Absolute Power

by Zari

Genres: Urban Fantasy

Synopsis

War may be bad for business, but sometimes, it’s necessary to move your business into the future.
In this tale of love and loyalty, jealousy, betrayal, and hate, Imani Mosley finds herself at the center of it all. In addition to restructuring her family’s legitimate luxury charter business, Imani is rebuilding their weapons- and drug-trafficking business.
Her brother, Hareem, who jealously thinks that he should be in charge, believes the way to expand is to eliminate his enemy, a mysterious woman known only as Diamond. Despite Imani’s warnings that his actions might start a war, Hareem sets
out to prove that he’s right. In an attempt to draw Diamond out, he goes hard at her dealers.
Imani’s world gets complicated when Brock Whitehall returns after serving a tenyear sentence for transporting assault weapons. Before he went to prison, her father had always seen Brock as his heir apparent. Now he’s back, looking for the
money he was promised. He has plans to move on once he gets the money, until he sees Imani. Now he wants it all.

Release date: June 28, 2022

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Imani Mosley got out of bed, picked up her robe from the accent bench, and stepped out on the balcony of her beachfront condo in Jacksonville Beach. As she put on her robe, Imani took a deep breath and inhaled the fresh air. She leaned against the rail and looked out at the full moon hanging over the Atlantic Ocean. Ever since she was a little girl enjoying walks with her grandparents, she had loved the beach—the sight and smells of the ocean, the gentle breeze. So even though she lived at her father, Orpheus Mosley’s house, this condo was Imani’s own personal retreat.

She would go there at times when she needed space or wanted to clear her head from the pressure of everything that was going on in her world, and on those days when her younger brother, Hareem, seemed to do a dance all over her last nerve.

“Which is damn near every day,” she said aloud and laughed, because on this day, it was all three.

Since moving to Jacksonville, Imani had been working to rebuild the family’s legitimate business, Luxury Private Charters, and return it to the unparalleled customer-focused private aviation and transportation service that it was before they had got run out of Miami three years ago. This day had definitely not been a good day in terms of the effort to improve the business’s quality of service.

During the day, Hareem had come to her at the office to complain about Benjamin Cameron, a dealer who worked for a woman who called herself Diamond. She was Hareem’s main competition for control of the Jacksonville drug market. He wanted either to push her out of the market or get her to buy from him.

“Problem is I don’t know who she is or how to get with her,” Hareem had told Imani when she was trying to deal with ten other things at once. “She’s like a ghost in them streets.”

Imani looked up from what she was doing. “Then don’t you think finding her should be your first priority?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Forget about Cameron. He’s the small fish and a waste of your time. I’ll put Lucius on finding Diamond, okay?”

Hareem nodded his head. “Cool,” he said. Even though he didn’t like Lucius Cunningham and thought that he was an asshole, Lucius did know people in Jacksonville, and he got results.

“Now get out. I have work to do,” Imani said, and Hareem left her office.

That was how most of her day had gone. She’d put out one fire and moved on to the next. And then Imani had had a date that evening, so this had been one of those days that had ended with her needing some space.

And on top of all that, the following day was an important one for her father. It was the day that weapons trafficker Brock Whitehall was getting out of federal prison in Atlanta after serving every day of a ten-year sentence for the unlawful possession of firearms and transporting assault weapons. Ten years that he had done for her father. So Imani not only wanted but truly needed to clear her head before tomorrow.

Part of her day had been spent arranging for a limousine to pick Brock up once he was released and take him to the airport. And when he arrived in Jacksonville, another limousine would pick him up from the airport and bring him to the house. Imani had even included a little something extra to occupy him while he waited for his flight to depart from Atlanta. Her father was excited that the day had finally come, and he was really looking forward to seeing Brock.

It is the only thing that went right today, she thought. “You ain’t fooling nobody,” she said aloud and laughed. “You’re just as excited about seeing Brock again as Daddy is.”

Imani was excited because before Brock went to prison, she’d had what she called a schoolgirl crush on him. It had developed the very day he started working for her father. By the time she’d met him when she was fifteen, Imani had had a grown woman’s body, complete with full breasts and a small waist, and she’d had an ass that men would follow and pay homage to. But despite all that body she’d carried, Brock had barely noticed her, and when he finally did, he’d treated her like the little girl that she was. By the time he’d gone to jail when she was seventeen, Brock Whitehall was the star of her fantasy life.

