Long As You Know Who You Belong To

Jessica Watkins Presents

Long as You Know Who You Belong To
 

Bri Noreen

Copyright © 2015 by Bri Noreen
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

About the book:

Kendrick "Grey" Summers is just out here trying to
function. New to LA with a couple mil to flip, Grey opens South
Beach, the newest addition to the Los Angeles club scene. In the
midst of starting his business, he meets an exotic beauty by the
name of Nakami. Enamored by her beauty and fiery personality, Grey
courts her not knowing that her father, Hero, is the biggest drug
lord on the West Coast. Nakami and her father prove to be the
connect that Grey needs in order to get back to his hustle. But at
what cost? 

 Kimani Summers, Grey's younger brother, is
making a name for himself in the modeling industry and is also
pursuing a career in acting. When he hears that his brother has
relocated to LA, he's not happy. Knowing Grey and the trouble that
tends to follow behind him, Kimani is reluctant to interact with
the brother he hasn't seen or talked to in over five years.
Hesitantly taking Grey up on the invitation to attend the grand
opening of his new club, Kimani meets Nakami's best friend, Blu.
After losing the last woman he loved tragically, Kimani doesn't
want to fall for Blu, but he can't help it. 

 When these four lives are intertwined, things
get crazy! And when everything is all said and done, friends will
become enemies, business and personal relationships will crumble,
and lines will be crossed that will affect the lives of all parties
involved. 

I watched as the glass vase I had been holding in my
hand soared through the air, crashed landed against the white croc
skin wallpaper, and burst into a million pieces. Tears rained down
my disfigured face, burning my open wounds as I tried to come to
grips with what had just happened. 

“Ma’am …you’re not in any condition to be moving
around,” the nurse timidly stated. I whipped around so forcefully
that my neck made a popping noise. 

 “Bitch, if you don’t get the fuck out my
business, you’re going to be the next thing that goes flying across
this fucking room. Now piss off!” I roared. Without another word,
she ran her ass up out the room, heeding my warning. 

 “How could this have happened? Why would he do
this?” I dropped to my knees and landed right on a pile of broken
glass. The glass cut into my flesh, immediately causing blood to
leak all over the mahogany wood floors. The pain of the open wounds
felt like the cusp of an orgasm in comparison to the unbearable
pain I felt in my heart. 

Rage wasn’t a strong enough word to describe the
feeling coursing through my body. It was something worse than that.
Deadlier than that. The feeling was consuming me, eating me alive
from the inside out. It was awakening a dark side of me that no
one, including me, had ever borne witness to.

Stumbling, I rose from the broken glass and limped to
my room. During the short trip from the mirror to my bed, I thought
about the possible ways I could make him suffer twelve times over.
Letting gunshots ring off and hit his body like Fourth of July
fireworks wouldn’t be satisfying enough. Drawing blood by stabbing
him directly in the heart as he had stabbed me—metaphorically
speaking, of course—would be too swift. No, he needed to be dealt
with in a specific manner. He needed to have everything in his life
stripped from him and be forced to live with the daily reminder
that he was the one that brought this on himself. The gauntlet had
been thrown, and I wasn’t going to stop until the nigga that I’d
given my heart to had his ripped out and hung on a wall like a
trophy of vengeance won. 

 “You’re a fucking idiot!” I screamed so loud
that my own eardrums popped. Tristan stood in front of me frozen
with fear, and she had every right to piss her pants right now. If
I had been armed, her family would have needed a closed casket
goodbye. 

 “I told you what to order. I wrote it down. I
spelled it out. I practically wrote the order myself, and you still
managed to fuck this up!” I could feel my face turning a vivid
shade of red; a sure sign that rage had taken over my body. I
couldn’t tell if Tristan was shaking, or if I was and that was why
it seemed as if she was moving. But I didn’t care which was
happening. 

 “I...I didn’t touch the order. I sent it in as
you gave it to me,” she stuttered. 

 My leopard print Charlotte Olympia pumps made
sweet music against the hardwood floors as I strutted over to where
Tristan stood. I got so close to her that I could probably write
the menu of what she had for lunch by the smell of her
breath. 

 “Are you trying to tell me that
I
made
the mistake?” 

 “That’s not what I said!” she
screeched. 

 “Get out my face. Now!” I yelled. 

 Tristan scurried away like a terrified rat. I
closed the door angrily, causing the expensive pictures on the wall
to rattle. I wanted to fire her. I needed to fire her. But I
couldn’t. She would be the sixth assistant that I had gotten rid of
in three weeks, and my schedule was too tight.  I just
couldn’t go through the hassle of putting up an ad and sifting
through resumes, only to hire someone as incompetent as the ones
that had come before her. I just didn’t understand why no one could
get this right! 

 I pulled out my phone to call my father, but I
changed my mind before I could get it all the way out of my purse.
One thing I didn’t want to hear was him calling me Kamikaze because
of my reckless attitude. It was his little pet name for me that had
developed because of my outrageous temper tantrums.  On top of
it describing me well, it also was a blend of my name and my
mother’s.   

