Manipulation

by Roy Glenn

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

In this prelude to Cold Blooded, Mike Black and his wife, Shy, are trying, again, to put that life behind them, raise their children, and spend the rest of their lives loving one another in peace. That peace is shattered when Elias Colton, a
prominent member of the Black Business Association and close associate of New York City gangster Mike Black, is murdered.
The detectives assigned to the case believe that they have a suspect, and the motive is sex, money, or both. However, when Black and Shy are spotted at the funeral, the detectives know that it’s necessary to eliminate Black and The Family,
the criminal organization that he controls, as prime suspects. They soon discover that the murder has international implications.
With the war behind them, everybody in The Family has gone back to making money. Underboss Rain Robinson is preoccupied with her situation with Carter Garrison, and she needs some space to figure out what to do. When her cousin,
Sapphire Langston, goes missing, Rain uses the disappearance as an excuse to distance herself from Carter.
At Sapphire’s apartment, someone has ransacked the place and is still there waiting when Rain arrives. Rain is able to fight off her ambusher after a wild shootout, but now, as the search for Sapphire and the investigation of Elias
Colton’s murder continues, it becomes obvious that the two are connected.

Release date: March 29, 2022

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

When homicide detectives Diane Mitchell and Jack Harmon arrived on the scene, they looked at the covered body on the windshield and then up at the building.

“That’s a long way to fall,” Jack said as he pulled back the sheet and looked at the body.

“You know what they say,” Diane said.

“What’s that?”

“It’s not the fall; it’s the sudden impact at the end that kills you.” Having said that, she turned to go inside the building. “What floor are we on?”

“We’re on twenty,” Jack said as he pressed the button for the elevator.

“You’re right. That was a long way to fall.”

Diane pointed in Jack’s face. “Don’t say it.”

“Because you know I was about to say that it’s not the fall; it’s the sudden impact,” he chuckled as the elevator arrived, and they headed up to the twentieth floor.

Jack and Diane had been partners for years, and each had always enjoyed the witty, sometimes cutting banter that existed between them. However, their partnership took an unexpected turn while they were investigating the cold case murder of Afra Dean, a murder that Rain Robinson was accused of committing at the request of Mike Black.

One night, they were talking about the case when Diane thought, What the hell.

“I have a little confession to make.”

She told Jack that she used to fantasize about him bending her over the hood of a car while they were on a stakeout and fucking her from behind while she looked through binoculars. She went on to explain that she had always been interested in him, but when they first became partners, Jack was just coming off a suspension for the use of excessive force, and he had a drinking problem. However, over the years, Diane had watched Jack work hard to turn all that around. Finally, he became a man that had it all together, one she could respect. Not one that a woman turned into a blackout drunk, and another used and made a fool of.

Jack smiled because he felt the same way about her. “You’ve been my fantasy lover since the day the lieutenant introduced us.”

Jack told her that he thought it would ruin their partnership, and since he loved being her partner, he decided and chose the safe option. At Diane’s encouragement, Jack shared one of his cherished fantasies and felt himself getting harder over the possibility that his long-held fantasy was about to come true. He told her that while they had a drink together after a long day. “And . . . well . . . this happens,” Jack said, leaning forward and kissed Diane’s lips gently.

When the elevator opened, Diane looked at the man that she was in love with. Jack was still a work in progress, but he was more like the man she thought he could be.

As they entered the apartment, they saw the crime scene technicians were busy collecting evidence, dusting for fingerprints, and capturing images of each room.

“Jack, Diane,” Sergeant Hill, the supervising officer, said when he saw them come into the unit.

“What you got?” Jack asked as both he and Diane put on their gloves.

“You saw most of the story on the way in,” he said and led them into another room that was used as an office with a sliding glass door that led to a balcony.

When the detectives entered the room, Jack and Diane saw there were signs of a struggle. The items that had been on the desk, Colton’s desktop computer, the phone, pictures, and the lamp, were all on the floor. A bookcase was turned over, and books now covered the floor as well. And the glass door that led to the balcony was broken.

“Our working theory at this point is that there was a fight,” Hill said, pointing to the items that were once on the desk but were now scattered on the floor.

“Must have been quite a fight,” Diane said as she looked around the room.

