Sutton

26. Runnin'

Runnin'
Chapter Twenty Six

November 6, 2012

Shawn puffed on the cigar as he sat at the bar. He was waiting for a friend he hadn't spoken to in a while, but they kept tabs on one another subtly. With the current killings in the city, he needed to get to the bottom of everything. After leaving Chicago a month ago, the decision had been weighing him down, but he couldn't be with her if she couldn't even talk to him. With all the love inside of him, he knew that she was safe in Clifford's hands. The man could better protect her than he could.

"Shawn Carter," the male spoke with much enthusiasm in seeing his best friend.

Shawn turned in the chair and smiled happily. "Tyran Smith."

"What's up, man? Long time, no see. How you been?" Tyran, better known as "Ty", had been Shawn's longtime best friend. He didn't stay in New York City, but he knew all the dealings that happened within the city.

Ty sat down in the barstool next to Shawn's. He waved down the bartender and ordered what he preferred to drink. For the conversation he anticipated on having, he was having something lightweight. "Nothin' really. Trynna figure out what the fuck happenin' in New York."

Shawn chuckled a bit, thinking about everything that transpired in the past months. Their families had been in a war ever since he was a young boy, but it was never this severe. It had never gotten to the point where two of them were dead and one was raped. "Yeah..what have you heard?"

"I've heard about everything, nigga. I've heard about Bryce. Sorry about that."

"Michael's fault," Shawn replied smoothly.

"Explain."

"Had he not killed Jermaine Knowles, ole girl wouldn't have killed Bryce."

Ty nodded his head, accepting the picture that Shawn had painted for him. "Why did he kill Jermaine? From the outside, it just seemed like a random act, and really not a good idea."

Shawn puffed on the cigar. "Because it wasn't a good idea. He killed Jermaine so he could get closer to Beyoncé."

"To do the unthinkable..."

"Yeah. Shit's fucked up."

Ty took a sip of his drink and thought about it for a moment. Things had been bad for a while, and he knew it would eventually boil over. Without Bryce, the boys weren't as close as people thought. Bryce was the glue of the Carter boys, and it took a smart woman to know that. "She's smart, you know?"

"Yeah. She's been plotting."

"What?"

Shawn pulled out his bag and looked around briefly. He'd already given the bartender strict instructions to not focus much on them unless he was waved down. He handed Ty the iPad mini, which was smaller and great to hide behind his body. Ty knew what to do and immediately went to the pictures. He looked at the pictures of dead men and women.

"Girls killed by a single bullet and men..."

"No gunshot wound. I know it's her."

"How do you know that?"

Shawn laughed a bit. "A man breaks into your home and shows that he's basically stronger and more powerful than you, you make it your mission to prove otherwise. She's showing that men are just as easy as the women. I'm more than positive she took the women out first to focus on the men."

Tyran nodded his head, understanding where he was going speaking of. "How has she been doing this?"

"That? We don't know. All we know is people come up dead and she hasn't been seen in the city since before the hurricane."