Carl Weber's Kingpins: Harlem

by C.N. Phillips

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

Kleigh never wanted Tron to fall in love with her, or vice versa. She isn't who he thinks she is, but how can she tell him that the kingpin he is gunning for, Kevin "Klax" Turner, is her big brother? She is the water to his fire and the calm to his storm. Never in his 26 years of life did Tron think he would find his equal, but Kleigh is exactly that. Her beauty speaks to his eyes, while her mind whispers to his soul. He can't imagine anybody else wearing the crown as queen after he kills the king of Harlem and takes over the throne. When push comes to shove and her secret comes to light, Kleigh is forced to pick a side. That choice is what ignites the fire to a war of savages...a fire that can only be put out by blood.

Release date: January 28, 2020

Publisher: Recorded Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Klax Turner hated when things didn’t go as planned. When it came to business, he was a very particular man. He liked things to go smoothly so that they didn’t have to get ugly. But it seemed that somebody was dead set on forcing his hand. In a short period of time, someone had ordered hits on two of Klax’s stash spots. The gunmen didn’t make it into Harlem; nobody ever made it into Harlem. And if they did, they didn’t make it very far. It was too easy to tell if you didn’t belong there. However, over $100,000 of cash and cocaine were stolen from a storage unit in the Bronx. There was only one other person who knew about the storage unit, and that was the person who was in charge of watching it. Big Tony.

Big Tony had worked for Klax’s father, Kameron Turner, before his untimely death. He was ten years older than Klax and had worked his way up in rank during his service. He’d gone from running errands to running every corner in the Bronx. There had never been a problem for years, and Big Tony was a hardworking man, but something was off. Klax was supposed to be in a meeting early that morning for a property that he was about to acquire, but instead, he was on his way to figure out why Big Tony had slacked at his post. He drove his silver G-Wagen through the morning New York traffic until he finally made it to his destination. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up when he parked his car in Big Tony’s driveway. Klax smoothed down the Saint Laurent button-up he was wearing as he looked around the neighborhood. The large houses were about twenty feet away from each other, and it seemed as if everyone had already left for the morning. Other than the cold wind blowing and a few cars pulling out of their driveways, it was quiet. Klax stepped out of the truck and went to the front door of the house.

Ding, dong!

After Klax rang the doorbell, Ransom, one of Big Tony’s workers, opened the door. He stood tall but straightened up even more when he saw Klax. He nodded his head in respect and backed out of the way so that Klax could enter.

“Where’s your boss?” Klax asked, standing in the foyer of the house.

“He’s in the back. Follow me,” Ransom said and started to walk, assuming Klax would follow.

“How about you tell him to meet me in the front room,” Klax suggested and pointed at the all-white room to the right of them. “I’ll wait.”

“Yes sir,” Ransom said and left.

Klax didn’t bother looking around at anything that wasn’t obvious to the eye in the house. He walked, as if he owned the place, to the white couch in the sitting room and patiently waited. Big Tony knew that he hated waiting, so it was a good thing he showed his face soon after.

“Klax!” Big Tony said loudly entering the room resembling Barney in the purple crewneck shirt he wore.

Klax stood up to quickly shake Big Tony’s hand and pull him into an embrace. Then he retook his seat while Big Tony sat in a chair across from him. Goons positioned themselves in a half circle behind Big Tony’s seat and stood ready in case anything happened.

“We usually only have to meet face-to-face once a month, Tony,” Klax said. “There’s something wrong with this picture.”

“Trust me, Klax. I have had motherfuckas scouring the streets looking for the sons of bitches that stole from you.”

“Can you run by me exactly what happened again?”

“I think somebody followed me when I went to go check on the storage, because the day it happened, I had just left from there.”

“Is that right?” Klax said, leaning back in his seat.

“Yeah, man,” Big Tony said sincerely. “I’m going to get your shit back on everything. And when I catch whoever it is, they’re gonna pay.”

“I hope so,” Klax said, looking Big Tony in the eye. “And just so we’re on the same page, exactly how are you going to make them pay for stealing from me?”