“It spilled out on the balcony, and, as I said, you saw the rest of the story on your way in.”

“I don’t see a lot of blood.” Jack looked around. “All the same, check with the hospitals nearby. See if anybody came in looking like they just left a fight club.”

“I got uniforms on that as we speak,” Hill informed them.

“Any ID on the victim?” Diane asked.

“Victim’s name is Elias Colton.”

“Witnesses?”

“We’re doing a canvas of the building. So far, we got nada. The security guard said that Colton didn’t have any visitors tonight, and he didn’t see or notice anything or anybody out of the ordinary. We’re in the process of looking for cameras that might have picked up our killer either coming or going.”

“What about cameras in the building?” Jack asked.

“Malfunctioned.”

“Convenient or manipulated?” Diane questioned.

“Building security said that earlier this evening, some of the cameras in the building, including the lobby, went out. He reported it to his supervisor, who promised to have somebody out here in the morning to fix it. That’s him over there in the blue blazer.”

“You talk to him?” Jack asked.

“I did.”

“And?”

“He said he’ll have someone out to fix it in the morning.” Hill shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

“In the meantime, that leaves us with nothing,” Diane said as she and Jack followed Hill out of the room.

“You wouldn’t want it to be easy, would you? Where’s the fun in that?” Jack asked.

“It would have been nice to take the elevator down to the security office and see the killer walk through the lobby covered in blood and looking at the camera,” she said as they began looking around the unit.

“No forced entry. So, we know that Colton knew his killer,” Jack said.

“Agreed,” Diane said, pointing to the glass on the coffee table. “That second circle from a glass suggested that Colton knew the killer well enough to have a drink.”

“But the signs of the struggle are in the office, which suggests that the fight occurred over something in that room. Probably over some business between them.”

“Enough to kill for,” Diane said.

“You’re pregnant. Congratulations,” Daniella had said excitedly on the day that Rain came to see her at the office. “Or not?” she added nervously when she saw the look on Rain’s face.

After leaving Perry’s Mount Vernon doctor’s office, Rain drove around thinking about what she would do. Daniella Ramsey had just told her that she was pregnant. She never even thought about having a baby. Although she loved kids, Rain loved other people’s kids when they came to visit her.

But then the little fuckers need to go home.

It was all so surreal to Rain. Daniella showed her the first image of her baby: a white blip on the screen. Rain never wanted children. Therefore, being pregnant was unfathomable for her.

Rain thought about all the things that she’d heard that pregnant women should and shouldn’t do: Don’t drink alcohol, don’t smoke, don’t do drugs, eat healthily, don’t take any medicines without first talking to your doctor, get plenty of rest, and exercise. It all seemed overwhelming.

Pregnant?

A baby inside of me?

A mother?

What about my job?

How am I going to tell Carter?

After a long string of disastrous relationships, Rain had come to believe that finding Mr. Right and settling down with the perfect man wasn’t in the cards for her. Therefore, she was perfectly content to deal with Mr. Right now, and Carter Garrison played that part so well. Nobody had fucked her the way that he had since Nick had had enough of her shit.

Rain thought about her relationship with Nick. He was married to April, and they were happy, happier than he ever was when they were together. She had to admit that she was jealous of what the two of them shared. It always made her wonder why it couldn’t have worked between the two of them. The answer was simple, however.

“Me. That’s the difference: me. I was the problem. I was the reason it didn’t work.”

After Nick’s leaving devastated her, Rain bounced from man to man as long as they could satisfy her immense sexual appetite. Then she would throw them away when she was done with them. And then came Carter Garrison. She wanted him to bend her over and dick her down from the first time she saw him. But even though he satisfied her desires and fucked her the way she wanted to be fucked, Rain could list many reasons why Carter wasn’t Mr. Right for her. She laughed.

“He got a big dick, and men with big dicks know they have a big dick and feel like they need to share that dick with every woman they see.” And that was Carter Garrison.

This wasn’t really happening to her. There was a life growing inside of her. This was not supposed to happen to her, and this was not how she thought she would feel about it.

Eventually, Rain arrived at J.R.’s and made her way through the early evening Saturday night crowd to the stairs leading to her office.

