Carl Weber's Kingpins: Dallas

Book 10: Kingpins

by Treasure Hernandez

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

Young and naive, Tiara Rogers learns the hard way what happens when you are green in the game. She has everything a girl could ever want, except a normal life. Not understanding that being the daughter of Dallas, Texas kingpin makes her a walking target, she does everything she can to defy her father, including losing her virginity when she falls hard for the charm of a boy she barely knows. She’s unaware of the boy’s true plans for her, and truths soon turn to deadly lies. Before she knows it, she is left alone, with nowhere to go. She is tossed into a world that she knows nothing about, and the cruelties are unimaginable. Lost in the underworld, with no friends or family, she realizes that her father hadn't done her any favors by keeping her sheltered. He came up from the mud, and she wishes he would have shown her how messy it could get. But now it is too late. With his empire up for grabs, it turns the people that she once trusted into bloodthirsty hounds. Will she be able to reclaim what is rightfully hers, or will she be too broken to even stand up on her own two feet? Follow Treasure Hernandez as she gives you the heartwrenching story of love . . . and blood.

Release date: March 27, 2018

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

“Death is only the beginning,” an unforgiving voice spoke softly.

The lights inside of an empty two-car garage were dimmed, and the smell of old oil invaded the nostrils of a man sitting bound to a wooden chair. Five men stood around him like a pack of hungry wolves, their eyes begging him to do something stupid, although the only thing that he could do was quiver and look hopeless. He had already tried to plead his innocence, but his words fell on deaf and uncaring ears. There were footsteps on his right, and in seconds, there was a familiar figure standing in front of him. He looked into the eyes of the muscular man before him and felt that he was staring at the Grim Reaper himself.

Blake Rogers stood directly in front of the terrified man with murder in his eyes. The only thing separating the two of them was a table. On top of that table was a silver tray that held two items: a syringe and a meat cleaver.

“I trusted you, Vincent,” Blake spoke again. “You are my cousin, but I loved you like a brother. Why would you steal from me? From my office? You must have thought by taking the security footage from my home, your tracks would be covered. Are you stupid, nigga?”

Blake had never felt more betrayed in his life. Not only was he missing a grand total of $150,000 from his home safe, but the offender was none other than his own flesh and blood. One of his most trusted workers informed him that he saw Vincent take the money with his own eyes. He claimed that the only reason he did not stop him was because Vincent said that he was following Blake’s orders shortly after Vincent left town for a few days, and Blake hadn’t heard from him.

This nigg knows how I get down. He musta been smoking something to pull this shit.

As Blake spoke, he grabbed the syringe and thumped the needle with the middle finger in his right hand. Vincent, whose mouth was duct taped shut, tried to scream, but the sound was muffled. Seeing the fury in Blake’s eyes, Vincent fought hard against his restraints and made silent pleas with his eyes. Blake laughed out loud at the sound Vincent was making.

“Whose idea was the duct tape?” he asked with a thick Southern accent. He looked around at the circle of men, and his eyes fell on the one, Diablo, who had come forth with the news of the betrayal. He nodded his approval. “Good job. Can’t have all of Texas hearing the cries of this scumbag, can we?” Blake said, thumping the needle with his finger. “You have been working with me for years, Vincent. Years! You’ve seen firsthand what happens to those who cross me. You have assisted with it! You are the only person who knew the combination to the safe, and Diablo here says he saw you taking the money out from my safe with a suitcase.”

Vincent’s eyes opened even wider, and he whipped his head so that he could face Diablo, who, in turn, smirked at him. His brow furrowed, and he shook his head “No,” trying to plead his case, but the duct tape over his mouth prevented his speech. He fought so hard against the ropes around his arms and ankles that the chair shook back and forth. Finally, Vincent gave up, knowing that fighting was no use. There was no point in trying to plead for his innocence because Blake was too far past the point of reason. Instead, he said a silent prayer that God would have mercy on Diablo’s soul.

“This, my dear cousin . . .” Blake nodded his head toward the needle that he was holding. He spoke so icily that he once again demanded Vincent’s attention, “is rat poison. I want you to witness and feel every horrific thing that I’m about to do to your body.”

