The Family Business 6

Book 6: Family Business

by Carl Weber, La Jill Hunt

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

New York Times bestselling author Carl Weber and Essence bestseller La Jill Hunt return with a story of love, money, power, and respect in the next addition of the popular Family Business series.

Five years ago, Orlando Duncan created the perfect drug in HEAT. It made the Duncans more than two hundred and fifty million dollars and was on its way to making them billionaires. However, they abruptly stopped manufacturing the drug when it was proven to cause cancer in rats. Yes, even as drug distributors, they still had a moral compass, placing lives over profit despite the overwhelming demand.

When Orlando is awakened by an alarm in his old lab, he discovers that not only have all his computers, equipment, and notes been stolen, but the robbers have also taken over a million tabs of HEAT that he’d left behind for future experiments—tabs that he had sworn to his family he would destroy.

Dr. Brandi Richardson is one of the most brilliant research chemists in the world, but her propensity for cutting corners led to her firing from both Dow Chemicals and Dupont. She’s now working at CVS as a clerk, but things are about to change for her in a big way.

Billionaire Alexander Cora is known as the Moor by business associates and enemies. His company, Cora International, is a publicly traded EU defense contractor. It is also a front for one of the largest weapons, drugs, and illegal contraband smuggling rings in the world. For some reason, he has set his sights on the Duncan family. That can’t be good, because Alexander plays for keeps, and he has not been known to lose.  

Niles Monroe, the handsome hit man and Paris Duncan’s one true love, is back from the dead, and it’s only a matter of time before he comes looking for her.

These rich and powerful people are on a collision course. When the dust settles, who will still be alive, and who will be on top?

Release date: January 24, 2023

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Fourteen hours earlier

I took hold of a tree to steady myself as I caught my breath. From the way I was huffing and puffing, you would have thought I’d run a marathon, but in fact, I couldn’t have gone more than a mile because I could still see the halogen search lights of the facility in the not-so-far distance. The barking of the blood hounds echoed through the forest where I was hiding. They hadn’t picked up our scent yet, but it was only a matter of time.

“Shit.”

“What’s wrong?” I glanced over at Holly, who was a few feet away, bent over with both hands on her knees. She was out of breath, but not even close to coughing up a lung like I was. Then again, she was almost half my age.

“Dogs. They’ve got the dogs after us,” I replied.

“Then come on, Larry. We’ve gotta keep moving.” She placed her hand on the small of my back and pushed me. “Let’s go.”

“Okay.” I was still struggling to catch my breath. She surprisingly took the lead, heading east toward the moon like I’d taught her. “I’m coming,”

Holly was a beautiful, cocoa brown girl with long, naturally curly hair that hung around her shoulders. Her piercing hazel eyes and a body with curves in all the right places could have men reconsidering their marriage vows.

She was one of those people you either loved or you hated. There was no in between with her. I think that’s why I liked her. For a young person, she wasn’t about the bullshit. She was either a pussy cat or a sleeping lion, and Lord help you if you poked that fucking lion even a little bit.

“Come on, boss. We’re almost there.” She turned to encourage me. In truth, she was helping to motivate me, but it didn’t stop the overwhelming need to stop and catch my breath. I was heaving so much it felt like my lungs were going to burst out of my chest.

“Come on, Larry. We can do this.”

“Okay, okay, just give me a second to catch my breath.” I was embarrassed, but I couldn’t go another step without leaning against a tree again. I swore to myself that if I ever got through this, I would get myself back in shape by hook or crook.

“Okay, rest time is over. We gotta keep going,” Holly pleaded. “We don’t have that much further to go. I can hear the highway.”

I thought maybe she was bullshitting me because I couldn’t hear the damn highway. What I could hear was the distinct howling of those fucking dogs they’d sent after us.

“Shit, do you hear that? They’ve caught the scent.”

Our eyes locked, and Holly nodded her understanding. The moonlight highlighted the fear in her hazel eyes.

“Come on! We gotta go! Get your ass off that tree!” she demanded.

