The Versace League (17 page)

Yamin was completely turned off. He grinded his teeth and tried his best to hold it together. “What does Roscoe look like?” Yamin asked to see if it was the same person he’d seen at Ashley’s funeral.

            “Dark, around five-eight, he had to be in his late forties, maybe early fifties….wait, wait, wait. I took a picture of him when he wasn’t paying attention. And then I forwarded the picture to him in a text message to let him that I had his shit in my phone in case anything happened to me. It’s in my phone and the FBI took my phone when they arrested me. Work your magic,” Patrice giggled.

            Yamin stood up from the table without saying another word. He turned around to leave when Patrice stopped him.

            “Hey Ya. I’m sorry about Cortez, I really am. I never wanted any of this to happen,” Patrice said becoming emotional all over again.

            “What about for Ashley? I haven’t seen you shed not one tear for my niece, but yet you claim you never wanted to hurt her.”

            Patrice became quiet. She looked around for the closest guard so that she could be transported back to her cell. She knew she was where she belonged and hoped that when she finished out her sentence that her life was spared. She’d been through a lot in her short twenty-three years of life and she wanted a chance to redeem herself.

            Yamin shook his head and once again turned to leave. On his way out he caught the stare of another inmate and they locked eyes with one another. She was a young black girl; light skinned with golden brown eyes and wore her hair in a ponytail. Yamin shot her a smirk and nodded as he proceeded to walk to the exit of the visiting room.

            “Oh my God!” someone yelled out.

            “She’s got a gun!” another one screamed.

           
POW! POW!

           
As Yamin, went to exit, he turned around to see Patrice’s body on the floor with blood seeping from the two holes that had been planted in her and the same inmate he’d locked eyes with just seconds ago was being tackled to the ground by an army of guards. They locked eyes once more and this time he shot her a satisfying wink and hurried out of the room. He knew he wasn’t gonna be able to walk away from Patrice and just let her live. To him being locked up just wasn’t enough.

            Yamin stepped to the side as paramedics ran down the hall and past him. He continued on down the hall and was back where he’d started when he’d first arrived. He looked around and then slyly passed the guard that searched him when entering a wad of money.

He felt better now that Aasir had been cleared of any wrongdoing and that he had a name to go on. He couldn’t wait to get back to his car and patch things up with Aasir. He needed him.

***

            Hours later Yamin was standing in an empty Walmart parking lot waiting for Aasir to arrive. He called him a little over an hour ago and explained that they needed to talk and patch things up. He felt bad that he hadn’t talked to him since Ashley’s body was discovered in that abandoned building. He had tossed all kinds of accusations at Aasir and even was on the verge of killing him. He was just glad that he hadn’t made a decision that he would later come to regret.

            Yamin lit the tip of the blunt and leaned against his car as he watched Aasir enter the parking lot and speed towards where he was standing. He thought about his sister Aucelie, his wife Jessica, and his sister in law Donica and wondered if they were okay. He knew that Manny and Emmanuel was some on point niggas and wouldn’t let anything happen to them, but he couldn’t help but wonder if they were all cool. He didn’t like being in this situation at all and was hoping that they can take back control of their lives as quickly as possible.

            “What up bruh?” Aasir said as he stepped out of the car. He flicked the butt of a cigarette to the ground and approached his eldest sibling. He dapped him up and gave him a hug that seemed to last forever. The two of them had never gone that long without speaking and each of them truly missed one another. They had always been close and to think that a few individuals were able to tear them apart was sickening. It saddened the both of them to know that someone had that much power to break apart something that should have been unbreakable. 

            “What up Youngn? You look like you ain’t eating nigga. What’s going on?” Yamin asked as he noticed Aasir’s substantial weight loss.

            “Stressed the fuck out mane. You just don’t know how happy I was to see your name light up my screen today bruh. I’ve been praying for this moment like every fuckin’ day,” Aasir said on the verge of tears.

He hoped that this was the last time that he and Yamin went through something like this. He never knew how lost he would be without his older brother and it scared him. He didn’t realize how important Yamin’s presence was to his existence. Yamin had always been there. Always. And not having him around for the past few months, was the worst. He had always appreciated Yamin for stepping up and taking care of them when their mother died and later when their father died, but now he appreciated it more.

He could see why his uncle had chosen Yamin to take over The Versace League when their father died and he’d gotten locked up. Yamin was the true definition of a boss. He ran The Versace League with precision and he treated everyone with care in the same way he had done with his family. Aasir knew that these chain of events had to have affected Yamin in a horrible way. No man wanted to feel like they weren’t in control of their family.

            “I just wanted to see you face to face and apologize for that. I went down and talked to Patrice earlier today and she told me everything. I don’t know why I even thought you would be involved in some shit like that, I don’t know why I didn’t go talk to her earlier, but I guess I knew I would kill that ass,” Yamin said. He took a toke off the blunt and extended it to Aasir.

            “It’s cool. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to even be put in a situation to even look guilty. Had the shoe been on the other foot, I might’ve thought the same thing. Patrice played a good game.”

            “Yea and whoever she was hooked up with still fuckin’ playing. They got into Aucelie’s crib and was watching her every move. They threatened to knock people off one by one if I don’t return what I took from them within 3 days. I have no idea who the fuck these muthafuckas are to even know what the fuck I took from them. I’m frustrated as fuck because I thought this shit was over with. I honestly thought it was gonna end when Patrice was caught.”

            “Patrice didn’t say anything about who she was working with?” Aasir asked.

            “She said something about a nigga named Roscoe and that she took a picture of him in her phone that the FBI confiscated,” Yamin shook his head.