It was that tall, muscular body, that deep brown skin, and those penetrating eyes that had made her want him. But it was his deep baritone voice that she had sat on the steps and listened to while she’d run her finger up and down the seam of her jeans until her legs would shake. Imani used to imagine Brock sneaking into her bedroom when nobody was home. Then she would show him just how much of a woman, and not a little girl, she was. She would wrap her long legs around him while he dicked her down long and hard. Just the thought of it all these years later still had an effect on her.

She heard the sliding door behind her open, and soon she felt D’Mario’s arms around her waist. He nuzzled her neck and then kissed Imani on the cheek.

“Are you coming back to bed?” D’Mario asked as he glided his hands down Imani’s body. He was about to ease between her thighs when she turned in his arms and kissed him on the cheek.

“I am, but you’re not.” She kissed him on the other cheek and freed herself from his embrace. He had done what she needed him to do. “It’s time for you to go.”

“Stand up! Count!” the guard yelled, and the men on the block slowly began coming out of their cells to be counted.

Brock Whitehall got up from his bunk and stood for the count one last time. He was getting out that day, so he hadn’t really slept all night. He’d been out of bed and pacing back and forth since five in the morning.

“You might as well sit your ass down. Guard ain’t gonna open that door no sooner just ’cause you getting out today,” his cellmate told him.

“You’re right.”

So Brock sat down to wait, but sitting didn’t make him any less anxious. He had done his time, and now it was time to go.

“Morning, short-timer,” the guard said to Brock as he opened the door to the cell. Brock stepped into the corridor, and the guard passed by to continue his count.

“What you gonna do when you get out, Brock?” asked an inmate from the next cell.

“I’ll tell you what he gonna do!” an older inmate yelled out. “He’s gonna get a drink of fine liquor, fuck a couple a fine-ass bitches, kill him a couple a niggas, and come right back home.”

“That’s your plan, old man.” Brock laughed. “You’re institutionalized,” he added, and then he went back in his cell to wait to be released.

He lay down on his bunk and stared up at the bunk above him and asked himself the question. It was the same question he’d been asking himself for the past few years. Ever since his release date had begun getting closer and getting out had actually started to feel like something real, something he could actually feel and hold on to, Brock had been asking himself what he was going to do when he got out.

What he usually came up with was a list of things that he didn’t want to do and a list of reasons why he didn’t want to do those things when he got free. Brock had served ten years for the unlawful possession of firearms and for transporting assault weapons, so the one thing that he was absolutely sure of was that he didn’t want to do that or chance anything else that might lead to him getting locked up again.

“No more penitentiary-type chances,” were the words Brock said aloud as he got up from his bunk for the very last time. It was the promise that he’d made to himself, and he had every intention of keeping it. All that was left now was to be processed out, and Brock Whitehall would be a free man.

It was a little after nine that morning when the limousine that Imani had ordered for Brock parked in the parking lot at the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta. The driver wasn’t at all sure what time they were going to release Brock, but the flight to Jacksonville wasn’t until that afternoon, so he was prepared to wait. It was a little over an hour later when a man came out of the main building. The driver looked at the picture he had been given, got out of the limousine, and opened the back door.

“Brock Whitehall?”

“Yes,” Brock said, surprised but happy with the reception.

“My name is Anthony. Mr. Orpheus Mosley sends his regards and hopes that you’ll be comfortable on your ride to the airport.”

“Thank you, Anthony. I’m sure it will be a smooth ride,” Brock said and got in the limo, knowing that it didn’t matter if it was smooth or not as long as he was free.

As they pulled out of the prison parking lot, Brock noticed that there was a large envelope on the seat next to him. He picked it up and saw that it was addressed to him.

“What’s this, Anthony?” he asked, holding the envelope up and feeling the weight of it.

“I’m not sure, sir. It’s addressed to you.”

“I noticed,” Brock said. He opened it slowly and looked inside. He took the note from the envelope and looked at the picture attached to it. He smiled at the picture, and then he read the note.

A little something you might be interested in doing while you wait for your flight to depart.

The note had an address on it, and it was signed M.

