Harlem

by C.N. Phillips

Genres: Christian Suspense

Synopsis

Building on the success of the Kingpins series, Carl Weber’s Five Families series features some of Urban Books’ most popular authors writing about crime in the boroughs of New York City, this time in Harlem.

Through the darkest tunnel comes the light, but for Caesar King, there is nothing but more darkness on the other side.

After the failed attempt on his life, he is afraid that the Pact of the Five Families is no more. He can trust nobody. Whoever murdered Barry is now aiming for Caesar’s crown, and the only way to flush them out and figure out who’s responsible is to go to war…with everybody.

 

Release date: August 3, 2021

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

The night was still young, but the colorful strobe lights in the Sugar Trap bounced off many paying patrons. One of the patrons was paying close attention to a thick redbone with knee-length braids. He sat at the stage, watching her twirl around the pole and twerking her round bottom just for him—or that’s what it seemed like. Suddenly, she dropped into a split and bounced up and down a few times. After she did that a few more times, he waved her over. She grinned at him as she seductively crawled to him, then she sat at the edge of the stage with her legs open, giving him a perfect view of the plumpness in her green G-string.

“Scotty, this is the third night this week I’ve seen you here. You came to give me more of your money?”

“Thunder, you know you’re my favorite girl in the whole world. I don’t know why you keep playin’ with me.”

Thunder gave a forced giggle, the way she did with all of her customers. Scotty was a handsome man in his mid-twenties, who came in the club thirsty for her whenever he could. Although Scotty didn’t come in and spend big cash on her, he still spent a small bag, and she needed to pay her rent and car note, which were late since she just had to have those three YSL bags. She was going to work him for all that he’d come there with by any means necessary.

Scotty dressed like he was the big boss in charge, but he wasn’t. He was a runner for a few of Caesar’s underbosses. Still, he made his paper, and she knew he had at least five thousand on him right then and there. She eyeballed the three empty glasses on the table next to him and saw that he was working on his fourth drink. She licked her lips seductively and stared into his tipsy eyes.

“Boy, ain’t nobody playing with you. You playing with me.”

“How am I doin’ that?”

“Because you’re sitting in front of me looking like a boss, all dripped in Gucci and shit, but you only done threw about five hundred at your so-called favorite girl. What I’ma do with that?” Thunder pouted.

“I would give a lot more if I could touch you,” he said, biting his lip.

“Then come on so I can give you a private dance.” She nodded her head toward the area with the private rooms.

“Nah,” Scotty said. “I mean, I wanna touch you. Not just a dance.”

His eyes lowered to her plump pussy and then back up to her face. He didn’t even need to do all of that for Thunder to understand what he was talking about. She caught his drift. She smacked her lips at him.

“Scotty, you know how Diana feels about fucking in her club,” Thunder said, referring to the owner of the Sugar Trap. “She’ll kill us both if she catches us.”

“I got two bands on top of that five hundred if you’re willin’ to take that risk. Girl, I know I am. You know how bad I been wantin’ you. Come on.”

She weighed her options. Diana wasn’t someone to mess with, but still, all Thunder could think about was the money. She knew he was good for it. And, after all, her bills weren’t going to pay themselves. She looked at his lustful face and could tell by how drunk he was that he might not even last three minutes inside of her waterfall. It was a win-win for her.

Thunder got down from the stage, grabbing her money bag and his hand. She took Scotty to a stairway that was guarded by two big-body Dominican bouncers.

“Dru, we’re headed up to the Passion Room,” she said to one of them.

He didn’t say anything back to her. Instead, he looked Scotty over before stepping out of the way.

Thunder’s six-inch stilettos stabbed the red carpet as she led Scotty up the rounded staircase and down a hallway. Inside the Passion Room, she shut the door behind her. Girls weren’t allowed to lock the door, but that was all right. She didn’t plan to be there long.

The blue light gave the room a sultry feel, and Thunder pushed Scotty through a curtain to the back of the room, where the big furry white couch was. She turned on some sexy R&B to get the mood right.

“I’m going to need at least half up front before anything goes down,” she told him, removing her green top.

The moment he saw the chocolate nipples on her perky breasts, Scotty got to digging in his pockets. He pulled out a fold of hundreds and hurried to count ten. She took them and recounted them just to make sure it was all there. Stuffing the cash into her money bag and setting it to the side, she glanced at the clock. All private dances in the Passion Room were twenty minutes. Anything over and the bouncer would come to check on things. The clock was ticking, and Thunder wanted her other thousand, so she got straight to work. She knew Scotty was on the same page, because when she looked back at him, his dick was out, and he was rolling a condom down on it. He was a nice size, and Thunder was almost sad that she was going to have to rush his nut out.

