La Bella Mafia Read online

  “The baby is restless. To be honest so am I. I miss him. I can’t believe he’s gone,” Miamor admitted. “He was all I had left. So what the hell do I do now?”

  Leena’s heart went out to Miamor. To see Carter and her together was to see true love. Leena knew that not even her own relationship with Monroe could rival the one she witnessed whenever she was around them. “Have you spoken to Breeze?” Leena asked.

  The sound of sirens broke through the silent night and Leena looked around in confusion and then she looked at her security cameras.

  “The police are here,” Leena announced. Unmarked black cars were pulling onto her property. “They must’ve found the plane,” Leena whispered as she rushed back into the house, tightening the belt on her kimono as she raced through the massive mansion. “I’ll call you back,” Leena said.

  “Lee . . . wait . . .” Miamor began to protest, but Leena ended the call. Her feet slapped the cold tile floor as she headed toward the front door, frantically, as hope began to rise in her broken heart. She flung open the door and ran out into the yard, meeting the officers in front of her home before they even got out of their vehicles. She was taken aback when she saw how many had come. By the time she realized something was wrong it was too late. Twenty federal agents exited their vehicles swiftly with automatic weapons aimed toward her face. Red beams appeared all over her upper torso and as Leena looked down she realized that all it took was an itchy trigger finger to end her life.

  “Let me see your hands! On the ground now!”

  Leena went deaf as the thunderous hum of a helicopter roared above her head. The windstorm that it created as it circled above her, shining a bright spotlight on her, caused her hair to blow wildly.

  “What? What is going on?” she shouted frantically.

  “Hands up! On the ground now!”

  Leena was manhandled to the cement as she resisted their demands. She watched as the Feds swarmed her home. “Wait! My son is inside! My son is in the house!” she screamed as she tried to stand.

  One of the men put a forceful knee in her back causing her to grimace in pain as he cuffed her wrists tightly. The metal bit into her skin and her wrist snapped from the agent’s brute force. They held no sympathy for her as they made their arrest.

  “You can’t do this! I’ve done nothing wrong! My son! If you touch one hair on his head I will have your fucking head!” she screamed as she resisted arrest. She lunged, kicking and screaming as she tried to break free. All she could think of was her son. Leena had no idea why she was even under arrest, but the Feds had come at her so heavy that she could only assume the worst.

  Leena’s heart broke in half as they forced her into the car. She looked out of the rearview window and saw her son crying hysterically in the arms of one of the men. She broke down instantly. She had no clue of what would become of her and her child.

  “Please, just tell me what is going on? What will happen to my son?” she asked, as snot and tears wrecked her pretty face. There was no keeping her composure. Leena was distraught. She knew that the tides of life were changing. With the death of the men the Feds had grown balls of steel. They would have never come at The Cartel with such arrogance and disrespect otherwise.

  “Your son will be placed in temporary custody of the state,” one of the Feds said as he drove away from her home.

  “No, please! You can’t,” she said with a gasp.

  “We can and we will, unless you can tell us something that will make us change our minds and set you free. Your cooperation will make all of this go away. So do yourself a favor and tell us what you know about the murders, the cocaine, the dirty money laundering that The Cartel is involved in. It’s in your best interest to start talking.”

  “I’m not telling you anything,” Breeze stated as she sat with her hands behind her back, handcuffed to the hard chair.

  “We have evidence against you and everyone affiliated with The Cartel. We’ve got you for drug trafficking, running a criminal enterprise, fraud, tax evasion, the list goes on and on.”

  Breeze kept her eyes on the wall in front of her, barely blinking as she blocked out the voice of the federal agent. The olive-skinned man leaned in menacingly over Breeze, using intimidation tactics to get her to break. Zyir had trained her well. Breeze knew better than to volunteer any information. They couldn’t even get her prints on a coffee cup, she was so seasoned. Growing up in the folds of the largest organization in the South had prepared her for this moment. “We found pieces of an aircraft, scattered throughout the Atlantic Ocean, about 150 miles off the coast of Bermuda. Too bad the cowards left their ladies to take the fall for their bad deeds.”

  Breeze’s eyes turned dark at the insult and her heart wrenched.

