Free Anybody's Daughter (Angela Evans Series No. 2) by Pamela Samuels Young Page A

wuss. He could always count on his buddy Mossy. But for this job, he needed somebody who wouldn’t be afraid to go down for the count if it came to that.
    He made an illegal U-turn and headed toward Manchester. After turning onto Vermont, and then 85th Street, he parked on a street crowded with rundown apartment buildings and matchbox-sized homes. At least a dozen dudes were loitering outside the building where his cousin lived. Dre nodded a silent greeting as he moved past them.
    He knocked hard on the apartment door. “Apache, it’s me, Dre.”
    A bronze-toned man with straight black hair pulled back into a long ponytail opened the door.
    “Hey, cuz. You know what time it is?” he said yawning. “I hope you got a good reason for disturbing my beauty sleep.”
    “Family business.” Dre stepped inside the dingy apartment. “Serious family business.”
    “What up? Somebody died?”
    That thought made Dre shiver inside. He refused to even consider that a possibility. “Naw.”
    Except for the 60-inch flat screen, Apache’s apartment looked like a jam-packed thrift store. Furniture, clothes and boxes were everywhere. Dre had to push aside three large garbage bags on the couch to find a place to sit. He ignored his surroundings and told Apache the whole story.
    “They can’t mess with blood. We gotta get little shorty back. How you wanna handle this, cuz?”
    “I need you to have my back.”
    “I’m down. Down all the way.”
    “You know anybody connected with Stoneside?” Dre asked.
    “I got peeps everywhere and anywhere. You know that. A dude I know from Stoneside lives over on Budlong.”
    “Can we roll over there now?”
    “Hell, yeah. Let me get my piece.”
    Dre inhaled. He was a convicted felon and wasn’t supposed to even be in the vicinity of a weapon. If they got pulled over, it would mean certain jail time. To hell with that. He’d take whatever risks he had to take to get Brianna back.
    Apache disappeared into the room and returned seconds later, Glock in hand. He slipped it into the small of his back and followed Dre out of the apartment.
    “Man, why you still driving this piece of crap?” Apache asked as they approached Dre’s Jetta.
    Dre chuckled to himself. His cousin was driving a Benz, but living in a six-hundred-square-foot rattrap. “Cars are a luxury item I don’t need.”
    As Dre opened the driver’s side door, Apache stood back, as if even touching Dre’s car offended him.
    “I can’t let nobody see me in this punk-ass ride. Let me go get my Benz.”
    “C’mon, man. We got business to take care of. Besides, the way you drive, we’ll definitely get pulled over.”
    Apache grudgingly climbed in. “If we really wanna get the word to The Shepherd fast, we gotta go hard.”
    Dre didn’t respond. He knew that. That was the only reason Apache was sitting in the seat next to him.
    Twenty minutes later, Apache instructed him to park in front of a neatly kept house with a narrow driveway. Apache was already out of the car while Dre was still behind the wheel, surveying their surroundings. Even as a kid, his cousin had been fearless. That trait had only been bolstered after Apache survived being shot seven times in three separate incidents.
    “Hold up,” Dre called out. Apache had just stepped onto the porch. “I don’t wanna start no trouble unless we have to.”
    “I know that,” Apache said. “You carryin’?”
    “Naw. That’s why I got you.”
    Actually, even if it hadn’t been a violation of his probation, Dre didn’t trust himself with a gun. Not while he was on the edge of crazy.
    Apache banged on a rusty iron door. “Hey, Deke, it’s me, man. Apache. Open up.”
    They heard the fumbling of the doorknob, then the creaking of the door.
    A gap-toothed man in pajama bottoms and no shirt appeared in the doorway. “Yo, man, do you know what time it is?” He opened the door just a crack.
    Apache pushed his way inside and closed the door behind them. “You