TARIQ “REEK” HORTON
All I could see was the fear in Ava’s eyes when those bullets were flying and the sickening feeling in my gut the entire time that one of those bullets could hit her and my son. The first thing I needed to do was get to her ASAP.
By the time we made it to the Cartier estate, everybody was running on adrenaline and anger. Icon had dropped Kam off at some random location on the way over, per his own request, so he could circle back later and get his car once the smoke cleared around the pop-up.
The second I walked into the estate with Icon and Big A, I started looking for her. The whole house was in an uproar. Livia was near the bar with Royal on her hip, talking low to Aria and Tempo. Rhythm was pacing with her phone in her hand. Zahra sat with Czar holding him tight against her chest while Saint hovered over both of them like he’d shoot if anybody came through the front door wrong. Legend was pacing as Jamir sat in the corner with his laptop open, typing so fast that smoke should have been coming from those fingertips.
But I only cared about one person. Ava was stretched across one of the couches in the den with a blanket over her legsand her hand on her stomach. The second I saw her, my heart unclenched.
I took long, quick strides towards her. “You good?” I asked, even though I could see she was breathing. I still needed to hear it again.
She pushed herself up a little and looked at me with those big, light eyes that still had too much fear in them. “I’m okay.”
I crouched in front of her. “You sure?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “I’m okay.”
I put one hand on her side and the other over her stomach, like I needed to make sure for myself. Then I leaned down and kissed her belly. Then I wrapped both arms around her middle and held her there for a second longer than I meant to.
She touched the back of my head, assuring me in a whisper. “Reek, I’m okay.”
I nodded against her stomach, then kissed it one more time before straightening up.
That was when Tempo groaned. “Y’all relationship is weird as hell.”
A few people chuckled under their breath, and under any other circumstance, I might’ve had something smart to say back. But I didn’t care how it looked. My nerves were still all over the place, and Ava being alive and in one piece was the only reason I wasn’t pacing a hole in Icon’s floors. I sat on the edge of the couch beside her and kept my hand over her stomach.
“Are you really okay?” I asked again.
She nodded. “I’m just shaky.”
“That’s normal after all that,” Livia said from nearby.
Jamir spoke over us. “I found something.”
That got everybody’s attention.
Jamir kept typing a few more seconds, then turned the laptop so Icon and Legend could see the screen better. “Rico’s brother.”
That revelation made all of us look at each other in slow motion. Rico was the boss of the Crown Syndicate, the crew that had tried to extort us for a percentage of the revenue of Project 83, using that dumb-fuck Kai Richardson to do it.
Legend frowned. “Rico didn’t have a brother.”
“He did,” Jamir replied regrettably. “He didn’t come up back then because he doesn’t have the same last name. They have different fathers and he was raised with his father’s side.”
Icon walked towards Jamir to get a better look. Jamir clicked through a few screens, pulled up photos, then a profile. “He’s been living in their homeland, and because of the different last names, he never came up when I dug into Rico before.”
“Who is he?” Saint asked.
“Matías De La Cruz.”
“Rico was the face y’all dealt with here, but Matías stayed back in their homeland running other pieces of the organization,” Jamir explained. “When Rico got killed, Matías didn’t make noise right away. He stayed quiet and laid low, then came to Chicago to reboot the Crown.”
Icon folded his arms as he bent down staring at the screen. “How long he been here?”
“Long enough,” Jamir answered. “He kept his head down. Used different names, different shells, different people. He’s been recruiting too. That’s why tonight felt like a small war instead of some emotional retaliation.”
Jamir clicked to another screen that showed names, photos, and little webs of connections. “He has manpower behind him. Real manpower. Not just street niggas looking for a payday either. He got disciplined shooters, immigrant ties, and local soldiers willing to work because he came with money and a revenge mission. He’s been rebuilding the Crown under the radar and using Rico’s death to motivate people who still feel like the Cartiers embarrassed their organization.”
