The Versace League (6 page)

THE VERSACE LEAGUE

Yamin stepped out of his cocaine colored Benz and adjusted his tie. He was dressed in a custom made chocolate brown Armani suit, with Moccasins lacing his feet. He adjusted the bottom buttons on his suit jacket and headed towards their respective meeting spot for the night. They never met in the same place twice and was never given the meeting place until an hour before hand.

His mind was all over the place, but he knew he had to get it together for the sake of his niece and for the sake of the League. Everybody would be looking at him, and if he even looked like he was falling apart, muthafuckas would assume that he couldn’t handle his job. The majority of the members were family, but there were a handful of members who were around from when the League first started with his father and Uncle, and a handful of new members. Most loved Yamin as the boss, but of course there was always someone that felt they could do a better job.

      "Here ya go, Ya," Manny said passing him a piece of a blunt.

Yamin took a tug of the blunt and blew a cloud of smoke in the air. He looked down at his watch and wondered what Jessica was doing at the moment. He wished that he could have told her the truth in the beginning and then maybe things wouldn’t have been so bad between them. He had never been able to sustain a relationship with any woman until now. They always suspected that he was hiding something and would always assume that it was another woman, and would eventually leave him. For some reason when he’d first met Jessica, he knew that she was the one. He knew that he couldn’t let her get away like the rest, which is why he proposed so fast and suggested that they get married quickly after. He didn’t know if it had been the fact that she was older and a lot more mature than the rest or if it had been the fact that she was independent, smart, and sexy with her own career. Either way, women like Jessica were hard to find and he didn’t want to lose her. He loved his wife and hoped that once all was said and done, she would stand by his side.

“A’ight, y’all keep it tight. Shouldn’t be in here too long,” Yamin said. He took another pull off the blunt and handed it to Emmanuel.

“Don’t worry we got it boss man. Take care of ya business,” Emmanuel said and nodded his head.

Yamin entered the building and started down the dark hallway. His shoes knocked against the wooden floor with each stride that he took. He thought about the condition his niece was in when he saw her and solemnly hoped that not a hair on her head had been harmed. He also wondered how well Donica was holding up and made a mental note to go by and check on her once the meeting was done. The past few days he slipped up and broke down a little too much, but that was the last time he would allow that to happen. He had been selfish and hadn’t thought about anyone, including his brother Aasir and his sister Aucelie. They had been handling all of the arrangements for Cortez’s funeral and he hadn’t so much as offered a hand.

I gotta get my shit together, this isn’t like me.
Yamin pushed the door open and cleared his throat once he entered the room. Everyone was there-except for Cortez. He looked at the empty chair where his brother would have likely sat and swallowed the huge lump that formed in his throat. He coughed a couple of times in an attempt not to break down in front of everyone.

      "Thank y'all for coming tonight on such short notice. I'm sure everyone has been made aware of Cort's passing," Yamin said. He watched as most of the eyes shot to the empty chair while others held their heads down in mourning. Cortez had been an important part of The Versace League, everyone loved and adored him and the work that he did. He was very good with computers and could hack into damn near anything. He was the baby of The League and the loss was a devastating one to everyone.

“Sorry to hear about Cortez. He is a young soul that will truly be missed,” Judge Kerrison said. He was one of the members that was around when the League first started. He was a hard ass federal judge in the court room and didn’t take no shit from anybody. He was known to give out ridiculous sentences to people whenever he was trying to teach someone a lesson.

The only time he was lenient was when he was paid through The League to throw out cases that they had been paid for. To date he felt like he may have been responsible for one of the planes that ran into the twin towers on 9/11. He had been paid five million dollars to throw out a case on a suspected terrorist and a couple of weeks later he watched the twin towers go down. He still had nightmares about that shit thinking about all the karma that would eventually come his way.

“Yea I can’t believe he’s gone. I had just talked to him hours before everything happened,” Katrina said. She was an FBI agent and had been a part of The Versace League for the last three years. She contributed to the organization by notifying The League if any of them went on the radar and would also use her database to check people out before they accepted any jobs. Every job went through her hands first and then was given to Yamin for the okay.
 
             
  There were 15 total members in The Versace League, ranging from judges, police officers, and regular street niggas. Everyone served a purpose and was beneficial to the League in some kind of way.

  "Preciate it y’all. Aasir should have the details for the funeral so if anyone plans on attending just get with him,” Yamin cleared his throat again. “Anyway, Cortez’s daughter, my niece, Ashley was kidnapped by the same people that killed Cortez and I need to get her back. I have no idea who this person is. All I have is 2 videos, 2 notes, and some voices that I don’t recognize. Only thing the muthafuckas told me was-” Yamin paused and pulled a plastic bag out of his suit. It contained the balled up note that had been delivered to his house along with the DVD.

“You took what’s mines so I take what’s yours. You started this and now I will finish it,” Yamin read the note and looked around the room. Everyone was stone faced. They had stolen many things in their lifetime so this was not a good clue. It could be anybody.

“That’s it?” Detective Jamison asked. He was a veteran detective of the Dallas Police Department and plenty of evidence had gone missing out of the evidence room because of him. He also got paid quite well through The League from many drug dealers just for keeping the attention off of them. He had been a dirty cop since the day he entered the Police Academy and was slowly working his way up to Lieutenant and then Captain where he would have more pull.

Yamin let out a sharp breath. He knew that he didn’t have much to go on, but he was hoping that maybe once everybody got a listen to the voices that they would recognize one. If not, then hopefully there would be some useable fingerprints. Yamin had never felt so out of whack in his entire life. He’d always done things a certain way and he’d always had control of the situation. Normally he would be the one running the show, but now someone else was running him and he had no idea who.

