The Golden Hustla 2, page 1
THE GOLDEN HUSTLA 2
WAHIDA CLARK
The Golden Hustla 2
Copyright © 2022 by Wahida Clark
The Golden Hustla 2 is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in review.
Wahida Clark Presents Innovative Publishing
PO Box 383
Fairburn, Georgia 30213
1-866-910-6920
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-954161-98-6
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-954161-99-3
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-954161-97-9
Audiobook ISBN: 978-1-957954-00-4
LCCN: 2022904378
Creative direction by Nuance Art
Cover design by Tina Shivers
Printed in United States
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Reading Group Discussion Questions
About the Author
Bestselling Titles By Wahida Clark
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To all of my readers, thank you so much for your patience and for rocking with me year after year. I am so excited to have delivered this book to you. But STOP if you have not read Part 1 lol. Special thanks to all of my proofreaders and editors. Chase, Kwame, Tashiyanna, Caroline, Alanna and Khloe.
Peace and Love
Wahida Clark
The Official Queen of Street Lit
PROLOGUE
How did it come to this? How did I get here? Some stories only make sense when they end at the beginning.
The muzzle flash ignited the darkness of the chrome Desert Eagle’s barrel like a flare in the night. BOOM!
Nina was so very confused. Time stretched as things completely stopped making sense. This shouldn’t have been happening. Couldn’t be happening. She had to be dreaming, trapped in a nightmare that she desperately needed to end. A thousand questions, starting with why, began flying through her mind as the bullet made its inexorable way from the barrel. As it cut the air, Nina’s heart thudded in her chest, threatening to burst. Her brain struggled to make sense of it.
But how?
Even with seconds stretching like years, the thunder of the first shot rang out, forcibly reconciling Nina with reality. The hand of an angry god slapped her as the first bullet hit. Fear, panic, pain, and a curious feeling of weightlessness took over as the large-caliber weapon tore her from gravity’s grip. Being behind the gun was a viscerally different experience than being on its business end. Nina lived with fear before, but this was something altogether different as tears flowed to join her blood. She thought of Darlene, once a good friend and her first kill. Was this how she felt as she journeyed to the beyond?
Nina sentenced her to death for betrayal. But how many people had Nina herself betrayed? The escape to Georgia, the robberies, the constant running?
BOOM!
Another sound joined the first, flinging Nina back like a rag doll. Her dark eyes widened with shock; her full lips locked in an “O” of surprise as her caramel skin paled in disbelief. She screamed as her eyes were forcibly torn from the stricken glower of her killer, and her vision filled with blue sky. So beautiful, Nina thought, feeling like a leaf in the wind.
BOOM!
The third bullet struck Nina low, throwing her body forward to reacquaint her with gravity. With bloody fingers, she grasped desperately on the hood of the black Town Car the strange men had forced her and Rick into. They were dead now too. Her hands spasmed, trying to grip the hood of the car as if it were the only thing holding her to this world and maybe it was. But like everything else she wanted in life, it slipped away from her, leaving behind only dark streaks on the even darker paint. Then Nina slid to the ground.
As she lay in a puddle of blood spreading faster than she could ever imagine, it all unfolded before Nina like the petals of some terrible flower. A trail of bodies. A chain of so many ghosts. Her brother, D-Rock, and her best friend, Michelle, both gunned down as collateral damage in Nina’s scheme. Customers from her old job. She saw the faces of the men she had loved, hated, and used. Nina thought about how she put her brother, Peedie, in a wheelchair. How many lives she played with, and for what?
Rinaldo, her old boss at We Make Millionaires, or WMM, elevated greed to an art form with his less-than-legal operation, eventually getting them all netted by the Feds. Oh, how she hated Rinaldo. His avarice and the way he used people disgusted her. But was Nina really any different? Nobody got filthy rich with clean hands, and as the curtain closed for her final act, Nina couldn’t deny the truth. So, she lay there.
The sound of her own heart filled her with thunder. The pain was a living thing, tearing her sanity away layer by layer until death was a lover whose embrace she longed for. She opened her eyes, not to the white light of the loving embrace of her departed, but to cold steel and the stricken eyes of her killer.
“Nina!” She heard the familiar voice call out her name, and then one last gunshot sent her into darkness.
Where did it start? Why am I here?
Three Months Earlier
After snatching her from her father’s family, Nina’s youngest child, six-year-old Jatana, sat by the pool, soaking in the Florida sun. She had thought her mommy said that they were going to live in Georgia, but they didn’t stop there. She didn’t mind, though. Things felt like an adventure, and she liked their new destination. Rick was like a mysterious superhero. Daysha, her eight-year-old sister, was convinced that Rick was one since he’d saved her from the bishop who was touching her.
