Diminished Capacity

By Larry L. Hightower

When innocence becomes insanity, who will survive the wrath of Sean and Sofia? Love brought them together, hate tore them apart. Vengence sealed their fate…

Meet Kevin, a small time mob boss with a crew of vicious sadistic henchmen, willing to do all of his bloody dirty work. Together they are responsible for the senseless murders of several women. Sean, a hip square, and his wife Sofia decide that after they survive the viciousness of the Vegas mob boss, to hone their own skills in a quest to become as ruthless as Kevin and his crew. The mob now becomes the main target of the deadly duo.

Will Sean and Sofia succeed in taking down the Vegas mob and the killer cops on their payroll? And who is the unknown shadowy figure in the background playing people as though they were puppets in his own private world of corruption???
A Must Read!!! Diminished Capacity

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: May 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483431871

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Hightower

Copyright © 2015 Larry L. Hightower.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3188-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-3187-1 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 10/07/2015

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

The 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

About The Author

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’d like to thank all those who had a hand in seeing this project through.

Thank God, for without Him, nothing is possible.

Thank Barbara, who has been my Earth Angel

Thank Patrick, my brother from another mother.

To all my many nieces and nephews, I’m sorry I missed ya’ll, but I pray that one day God will give us time.

To my brother Kyron, man stay strong and stay focused, we gonna make it out of this cage one day, to tip our hats as Real Playas.

To all the rest of my family and friends, Much love to you and hey look for my other projects to come.

To all the haters, ya’ll do you and I’ll see ya’ll in my rear view, sipping, tipping and tripping.

L. J.

THE PROLOGUE

MUCH LATER

THEY WERE SITTING AT a traffic light and it was the first watch shift, one o’clock in the morning with no other cars in sight. It was a four-way intersection and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Officer Benjamin Moore used this time to reflect on the love he had for his pregnant wife. He wanted Alicia to understand that until he passed the test for sergeant, money would remain tight around the house. Rick Red Dog Ramarez was Ben’s partner of two years. He’d been on the force for twelve years and was widely loved and respected among his fellow officers as being a stand-up cop. Together him and Ben were hell on wheels.

A late model car slowed to a stop beside them. Ben saw a very pretty woman sitting on the passenger side smiling at him. He thought that she was perhaps the most beautiful gift from God that he had ever seen.

Red Dog nudged him in the side to get a closer look…

The explosion was deafening. Red Dog was temporarily blinded by the blood that was sprayed in his eyes, coming from the hole that was once Ben’s left eye socket. He was enraged. What the fuck was happening. They were under attack and his partner had been hit hard. Red Dog reached for his Glock40 and began to bring it up, when he felt the first slug from a very powerful gun hit him in his shoulder throwing him into the car door. Another slug caught him in the neck nearly severing off his whole head.

The black man driving the stolen black Acura said to the beautiful woman sitting next to him, Okay baby, that’s it, put it away.

She took one last look at the bloody scene and nodded her head up and down. She was delighted. Placing the three-fifty-seven magnum in a bag, she laid it at her feet. They would get rid of it later. There was still no traffic and the Acura did a slow u-turn, driving slowly yet purposefully into the night.

Soon the world would wonder and they would cry…

CHAPTER ONE

SEAN COLE TOOK PRIDE in his ability to out-think most people once it came down to the art of manipulation. He tried hard to understand what motivated people whenever he was involved. He knew that money was one hell of a motivator. However, he was smart enough to realize that there were times when other forces would be at work.

Rooted deep within his soul was the need to excel. Sean wanted more than to achieve. He wanted to master his thoughts so that he could effectively sway the thoughts of others. He reasoned that if he could do this, then his chances of reaching the top would be more of a cinch than that of a gamble.

So Sean finished high school in the small town of Gilroy, California. He was valedictorian, class of ’82. It was special to him because he was one of only five black kids in the whole school. There were only eight African American families in this community of one hundred fifteen thousand.

After graduation Sean was accepted on an academic scholarship at San Jose State University. San Jose was just a few miles from Gilroy. Home was almost within jogging distance if he ever felt the need to get out and go.

Sean moved into a two-bedroom apartment right off campus that he shared with two other students, Patrick Goldman and Quincy Lewis. Both were white and came from the upper crust hills of Los Altos, California.

Sean was beginning to put his people skills to work starting with these two guys. Although, he would grow to love these guys as only true friends could. They in turn felt the very same about him. They found themselves looking to Sean as their unofficial leader. They trusted him enough to divulge whatever family secrets they had.

These three men had no doubt that they would be friends for the remainder of their lives. A special bond was created that would live in their hearts until death. After they graduated, Patrick and Quincy both took up jobs that had them living in other parts of the country. It would be a very long time before the three of them would see each other again.

Sean took a job as a used car salesman as he continued to further his education. He hoped that everything would stay on course. He dreamed that one day he would wake up and find that it had all been a dream. So he spent extra effort in working hard and studying even harder.

Three years later he finished up at U. C. Berkley with a masters degree in accounting. Everything was falling right into place. With all of Sean’s careful planning, he wondered to himself how in the world did it all go so drastically wrong. Of course he knew the answer, though he still found it hard to face the truth.