All he wanted was to get Ashley, kill the muthafucka that had taken her, and return her to her mother. After that was said and done, he wanted time to properly grieve, and he wanted to spend time fixing things with his wife.

Yamin played the two videos for everyone, but unfortunately no one recognized the voices. It had been a dead end just as he suspected and left half the room in tears after they were done watching. After all they had just watched the murder of Cortez and the kidnapping of little Ashley. After the meeting was concluded, Yamin handed the video and notes over to Agent Katrina to have it all processed for fingerprints.

“Aasir, come here and let me holla at you,” Yamin said to his brother after everyone had exited the room.

“What’s good bruh?” Aasir asked as he approached. He leaned against the table and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked exhausted. There were huge bags under his eyes and they were blood shot red. He hadn’t had a lick of sleep since his brother was killed and honestly didn’t know if he would sleep again. Aasir was the shortest of the three brothers at only six feet, weighing two-hundred pounds, and had a muscular build. He had skin the color of honey, some of the sexiest brown eyes known to man, kept a low cut fade, and a little fuzz on his chin that he always rubbed when he was nervous.

“You haven’t slept have you?” Yamin asked.

“Yea, I’ve been sleeping. I was out at Aucelie’s-”

“You haven’t slept since you’ve gotten the news, huh? You look like shit.”

“I’m good. I’m easy big bruh. Just been chilling with sis and making sure she’s straight. You feel me?”

“Who’s gonna make sure you’re straight?” Yamin questioned. He could tell that his brother was hurting just as much as he was. This wasn’t easy for either of them and he felt bad for making Aasir and their sister Aucelie do it all alone. “I got you. I got us. Just like I took care of us when Pops died, I’m a take care of us now.”

Aasir nodded his head and Yamin pulled him in for a hug. For the first time since finding out about Cortez’s death, he broke down. He let it all out, all the pain he’d been harboring, the anger he held in-he just cried. He wanted his little brother back. He wanted to talk to him one last time and let him know that he loved him. He just wanted things to be like they used to be. 

***

“It’s pretty good. It doesn’t taste like I thought Crab Pasta would taste,” Jessica said dabbing her mouth with her napkin.

             
“How did you think Crab Pasta would taste?” Yamin asked.

             
“I don’t know, like a crab,” she laughed.

      
             
Yamin picked up his cell phone and completely zoned out. He was doing whatever he needed to fix his relationship with Jessica, but he couldn't help that his mind was preoccupied. He felt as if he should have been combing the city from top to bottom looking for Ashley, not sitting at Red Lobster sharing Crab Pasta and sipping on wine. He blew out a deep breath and leaned back in his seat.      

          Unbeknownst to him, Jessica was intently staring at him with tears forming in her eyes. She'd been doing her best to accept things and focus on having a happy marriage after heavily contemplating whether she should stay or leave. Now that she had the truth about what Yamin had been hiding, it was hard to move forward. Staring at her husband from the outside, she loved him, but it was who he was on the inside that caused concern. She didn’t know this man, and it broke her heart that she even felt that way.

       "Yamin, are you--"

        "Hey Ya. Why you didn't tell me you were out with your wife?" Katrina asked as she approached the table and held her hand toward Jessica, "Hi, I'm Katrina. You must be Jessica."

       Jessica took Katrina's hand and slowly looked her over. She was a pretty girl; brown skinned, with oval shaped eyes, and a cute round nose. She had perfectly toned arms, and a nice figure from what Jessica could see.

         "Yes, I'm Jessica. I'm sorry but I can't say that I've heard of you."

         "Have a seat Katrina," Yamin interrupted. He could see where Jessica's tone was going and knew it was best he intervened before it was too late. That was who he’d been texting on his phone. Katrina messaged him saying that she had information and wanted to know if the two of them could meet up. He didn’t mention to her that he was out with Jessica because he knew she wouldn’t have come if he had. 

     Katrina walked around to the other side of the table and sat down. She kept a firm, but pretty smile planted on her face as she looked in their direction. Yamin placed an arm around Jessica's shoulder and it caused Katrina to fold inside. She cleared her throat and crossed her arms over her chest.

             
“There weren’t any prints and I had Jamison check his system to be sure and he didn’t come back with anything either,” Katrina said.

             
“You said you had information for me,” Yamin said with a confused expression on his face.

             
“I just wanted to let you know….” Katrina looked around and then pulled her chair closer so that she didn’t have to talk so loud. “….the FBI has picked up Ashley’s case. It’s been three days and the police have no leads so they turned the case over. They just so happened to put me on as lead. I wanted to let you know so that you won’t be surprised when my partner and I show up to your house tomorrow to ask you some questions.”

             
Yamin nodded.

             
“I didn’t want to tell you that over the phone and as a matter of fact, we need to cease all phone communication. They are having your records pulled. I already had Toinette check to see if she could get rid of a lot of the stuff that would look suspicious before they put the records on my desk in the morning. She said that she will do her best.”

             
“Do her best?” Yamin questioned.

             
“That’s what she told me. I can’t-“

             
“I suggest you hold off on getting those records until she do what the fuck she needs to do,” Yamin grabbed the wine glass in front of him and took a sip.

             
Katrina looked over at Jessica and then quickly returned her glare to Yamin. He’d never talked to her this way before and she didn’t know if it was because he was with his wife or if he was just frustrated with everything that was going on. Either way she didn’t like it. She blinked back tears and cleared her throat as she tried to think of what to say next.