The Prada Plan 2: Leah's Story (11 page)

He was under such heavy medication that he couldn’t shake the haze that had fallen over him. He could hear what was going on, but his eyes felt too heavy to open.

“Stop it! You’re hurting him,” she screamed as they pulled him forcefully from the bed.

Agent Norris finally made his way into the room and he locked eyes with YaYa.

“Please. Tell them to take it easy with him,” YaYa pleaded as they cuffed her.

Norris turned to the officers and said, “Bring it down a couple notches, fellas, and remove her cuffs. We are not here for her.”

The men did as they were told, and YaYa rushed behind them as they took Indie into custody. They had come out of nowhere like thieves in the night, and YaYa demanded to know why.

“What is going on? What did he do?” she asked, frantically running behind him as he was being read his rights. “Don’t try that bullshit. He is in no condition to even understand you right now. He isn’t even coherent enough to be read his rights!”

YaYa watched helplessly as they stuffed Indie into the back of a black unmarked vehicle.

“Where are you taking him?” she asked.

Her questions were ignored, and just as mysteriously as they appeared, they disappeared from sight, leaving YaYa standing in the middle of the street.

Doing ninety miles per hour, YaYa sped down the freeway, headed downtown to the federal holding facility. She had already called Mekhi and informed him of what was going on, but she couldn’t wait for him to come and solve this problem. She had to act immediately. She had to solve it herself, and as she raced with determination, she grew angrier by the second. She pulled up to her destination and slammed her car door as she stalked inside.

“I’m here for Indie Perkins,” she announced as soon as she walked up to the agent sitting behind the front desk.

He looked at her in disinterest as he typed the name into his database.

“Don’t got an Indie Perkins here, miss,” he said without even looking her way.

“Oh, he’s here. I want to see him now!” she said sternly with one eyebrow raised as if daring him to challenge her. Today was not the day to fuck with YaYa. With a daughter missing and her man in federal custody, she had nothing to lose. “I know he’s here! Where is he?” She spazzed as her fist pounded down on the wooden desk.

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the building,” the agent said as he stood.

“I’m not going anywhere until you answer my question. Where is Indie Perkins?” she said insistently, so loud that her voice echoed through the building.

All of a sudden, she felt someone grab her arm and pull her backward out of the building as she continued her demands for answers.

“Fuck is you thinking, ma?” Khi-P scolded sternly once he had her in front of the building, out of earshot of the officers inside.

“I’m thinking that they’re holding Indie in there unjustly, Khi-P! He isn’t even in the right state of mind. They could be getting him to sign anything. I’m getting him out of there even if I have to blow the fucking building up,” YaYa argued.

“Take it easy, gangsta,” he said with a smirk. “All that grandstanding you doing is just going to make things more difficult. They definitely ain’t gonna tell you what you want to know now.”

He shook his head as he pulled out his cell phone and called his attorney. He had legal counsel on speed dial. Chauncey Stanzler, Esq., was one of the top criminal defense lawyers in the state, and Khi-P kept a good working relationship with him because he was well aware that the cops had a target on his back.

One phone call and a $15,000 retainer fee later, the charges were laid out in front of them. Indie was facing murder one. They didn’t know much more than that. Not even the lawyer could get much out of the feds.

“Oh my God…oh my God. They have him for murder? What am I going to do?” YaYa asked as she thought of the ransom drop.

“He’ll be arraigned Monday morning and go before the judge so that a trial date can be set,” Stanzler informed. “It’s late. It’s the middle of the night, so it’s hard to pump information out of them right now. I’ll know much more top of the week. There isn’t much that can be done before than.”

Khi-P shook hands with his lawyer and then put his hand on the small of YaYa’s back as he walked her to her car.

“Go home. I’ll pick you up Monday morning for the arraignment,” Mekhi said.

“Mekhi, we got a ransom note. I’m supposed to deliver five hundred thousand the day after tomorrow. They said if we pay up then they’ll return Skylar. Only problem is Indie doesn’t have the cash. There are two hundred bricks of cocaine sitting at home in his safe, but what can I do with that? I don’t know how to come up with that money, and now he can’t,” YaYa whispered. “I can get two hundred fifty thousand from his safe deposit box, but I need you, Khi-P. You have to get the rest of those bricks off so that I can make the drop.”