“I’m going to chain his ankle to the back of my truck and go for a little ride,” Big Tony said without missing a beat.

“I like that,” Klax said with an approving nod. “Get on it.”

He stood up from his seat like he was about to leave, but stopped abruptly like he forgot something.

“You good, G?” Big Tony asked.

“Yeah, I just almost completely forgot what I came here for. Ransom, will you go to my trunk and bring me what’s inside,” Klax asked, and without hesitation, Ransom went outside to Klax’s car. “I have a package for you. I like you, Tony; you’re ambitious. You want more work, don’t you?”

“More work?” Big Tony inquired, and a happy smile spread across his face. “Boss, I just got promoted, and we’re pushing more keys a week than we should already.”

“Can’t handle it?”

“Hell yeah, I can handle it. I just am gonna need some more territory. You know I’ve been asking you about Harlem for a long time now.”

“And the answer will be the same every time. The shit I have going in Harlem is untouchable right now, but it doesn’t surprise me that you bring up Harlem right now.”

“And why is that?” Big Tony said evenly.

At that time, Big Tony’s goon had returned with what Klax had sent him outside to get. He wore a shocked look on his face because what they all assumed was a real package wasn’t at all. Half walking and half being dragged by the goon was a man who was sporting two swollen eyes and a bloodied face. His mouth was covered with duct tape, and his wrists were tied together. The second the man saw Klax. He bucked and tried to run away, but couldn’t. Klax glanced casually at him and then turned back to Big Tony, who was wearing an expression of shock on his face.

“Drop him right here,” Klax said, pointing at a spot near his feet.

The goon did as he was told and went back to his post. The man on the ground cowered and kept his eyes on the floor he was staining with his blood. Klax fought the urge to kick him in the side of his face, but only because he needed him conscious.

“W-what’s going on here?” Big Tony finally said after the surprise wore off. “You can’t just be pulling niggas out of your trunk in front of my house!”

“Why can’t I?” Klax asked. “I think you’ve forgotten who I am, haven’t you?”

“Nah, Klax,” Big Tony said with his eyes shifting from Klax to the man on the ground in front of him.

“I think you have. You know, when you first told me about the robbery, I thought to myself, ‘This shit had to have been plotted.’ But who could be targeting me?”

“Maybe it was those boys from upstate,” Big Tony offered. “Raul and them. You know they feel as if you stole their clientele.”

“I thought that too at first, but Raul makes too much money with my product; that, and the fact that he wouldn’t stand a fighting chance. He would never step to me. So, the more I thought about it, I concluded that because there were two hits, there is definitely someone gunning for me. But this Bronx hit was too specific. Nobody knew about that storage . . . except you.”

“Boss, are you saying I would rob you?”

“I’m saying that the storage wasn’t the target. You were. The things taken from me were just the icing on the cake.”

“You can’t really think I would lie to you, Klax. Me and your old man go way back in the day!”

“I didn’t have to. Our friend here told me everything that I needed to know,” Klax said gesturing to the man on the ground. “You may not recognize him with all those knots on his head.”

Big Tony stared hard at the man on the ground, and Klax watched him suddenly recognize the man.

“Yeah, I thought he would be familiar to you,” Klax said. “My people caught him bragging around the city about the big lick he’d just hit. They brought him to me, and you wouldn’t believe the song this little birdie sang. Now, tell me if this is fact or fiction, a’ight? So, this nigga here tells me that he followed you to the storage to offer you a deal, not to rob me. He said that he told you if you helped his boss take me down, then you could run the Bronx and Harlem. He said that you gave them my money and drugs to show ‘good faith.’”

Big Tony didn’t say anything; instead, he just glared at Klax when he continued speaking. “I’ll take your silence as I’m right. A’ight. But just tell me this, you really gave this nigga my shit to show good faith?”

“Fuck you,” Big Tony finally said, realizing his game was blown. “I don’t know what Kam was thinking of leaving his empire to you anyway. You ain’t shit but a little boy in this game, Klax. Give it up. It’s time for someone new to run the game.”