I stood up straight and pulled in a deep breath. Call it will power, adrenaline, or just plain fear, but the sound of those dogs coming our way motivated the hell outta me, and I started to run like my life depended on it—which it did. A few minutes later, Holly was proven right when we burst out of the woods into a clearing and in front of us was the damn highway. Eighteen wheelers and cars zoomed past us at eighty miles an hour.

We’d made it! Or at least we’d made it to the highway and now the rest was up to—

“I thought you said your son was going to be here,” Holly said, sounding concerned. “Those fucking dogs are getting closer.”

“He’s supposed to be here!” I snapped, searching from left to right as if he might magically appear. I was trying not to let Holly see me panic, but the sound of those hounds was unnerving, now that we were out in the open, we would be easy targets.

“Come on, Kenny. Don’t let me down, son. Where the fuck are you?”

I could see the disappointment in Holly’s eyes, and then out of nowhere, there was hope. “Boss, over there.” She pointed, and I saw the flashing lights of a car parked about a hundred yards from us on the side of the highway.

“That’s him!” I shouted.

Holly didn’t waste time. She sprinted to the car like a track superstar, and I wasn’t far behind her. We reached the car, and I jumped into the front seat. Holly dove into the back and slammed the door. I’ll never forget the smile on my son’s face when I slid into that seat, panting and sweating.

“Hey, Pop.” He grinned nervously.

“Hey, son,” I huffed. “It’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you too. I was starting to think you wasn’t gonna make it.”

“You and me both. Let’s get outta here.”

“Wait. What about Dennis?” Holly insisted. “We can’t leave without Dennis.”

Damn, in all the commotion with the dogs and trying to get the hell out of there, I’d completely forgotten about Dennis. He was an old friend from my days in the army. We were the only two members of our platoon to survive the Vietnam War, and we’d both come home with PTSD. Dennis snapped as soon as he came home. He killed twelve people, including his wife and kids. He had been at the facility for ten years before I showed up.

Dennis was a smart guy. He’d come up with our escape plan, which was flawless. It would have gone off without a hitch, except that Thaddeus, who was supposed to be leaving with us, went off on his own tangent and attacked a female guard. Dennis had stayed behind to try to save the woman’s life. Escaping prison was one thing, but attacking a federal corrections officer was as good as signing your own death warrant. There was nothing we could do for her, so I’d kept running.

I turned to the woods.

“Shit. She’s right. We gotta wait for Dennis,” I told Kenny.

“Fuck, whoever the hell Dennis is, we need to get the hell outta here.” Kenny turned to me, looking determined. He’d grown up a lot in the last five years. “I didn’t come here for Dennis, Dad. I came here for you.”

“I know that,” I said, appreciating his dedication to me. Still, the idea of leaving Dennis behind didn’t sit right with me.

I glanced back at Holly, whose eyes screamed what I was thinking. We’d never have escaped that place if it wasn’t for Dennis.

“Son, I need you to give him another minute or two,” I said.

“Why?”

“Loyalty. That’s why. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be sitting in this car with you. Dennis has stuck by me from day one, so we’re gonna give him a minute.”

Kenny didn’t speak, but he did roll his eyes, which I let slide. He’d risked a lot helping me, possibly even prison, so he got a pass this time.

I turned back to Holly. “If he doesn’t get here soon, we are gonna have to leave him.”

“What the fuck is that?” Kenny pointed at the large figure exiting the woods about a hundred feet in front of us.

“It’s Dennis!” Holly shrieked, rolling down the window and calling his name. “Dennis! Dennis! Over here!”

Dennis’s six foot four, 350-pound body was moving like a freight train through the tall brush towards us with three angry barking German shepherds on his heels.

“He ain’t gonna make it. Those dogs are about to tear his ass up,” Kenny mumbled.

“I can see that,” I snapped. “Where’s your fucking gun?”

“Glove compartment.”