“The feds don’t know about the ransom note?” Mekhi asked as he looked around to make sure no one was around.

“Nobody knows. Just Indie and I…and now you,” YaYa responded.

“Where is the drop?” Khi-P asked.

“Day after tomorrow at noon. Memorial Park,” she replied.

Khi-P knew that the bricks in Indie’s possession were worth way more than the $250,000 YaYa needed. He could smell his come-up, and he began to scheme. There was nothing that YaYa could do with the bricks. She wasn’t on her hustle. She was simply used to reaping the rewards of the good life by being wifey. She had no idea of the gold mine that she was sitting on. Indie was going away; there was no doubt about it. A jailed man couldn’t do shit with that much coke. The only logical thing to do would be to purchase the ki’s from YaYa so that she would have enough dough to pay the ransom.

“Indie must have had buyers already lined up for the bricks,” Khi-P stated. “But I don’t know anybody that’s ready to buy at that quantity, and I definitely don’t know enough get money cats to get off two hundred under such short notice.”

“I need this money, Khi. You have to get these sold for me,” she said, the desperation so evident in her tone.

“Look, ma, I have a quarter mill for you. I don’t know why Indie didn’t just come to me for it to begin with. I can take the bricks off your hands in exchange for the other half of the ransom,” Khi-P said.

The way that he broke it down to her, she felt as if he were her knight in shining armor. Her worries began to dissipate and she sighed in relief. What she didn’t know was that he was getting her ass. Bricks of cocaine were going for $21,500 around the South, and that was at a good rate. She had well over four million dollars worth of product in her possession and didn’t even realize it.

Khi-P did, however, which was why he was willing to put up other half of the ransom as payment for all of the drugs. He was profiting big time and upping his status to kingpin. No one other than Indie even had access to that type of quantity. Everybody else was small balling, but now Khi-P had the birds on deck, and he was ready to let them fly. He was the birdman.

“When can you give me the money?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I mean, I got the paper all day, YaYa, but Indie’s my man. Niggas is real sensitive about their position in the street. If he know I’m the one buying ’em he might not be too sweet on that. I don’t want no static,” Khi-P said.

“Indie doesn’t have to know you bought them. I’ll tell him I was robbed. That somebody ran in the house and took them. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him. Right?” she asked.

YaYa played right into Mekhi’s hand. When the dust settled, he would emerge unscathed. He didn’t want Indie to think that he was trying to snake him. Although Indie was locked up, he had not yet been convicted. Khi-P wasn’t ready to beef with Indie. He wasn’t stupid by far. Neither Mekhi’s paper nor his reach was long enough to touch Indie, and until it was, he planned to use a weakened YaYa to his advantage. These bricks were about to become his put-on.

“Yeah, I guess you right,” Mekhi finally replied. “We can go get it now, and I can pick up the bricks when I drop you off. You with that?” he asked her. He didn’t want her to feel as if she were being taken advantage of, despite the fact that he was being grimy. When the truth came to the surface, he wanted to be the martyr, so he had to make sure Disaya was on board. He couldn’t have her looking like the victim. He had seen firsthand Indie’s wrath, and he didn’t want to spark a beef with the man. He simply wanted to come up.

He kept his excitement under wraps as he ushered her to her car. “Go home. I’ll be by shortly with the dough,” Khi-P said. He hit the top of her car gently as she pulled off.

YaYa flew home feeling relieved. She didn’t know that she was practically giving Indie’s product away for free. The flip wasn’t even large enough to pay back the debt that Indie owed to Zya. She was solving one problem, but unknowingly creating ten new ones.

When she arrived home, she pulled the bricks out of the safe and waited impatiently for Khi-P to arrive. As promised, he showed up with the money for Sky’s ransom. He wasn’t even decent enough to throw her dough to get by on. He knew that without Indie, YaYa was dead broke.

She wouldn’t be able to survive long on her own, and just like so many other beautiful girls, she would be looking for the next get-money cat to finance her lifestyle. She would run straight to him, and Khi-P wouldn’t turn her away. Disaya was one of the most beautiful women that he had ever seen. Her style was new to the South, and he definitely wouldn’t have a problem helping to keep her afloat. Although she was loyal to Indie, Khi-P knew that if he got convicted, that jailbird love song would play out quickly. The promises to be there forever always grew stale after the guilty verdict. That was just the way street love went. It could fizzle out just as quickly as it began. Chicks were drawn to the money, not the man, and once Indie wasn’t bringing in the bread anymore, it would be on to the next one. Niggas flipped birds, bitches flipped niggas; it was the game, and Khi-P knew it.