  “You don’t have anything on me,” Breeze said.

  “We have everything on you. You recognize this face?” The agent tossed a photo of Estes onto the table in front of her and Breeze turned green as her stomach turned.

  “Let’s just say family doesn’t mean much these days. He’s singing like a canary and has implicated not only your husband and brothers, but you and over a hundred other mid- and low-level dealers across the state,” the agent said. He noticed that Breeze’s demeanor had changed.

  “Not so cocky now huh, princess?” he mocked. “We picked up over thirty people directly affiliated with The Cartel. You’re standing tall, but do you honestly think all of them will too? Now the way this works is who ever talks first gets the deal. There is only one way out of this.”

  “Magdalena!” Miamor yelled in urgency as she quickly dressed. The Spanish housekeeper appeared in the doorway. “I need you to watch the baby. Do not let anyone into this house under any circumstances. I don’t care if God himself knocks on the door, you don’t let anyone in. Comprende?”

  “Sí, sí,” Magdalena replied.

  Miamor placed a call to Carter’s attorney and within minutes she was headed to the federal building. She knew the game and now that the Feds felt The Cartel was weakened, they were coming in for the kill. There was no way that Miamor was letting all that Carter had built be destroyed. She had watched him closely, studied the way that he reigned and just as she had in life, she would now hold him down in death. She already knew that Leena had been arrested and when she couldn’t reach Breeze she had a gut feeling that she was being held too. Surely they had intended to come for her next, but Miamor moved to her own beat. She wasn’t being taken into custody without representation.

  She rode in the back of the plush interior of the Maybach as her driver guided through the city’s streets. Miamor’s chest heaved as anxiety crept into her bones. Today her worst fear was coming true. She was about to go up against the law. Most who did it had no wins, but with the team of sharks that Carter had left her with she was confident that she could come out of things unscathed. The car arrived at her destination and Miamor saw that Carter’s legal team was waiting at the top of the steps. Steve Rosenberg, the best esquire in the city, was already on retainer. Standing confident and dapper as ever in a Brooks Brothers suit, he waited with a briefcase in hand. Miamor waited for her driver to open her door, then she emerged from the vehicle.

  “Ms. Matthews, I’m glad you were smart enough to call me,” he said as she shook his hand.

  “Thank you for coming, Mr. Rosenberg,” she replied anxiously.

  “Looks like they’re reaching a bit. They do have extensive evidence on Carter, Zyir, and Monroe, but seeing as though they are now deceased that pigeonholes their investigation. They’re using scare tactics to try and get an informant out of you ladies. The Cartel has been responsible for drugs and crime in this city. They need a kingpin to tie it to, but in this case they are willing to settle for a queen pin. Since they can’t get your men, they now are gunning for the three of you.”

  “They have Leena and Breeze. Have they turned them?” Miamor asked, as she bit her inner jaw, hoping that the ladies could stand tall under pressure.

  “Not ye
t, but let’s go get them out of there before one of them do. The DEA has been known to flip the most hardened of criminals.”

  Just seeing the face of such a prestigious defense attorney turned the tables in the girls’ favor. Within an hour Breeze and Leena were released, but the struggle was far from over.

  “They’ll keep coming for you. As long as they have Estes’s cooperation, it’s only a matter of time before they bring indictments down on anyone he’s naming. I’ll do more research in the morning to find out what we’re up against. I’ll be in touch,” Rosenberg said.

  “What about my son?” Leena asked urgently.

  “I’ve already made arrangements to have him returned to you. As soon as they process the paperwork a caseworker will drop him off to your home. Shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”

  He bid adieu to the ladies and they each watched him pull away.

  “They found the plane,” Breeze informed sadly as tears flooded her eyes. “It crashed in the middle of the ocean. Divers are still looking for their bodies.”

  “What are we going to do? Everything is falling apart,” Leena whispered. The three women formed a small circle and put their arms around one another, creating a circle of power . . . street royalty. They were the queens who would inherit the throne.

  “We do what we have to do. We take over The Cartel,” Miamor replied. “And the first thing on the agenda is to clear our names.” She turned sympathetically toward Breeze. “I know that Estes is your grandfather, but—”

  Breeze put her hand up and interrupted. “Do what needs to be done. If he’s talking it’ll be well deserved anyway. I’m numb to the death around me by now. It doesn’t even matter.”