Without a warning, Blake reached over the table, jabbed the needle into Vincent’s neck, and released the poison into his body. It didn’t take too long for Vincent to start feeling the effects of it coursing through his veins. He began to lose the ability to move his body parts. Within minutes, the only thing Vincent was able to move were his eyes, and Blake set the syringe down to grab the meat cleaver. His anger got the best of him, and he kicked the table between them out of the way. With a loud clank, the silver tray hit the ground, and Blake got in Vincent’s face.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out that you’ve been stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from me for years? After Diablo brought this shit to my attention, I had my accountant check all of my numbers—and lo and behold, it turns out that almost half a million dollars has gone missing from right under my nose! I never questioned giving you any of the codes to any of my safes or access to any of my bank accounts because I trusted you. We were raised like brothers!”

Blake brought the cleaver down so hard on Vincent’s knee that everyone in the garage heard the bone crack upon impact. Vincent had no choice but to stomach the pain. He clenched his eyes shut, and a pained groan erupted from his throat. When he opened his eyes, tears spilled from them, and they fell on his limp leg. Blake hit the broken bone again with just as much force, and Vincent screamed like a tortured animal through his sealed lips trying to catch his breath. Blake backed away and went to the shelve in the garage that had all of the tools. Vincent used that time to gather his wits and glare once more at Diablo. He couldn’t believe this was happening. His chest was heaving, and he wanted to do nothing but to pass out, although he was sure Blake wouldn’t allow that. What had just started was only the beginning of Blake’s torture. He knew how his cousin operated. He was able to take another breath just before he heard the sound of chains dragging on the ground. He looked up in time to see a metal chain being hurdled toward his face right before he felt the pain.

Unknown to all of the men in the garage, their every move was being watched by a set of tiny eyes. Nine-year-old Tiara Rogers stared at the horrendous act her father was performing from behind a tall trash bin. Her lips quivered and shook as she bit down to keep her whimper from coming up. She had been asleep for a while until she had heard suspicious sounds coming from the garage of their raised two-story, ranch-style, five-bedroom home. It hadn’t been the first time she had heard noises of pain and suffering coming from the garage, but that night, something made her get up from the bed. Her mother would have a fit if she knew that her baby girl was sneaking around spying, which was why Tiara knew she would have to be as silent and quick as possible. She swore that her mother had eyes in the back of her head and bionic hearing.

Tiara wrapped the silk robe that her grandmother had given her for her last birthday around her petite body and hurried out of her room. When she passed her parents’ bedroom, she peeked in to see what her mother was doing, but quickly saw that she was fast asleep with plugs positioned snugly in her ears. Tiara knew what that meant. Whenever her father thought that it might get a little noisy at night, he told her mother to wear them to sleep. Knowing that the coast was clear, Tiara walked fast through the house until she got to the spacious kitchen of their home. There, the door leading to the garage was open just a slit, enough for her to slide through the opening without having to touch it and be seen. She ducked down and got on all fours so that she could crawl behind the family’s tall black garbage bin. The horrible smell suddenly reminded her that she was supposed to take it to the curb. The trash men would be there in the wee hours of the morning. Tiara made a mental note to do that before her mother found out that she had forgotten to do one of her chores.

Tiara heard her father speaking to her cousin Vincent, and her heart beat fast at the accusations she was hearing being directed at him. She peeked around the bin to look at the gruesome scene beginning to unravel itself, and she looked helplessly at Vincent, who she loved dearly, almost as much as she loved her own father.

“Stop, Daddy,” Tiara whispered to herself trying to will her father to stop the attack, but he did the exact opposite.

Tiara put her shaking fingers to her mouth trying to decide what to do. She knew that if she made her presence known, she would be in big trouble with her father. But he needed to know that the man who had betrayed his trust was indeed in the garage, but it was not the man who he had strapped to the chair. Tiara knew for a fact that it was not Vincent who had stolen Blake’s money from the safe in his office. She remembered the day perfectly.