“Thank you,” she said. She wrung her hands nervously. “Now all I have to do is get her back.”

“I can come with you. As a matter of fact, I’ll handle it for you if you want me to,” he said.

She shook her head in dissent. “No. They told me to come alone. I don’t want to even take the chance of doing something wrong. If I do, they’ll kill her,” YaYa said.

“I can’t let you go to that park by yourself. You keep me on speed dial, YaYa. I’ll be parked a block up the street so if you ever feel threatened or shit don’t seem right, you call,” he said.

She nodded as she showed him to the door. She was so close to her daughter, yet she was so far away.

Sleep was evasive that night, but as she lay in bed, she sent a prayer up to God. She was going to need a whole lot of strength to make it through this ordeal—more than she could ever muster on her own. God was her only hope.

Nervous energy filled YaYa so much that she felt like she was drowning in it. She went deaf as she looked around the crowded park, realizing that there was a parade and carnival that day. There were more than fifty thousand people there, and she quickly became overwhelmed in the sea of faces. As she looked around, everyone looked suspicious. She thought everyone was involved in the kidnapping. She had no idea what or who she was looking for.

As she made her way through the masses, her heart quickened. Every person who bumped her, she mugged. Every child’s cry that passed through her ear caused her to whip her head eagerly. As she looked around and spun 360 degrees, she surveyed her surroundings.

The tiny Swiss Mini Gun she carried was tucked in the large bun in her hair. There was no way she was walking into that situation unarmed. She had no clue what she was going up against, but it felt like it was her against the world, so she definitely needed the strap.

Her instruction had been to bring the money to the park at noon. She was there. She had fulfilled her end of things. Now where were the culprits at large?

Leah watched YaYa like a hawk as she carried the money-filled tote bag around the park. She smirked as she noticed the look of terror on YaYa’s face. The large sun hat she wore shaded the features of her face. YaYa would never spot her out of the crowd.

Leah was grateful to be away from the screams. They clouded her judgment and made it hard for her to concentrate. The wails were so loud that she was sure that others heard them. She looked back at her car to make sure that it was undisturbed. It was her getaway car. The last thing she needed was some nosy bystander getting in her business and messing things up.

YaYa went into the restrooms, and Leah followed behind her. It was going to be a piece of cake getting that cash from her. YaYa was weak in Leah’s eyes. The pampered princess always had been, from Leah’s vantage point.

Leah hadn’t stuck around long enough to see YaYa’s struggle. When Slim was alive, she was the Snow White of her neighborhood, but her world fell apart after her mother was killed. Leah had no clue that Disaya and she shared the same history of sexual abuse. Maybe if she did, her envy wouldn’t be so concentrated. If she knew that YaYa had struggled on her own for years, her own jealousy may have been diluted.

When Leah entered the bathroom, YaYa was bent over the sink. The pressure from the situation was obviously more than she could handle because she was vomiting uncontrollably. Leah swiftly walked up behind her, and before YaYa could even look up, Leah grabbed her bun and smashed her head against the sink.

YaYa crumbled like a house of cards as she grabbed her face and sank to the floor. Disoriented and stunned, she tried to get to her feet, but gravity pushed her right back down. She couldn’t see through the blood in her eyes. The room began to spin as she tried to focus. The last thing she saw was the clouded figure of a woman’s back as she exited the bathroom. Suddenly, everything went black.

Leah fired a gunshot into the air and immediately, like roaches in light, the people in the park began to scatter. It was the perfect distraction. Leah blended into the mass pandemonium with the tote bag tucked securely under her arms. If YaYa did have anyone at the park watching her back, they would surely be thrown off now. Leah made it to her car half a million dollars richer with a big smile on her face. She was ready to get out of Dodge.

Waaa! Waaa!

The sharp cries turned Leah’s smile into a frown, reminding her of all the things she had done and the things she still had to do. The first thing on the agenda was to blow town. Things were too hot, and now she had the financial resources to disappear.