  “Do you guys know what this means? We can’t just step in their shoes. I just sat back and spent the money. I’m not in the streets. I don’t know the first thing about running anything . . . I can’t do this,” Leena protested.

  “You can and you will. For years we’ve sat back and watched the throne. It’s time we inherited it. It is our time now, ladies, and we either do this together or watch the entire Cartel fall. The vultures will pick everything our men established apart until there’s nothing left if we don’t assume our roles,” Miamor schooled. She knew the streets. She had come up in the trenches and her murder game was official. There was nothing in her that was scared of this opportunity. She was reveling at the chance to continue Carter’s legacy.

  “We have no muscle,” Breeze said.

  “Some will stay loyal, others will test us. Niggas gonna learn a hard lesson when they buck, but they not knocking us off,” Miamor assured.

  “First we memorialize our men. Give them a home going that the streets will never forget,” Leena whispered.

  Breeze nodded and added, “Then the takeover begins.”

  The Cartel 5

  By Ashley & JaQuavis

  Prologue

  “There is a price to pay for breaking my heart. I’m going to ruin you nigga.”

  —Miamor

  “Dig deeper,” Miamor stated coldly as she stood over the two burly men that were unearthing the desert soil. Their shovels clanged loudly against the earth as their grunts filled the air. “It can’t be shallow. We don’t want any mangy coyotes coming along and digging the body up.” Miamor was livid and her heart pumped pure ice as it violently beat in her chest. Her emotions went haywire and her mind was everywhere at once. Any chance of her turning back now and stopping this madness went out the window every time she thought of how she had been betrayed. Reason was non-existent at the moment, she was acting off of raw rage. Her Cavalli sunglasses masked her watery eyes as she thought of the motivation behind her actions. She had murdered many times before. Fuck it. It was nothing for her to go boom on a nigga. She was in the business of extinction, but when business became personal it always played a tug of war with her mental.

  Her judgment hadn’t been this clouded since she had lost her sister at the hands of Mecca. She had promised herself that she would never let her emotions get so tangled again, but yet here she was years later . . . devastated. . . heartbroken . . . confused all over again. She should have been taking her aggression out on the root of the problem. Her man. Carter ‘muthafuckin’ Jones. He was the perpetrator of the crimes that had been committed against her heart. It was he who deserved to be buried in this shallow grave but instead it was his pretty little mistress who was in her crosshairs. Miamor saw red when the blacked out SUV pulled up a few yards away, because she knew who was hidden inside. They were in the middle of nowhere . . . thirty miles into the Mojave on uncharted land to be exact. No one came out this far unless they were looking to add to the secrets of the land. It was an unofficial graveyard. Many a mobster had held court in these deserted deserts. There was no telling how many bones were buried beneath the hot sands. Miamor was about to host a funeral and the guest of honor was a Persian bitch named Yasmine.

  The most dangerous thing in the world was a woman scorned, but a Miamor scorned was deadly. No one had seen the kind of damage that Miamor could do. She hadn’t had to deal with groupies in Miami. Carter had always walked a straight line. Their love story had been so complicated that he hadn’t found the time to entertain anyone but her. Even during her absence from his life he had remained true, but Yasmine . . . Yasmine had distracted him. She had seduced Miamor’s man and there was a price to pay for that. The bitch clearly doesn’t know who she’s fucking with, Miamor thought, her temperature rising as she stalked across the desert. She was heated . . . not from the sun that blazed down on her, but from the hatred that burned in her heart. As an unsuspecting Yasmine climbed from the backseat of the car, Miamor approached.

  “What the hell is the meaning of this?” Yasmine asked as she held up a note. “Where’s Carter? I’m supposed to be meeting him here? He sent this car for me.”