I flipped open the glove compartment, revealing two 9 mm Glocks. I took both guns, cocked them, and stepped out of the car. Dennis was about twenty feet from us. I watched as one of the dogs finally reached him and locked its jaws to the back of Dennis’s legs.

“Aaaaggghhh!” Dennis hollered in pain and fell face first as the dog ripped through his pants leg.

I lifted my left hand and right hand, firing at the beast until he dropped, but not before a second dog was on Dennis. As Dennis wrestled with the second dog, I had another problem. The third dog was now heading for me. I watched him leap into the air with a running start, fangs bared. I almost felt sorry for him when I pulled the trigger of each gun and he fell to the ground at my feet.

“Larry!” Holly shouted. “They’re coming!”

There were voices coming from the woods. I turned toward Dennis, surprise to see that he was on his feet, limping toward the car. The second dog lay dead behind him. That son of a bitch must have broken its neck. Dennis was strong as hell.

“Let’s go!” I jumped into the front seat, Holly threw open the back door so Dennis could climb in, and we took off.

“Where to?” Kenny asked.

“Head west. They’ll be looking for us down south.” I turned to the back seat. “How’s your leg, Dennis?”

“It’s fine, Sergeant. Nothing in comparison to when I got shot up in Nam.”

“Good. And what about the guard?”

He shook his head. “She didn’t make it.”

That was not what I wanted to hear. “Come on. Let’s get the hell outta here. They’re going to be after us for real now.”

I turned over around midnight, blinking my eyes open when my fumbling hand realized that my wife wasn’t in bed. I glanced over at the bathroom door, which was closed, but there was no light streaming from under the door. Something wasn’t right, and I had a bad feeling about it.

Truth be told, things hadn’t been right between London and me for quite a while, but never more than lately. London was a woman with high sexual appetite, and she wasn’t above cheating to fulfill her needs if I was unable or unwilling. Not that I was a saint before the accident, but I handled my husbandly duties sufficiently. However, now that I was paralyzed from the waist down and impotent, London made me feel like she was only tolerating me out of pity because I was in a wheelchair.

“London?” I called her name, but she didn’t answer, which quickly ramped up my anxiety and hyped up my paranoia. I tried to convince myself to stay calm, remembering what happened the last time I accused her of wrongdoing. She had stayed out of my bed for three months.

London had a bad habit of slipping out of bed and going to our old room upstairs in the main wing of the house to sleep because as she put it, “I couldn’t take your snoring.” I can’t lie; I do snore, but my daughter Mariah sleeps in the bed with me all the time and doesn’t complain, so I was skeptical.

“London!”

I’d known London over fifteen years, most of which we’d been married. Our relationship had more ups and downs than a carnival ride, but in spite of it all, I swear I loved my wife to death. She and my daughters meant the world to me.

I knew it couldn’t be easy having a wheelchair-bound husband, and I appreciated her effort, but I wasn’t stupid. As of late, my wife had been too polite, too kind, and way too accommodating—nothing like her usual stubborn-ass demeanor. Shit, she even sang in the shower, which oddly enough, raised my suspicions even more. London only sang in the shower after an especially good night in bed, but lately she was singing like it was the ’70s and she’d just signed with Motown.

It took me almost five minutes to get into my wheelchair and out of my bedroom. I wanted to investigate and see what was really going on for myself. As I continued through the foyer, I looked out the window and saw London’s BMW X7. It was parked at the edge of the property over by the entrance to the pool, instead of in her usual parking spot in front of the house. Something wasn’t adding up.

I headed to the center of the foyer, looking up at the winding staircase, which, for a man in a wheelchair, was intimidating as shit. Intimidating or not, I knew that if I wanted to rid myself of the terrifying thoughts that my wife was stepping out on me, I was going to have to tackle them head on.

And with that, I eased my way out of my chair and crawled up the stairs one by one. It was hard as hell, but I didn’t stop until I finally made it to the top of the staircase. I took a minute to catch my breath as I looked proudly down at my wheelchair. Shit, this was one hell of an accomplishment.