“And I take it that someone is you?” Klax asked, genuinely amused.

“Yeah, nigga!” Big Tony’s deep voice said loudly. “I don’t know why you’re sitting over there thinking shit is funny. I’ve been in the game since you were still counting with your fingers. I think it’s about time I run the streets. You come in here tryna make me shake in my Louboutins with some nigga you beat up like I’m supposed to be scared or something. All you niggas have shown me is that you’re weak and stupid. Now you tell me something, Klax. Did you really think you could come in here alone and just walk out?” Big Tony’s lips spread into a menacing smile, and he gave a hearty laugh as he motioned to his goons. “Kill this nigga.”

He leaned back and waited to hear the gunshots that Klax knew never were going to come. When Big Tony realized that Klax wasn’t lying in a pool of his own blood, he turned his head and was met with another surprise. He had five guns pointed at him, and that caused him to jump up from his seat, angry.

“What the fuck is this?” he shouted at them. “Where is your loyalty? You work for me!”

“And you work for me. Which means they work for me too,” Klax reminded Big Tony. “They would never raise their guns to me. Now, that’s loyalty. Something that you don’t have. And because of that, you’ve been discharged from your position.”

“Nigga, you can’t discharge me! I built the Bronx! Can’t nobody run this shit like me—”

Pfft!

Big Tony was cut short when his head suddenly snapped viciously back. The bullet from Klax’s gun caught him in the middle of the forehead. The man on the floor jumped hard when Big Tony’s brains sprayed on his furniture, and his body fell to the ground. He was dead.

“I trust that one of you will get this cleaned up,” Klax said to the goons, who nodded quickly. “Good.”

Klax ignored Big Tony’s dead body and knelt in front of the terrified man. He snatched the duct tape from his mouth and dropped it on the floor. The man had had so much heart when he was first snatched up. It took awhile to break him down, but soon, he found out that underneath Klax’s charming exterior, there was a monster living inside. He told Klax everything he needed to know except one thing.

“Who sent you?” Klax demanded.

“I already told you,” the man breathed. “I can’t tell you.”

“That’s not an answer. You have three seconds to tell me who sent you, or else you end up like our friend here.”

“I told you as much as I can,” the man said and stared Klax in the eyes. He held the look of a man who had already accepted death. “I’d rather go back in a box than go back with breath in my lungs. There ain’t shit you can do to me that will compare to what he’ll do to me. So just kill me. I ain’t telling you shit el—”

Pfft!

The bullet from Klax’s gun was lodged in his skull before he finished speaking. His chin dropped to his chest, and his eyes closed. Klax sighed and shook his head in front of the dead man. Whoever he worked for put a fear in his heart that not even Klax could scare away. Not only that, but whoever it was had gone to great lengths to get to him. He’d found the weakest link in Klax’s camp, and that couldn’t have been easy. That let Klax know that he was being watched.

“Nobody comes in or out of here until this shit is cleaned up,” Klax told Ransom. “Also, until I appoint someone new, you’re in charge of shit over here. You cool with that?”

“Yeah, I’m cool with it,” Ransom said, looking down at Big Tony’s body. “As long as I don’t end up like him.”

“If you make better decisions than him, you won’t,” Klax told him and made his way to the door.

When Klax got back into his car, the hairs on his neck stood up again. That time, not in anticipation of cracking down on someone who crossed him, but because he didn’t know who was calling plays in his city. He also couldn’t help but wonder what his father would say about all that had just happened. He would have been livid at the robbery, but he would have been angrier at the attempt on Harlem. Kameron Turner wouldn’t stand for the disrespect on his own turf, so Klax knew exactly what he would say.

“I know, I know,” he said to himself as he pulled out of the long driveway. “I need to tighten up.”

“Kleigh, when are you going to settle down and find someone to love you?”

Kleigh Turner rolled her eyes from where she lay on her queen-sized, silver sleigh bed. She was on her stomach, painting her nails a dazzling hot pink while her best friend, Bahli Samuels, sat at a vanity a few feet away from the bed. Bahli’s face was an inch away from the mirror as she went over her eyebrows for what seemed like the tenth time.