  Miamor was as feminine as ever in designer clothes and five-inch heels. She hadn’t anticipated getting too dirty. She had men who followed orders at her discretion now. She barely had to lift a glass to her lips these days because her men waited on her hand and foot. They were young wolves and she was the leader of the pack. They attacked at her command. So there was truly no reason for her to break a sweat today. When she wanted someone to bleed, it never dripped on her shoes now. But this bitch Yasmine was a bit too pretty for her tastes. The way Carter’s name dripped off of Yasmine’s lips made Miamor shake with disgust. The smug, entitled, expression she wore irked Miamor to the point where she couldn’t stop herself from slapping the taste out of her mouth. Miamor struck her violently.

  “Agh!” Yasmine yelled as Miamor muscled her to the ground. Miamor’s vice grip on Yasmine’s jet black hair caused the girl to scream in alarm as she tried to pry Miamor’s hand from her scalp. Sweat started to form on Miamor’s forehead as she spoke through gritted teeth. “I sent a hearse for your bitch. There are plenty of men in Vegas. You should have chosen somebody else’s,” she said. She didn’t even care about getting her hands dirty anymore. When her temper flared it took nothing less than murder to calm her down. She was on ten, it was too late to be rational now. She pulled Yasmine through the desert, destroying along the way, the all white dress that the girl wore.

  “No!!” she screamed as she clawed at Miamor’s wrist while kicking her legs violently as she tried to break free.

  Miamor mustered strength that she didn’t even know she had and she didn’t stop until she had pulled her from the car to the hole that was now complete. Her men stood around, unflinching as they watched revenge be served. Fuck cold, Miamor was serving revenge frozen. She hadn’t even let it thaw out first.

  As soon as Yasmine laid eyes on the ditch, terror filled her. She turned to Miamor, scrambling on her knees. “Do you know who I am? You can not get away with this!”

  Miamor smirked as she shook her head incredulously. “I know exactly who you are. You’re nobody. You live off of your daddy’s name to get by. You think because you’re a pampered little bitch
from Saudi Arabia that you can do whatever you want, but you made one mistake. You didn’t know who you were offending. You didn’t check my resume. You see me in the casino in my fancy clothes, prancing around as Carter’s arm accessory and you got me confused. You thought I was just a wife . . . just a mother perhaps? You didn’t do your homework. Should have checked my background mama.”

  “Please! You can have Carter . . .” the girl began to plead.

  “Bitch I already have Carter. There ain’t a woman alive that can take Carter away from me. I own that nigga. That’s my dick, my houses, my cars, my everything. Everything dope about him belongs to me. You’re just a whim, but one that annoys the fuck out of me.”

  “Okay, okay. I won’t even look at him. I swear to you,” Yasmine stated as she held her hands out in front of her. “Just let me go. This isn’t necessary.”

  “You fucked my nigga. This is very necessary. I hope it was good. Was it to die for?” Miamor asked. Suddenly she snatched one of the shovels from her bodyguard’s hands and swung it full force, hitting Yasmine in the side of the face. She fell to the ground as blood poured from her ear. Miamor’s rampage exploded as she hit her repeatedly, again and again. The sound of metal cracking human bone wasn’t enough to make her stop. She showed no mercy as she took her frustrations out. She didn’t care that she was literally beating the life out of the girl. Yasmine’s efforts to block the blows were futile. There was no protecting herself from this ruthless assault and as the excruciating beating continued she could do nothing but pray. Miamor’s chest heaved as she felt her clothes begin to stick to her skin. She held the shovel high above her head as she prepared to bring it down once more, but the sniffling, bloody, mess of a woman before her was no longer worth the effort. This beating wasn’t making her feel any better. It didn’t dull the pain that plagued her. She was still aching inside. The unbearable emotion haunted her, making it hard for her to breathe. Tears clouded her vision as she tossed the shovel to the ground. “Should have never crossed me,” she said. She turned to her men. “Put the bitch in a box and bury her while she’s still breathing. Leave a little air hole for her. I want it to be slow. Let her feel every single moment of what’s left of her miserable life.” Miamor left two of her men behind to clean up her mess as she headed back to the car with her driver. She had a meeting to attend. Yasmine was only the first to be punished. Carter would feel her wrath as well. As she climbed into the back of the car she knew that no matter what fate she delivered to him . . . she would always suffer behind his betrayal. Nothing she could do to him would ever make this right because even when she hated him . . . she loved him.