LC and Chippy weren’t around because they had taken half the family down south to see what family down there might know about crazy-ass Larry’s escape. The only people at the house were Junior and Sonya, who were always in bed by midnight, and Rio, who wouldn’t be home until the sun came up. I couldn’t decide if it was too bad no one had been around to witness it, or it was a good thing no one was around to see a grown man having to crawl up the stairs. I felt strong and pathetic at the same time.

From the top of the stairs, I made my way down the hall using my arms to slide along the hardwood floors on my belly like a seal. I reached the room London and I had shared before I was shot and we had to relocate to a room on the first floor. I hesitated, leaning against the wall before opening the door, because I knew London was gonna lose her shit if I woke her up on some bullshit.

I finally reached up and turned the knob, opening the door slowly. I scanned the room, and a queasiness took over my stomach as my fears were realized. My world was rapidly crumbling in front of me. The bed was made, and the room was empty. London was not there.

“Fuck.”

It took me twice as long to get down the stairs and into my wheelchair as it had to go up. By the time I finally got settled in my seat, I was ready for blood.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Where the hell was she? The kids’ rooms maybe? No, that didn’t make any sense because the kids had gone with LC and Chippy to spend time with their cousins. Besides, I wasn’t tackling those stairs again.

I stared out the window at London’s car. The fact that it wasn’t parked in the right place was still raising alarm bells for me. I headed outside, rolling through the compound until I reached her car. I imagined I might find her sitting in there, talking on the phone to some dude or something, but the car was empty. I still didn’t understand why it was parked there. What were the chances she was going for a swim at this time of night? And that’s when it hit me.

“Those dirty motherfuckers.”

How the hell could I have been so naïve? The answer was literally staring me in the face the whole time. I knew exactly where my wife was and who she was with, but getting there took a lot more time and effort than I anticipated. Maneuvering the wheelchair through the grassy terrain was a bit scary, but I propelled my chair forward with venom running through my veins.

At first glance, the pool house, which was used to house security, looked dark and empty. Had my intuition not been screaming in the back of my head, I might have turned around and headed back to the main house. Some things you just don’t want to know. But I had to be honest with myself: I had strong suspicions, and there was no way I was leaving without knowing for certain.

Unlike at the main residence, there was no wheelchair ramp, so the rear door was my only option. I went to the back door, punched in the code, and tried to steady my breathing before I turned the knob. The door opened, and I went inside as quietly as a guy in a wheelchair could. I entered the main room that contained a small kitchen and sitting area. On a desk in the corner, there were security monitors, a laptop, and a few of the handheld radios the security team used when they were spread out around the compound, but there were no people in the room.

Then I heard a sound that kicked my heartbeat into overdrive. It was the unquestionable sound of two people getting busy, and I suddenly felt like I might really throw up. There was no mistaking the fact that the high-pitched, whiny moans were coming from my wife.

“Son of a bitch,” I groaned—perhaps a bit too loud, because the noise stopped.

“Did you hear something?” I heard London ask.

“No. You’re just paranoid.” Her bed partner laughed, and it was a voice I knew all too well.

“I’m telling you I heard something,” London said. “I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going? London, wait!”

As crazy as it sounds, I suddenly had the urge to hide, but before I could even reach down to the wheels of my chair, my wife walked into the room. She was wearing a very revealing negligee, and her hair was all over the place. I took my hands off the wheels, wishing I could use them to wring her neck in that moment.

“Oh, shit! Harris, what the fuck?” The look of astonishment on London’s face was priceless.

“That’s exactly what I want to know. What the fuck?” I yelled back.

It wasn’t often that my wife, with her sharp tongue, was speechless, but now she stood there staring at me, unable to speak or to move.

“You out here fucking somebody in our home?”

“That’s not what I’m doing at all, Harris!” Those were her words, but her face screamed otherwise. She knew she was busted.

I stared at her tousled hair and silk teddy she wore and shook my head. “You gonna stand there in your damn drawers and lie to my face? At least have more respect for me than that. It’s bad enough you got your side nigga in our house—”

“It’s not the house, and he’s not my side nigga. We was just talking!”