She moved close to him before turning around so that her butt was in his face, and then she bent over. He moved the G-string to the side and plunged in headfirst. The way he licked her ass crack up and slurped on her sweet pussy let her know that he really had been wanting her for a while. Her hands were on her knees, and she clapped her butt cheeks on his face as he devoured her. His tongue swiveled around her clit before he pulled it back and plunged it in and out of her opening. When she felt his finger apply pressure to her butthole, she pushed down on her stomach the way a person would when they had to fart, to open her hole. Anal was one of her favorites, and she bit her lip when he forced his finger inside of her. He had her feeling so good that she almost wanted him to keep pleasing her just like that until she came, but she didn’t have time for that. She twerked on his tongue a few more times before pulling away and forcing his finger out of her butt.

Looking back at him, she slowly lowered her wet cat down on his rock-hard manhood. He slid inside of her easily, and one of his eyes twitched from that first wave of pleasure. She then commenced to bouncing up and down mercilessly on him. He reached his arms around and fondled her breasts and nipples.

“Damn, Thunder,” he moaned behind her. “I knew this pussy was gon’ be fire.”

His dick felt good inside of her too, but she was trying hard not to focus on that. She spun around to face him with her heels on the couch. She placed her hands on his shoulders to balance herself when he slid inside of her again.

Scotty spread her ass cheeks apart as he drilled into her, moaning and making all kinds of faces. Thunder wanted to laugh so hard at the fact that the pussy was driving him so crazy, but she didn’t. He nibbled on her nipples, leaving spit trails when he went from one to the other as she rode him harder and faster.

“Oh, fuck!” He moaned loudly, and Thunder felt his nails dig into her skin.

Scotty clenched his eyes shut, and his body jerked a few times as he shot his cum into the condom with his dick still inside of her. Thunder felt it throbbing and waited for it to stop before she got off of him. He tried to catch his breath while she wiped herself with one of the wet wipes in the Passion Room and adjusted her G-string.

After grabbing her top off the ground, she turned back to him. He threw the condom in the trash and was pulling up his pants. Thunder made a mental note to grab the used condom and dispose of it somewhere else so no one would know what she had done.

“I’ll take the rest of my money now,” she said, and Scotty looked at her like she was crazy before giving a small laugh.

“You gon’ take that fifteen hundred and be happy,” he told her.

She didn’t like the way his tone had changed or what he had said to her. It was unbelievable. She looked at him as if he had feces all over his face.

“Uh, nah, nigga. You said you were going to pay me two bands, and I want the other half of that. Right now and pronto.”

“Bitch, you crazy,” he said, standing to his feet. “I got what I wanted. Now I’m about to bounce.”

Thunder was just about to pull out her shank and make the childish smile he wore permanent, when suddenly the music stopped. Replacing it was the sound of a lighter and a slow drawl of what smelled like the best weed in New York. There was a silhouette on the other side of the curtain, and Thunder’s heart stopped before the person moved it out of the way—mainly because there was only one person in the club who was allowed to smoke weed in the building.

“D–Diana,” Thunder stuttered when she finally stepped through the curtain.

Diana was a five-foot-five Dominican woman who didn’t look to be a day over forty, although she was in her sixties. She was beautiful–—no, stunning—but her beauty was only cushion for her bite. She stood in front of them wearing a red pantsuit that clung to her slender and fit figure, with her long black hair in one French braid going down her back.

Her dark brown eyes pierced Thunder’s. She didn’t have to say what she was thinking, nor did her anger have to show on her face. Thunder knew the rules of the Sugar Trap, and the fact that she had gone against them showed how little respect she had for the establishment. Diana didn’t know if she was angrier at Thunder or Scotty for refusing to give what was promised. Either way, they both would pay.

“Do you know the price of disobeying me?” she asked in a smooth, mature tone while looking at Thunder.

“N–no,” Thunder stammered.

“Your life.”

Faster than either of them could react, Diana pulled a small .22 from the waist of her pants and shot her neatly in the center of her forehead. She dropped like a sack of potatoes. Diana shook her head at her dead body.

“Tsk tsk. She was one of my best girls,” she said and picked up Thunder’s sack of money before turning to Scotty. “And you? You promised her two thousand dollars to disrespect me?”

“D–Diana, wait,” Scotty said, looking at the gun in her hand.

“And now you’re telling me what to do,” she scoffed. “I need to make a mental note to tell Caesar that his pawns are getting beside themselves. I might not be able to kill you, but I can cause you a great deal of pain. Or . . .”

“Or what? I’ll do anything.”

