Deep Page 20

  “Madame?” The girl turned her head toward Sadie and squinted her eyes.

  “Don’t insult me like that.” Sadie chuckled. “That crazy bitch came face to face with the best shooters in the nation. She’s dead.”

  “But how?”

  “What is your name?” Sadie asked, ignoring her question.

  “Ahli.”

  “Well, Ahli, a few months ago you and that girl in the bed next to you did something very bad. You robbed me.”

  “Robbed you?”

  “Yes, me. Of two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of product, but you sold it for only half of that.”

  The comprehension of what she was being told was sinking into Ahli’s mind and she inhaled a sharp breath. Brayland told her that they were savage, and looking into Sadie’s eyes she knew that was true. “The Last Kings.”

  “Correct.” Sadie rested her arm on the chair she was sitting in so that she could rest her head on her hand. “You two had me personally traveling across the world for two months looking for you. I missed out on money because of you. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you both.”

  Ahli turned to face her sister, who looked worse than she did. Her body was completely covered in deep cuts and Ahli felt like somebody was squeezing her heart with their palm. She turned her face back to the woman and evened her breath before speaking. “What is your name?”

  “I am Sadie.”

  “Well, Sadie, I honestly don’t know why you shouldn’t kill us both; but if that is what you decide to do I’m asking that you just kill me and not her. You can torture me for all eternity as long as you don’t lay a finger on my sister’s head. Oh, and get her some plastic surgery and shit, too. You have on Chanel slippers. You can afford it.”

  Sadie didn’t expect to laugh but it snuck up on her and out of her mouth. She stopped it as soon as she heard it and she tried to make her expression stony again. She raised her eyebrow at the girl she’d made sure got the best medical treatment in the state, and she knew that she wasn’t going to kill her. There were a few things that she needed to know.

  “I figured you two were sisters,” Sadie said, thinking about how the body of the younger girl, Rhonnie, was thrown over her big sister. “I just have one question.”

  “Yeah?”

  “How did you all end up in that situation?”

  “I didn’t have my gun,” Ahli said in all seriousness. “All of our weapons were in the room with my . . . my friend. And Madame had him killed.”

  “You mean Brayland?”

  Ahli couldn’t help but sit up in her bed at the mention of his name. “How do you know him?”

  “My shooters found him assed out in one of the rooms at that whorehouse. He had been stabbed in his shoulder and chest, but he’s a’ight.”

  “Is he here?”

  Sadie smiled at Ahli, knowing the look on her face too well. It reminded her of someone she knew. “Yes. He’s been in here checking on you every day when he’s not training with my shooters. I actually just had to kick him out when the doctor said you were stirring in your sleep. He loves you, you know.”

  “I know,” Ahli whispered, kicking her bare feet under the warm comforter. She cleared her throat. “Wait. Your shooters? Where are we?”

  “Detroit,” Sadie replied. “The headquarters of the Last Kings. I had you both relocated here. Figured you didn’t have much to live for in Nebraska anymore.”

  Flashes of her father came to her mind but Ahli quickly pushed them away. Sadie was right, and although she didn’t know what was to come she was happy to be in a new place. She swallowed and looked back at the beautiful woman with the sharp brown eyes. “I thought kings were men, not women.”

  “I guess I changed that rule, didn’t I?” Sadie smiled at the boldness of the woman. “And if you two are who I think you are, your reputation says that you are kings too.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Kings don’t get caught slipping like that and almost die.”

  Sadie became quiet for a second and subconsciously touched the scar from the bullet that had once penetrated her chest. “You’d be surprised.”

  “So what now? Are you going to kill us?”

  Sadie stood up from her seat and approached the bed so that she could fluff Ahli’s pillows. “Not if you answer one more question for me.”

  “Shoot.”

  “How did the two of you end up in that hotel?”

  “I guess . . . I guess our pasts, pasts we didn’t even know about, came back to haunt us. That woman . . . that woman was looking for something in us. Something that we don’t have.”

  “What was that woman looking for? What did she want so bad?”