Brock recognized the man in the picture and knew that he had a decision to make. He thought about the two promises that he had made to himself at different times in his life.

No more penitentiary-type chances, Brock thought and took a deep breath. That was the second promise.

“I need to make a quick stop, Anthony. It won’t take but a minute,” Brock said as he looked at the other items that were in the envelope.

“Not a problem, Mr. Whitehall. Where to?”

“Stone Mountain. And take your time, Anthony. I want to see the world.”

“Yes, sir. Surface streets and cruise, just the way I like it. You sit back, Mr. Whitehall, relax, and watch the honeys walk by. This the ATL. We thick with honeys walking the street, looking for something to get into,” Anthony said as he headed toward Memorial Drive.

As he enjoyed the sights on the forty-five-minute ride to Stone Mountain and marveled at how much the city had changed since he had last been there, Brock thought more about those two promises and tried to reconcile them. He decided that the earlier promise, the one that a younger man had made to himself, was unfinished business. Therefore, this promise had nothing to do with his more recent “No more penitentiary-type chances” promise to himself.

“Some promises have to be kept. Especially the ones you make to yourself,” Brock said softly as Anthony turned into a strip mall on Memorial Drive and parked in front of a barbershop. “I’ll be right back, Anthony. This will take only a minute.”

“Take your time, Mr. Whitehall. I’ll be right here,” Anthony said as Brock got out of the limo with the envelope in hand.

As he walked toward the barbershop, Brock took the gloves from the envelope and put them on. Then he stopped at the barbershop door, took the gun from the envelope, and then went inside. The shop wasn’t crowded: just a couple of guys waiting and one in the chair, getting a cut.

“Come in and have a seat,” the barber said without looking at Brock, as he was totally focused on cutting the perfect line.

“What’s up, Sonny?”

The barber looked up and saw Brock with his gun raised. “Oh shit,” he said resolutely and prepared to die.

“I thought you were dead,” Brock said and pulled the trigger.

His first shot struck Sonny in the head, and once his body hit the floor, Brock stepped up and shot him twice more before he turned and left the barbershop. He dropped the gun in the trash can outside of the barbershop, walked calmly to the limo, and got in.

“That didn’t take long,” Anthony said and pulled off.

“No. In and out, like a robbery.”

Sonny was the reason that Brock had lost ten years of his life, so he had to die.

“Just needed to keep a promise that I made to myself,” he added and then relaxed for the ride to the airport. He would get rid of the picture, the gloves, the note, and the envelope when he got there.

It was about that time that Orpheus Mosley, or Mr. O, as he was called, stood looking out the dining room window of his six-bedroom Ponte Vedra Beach home and thinking about the past. His father, Hughbert Mosley, had come to America from the island of Antigua in the early 1950s and had settled in New Orleans. He had got hired on to work on a fishing boat and had saved his money until he was able to buy a small boat of his own. He had just begun offering fishing charters when he met Lois Johnson, a very beautiful woman from Miami. She had come to New Orleans to visit with friends, and a charming young man her invited her on his boat. The two fell in love, and it wasn’t long before Hughbert moved his business to Miami, and soon after, they were married.

By the mid-1960s, Hughbert and Lois had three children, a boy, Orpheus, and two girls. At the time Hughbert was working as a janitor while trying to expand his fishing charter business. But he was working at a disadvantage, because not only was he limited to offering his charter services on the weekends, but potential clients often passed up his older, smaller boat in favor of the newer boats. And in those days, just being a black man came with disadvantages of its own.

“Good morning, Daddy,” Imani said when she came into the room.

“Morning, Imani. How are you today?” he asked as she walked up to him and kissed him on the cheek.

“I’m fine,” she said and then went to help herself to some eggplant hummus and bacon-asparagus crescent spirals from the buffet that their housekeeper, Kimberly, had arranged for the family and anyone who came to the house. There was also a cheesy ham, egg, and potato breakfast casserole; eggs Benedict; ham, mushroom, and cheese quiche; and Amish pancakes.

“What’s on your agenda today?” Mr. O asked.

You mean other than seeing Brock? “I have a meeting with the new company that I’m looking at to do maintenance on the air fleet, and then I need to see what I can do to resolve an issue that Hareem is having,” she said and sat down at the table. She looked up at him. “You’re not eating?”