            “Damn, having Katrina around right now would be nice.”

            “Hell yea, but shit we gotta make do with the replacement Nicole. But here is the thing, at the funeral there was a nigga there named Roscoe. He knew the wife and shit. They seemed to know each other well. He said he knew Cortez too, but I never heard of that dude,” Yamin said.

             
“I seen the two of you stop and talk to some older dude. You think it’s the same dude? Did you ask Jessica about him?”

             
“Nah, not yet. I want to get this picture out of Patrice’s phone first. I would hate to go to her about this nigga and it’s just a coincidence that they have the same name.  I need you to handle this though. Find out who this nigga Roscoe is and then get The League together when you do. I gotta finish up this lil’ job I took on with Jamison. It’s huge and I’m talking about some shit I can’t afford to miss. I got Emmanuel and Manny on high alert and they know what’s at stake so I’m not worried about the girls right now. But we still need to treat this shit with high priority.  Soon as you get that picture, send it to my phone. I’ll try to be back as soon as possible. ,” Yamin held out his hand and his brother accepted. The two of them hugged again before departing ways.

THE VERSACE LEAGUE

Aasir hurriedly entered the building and raced to the back where everyone was waiting. He had called a quick meeting for everyone to get together so that they all could help out and make this huge problem they had go away. He was actually disappointed in everyone’s lack of concern for the matter before. It was as if none of them had cared, because it hadn’t personally affected their lives. The League was supposed to be a union of family members and had any of them found themselves in the position that he and Yamin were in, they would’ve gladly stepped in to assist.

            The moment Aasir stepped into the small room that they were to meet in, he looked at each of the members that were in attendance. He almost wanted to release every last one of them and had he been the one in charge, he probably would have. He was far removed from his feelings when it came to any of them because none of them seemed to care one bit that they had lost a soldier, what was supposed to be a family member.

            “I thought that we were all family,” Aasir solemnly stated as he leaned his back against the wall. Everyone looked back with confused expressions and then looked around at one another waiting for some kind of explanation. “Yamin and I lost our brother and then we lost our niece and the only thing any of you have offered was your condolences. No one stepped up to assist or anything and I just find that odd that nobody was there besides Katrina and she’s dead behind the shit.”

            “We honestly didn’t want to bring any unnecessary attention to The League that didn’t need to be brought. Katrina was assigned Cortez’s case and we all just felt it was best that we stepped back,” Judge Kerrison said.

            “Step back. Why not all hands on deck? Maybe if everybody would’ve joined in and helped we maybe could’ve saved Ashley,” Aasir said. “Ya would’ve risked anything to help any of you and you all know it. And on top of that, maybe this shit would’ve been over instead of seeming like it was just beginning.”

            “You’re right. He would have risked his life for us all. He came to us the other night and I feel like we could have done more to help him. We all knew the risks we were up against when we joined The Versace League, it’s not fair to reap the benefits of it, but run when it gets tough,” Knox said. “I apologize for not extending a hand before, but I’m here now. Whatever you and Yamin need from me, I’m here.”

            Everyone in the room seemed to be in an agreement with Knox. They all had been guilty of turning the other cheek when it came to this. None of them would admit that it wasn’t the trouble that they fear it was the fact that they weren’t getting paid to risk their lives. Every job that they had done came with a pay day, but finding out who killed Cortez and had kidnapped Ashley was payless. Now that they all had been busted on their shit, each of them felt bad, because Aasir had been right, Yamin would’ve have rode through a fire to help every last one of them. 

           “Here. I was able to get this picture off of a cell phone. This is the guy that hired Patrice to have Cortez killed and Ashley kidnapped. His name is Roscoe.” Aasir tossed the stack of papers he held onto the table. He had several copies of Roscoe’s pictures that were sent to his phone from a tech that worked in IT for T-Mobile. The tech was able to pry into Patrice’s phone records and pull up all the calls she’d made and received and also the messages that were sent to her and sent out from her phone. Luckily for Aasir, Patrice was telling the truth about sending Roscoe his own picture to let him know that if he tried anything funny, that she had a picture of him in her phone. He tried calling the number that she had been texting, but it had been disconnected. He was just glad that the IT tech worked out and that he didn’t have to use the new girl Nicole. This situation was too delicate to hand off to a newbie. 

Nicole just looked around in shock. She was the new chick that Yamin found to replace Katrina. She was amazed at all the high level people that were in the room and couldn’t believe how many of them were risking their careers and their personal lives for more power and more money. When Yamin had picked her, he told her that she had been recommended by her sister Stacey that was locked up doing life in prison. She didn’t know what to expect or what she was getting herself into, but she was excited. Just like her sister Stacey, she had a little criminal tendencies within her too.

            Everyone grabbed a copy of the photo and looked at Roscoe, and Aasir studied all of their faces to see if anyone recognized him. He was a dark skinned guy with a full beard, and short gray cut. He had to be at least fifty to sixty years of age. It had been the same guy that was at Ashley’s funeral and Aasir had already forwarded his picture to Yamin, but had yet to hear from him. He imagined that Yamin would have wanted to confront his wife about Roscoe himself rather than have him do it.  Until then, he would see what they could find out on their own.

            “Anybody? Does he look like a client that any of you may have had? Have you all seen him around anywhere?” Aasir asked and waited for an answer but everyone was quiet. No one seemed to know this guy and that frustrated Aasir even more. They were so close, but yet so far away. For now they only had a picture and a name. He wished that Yamin would return his call so that she could at least get them a last name from Jessica, and they could go from there.