“Yeah, and as you were talking, he just accidently slipped his dick in you, right?” I looked over her shoulder toward the closed bedroom door. “Tell him to come out!”

“Harris, now isn’t the time to talk about this. Just go back to the house and I’ll be there soon. All right?” London exhaled.

“I ain’t going nowhere. Now, who the fuck is back there? Or do you want me to guess?”

I went to roll past her, but she grabbed my arm. “Harris, stop! Stop it!”

“Get your damn hands off me!” I snatched back, shifting my wheelchair and nearly falling in the process. Instinctively, I reached out to steady myself, and I ended up grabbing her nightgown. It ripped, exposing one of her breasts.

“Get your fucking hands off her!”

London and I froze. Standing in his boxers in the entrance to the bedroom was my worst nightmare: Daryl Graham.

I knew I should’ve said no when Pete from Ware County Bail Bonds offered me the job of picking up Danny Jackson for bail jumping. The pay wasn’t that much, and based on our previous interactions, I knew that Danny was a runner. I hated runners. But business had been fairly slow, and I’d promised my momma I’d stay in the Waycross area until my brother Kenny returned home, so I had taken the job.

“Hey, I’ll be right back,” I said, turning toward my pain-in-the-ass, know-it-all little sister Lauryn. She was sitting in the passenger seat of my Jeep, chewing gum and blowing bubbles.

Despite everything I just said, Lauryn was the real deal: tall, slender, and real pretty, with greens eyes just like mine. She was so pretty that my brother Kenny use to have to fight dudes on the regular. But don’t get it twisted. Lauryn could handle herself, especially after she came home from that fancy finishing school my momma paid a fortune for.

The problem was that now that she was home, she’d been pestering the shit outta me about teaching her the bounty hunting business. I knew she was capable, but my business was rough, and I didn’t want any part of her having regrets. Somehow, she’d convinced my momma that it was a good idea, and well, I could never say no to my momma, especially since I had a good idea what Momma’s real motives were. It wasn’t that she wanted Lauryn to be a bounty hunter. She just didn’t want my sister going up to New York to work for my uncle LC. My mother had always been afraid of what the fast lifestyle of my New York relatives would do to us, especially Lauryn, who seemed to be five steps ahead of us at all times. She was sort of a fish out of water in Waycross.

“You really think he’s in there?” Lauryn asked, looking over at the small house across the street. It looked dark, except for the glow of what was possibly a TV in the front room.

“Yeah, he’s in there.”

She gave me a skeptical look. “You sure about that? How do you know?”

“Because I do!” I snapped. I was getting sick of her second guessing me with her fifty million questions. On top of that, she was making me question my own rationale for being there.

I glared angrily at her. “See, this is why—”

“This is why what?” Lauryn retorted. “I’m just asking a question, Curtis. You’re supposed to be teaching me.”

“I am teaching you.” Why the hell did I even agree to this?

“No, you’re not,” she shot back. “You haven’t even told me who we’re after, or why you think he’s in there. Whoever it is could have skipped town for all I know.”

I held my breath then released it slowly. She was right. I was supposed to be teaching her, and I hadn’t told her a thing. Somehow, I was going to have to get over the fact that my little sister was growing up.

“Okay. Danny Jackson is a small-town hood that’s never left Waycross. Folks call him Stick on account of he’s so skinny. Now, Stick’s stupid, which is half the reason he got caught trying to rob the Walmart. He’s also a creature of habit, and there’s only five places he could be, and out of town isn’t one of them. Okay?” I held my hands out, palms up, as if that was all I was going to offer.

“No.” Lauryn looked frustrated.

“No?” I repeated, taken aback.

“No, that’s not teaching me. That’s placating me. I wanna know why you made this decision, Curtis. How did you come to this conclusion? I need you to teach me, like Daddy taught you!”

Wow, that was a gut punch to the groin.

“A’ight, a’ight, calm down. You can’t learn shit if you’re talking all the damn time.”