He had lived through twelve years of success and his star rose at meteoric like speed. Everybody just loved him. So again he wondered why did things have to change. Were the cosmos to blame? Did he do something so wrong that God would punish him so thoroughly? He himself had become a number, a statistical looser.

After he graduated Berkley, he had landed a job as a certified public accountant at the prestigious insurance firm of Stearns and D’Angelo. The firm was registered in a large security building in the midst of the financial district in downtown San Francisco.

Bob Stearns was eighty-seven years old and in failing health. He had been hospitalized on and off again for the past six years, so his partner John D’Angelo was left to run the business. John was fifty-nine, easy going and a complete gentleman. His business savvy was legendary in the bay areas upper crust of aristocrats.

John found Sean to be very likeable and extremely well rounded. He liked him immediately. Sean became his protégé. John loved Sean like the son he never had.

Sean loved this job and his life, plus he also shared a very similar feeling for the old man. Sean had been an only child and had never really been that close to his father. His dad was the money provider for the family and nothing more. Basically, Sean felt like he was alone in the world. A feeling he carried until he met the two wise old men.

Sean was doing nicely. He could now afford to put money up and do some of the things he might like to do in his life. A number of his expenses were being paid through the company credit card as related to his job. Sean also received three full weeks of vacation time each year and it was last year that everything went haywire.

He’d taken his vacation time that summer in the fast pace city of Las Vegas. Sean had never seen so many lights. The city fascinated him and once he got himself settled in, he was determined to make the most out of his stay.

Sean had never married nor did he have a steady girlfriend. The truth was that he just didn’t know how to hold down a relationship because his job always came first. His last girlfriend had made that perfectly clear to him the day she had walked out on him. But once he’d thought about it, he knew that she had of course been right.

Now here he was in glamorous Las Vegas, a city with no limits and no curfews. So Sean felt the need to loosen up. He checked into the very popular M.G.M. Grand Hotel and Casino. He was given a spacious room on the eighth floor that resembled a luxurious apartment and had a grand view of the pool area. There were beautiful wall paintings hanging from the beige walls with gold trim of the living room. The furniture was clad in ultra soft leather. There was a thirty-two inch plasma screen television to complete this modern and very pleasing look.

After taking a nice little nap in the king sized bed, Sean unpacked his three Louis Vuitton suitcases. Then he thought he’d relax by taking a bath in the huge marble bathtub and listen to a little soft jazz pour through the four hidden speakers. An hour later, he extracted himself from the warm water and felt utterly refreshed.

Taking a look at the gold pocket watch he had inherited from his late grandfather, he saw that it was six-thirty. Sean decided to go down to the lobby and try to find a nice show or something cool to get into.

He was at the elevator and after pushing the button for down, he shifted from foot to foot as he waited impatiently for the doors to open. He surveyed the long hallway and saw that at every six or seven feet there were potted plants that decorated each side of the walls. They stood at least ten feet in height. It was a very serene feeling that he enjoyed. The doors slid open quietly. Sean stepped inside and there she was. Simply the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his entire life. Immediately he was stunned into immobility. The lady had to be at least five-ten with curves molded by the sensuality of God himself.

She held a pair of red leather strapped pumps, one in each hand. She also held a small red clutch bag and was wearing an expensive looking sheer red dress that was held together by spaghetti straps. Her dress was cut dangerously low in the front and extremely low in the back. She had a smooth flawless caramel complexion, which spoke of mixed ancestry.

As Sean continued to stare at her, he noticed that she had long thick luxuriant jet-black hair that hung all the way down her back, ending at the crest of her soft looking derriere. There was a white flower pinned above the left side of her ear. This was a nice exotic touch. Sean felt lost as he was drinking in all of her beauty. She had almond shaped eyes that were greenish brown in color. She wore bright red lip gloss that covered very succulent lips. This lady was definitely the best of the best, a goddess in earthly form.

She was smiling as she spoke, Are you going down? Sean could have sworn that he detected a hint of playful mischief in her smile.

He said, I’m sorry, Mam. Yes, I am going down.

The doors closed and Sean pressed the button for the lobby. They were the only people on the elevator. Sean didn’t trust himself to look at her. He could smell her rich perfume.

She spoke again, Excuse me, sir, but can I ask you a question without you thinking that I’m desperate? Sean found it hard to believe that she was talking to him. He cleared his throat and prayed that his ever-widening smile would not betray just how anxious he felt.

He offered, Of course you can. Ask away, I’m all ears. The sparkle in her eyes gave even more evidence of her loveliness.

She said, My name is Sofia Santiago. I see that you are not wearing a wedding ring. So, I assume that you are single and judging from the suit that you are wearing, I can also tell that you have very good taste. Sean was beaming. She continued, I’d like to know why so many guys find it difficult to accept that a woman can be beautiful and bright, all in the same package?

The question took Sean completely by surprise. His first thought was that she might be toying with him. But she was looking him in the eye with such sincerity that he felt compelled to give her about as honest an answer that he could possibly muster up.

He said, Sofia, I am very pleased to meet you. My name is Sean Cole. You are very right. I am single. I can’t imagine why some men would have such foolish thoughts. I am not one of those guys that would shy away from a woman just because she might be pretty and smart. I’d be willing to bet that there are others like me and that you have probably been getting sandbagged by a bunch of milk-duds.

Sofia laughed and Sean couldn’t help but notice her size thirty-eight d-cups swell just a