Her seven-year-old brother, Jermichael, and Daysha played in the water. It had been what seemed like forever, and Jatana was enjoying reconnecting with her mom and her siblings. She had been living with her father’s people. She knew her father adored her, and that was cool and all, but she would rather feel less like some sort of golden child and more like a kid again. To Jatana, her daddy was a mythical force, even though he was in prison, and his devotion made her feel special, but she was happy to be somewhere she felt like she belonged, instead of a spoil of war.
Her mother, Nina, lay back in one of the deck chairs, listening to her iPad. She had rubbed shea butter into her creamy caramel skin, and it shone in the warm sun. A pair of Ray-Ban shades hid her Egyptian eyes, and her full lips were pursed in contentment.
Nina’s hand glided across her stomach, her mind turning to the new life she lived and the man she shared it with. Rick was tall with broad, well-muscled shoulders and a V-shaped frame that made her core quiver. His dark eyes and juicy lips worked like hypnosis and made her throb. The way he moved and occupied space radiated intellect and strength. His shoulder-length dreads were always tight, neat, smelling of frankincense and myrrh, and reminding her of some sort of Nubian king. Something about him made her want to risk it all, and together, they had scored a fifty-million-dollar lick. Her type of nigga.
Nina had been part of the Platinum Sales team at WMM working for Rinaldo, a ruthless genius. There were bums with feet cleaner than that man’s hands. He was as dirty as he was brilliant. They were all making money, with an organizational culture that thrived on opulence. Her ex, Cream, had gotten her the job and while Nina had always known it was shady, the money was too good to pass up. As the organization started to slip, she and Rick had discovered a few things. For instance, her coworker, Shawn, was fucking Rinaldo’s wife, Rochelle, and together, they had devised a plan to hit Rinaldo’s stash with her ex. Rick had figured it out, stalked them like prey, then paid them with their own coin.
Things were finally beginning to come together, and her life was starting to look like she always imagined it would. She had her children with her, the drama and Trenton, NJ, were behind her, and she had a good man that not only loved her but had her back. Every time she thought of Rick, her pussy tingled, and her heart skipped a beat. Loving, strong, protective, fine, and good dick for days. He was just what the doctor ordered. Now pregnant, her libido was on fire, and Rick was the perfect fuel. But the fifty million dollars. Fifty. Million. Dollars. Nina didn’t know what aroused her more—the cash or Rick. She knew money didn’t buy happiness, but it sure made for one hell of an aphrodisiac. And the freedom it provided would allow her to focus on the finer things in life, like her kids and Rick.
“Mommy, you wanna play Angry Birds?” Jatana asked as she pulled out her iPhone and began playing the video game.
“Not right now, baby. Maybe later,” Nina replied dreamily. Their rented house in Key Biscayne offered almost always-perfect Florida weather, and the sunshine and contentment had lulled her into a pleasant half sleep.
Rick walked poolside, talking on his cell. As he approached Nina, he hung up and sat on the outer edge of her chair, looking into her napping face with a smile. Even though he still saw Kyra when he looked at her, he was beginning to see N
Focusing on the living, he leaned down and kissed Nina’s soft lips. She smiled as her eyes fluttered open.
“Sleeping Beauty awakes.” Rick smiled.
“Only for the kiss of the prince,” she replied playfully.
“You mean king.” He winked. “We all packed?”
“Yep. All the loose ends tied up?”
“Of course.”
“Then Arizona, here we come!”
They laughed. Rick glanced over at Jatana. She had finally warmed to him, the last of Nina’s children to do so. It was bound to be like that, considering she was the child closest to her birth father.
“Hey, Jay, what you playin’?”
“Angry Birds,” she replied without looking up.
He smiled to himself and started to turn away until a thought hit him, leaving him shocked at his oversight. He got up quickly.
“Rick, what’s wrong?” Nina asked, sensing his anxiety.
He didn’t respond. He knelt next to Jatana as she instinctively inched away.
“No, Jay, it’s okay, but…your phone. Can I see it?” Rick asked intently.
Jatana shook her head, then got up and moved to Nina’s chair. Nina sat up.
“Rick, what—”
“The GPS, Nina! Jatana, baby, I promise we’ll get you another phone,” Rick vowed.
The word “GPS” hit Nina like a cold shock. Realization dawned, reminding her of the movie Enemy of the State. Yes, the movie was fiction, but GPS tracking was very real. If ordinary people could track an iPhone, so could everyone else looking for them. Hadn’t she hired a private detective? She had already discarded her phone, but they had forgotten about the kids’ phones all attached to the same line, the same bill. Nina turned to Jatana.
“Baby, Rick’s right. We have to get rid of your phone, so nobody bad can find us, okay?”
“I can have another one?” Jatana pleaded, on the brink of having a fit.
“We promise,” Rick assured her.
Reluctantly, she handed the phone to Rick, and he quickly snatched the chip and the battery out of the phone, then stomped the phone, crushing it under his heel.
