Thin Ice 6 - Hangman & Socrates Read Online Free Page B

Cartier began to reminisce on his life and how it ended up here. He thought of Raven and smiled to himself. He’d loved the woman with his whole heart, but it wasn’t meant to be.
    “ Who is she,” Maxine screamed. Cartier was sick of the arguing. He told her to shut up and leave him alone, warning of the consequences if she didn’t. He was only still with her because Raven was married to someone else. He remembered her telling him like it was yesterday, not the five years that had passed. “Why you marryin’ this asshole and carrying my baby,” Cartier asked calmly as he seethed inside. True he was dating Maxine as well as Raven, the latter was his heart. Maxine was more of a business arrangement being some twelve years older than he. “Eason is my baby’s father, not you,” Raven told him smartly, breaking his heart. “You’re lying Raven,” Cartier argued, praying she was. “He’s the father,” she told him yet again. Cartier couldn’t blame her for being angry. He’d been telling her he would marry her for almost three years. Carlo and Auriel were happily raising his goddaughter, and Raven told him she wouldn’t wait anymore, proving it by marrying Eason Bailey and supposedly giving birth to three sons from him.
    He still hadn’t seen the set of twins she gave birth too, only her oldest Ryan. Cartier looked for anything on the child that would prove he fathered him, but Raven never gave him that much time alone. He only saw the child in passing with her shooing him immediately away when he stopped by. They were still having sex and Cartier prayed he could talk her into leaving Eason and coming back to him. He thought of their last time together when Ryan was 10 years old and the argument they’d had. “Raven, I love you and you know it, so why the fuck are you still with him,” Cartier growled. Raven calmly replied she loved Eason and she was going to stay with him and raise their children. “How come you won’t ever let me see the kid, or the twins,” he asked, giving her a suspicious look. “Why do you need to see them,” Raven returned calmly. “Because I don’t give a fuck what you say, those babies are mine, just like the one you’re carrying now,” he accused, noticing the changes in her body. “I’m not pregnant,” Raven lied, undone that he knew. “Liar,” Cartier returned flatly. “I want to see my children,” he told her, unraveling her lies even more. “That will never happen,” Raven told him evenly, giving him the answers he sought. “Oh I’m going to see my children, all of my children,” Cartier told her the meaning evident. “Over my dead body,” Raven replied as he sighed deeply.
    True her word, Raven immediately talked Eason into moving to another city in the state and kept her whereabouts secret. It took him another six years to find her, learning that Eason, as well as the daughter he’d fathered, was dead. Stricken with a fast paced cancer that took his life in less than six months Eason passed painfully. The daughter Cartier had made with Raven was stillborn causing a breakdown that she never quite recovered from. Ryan was a teenager now and the lure of the city called as he answered. Cartier found his son hustling on the south side of Chicago, his younger brother in tow. Seeing the youngster there was no more doubt that his seed had created him. Later learning his name, Cartier knew that Ian was his mirror image and Ryan was himself reincarnate. Spreading the word quickly on the street, everyone knew the Bailey boys were off limits and their protection deadly. He kept an eye on his sons from a distance watching them learn and hustle as their money and enterprise grew larger than life. He finally got the opportunity to talk to Ryan one evening as the young man; now 17 worked a quick drug deal that threatened to go bad. Ryan had quickly ended any threat by pumping two .38 slugs into the dealers head and calmly taking his money and product from him.
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