  Her gaze pierced Ahli’s, daring her to lie, but for some odd reason Ahli didn’t even want to lie. She wanted an outlet, and right then with Rhonnie still sleeping she had the perfect one.

  “Vita E Morte,” Ahli told her.

  “Life and death,” Sadie whispered. “You’re lying. That drug is supposed to be an Italian myth. They say the person in possession of Vita E Morte could do either two things: give life or cause death. Hence the name.”

  “Apparently not, and my mother was the one who finally got her hands on the formula to it.”

  “What did she do with it?” Sadie asked not in greed, but in wonder.

  “She hid it,” Ahli said. “She and my father didn’t want it to get into the wrong hands. My father said that they destroyed it but I didn’t believe him. Honestly, I don’t even care about it. For me it didn’t give life. It caused nothing but death around me. Rhonnie is the only family I have left in this world.”

  Sadie nodded her head and took a step back from the bed. “You don’t have any idea where your parents would have hidden it?”

  “Like I told Madame, I have no idea—”

  The sight of the sun peeking through the glass window in the room caught her attention, and the sound of her mother’s voice entered her head as a memory was jogged.

  “Go on now. Be the good big sis I know you can be. And when we get home I’ll teach you how to play Vita.”

  “The piano,” Ahli said, looking out the window into the bright sun. She grinned and looked back to Sadie. “My mother named her piano Vita and after she died my father put it in storage. He never knew I took it out to put in my secret apartment that he obviously knew about the whole time. I could bet my life on it that the formula for Vita E Morte is in my mother’s old piano.”

  “What would you say if I told you I wanted it and I need the address to your apartment?”

  “I would ask you what you were going to use it for.”

  Sadie didn’t answer right away. She just began her walk to exit the room. When she was almost to the doorway she paused and turned back around to face her.

  “I would finally have the power to merge all of the major cartels together,” she said softly. “The world looked at drug dealers as crooks without realizing it is our money that keeps the streets clean. The truth is harder to absorb than light. They don’t want to acknowledge that it is our money, our dirty money, that they ask for to fund much-needed research practices. Yes, it is true that some of the drugs people sell poison the streets, but that is not how the Last Kings operate. I’d rather poison the people already poisoning the system. The rich sons of bitches who look down their noses at us like we’re the scum. They say money is the root of all evil, but with a drug like Vita E Morte I’d be able to end so much death and poverty, except with the ones who wage war with us, and breathe life back into the streets. This drug has the ability to change the game and how it is played . . . forever.”

  There wasn’t a bone in Ahli’s body that didn’t believe what Sadie was telling her. Her words were touching and Ahli swallowed again, trying not to cry in front of what might be the world’s bossiest chick ever.

  “Then I would tell you my address and tell you to grab my favorite underwear while you’re at it.”

  Sadie grinned at her response and winked. �
��Rest up,” Sadie told her. “Because the moment you’re able to move around I’m putting you to work. All Brayland has been doing is bragging about these skills you and your sister have. I want to see them, and if they are up to par I want you to teach my men everything you know.”

  “What does that mean? That we can stay?”

  “Yes. The loyalty your sister showed you when she threw her body over you to protect you from those blades was a special kind of love.” Their eyes graced Rhonnie’s sleeping body. “Shielding someone from a bullet with your body is different from shielding someone from an array of knives. She felt every bit of that pain and didn’t budge off of you. She took every single last cut for you. Love like that, even between siblings, doesn’t come around that often. I need that kind of loyalty and trust on my team. Plus, I must admit, it’s pretty gangster that two chicks robbed a trap house full of niggas. If you accept this invitation I’d like to welcome you to the Last Kings.”

  Ahli thought about it for a few seconds before smirking. “It truly is crazy how things work out.” Ahli briefly glanced at her sister again and felt a rush of fondness that was so strong. “But, weird as it may sound, I think we are exactly where we need to be. We don’t have a family anymore, and it seems that Brayland has already made himself at home here. As long as you don’t have any machetes around . . . I’m in.”