“What about Daysha and Jermichael’s phones?” Jatana asked, unwilling to go down alone, in typical sibling fashion.
“Get ’em.”
After destroying all three phones, he could finally breathe easily. Supreme would almost certainly be using Jatana’s phone to track her. But for Rick and Nina’s plan to work smoothly, anonymity was required as they slipped off the grid. Only once they had disappeared could they start spending the fifty million they’d stolen from Cream and Shawn, who’d stolen it from Rinaldo.
“Baby, don’t worry. We’re in Florida, but not for long. It was just good we caught it before we got to Arizona,” Nina remarked.
“Yeah…Yeah, I hope you’re right,” he replied, but his cop’s instinct was screaming she was wrong.
Dead wrong.
“Florida, yo…They in Florida,” Charlese told Nina’s ex and baby daddy, Supreme, as she sat with her laptop on her lap and her cell phone in her hand.
On the other end, Supreme paced the floor of his cell at FCI Fort Dix, with his cell phone glued to his ear.
“What part?” he growled.
“The Florida Keys area,” Charlese replied. “Li’l cuz, don’t worry. As long as Jatana has that phone, we can track ’em.”
“Fuck that! Nina ain’t stupid, Lala. Sooner or later, she gonna dump that fuckin’ phone just like she dumped hers,” Supreme ranted.
Charlese sighed. “Well, what you want me to do, Supreme? And stop calling me Lala. We are not ten anymore.”
“I want you to go down there and get my goddamn daughter, Lala!” Supreme barked, ignoring her tirade about her childhood family name.
He tried to hold down his voice, but he was like a raging bull. He already looked like a boxer ready to rumble. Now, he was ready to fight like one. Prison buff, muscles bulging, and his nostrils flaring, he was prepared to spaz on anyone just to get rid of the tension he was feeling from losing his daughter. When his aunt told him that Nina had kidnapped Jatana, he had knocked out his cellie on G.P. Now, his new cellie, having heard about the last cellie, put his hand under his pillow and gripped his knife. Nina was Supreme’s ex, but in his mind, she would always be his, and Supreme wasn’t the type of man who let go of anything he thought was his. They hadn’t been together for years, as he’d been in prison, but that didn’t change anything. He figured as long as he had Jatana, he had power over Nina. So, the sooner he got her back, the better.
“Look, ’Preme, you’ll be home in a coupla weeks, okay?” Charlese said in a reassuring tone. “I promise you, this bitch won’t get away, phone or no phone. Trust me on that!”
“Whateva, yo. But, Charlese, seriously, I’ma hold you to that,” Supreme answered, then hung up.
Diamond fretted over her man. His light brown curls were plastered to his pale forehead. He looked like the death he had narrowly escaped. Cream’s eyes opened up, and he fought to focus. At first, he didn’t know where he was. The last thing he remembered before blacking out was the explosion.
“Oh my God, baby, oh my God! Nurse! Nurse!”
He heard the familiar voice and couldn’t help but smile. Diamond.
She was definitely his ride-or-die chick. He looked into her brown, cheeky face, which always reminded him of a baby Jill Scott. She kissed him gently as tears streamed down her face. She was pregnant with this man’s baby, and when she looked into his eyes, she saw a future. Cream might not have been worthy of her devotion, but devotion was never a thing of reason.
“Oh, baby, I love you! I love you! I knew you would make it!” she sobbed. The happiness was more for the bag. Where was the bag of money? She had been sitting by his side night and day since the shooting. His FBI handler, Federal Agent Rhodes, was the one who had informed her that Cream had been shot. She jumped on the first thing smoking to Florida and had been there ever since, never questioning how he knew to call her.
The nurse walked in and smiled with relief.
“Well, well, Mr. Davis, welcome back to the land of the living.”
“My…My head is killin’ me,” Cream croaked, his voice weak from almost six days of nonuse.
“Which is to be expected,” the nurse nodded. “You’re lucky even to have pain. The gunshot could’ve ended everything.”
“I was…shot?” Cream questioned.
Diamond squeezed his hand. “Yes, baby, you and your friend, Shawn. Unfortunately, Shawn didn’t make it.”
What? Shawn? His partner in crime? Gone?
It all came back to Cream—the fifty million. Shawn getting pulled over. The cop with the dreads. He remembered reaching over to get the registration and then, nothing. Cream should never have been here. His and Shawn’s plan was flawless. Cream had used Nina as a spy inside WMM, and Shawn had been sleeping with Rinaldo’s wife. They had the inside track for a move nobody but the Feds could have known about.
“A cop shot me,” he said.
“A cop?” Diamond echoed. “Are you sure?”
He struggled to nod. “I’m positive. It was a cop with…dreads,” he snitched. Fear dominated his senses. “Can I get something for my head? It’s throbbing,” he asked the nurse.
“I’ll see what I can do.” She winked, then walked out.