“I’m not that hungry this morning. I’ll grab something later,” he said. He poured a cup of coffee before coming to sit down at the table with Imani. “What kind of problem is he having?”

“He’s still on this Diamond thing.”

Mr. O chuckled. “Does he know who she is yet?”

“That’s the problem. I told him that discovering her identity should be his first priority, and I put Lucius on finding her.” She put down her fork and reached for her father’s hand. “Why don’t you want to eat? Are you feeling all right, Daddy?” Imani asked. He was a diabetic, and he’d had a stroke years earlier, so she was worried about his health.

“You worry too much, Imani. I’m fine. Stronger than a whale.” He flexed his arm, but the truth was that he had been feeling a little tired lately. “I’m just not hungry, and I got a lot on my mind.” And he thought that was the reason for the mild heartburn he’d been suffering lately.

“Like what?” Imani giggled. “Other than Brock getting out today, I mean.”

“Just thinking about all this. What this family built, what we’re trying to do here.” He sipped his coffee. “Thinking about the future.”

“We certainly have come a long way from Granddaddy and that one little boat,” Imani said, and then she thought briefly about the times that she had got to spend with her grandparents when she was young. She could sit for hours with them, fascinated by the stories that they used to tell her. She loved to hear Grandma Lois tell the story of how she and her grandfather had met at the dock.

“Chile, let me tell you, your granddaddy was a fine, handsome man,” she would say as she began the story. She would tell her granddaughter that she didn’t even fish; in fact, the smell of fish made her nauseated. But she fell in love with Hughbert the night he took her for a romantic evening out on the water.

But Imani’s favorite stories were the ones that her grandfather used to tell her about how they had got started in the weapon-smuggling business. Her grandmother hadn’t approved of him telling young Imani those stories, but he had felt that it was a part of her heritage and she needed to know who she was and where she came from.

He had told Imani of one hot, muggy, overcast day in particular, when he’d sat on the deck of his boat, taking a nap. It had been a slow day, even for the white boys, as overcast days tended to be, so Hughbert had been surprised when a man kicked the bow of his boat.

“I want to charter a boat. You available?”

“I sure am,” Hughbert said, springing to his feet. “You ain’t worried about the weather turning bad on you?” he asked as he got the boat ready to shove off.

“I think it’s better fishing in cloudy weather. On days like this,” the man said as he came aboard. “Fish are more active in reduced sunlight, and that makes them much easier to catch.”

Eventually, the man introduced himself as Saulo Lorencio, and they set out to sea and spent the afternoon fishing for grouper. By the end of the day, when Hughbert was getting ready to head back to the dock, Saulo asked him to have a beer with him.

“I don’t drink when I’m working, sir.”

“Saulo. Please call me Saulo.” He pointed. “That’s a wise practice, my friend. But you do drink?”

“Yes, sir. I can hold my own, just not while I’m working.”

“Then you’re fired,” Saulo said and took out the money he owed for the day. He handed it to Hughbert. “Now you’re not working. I’ll pay you the same amount to take me back to the dock after we have a drink together.”

“Fair enough,” Hughbert said and broke out the beer.

As they talked over their beer, Hughbert told Saulo about his family and the goals that he’d set for himself. After that first beer, Saulo asked if Hughbert had anything stronger. Hughbert broke out the Scotch, and they drained the bottle before they headed back.

Early the following morning, Saulo was back with a full bottle of Scotch.

“Back again?” Hughbert said, smiling, because Saulo had already made this the best weekend he’d ever had, and now he was back.

“Yes, my friend, and I want to show you one of my favorite fishing spots. I promise you that you’ll have the biggest haul that you have ever seen,” Saulo said and poked Hughbert in the chest. “You are ready to change your life, aren’t you?”

Hughbert laughed. “I sure am,” he said, and once Saulo was aboard, they set out to sea, with Hughbert thinking that it must be one hell of a spot if it was going to change his life.

When they got to Saulo’s life-changing spot, Hughbert dropped anchor and broke out the fishing tackle. For the rest of the day, the two drank Scotch and engaged in good conversation but did not catch many fish. It was later in the day, as the sun began to go down, that Hughbert saw . . .