The Cartel - Ashley Antoinette Snell [0]
Ashley & JaQuavis
www.urbanbooks.net
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Copyright Page
Prologue
“Diamonds are forever.”
—Carter Diamond
The packed courtroom was abuzz as the anticipation built, and the onlookers stared at the man who made it snow. Carter Diamond was the head of “The Cartel,” an infamous crime organization, and the entire city of Miami knew it. Scattered throughout the courtroom, the entire Cartel was in attendance, all of them wearing black attire.
With a model’s posture, he sat next to his defense lawyer, slowly rubbing his salt-and-pepper goatee, thinking about the weight of the verdict. Accused of racketeering and using his multimillion-dollar real estate company to launder drug money, Carter could potentially go to jail for the rest of his life. And the case had drawn a lot of heat when key witnesses began to come up missing or dead, including a politician who turned informant to save his own behind.
A slight grin spread across Carter’s face as he looked at the judge and realized that the chances of a guilty verdict were between slim and next to none. Just the night before, his accountant had wired the judge one million dollars to an offshore account. And just to ensure his freedom, eight of the twelve jurors had family members missing and in the custody of Carter’s henchmen. At 43 years old he was on top of the world. Fuck the mayor, Carter ran the city.
Carter glanced back at his family, his beautiful wife, daughter, and twin sons, who sat in the front row behind him. He winked at them and gave them his perfect smile.
It amazed Carter’s family that he could be in the scariest of situations and still manage to make everything seem all right.
He stared into his wife’s green eyes and admired her long, flowing, jet-black hair. Baby hair rested perfectly on her edges as her natural mocha skin glowed. Taryn, his wife, was a full-blooded Dominican and could have easily been mistaken for a top model. At age 38, she was just as beautiful as when she’d met Carter at 16.
Carter then glanced over to his daughter, Breeze, the spitting image of her mother and also his baby girl. At age 19, she was beautiful, intelligent, and being mixed with Black and Dominican gave her a goddess look. She had long, thick hair with green eyes, which made her every man’s desire and every woman’s envy. She smiled at her father, letting him know she was there to support him.
Carter looked at his two sons, Mecca and Monroe, AKA Money. They were the two oldest at 21, and although they were twins, they were completely opposite. Mecca was the wilder of the two. He wore long braids and was a shade darker than Money. His body had twenty tattoos on it, including the two on his neck, enhancing his thuggish appearance. He was the more ruthless one. Mecca, wanting so badly to follow in the footsteps of his father and become the next kingpin of Miami, was notorious throughout Dade County for his trigger-happy ways.
Money was the humbler and more reserved of the two. His Dominican features seemed to shine through more than his twin brother’s. His light skin and curly hair made him look more like a pretty boy than a gangster, but his looks were deceiving. Unlike his brother, he wore a neat low-cut and had no tattoos. Focusing more on the money aspect of the game, Money was a born hustler, and if the streets gave out degrees he would’ve had a doctorate. And although he wasn’t as coldhearted as his brother, he wasn’t to be underestimated.
It was in their blood to be gangsters. In the early eighties their Dominican grandfather ran the most lucrative