She sat back in her seat, smug in the fact that she’d made her point.

“Like I was saying, I’ve brought Stick in twice before, and based on our previous interactions, the only places he can be is with one of his two baby mommas, at his house, his momma house, or Big Shirley’s. Stick loves to look at big titties and—”

Lauryn interrupted. “That still doesn’t tell me why we’re here.”

I glared at her angrily as she popped a huge bubble in her face. “You gonna talk, or do you wanna listen and learn something?”

“Okay, sorry. Damn.” She pouted as she pulled the gum off her chin and popped it back in her mouth.

“I already called down to Big Shirley’s before we left the house and asked Crystal the bartender if she’d seen him. She said he wasn’t there. Said she’d call me if he showed up. So now I’m down to three possibilities, one of which we eliminated about thirty minutes ago.”

“We did?” Her look of confusion was satisfying to me.

“Yeah, we did. When we stopped at the Circle K for gas and that Pepsi you needed so bad.”

Lauryn gave me a perplexed look.

“Remember the girl working the counter?”

“Yeah, the one with big-ass breasts?”

I started to smile when I saw the look of recognition coming across my sister’s face.

“She was one of his baby mommas, wasn’t she?”

“Yep, her name is Shea, and she’s his daughter’s mother,” I told her.

“So, you think he’s at her house?”

“Doubtful,” I said, shaking my head. “Shea’s car was parked outside. If Stick and her were kicking it, Stick woulda had her car. And I know he’s not at his place. Stick stupid, but he ain’t that dumb, and Pete said the police been to his house three times.”

“So, there’s only two possibilities. His other baby momma or his momma.”

“Right. And it can’t be LaShonda, his other baby momma.”

Lauryn raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“You know Tyrone Jenkins?”

“Yes, the big, light-skinned guy who went to jail for killing Barry Allen with his bare hands. I went to school with his sister Tanisha.”

“Yeah, well, rumor has it that LaShonda, Slick’s baby momma, is having Tyrone’s baby. Trust me, Stick don’t want no part of that crazy motherfucker. So, that leaves us only with his momma.” I glanced across the street at the small brick house.

“And that’s his momma’s house. Now it makes sense.” Lauryn popped another bubble as she reached for the door handle. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Where you think you’re going?” I said, reaching in the back seat for my shotgun.

“I’m going with you,” she stated matter-of-factly.

I shook my head adamantly. “No, you’re not. You’re staying right here.”

“The hell I am,” Lauryn whined. “I didn’t come with you to stay in the damn car. I wanna help.”

“You can help by staying your ass right here. I don’t need no distractions, Lauryn. Now, you wanted me to teach you like Daddy taught me? Well, in the beginning, he made me stay in the damn car. Chill out. This is not a game.” I gave her a look that let her know how serious I was. All of us Duncan men knew how to use that look when we needed to.

“I know it’s not a game, Curtis. Shit, I’m probably better at your job than you are. You keep forgetting where I went to school.”

She was probably right. I mean after all, that finishing school is just another name for mercenary school. But that didn’t mean I was just going to throw her to the wolves on the first night. Danny was known to carry a knife, and he was good with it.

“I know what school you went to, but this ain’t no damn finishing school. People shoot real guns with real bullets. This is real life shit with real criminals,” I said. “You are my baby sister, and if anything happened to you, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. So stay your ass right here until I get back. We gonna take this one day at a time.”

I opened my door and hopped out before Lauryn could say another word. As I walked across the street toward Stick’s momma’s house, I caught a glimpse of the attitude on my sister’s face. I knew she was capable, and I was going to have to loosen the reins soon, but was I wrong for not wanting anything to happen to her? Lauryn was eight years younger than me, and she hadn’t seen much of what the real world had to offer.

It didn’t take long to sneak around the house and make my way onto the back porch, which, thankfully, was dark and empty. Dogs were one of the biggest pains in the ass when it came to sneaking up on a fugitive. I took one last look around a. . .