She was dropped off early from soccer practice by one of the neighboring parents and nobody important was home yet, only the maids. They were doing what they always did when they thought nobody was home. . . standing in the backyard smoking marijuana. Tiara was thrilled to have the house to herself. That meant she could sneak some ice cream and watch an R-rated movie before her parents arrived home. As she was sitting in front of the sixty-inch floor television in the family room of the home her father had built from the ground up, she heard footsteps coming from upstairs. Tiara had never been the type to run from danger. She was the type of kid to go check out what was going on. Standing up, she set her almost-empty bowl of cookies-n-cream to the side and wiped her hands off on her soccer shorts. Walking to the stairs, she slowly crept and made her way up. As she got closer to the top steps, she stretched her neck to see who was cutting into her time. When she finally made it to the second level, the noises got louder and more distinct. They were coming from her father’s office, and Tiara knew that her father wasn’t there. She also knew that nobody was allowed in her father’s office—only her cousin, who she viewed more as an uncle.

“Cousin Vincent?” Tiara’s high-pitched voice called, assuming that it was him.

She pushed the door open to see who exactly it was in the office, but as she pushed, someone pulled. Tiara was shocked at the face she saw on the other side of the door. It wasn’t her father or Vincent. It was another one of Blake’s trusted hands, Diablo. Tiara looked at him with a confused look frozen on her young and innocent face. He looked just as shocked to see her as she was to see him, but he quickly recovered.

“Lo siento mucho! I’m so sorry, Princess,” he flashed her a charming smile. “I did not know anyone would be home.”

“What are you doing in my dad’s office?” Tiara asked, her eyes finally landing on the black bag hanging from Diablo’s shoulder. It was slightly open, and Tiara was able to peer inside and see what was there. Her eyes widened.

Diablo noticed her alarm and thought fast. “Your father and I were out in the . . . um,” he cleared his throat. “In the field, and he needed me to run here and grab a few things for him. His hands are tied up at the moment. We all know how busy your father gets.” He gave a small laugh.

“He’s waiting for me, and I don’t want to keep him waiting.” He stepped out of the office and shut the locked door back before Tiara could get a good look at what was behind him. She did, however, notice that he had a small disk in his hand. “Would you like me to tell him you are home alone?”

Tiara quickly forgot her suspicions and shook her head fast. “No, that’s OK,” she said. “My mom should be home soon.”

With that, Diablo planted a kiss to her forehead and walked past her to the steps and headed for the front door.

“See you at dinner on Sunday, Princess!” He called to her over his shoulder right before the door slammed shut.

After that, Tiara put the incident to the back of her mind, but that night as she was perched behind the stinky trash, the images of Diablo leaving Blake’s office with a bag full of cash just didn’t add up. Tiara felt tears falling down her already beautiful face when she saw how helpless her cousin was. She understood why Diablo stood there looking like he had won the lottery, and she also knew why he had given her father the idea to tape his mouth shut. It wasn’t so that Texas couldn’t hear his cries. It was so that he couldn’t tell who the culprit really was. Tiara watched her father hit Vincent a few more times, but soon, the blood got to be too much for her to bear.

“Daddy!” she yelled and jumped up from behind the trash can in the corner. “Stop it!”

Blake was so shocked to hear Tiara’s voice, the familiar voice of his princess, that he stopped his attack on Vincent’s face in mid-whip. Turning his head, he saw his beautiful baby girl standing behind him with tear streaks on her face. The face that mirrored his exactly. The men surrounding Vincent didn’t miss a beat. They stood in front of Vincent in hopes to shield her eyes from seeing the shape that he was in, but it was too late. She had already seen enough, and the horrified look in her eyes told Blake just that.

“Tiara,” Blake said, shaking his head, “what are you doing out of bed, sweetheart?”

“I heard noises,” Tiara said. “I heard screams . . . I heard . . . Oh, Daddy, what are you doing to Vincent?”

Blake turned his head back to Vincent, whose head was nodding as he tried to stay conscious. Blake could lie to his child all he wanted, but unlike most kids her age, Tiara wasn’t stupid.