“What’s up, Chelsea?”

“Hey, Rain. Carter’s been looking for you?”

“I know,” Rain said because she’d been ignoring his calls all day and went into her office.

“He wants you to call—” Chelsea said to the slamming door.

When Rain closed the door, Chelsea immediately picked up the phone and called Carter at Romans, the pizzeria/sports-betting operation.

“What’s up, Chelsea?”

“Rain’s here.”

“You tell her that I said to call me?”

“I did.”

“What she say?”

“She closed the door.”

“Figures.” He paused and thought for a second or two. “I’m on my way there. Let me know if she leaves.”

“Will do,” Chelsea said, ending the call, and then she stood up.

Chelsea took a different approach, unlike Yarissa, who wore jeans and a different J.R.’s T-shirt to the club just about every night. She saw the job as Rain’s receptionist and personal valet through Mileena’s and Demi’s eyes. Each of them had gone from having that job to floor manager to being the club manager. Now that Mileena had moved on, Demi was the club manager. To Chelsea, she was on that same career path to management. Therefore, she dressed for the job that she wanted and not the job that she had. That night, Chelsea was dressed head to toe in Kate Spade New York.

Alwan and Ricky, Rain’s bodyguards, came up the stairs in time to catch a glimpse of Chelsea in the midnight-blue, tight-fitting design of the round neck, sleeveless dress with intricate cutout detail at the neck and hemline. She wore white satin pumps on her feet as she tapped on Rain’s door and stepped inside to speak to Rain.

Ricky shook his head and sat down. “Yarissa was fine, but damn, that muthafucka is bad.”

Alwan shook his head. “You say that about every woman you see.” He laughed. “You wouldn’t know a bad muthafucka if you tripped over her.”

“Whatever, nigga. I know that is one bad muthafucka,” Ricky said, pointing at the door to Rain’s office.

Once inside the office, Chelsea looked at Rain as Rain unholstered her guns and took off her vest. She was still new to the job and feeling her way through with Rain, but the look on Rain’s face said, Don’t say a fuckin’ word to me, so she didn’t.

So Chelsea did what she always did when Rain arrived in her office. She had gone to the bar, picked up the bottle of Patrón, and was about to pour when Rain finally noticed that she was in the office.

“What are you doing?”

Chelsea froze and paused to think if that was a trick question. “Pouring you a drink,” she said slowly, and Rain’s mind flashed back to her conversation with Daniella.

“I need a fuckin’ drink,” she said after finding out that she was pregnant.

“Well, the usual message to pregnant women is don’t drink any alcohol because it can cause major problems for the pregnant woman and her baby. However, there’s a study published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology that says minimal alcohol use during the first trimester doesn’t appear to increase the risk of complications as previously believed,” was what Daniella told her.

Rain considered those words for a second or two before she said, “Go ahead,” and sat down as Chelsea poured her drink and then brought it to her. “You can go now.”

Chelsea walked to the door and was about to reach for the handle but stopped before she opened it.

“Are you all right, Rain?”

“No.”

“Anything I can do?”

“No,” Rain said and picked up the glass. “But thanks for giving a fuck enough to ask.” Then she put the glass down without drinking any of it.

“I’m here if you need me,” she said and left the office and Rain to her thoughts.

Damn.

That was the word that kept rolling around in her mind.

Damn.

Rain didn’t really want a baby, nor was she interested in experiencing everything that came with it.

Damn.

There was no wave of joy about her being a mother. Instead, she just sat there feeling slightly numb about the life-changing news she’d just heard. Rain was pregnant.

With a real live baby.

Something about that just don’t sound right.

As she sat there, she played around with the idea of not telling anyone for a couple of days, especially not Carter.

After all, tests could be wrong, right?

But the idea of not telling anyone, especially Carter, ended when he burst through the door and demanded to know, “What the fuck is going on with you?” he shouted and slammed the door behind him.

“I’m fuckin’ pregnant—that’s what’s fuckin’ going on with me,” Rain shouted back, and Carter looked shocked.

“What?”

“You fuckin’ heard me, muthafucka. I’m fuckin’ pregnant—that’s what’s fuckin’ going on with me!” she shouted again.

