walk away, and Zyir stated, “I know we gon’ celebrate tonight. This is a power move we’re making.”
Carter turned around and shook his head as he looked at Mecca. Disappointment, anger, sadness… it all consumed him simultaneously. Without responding, Carter made his exit. He had thought when he emerged from prison that all of his problems would be behind him, but now the dilemmas in his life seemed even more prevalent than before.
“Fuck is up with him?” Mecca stated.
Zyir feigned ignorance and replied, “I don’t know, but I’d hate to be a problem of his. Just because he don’t talk about it, don’t mean he ain’t about it, nah mean? Carter ain’t about playing gangster. He don’t got to be all extra in order to get his point across. That macho shit is for dumb niggas, and dumb mu’fuckas are the easiest to clip.”
Zyir sat in the apartment like a seasoned chemist as he took it back to his humble roots, cooking dope with ten naked women around him. The titties and ass that were on display were of no interest to him. It only ensured that nobody got sticky fingers. Theft was impossible when you wore no clothes to stash the product. The Cartel took to the streets like never before, and in addition to selling the bricks wholesale, they had chosen to break down three hundred of them.
Zyir was a perfectionist when it came to stretching cocaine, and he was more than willing to put in the work to turn three hundred into six hundred, with the help of the lovely ladies around him. While Mecca thought he was above serving fiends, Zyir wasn’t for turning away a single dollar. He loved money, and while Mecca had the wholesale market covered, Zyir was taking over the streets. He kept it hood and set up his operation on every inner city block in Dade County.
He wasn’t about the gunplay, because he did not need any unnecessary attention from the boys in blue, so instead of forcing his competition out, he played fair and simply offered them an opportunity to work for him. His affiliation with The Cartel put stars in niggas’ eyes and they instantly jumped at the chance just to be down by association. Zyir had so many hustlers working for him that he never personally saw the blocks. He simply organized the operation, supplied the dope, and sat back as the money piled in. Nobody caused conflicts because everybody was eating.
Miami had never seen a movement like The Cartel’s. It was calculated carefully and executed with efficiency. It was all about the money, and the more they accumulated, the more the streets began to forget the troubles that had plagued them surrounding the law.
The Cartel was back and better than ever. They had learned from their mistakes, and this time what they were building was untouchable. The only thing that could tear down their empire was self-destruction.