“This is what happens to anyone who betrays your father,” he told her. “Cousin Vincent has been a very bad man, baby. And now, he has to pay the cost. But you know you are not supposed to be out of bed once it’s bedtime. Take her back to her room.” He motioned for one of the men to escort Tiara back to her bedroom.

Tiara backed away from the advancing man, and her bare foot stepped into something cold and wet. She looked down and saw that she was standing in a small puddle of blood on the concrete floor. She knew that if she didn’t speak her peace right now, her innocent cousin would be dead.

“Daddy, it wasn’t Cousin Vincent!” Tiara looked up and glared at Diablo, who looked like he had just seen a ghost.

“Somebody get her to bed,” Diablo said, hoping that someone would listen to him and not her. “Now!”

Tiara snatched away from her father’s henchmen.

“It wasn’t Vincent, Daddy!” she had started to sob uncontrollably. “The other day, Mrs. Sanchez dropped me off early from soccer practice, and I saw Diablo coming from your office with a bag of money, Daddy! You have to believe me!”

Tiara ran past the men to a bloody Vincent and stood with her arms spread wide. “You can’t hurt him anymore!” she screamed. “I won’t let you!”

Blake stood there in pure shock and pulled his pistol from his waist. The murderous stare that had once been on Vincent was now targeted to Diablo.

“Is this true?”

Diablo’s voice betrayed him when he tried to answer, and nothing came out. His plan had just unfolded right before his eyes, and he knew that the cat was out of the bag. He didn’t know what to say.

“Boss, I—” he started, but Blake silenced that with one shot to his knee.

Diablo dropped instantly to the ground crying in agony. The pain from the bullet and the impact from the fall knocked the wind out of him, and he rolled over onto his back trying to nurse his knee.

“So you would have me kill my own blood in rage?” Blake’s voice was lethal. “Behind your treacherous acts of betrayal?”

Blake shot Diablo’s other knee, and his screams caused Tiara to jump. Seeing this, Blake went to Diablo and kicked him in his face.

“Shut the fuck up,” he said. “You are scaring my daughter. Get this son of a bitch out of here. Hog-tie him to the heaviest weight you can find and throw him into a river.”

“And his family, boss?”

“Fuck his family,” Blake said. “Make sure they are removed from my property and my neighborhood by morning.”

Blake looked back at Tiara, who was touching Vincent’s caramel cheek gently. She removed the tape from his mouth as softly as her delicate nine-year-old fingers could, but it still stung.

“Sorry, Cousin,” she whispered when he jumped slightly.

“Thank you,” Vincent’s voice was barely audible and was drenched with pain. “Thank you so much.”

“Daddy,” Tiara told her father, “he needs to go to the hospital. You messed him up pretty good.”

Blake walked over to his favorite cousin with regret and sorrow weighing heavily on his chest. He took his cousin’s bloody hand, but before he could speak, he felt Vincent squeeze.

“N—no apology needed,” Vincent smiled awkwardly up at Blake through bloody, busted lips. “A boss first. J—just get me to the hospital.”

“I will make this up to you,” Blake promised. “You will have every dime of what you were accused of stealing waiting for you in your bank account when you recover from this.”

He wasn’t sure if Vincent had heard him or not because he chose that moment to pass out. But it didn’t matter because Blake would make good on his word. Blake’s men cut Vincent free and gently carried him out of the garage. Blake would pay whatever the cost to get Vincent back in shape. He should have known that he would never cross him like that. Diablo was closest to Vincent when it came to work. He had access to almost as much knowledge on Blake’s operation as Vincent; therefore, he must have hacked into some information to steal the money, and it must have been going on for years. Blake made a mental note to open up all new accounts and change the combinations to all of his locks.

“You almost killed him, Daddy!” Tiara’s voice interrupted Blake’s thoughts. “You almost killed Vincent!”

Blake gripped Tiara’s shoulders and knelt down so that they were at eye level. He sighed. “My child, I never wanted you to see any of this, but since you have, I want to be all the way honest with you. This may or may not be the last time you see such an act. One day you will understand, just as Vincent understands what has happened her. . .