Carter didn’t say anything for a second or two, and then he went and plopped down on the couch. “Pregnant?” He immediately stood up and went to the bar.

“Pregnant.”

For a second or two, he thought about asking her who the father was, but the daggers that were blasting from her eyes told him that it would be a bad idea. He had seen Rain’s fury unleashed, and he wanted no part of it.

“I need a drink.” Carter picked up a bottle of Hennessy Black.

Rain drained her glass. “Pour me one too.”

Carter stopped, put down the bottle, and looked at Rain. “Should you be drinking . . . you know . . . being pregnant and shit?”

“Daniella Ramsey said that a little drink ain’t gonna kill me.”

Carter chuckled as he picked up the bottle of Patrón. “Daniella Ramsey said that?”

“She made the shit sound all medical and quoted a fuckin’ article, but, yeah, nigga, that’s what the fuck she said,” Rain barked as Carter came around the bar and handed her a drink.

“You gonna have it?”

“You want me to have it?”

“No.”

“I knew it.”

“I think you should have an abortion.”

“I knew you were gonna say that too.”

Rain finished her drink and stood up. She was about to go to the bar and pour another one, but in that second, Don’t drink alcohol, don’t smoke, don’t do drugs . . .

Maybe I had enough to drink, she thought and set the glass on the bar.

“But I’m thinking about having it,” she said, and, yes, there was a part of her that could not believe that she had just said that out loud.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. What’s so wrong about that?”

“Nothing . . . I guess. I mean, it’s just not something I thought you were interested in.”

“Me either,” she said and sat down without pouring herself a drink.

“I mean, I’ve heard you say, more than once, that you have no maternal instincts.” Carter paused. “Not to mention that you are the boss of this Family.”

“I know. Both of those are true, but I’m still thinking about having it.”

“I’m not ready to be a father, Rain,” Carter said.

“I know. But this ain’t about you.” She paused and then glared at Carter. “And how your arrogant ass know that you’re the father?”

“Am I?”

“Yeah, muthafucka, you’re the father.”

“I was just asking because we always used a condom.”

“Except that one time at Romans,” Rain said, and Carter immediately recalled it all.

Don’t you wanna . . . he could hear her saying that night outside of Romans. Carter smiled when he thought about how hot they were for each other in those days.

Come on.

He remembered grabbing her by the hand and fast walking her in Romans. He was so anxious to get to her that night because Rain’s sex had him completely blown, and he couldn’t get enough of her.

As they made their way to the office, instead of speaking to everybody, Carter wanted to tell them to get the fuck out because they were the boss and underboss of The Family, and they had come there to fuck—not talk.

The second they were in the office and had locked the door, they stripped each other down, and Rain grabbed his tie.

You need to gag my ass, Carter remembered Rain saying before she bent over the desk, and he slammed his entire dick in her because that was the way she liked it . . . grabbing her shoulders and pulling her to him and slamming his entire length in her as hard as she could stand it. And, yes, Rain could take some dick.

And when she spun around, dropped to her knees, pulled down the gag, and took him into her mouth, Carter thought that he would lose it right there. Fuckin’ Rain was so fuckin’ hot, and watching her take his dick deeper and deeper in and out of her mouth, moaning and fingering herself while she sucked . . .

Damn.

He loved fuckin’ Rain Robinson.

He was losing his mind over that insane pussy. Damn right, he remembered that night . . . Rain putting the gag back in her mouth, hopping up on the desk, and he slammed it in her again. Carter closed his eyes for a second or two. He could see and almost feel their bodies slamming violently into each other, her eyes opening wide when she felt him swelling inside her, and they came hard together . . . but without a condom.

Carter shook his head and thought about it. He needed to stay calm and not overreact. But like Rain, he was overwhelmed by the sudden news that he would be a father. While he was with Mileena, he was excited when she said she wanted to have his baby. But when they broke up, Carter felt like his chance to be a father had ended when she closed her car door and drove away. He had to admit that he was worried, a little scared, even because he wasn’t ready to be a father. Carter thought that the best thing for him to do at this point was to listen to her. He would have to support Rain and help her decide what was best for her and the baby. Because like she said, it wasn’t about him.

“I think this . . .