“You’re in debt to me until you die. Two thousand a week, every week. The only time I want to see you in my establishment from here on out is when you are bringing me my money. Do you understand me?”

“Y–yes.”

“Now get the fuck out.”

He ran past her to the door. When she heard it shut and she was alone with Thunder’s body, she found herself staring at the blood spilling from her head. Normally, Diana wouldn’t touch a hair on her girls’ heads, but once you broke the rules, you were no longer one of her girls. She pulled out her cell phone and called down to Dru.

“Everything good? I saw Scotty run out of here like he had fire on his ass.”

“Things will be better if you send a mop up here and hire the best girl from tonight’s Amateur Night. Thunder quit.”

“Will do,” was all Dru said before Diana disconnected the call.

She exited the Passion Room and put the closed sign on the door, knowing that Dru was about to send a cleaner team. She sighed as she walked down the curved staircase, through the large crowd of people on the main floor, and to a hallway in the back of the building that led to her spacious office.

She’d been in the middle of watching a rerun episode of Jerry Springer, and she wanted to see what the girl would do when she found out her man had slept with her cousin. She never made it that far, though. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and upon seeing Marco’s name pop up, she answered on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Diana? Where are you?” Marco asked in a rushed tone.

“I’m at the club. Is everything all right?” Diana asked, stopping in her tracks.

“No, everything isn’t,” he said, and from the panic in his voice, she knew something terrible had to have happened. Marco never panicked.

“What happened?”

“It’s Caesar,” he said. “He’s—”

“Dead?” Diana asked and dreaded the answer to come.

“Alive,” Marco finished. “But barely. He was shot. Please come. We need your help. I’m at the Big House.”

“Okay. I’m on my way.”

Diana drove down a barely lit winding road until she reached the gates of a large estate. Many of the lights inside were on, and in the distance, she saw cars parked on the roundabout by the front walkway. She recognized the man at the front gates as the same man who had been guarding them for years. Malcom was in his mid-thirties and had been working for Caesar since he was a teenage boy. He was what most would call all right looking, but what he lacked in looks, he made up for in muscle. A while back, he got bumped up with some drugs on him, but he never said a word. He laid down for five years, and when he got out, Caesar rewarded him by taking him off the streets completely.

Malcom had always been a man with keen eyes and even sharper shooting. Not only that, but he had proven to be worthy of being a part of The Trusted, the ones the five families regarded above all else because their loyalty was unwavering. And as part of The Trusted, Malcom was put in charge of guarding the one place only a handful of people even knew existed—the estate of the five families, aka the Big House. It was built and paid for by all of them and was supposed to be a fortress that offered sanctuary if anything were to ever happen to them. Up until then, it had only been used for a few meetings, never for its intended purpose. But now, it served as the perfect place to hide Caesar.

“Everyone else is here,” Malcom told her as he pressed a button to open the gates.

“Thank you, Malcom,” she said and pulled her sapphire green Jaguar through.

Diana couldn’t park fast enough behind Marco’s blue Tesla. She hopped out of the car and moved as fast as her legs would take her. Bursting through the tall double doors of the house, she raced up the curved staircase and to the second level of the four-story home.

“Marco! Li!” She called out multiple times as she opened doors to every room she passed.

“Down here. In the master,” Marco called from the very last room in the hallway.

Diana half walked and half jogged to the master bedroom. It was a large room, and lying lifeless on the bed inside it was Caesar. She forced herself to keep breathing because she had never seen him in such a state. Time seemed to pause for a beat as she just stared, but movement in the corner of her eye reminded her that she wasn’t alone.

Li sat in a chair on one side of the bed, while Marco stood at the foot of it. Their hurt expressions explained how she felt inside. For almost forty years, the five of them had been like family. They would never admit it because they ran their own separate factions, but at the end of the day, it always came back to them. Now, with Barry dead and Caesar fighting for his life, the world around them just didn’t feel right.

There was a young blonde nurse in the room, who was currently adjusting Caesar’s pillows, and Diana cleared her throat to get her attention.

“Can we have a moment please?”

“Of course,” the young woman said with a pleasant tone then left the room.

Diana closed the door behind her and went to Caesar’s side. She didn’t know why she thought his eyes would open the harder she looked at his eyelids. When they didn’t, she felt a lump form in her throat.

“Who did this to him?” Diana demanded to know, and Li and Marco looked at each other. “Don’t do that. Tell me what you know.”

“We can’t be for sure, but word is Caesar made a move on the Italians, and now Bosco is dead,” Marco told her.

“What? Why would he do that?” Diana asked.

“I think we can all agree that he’s been a little aloof since Barry died,” Marco said.

“Yeah, but that still doesn’t expl. . .