“It’s going to take a special kind of man to love me,” Kleigh said, admiring the paint job she’d done by holding her hand up in the air.

“Well, maybe if you gave someone a chance, you would know if they were that special man! You don’t even let anybody close to you.”

Bahli, finally satisfied with her makeup, came and sat on the edge of Kleigh’s bed. She was a beautiful girl with a mocha-brown complexion and thick, black hair that she kept tucked away under bundles of weave. She had a round face, big lips, and wide set, pretty, light brown eyes. Bahli was nowhere near petite. She was a shapely young woman with a nice-sized rear end to match her plump chest. Her teeth shined due to the braces on them, but they just accented her vibrant smile. Her acrylic nails tapped the vanity in an annoyed fashion as she gave Kleigh a look waiting for her answer. If anybody knew Kleigh Turner, it was her. They’d been best friends since the first grade and looked at each other as sisters.

Kleigh returned Bahli’s eye roll and sat up as well. At age 25, she had filled out quite nicely. Her C-cup breasts seemed so much bigger since her stomach was so flat. Her hips were naturally wide, and her big butt was round with a cuff. She was the epitome of what it meant to be “slim thick,” and she had a pretty face to go along with all of her other attributes. On her oval-shaped head, she wore her hair natural in long, kinky curls. Her cheekbones were defined and raised high whenever she was happy or excited about something.

“All these niggas wanna do is fuck, and you know that. I don’t even want to waste my time on any of them.”

“Girl, you don’t know that!”

“What’s the point of letting somebody get close to me if they run off once they find out who my brother is?”

“True,” Bahli said with a frown. “I forgot about that part.”

Kleigh sighed at her best friend and just shook her head. She was starting to believe that there was no such thing as a happily ever after for her if Klax was in the picture. She loved her big brother, but he was the wall that wouldn’t come down in her life. Ever since their father passed away, Klax made it his duty to be her provider and protector. She felt blessed—and smothered—at the same time. She loved how her brother loved her, but it was a hindrance at the same time. Sometimes, she felt that she had to try just to be normal. Every move she made was watched; every decision she made was scrutinized. She couldn’t imagine bringing a man into that equation because no matter who he was, he would never measure up in Klax’s eyes.

“Yeah, of course, you would forget. You’re not the one with him as a brother,” Kleigh told her with a sigh.

She got up from the bed and walked to the large window in her bedroom. Moving one of the white drapes to the side, she peered down to the street below. As always, one of Klax’s goons was posted up outside of her condo, and she groaned loudly.

“This is the shit I be talkin’ about!”

“Who is it this time? Butta or Drop?”

“From the looks of the new Benz, it has to be Drop,” Kleigh answered.

“I need to fuck with him. He stays in a new car.”

“That’s why they call him Drop. He’s been like that since he and Klax were younger,” Kleigh let out a big breath. “I don’t understand why Klax still treats me like a damn kid! Every time I turn around, I see one of his ugly-ass minions. It’s starting to get on my nerves.”

“Starting to? I think that’s an understatement.”

“I’m 25, and he’s still clocking my every move.”

“I get you, baby; trust me, I do. But on the real? You’re the little sister of the head honcho of Harlem, and that makes you a princess. Don’t go acting naive now. You know exactly why he keeps you on lock.”

“I know who my big brother is, but I can handle myself. I’m not some defenseless little girl,” Kleigh said and stepped away from the window. “I need some fresh air. Let’s get out.”

“Buuuut . . . It’s Thursday,” Bahli raised her perfectly arched eyebrow and looked skeptically at her friend.

“So? How long has it been since we went dancing?”

“Almost a month.” Bahli pretended to think with a finger to her lips. “Because the last time we went out, some wild niggas shot the club up!”

“Stop being so dramatic. Find something in my closet. It’s only about to be ten o’clock, and you know what that means. The night is still young!”

“Th. . .