  My birth name was Nakami Yukimura. I was
born to my Japanese father, Hironori Yukimura, better known in the
streets as Hero, and my African-American mother, Kazira
Prince.  My dad told me that I was the spitting image of her.
The only features I’d stolen from him were my chinky light brown
eyes. My honey brown skin complexion, my wavy brown tresses, my
stacked body, and my long lashes were definitely gifts from my
mother. I hadn’t been fortunate enough to know her because she’d
died while giving birth to me, but my father had enough pictures
and stories for me to build a concrete image of her in my
head. 

 The love I had for my father ran deep. He’d had
it rough trying to raise a daughter and run a drug empire, but he’d
been successful in both arenas. I idolized him, and whatever he
said was law. I’d never put anyone or anything before him, and I
never planned to do so. I’d followed his orders when he told me to
put school above boys and parties, and I’d graduated from UCLA with
a degree in Business Management on his orders. This was why I moved
into the city and out of the hills to run my event planning
business.  Well, although it
was
my business, it was
just a way to legally clean my father’s drug money. My heart was
telling me that he was trying to get out of the drug business and
clean as much money as possible. But whatever he wanted, I was down
for it. A ride or die bitch didn’t have to be a girl riding
for her man. I was definitely a ride or die bitch for my
father.

 “Your new client, Mr. Summers, is here,”
Tristan poked her head into my office and said. Her voice was
barely above a whisper.

 “Ugh,” I groaned.

  I just needed a moment to myself. I had
forgotten all about the new client I was supposed to be planning
for. He was referred to me by another wealthy client of mine, so I
knew that I needed to man up, put my game face on, and handle my
business.  I waved Tristan off and stood from my desk. I
walked over to my mirror to take a good look at myself and make
sure that I was at my best.

 Standing 5’7” without heels, my super thick
frame looked even more svelte and balanced with my favorite pair of
designer pumps that gave me an extra 6 inches of height. My long,
thick mane was wand curled to perfection and cascaded down my back,
and my little baby hairs were extra popping. I was dressed in a
cobalt blue Alice + Olivia bodycon dress with a deep-v in the
front, as well as a modest split. The dress hugged my wide, child
bearing hips, 36D breasts, and round ass like it was made with only
my body in mind.

 My face was flawless; my chinky bedroom eyes
were framed by long, dark lashes, my caramel skin sparkled with 24k
gold bronzer, and my full lips were coated with Lime Crime’s
Velvetine Salem lip color. People often told me that my face
reminded them of the actress and model Tae Heckard, but my body was
more Serena Williams.  Whatever. I looked better than any
bitch on TV.

Satisfied with how I looked, the only decision left
was whether I should throw on my blazer or no. Since I was meeting
with a man, I figured the more skin, the better. So I left the
blazer on the back of my office chair.

Taking a deep breath, I walked out of my office to
greet my new client.

Got. Damn.

Standing at least 6’3”, with skin the color of
vanilla bean ice cream, sandy brown neatly twisted dreads, a full
beard and mustache of the same color, and cool grey eyes, Mr.
Summers took my breath and my heart in two seconds flat. I blushed
hard when he casually threw a smile my way, revealing his deep-set
dimples. My GAWD this man was gorgeous! Dressed in Balmain Moto
Jeans, a white v-neck t-shirt, black and grey Giuseppe Zanotti
high-top sneakers, and a grey color block Lanvin button down
cardigan,  this man had my heart palpitating before he could
even speak a word.

 “I take it that you’re Nakami. Not to be
unprofessional, but damn you’re gorgeous,” his deep voice boomed,
instantly making my body quiver and my juice box leak. He extended
his hand for me to shake. I obliged.

 “I am. Nice to meet you, Mr. Summers.  And
thank you for the compliment.”

 “It’s Kendrick. Mr. Summers is a greeting for
somebody much older than I am,” he laughed.  “Or my friends
call me Grey. That is, if you plan on becoming my friend,” he
teased.

 “The way you’re staring at me, it’s hard not to
imagine we’ll eventually become more than that,” I replied. He
raised his eyebrow and smirked in amusement. “But let’s stick to
business for now, Kendrick.”

 He was planning a grand opening party for his
new club, South Beach. The club sounded amazing and completely
different than anything I’d ever seen or heard of. For the grand
opening, he wanted to stick to the Miami theme, and I had less than
two weeks to pull it together. Talk about pressure. And although
Grey…my bad, Kendrick…was easy on the eyes, I could tell that his
demanding ass was not going to be easy to please. I had my work cut
out for me. But for a man that damn fine, I was willing to lose
some sleep and slay some dragons to satisfy him.  All I
knew was that after this party, not only was I going to end up with
a $200K check in my account, I was going to end up with a new man
in my life.

This legit shit was starting to wear thin on my
nerves. I was ready to get back to the fucking hustle. Uprooting my
life and hopping my ass all the way across the country, from
Detroit to LA, had never even crossed my mind. But I don’t back
down from a challenge. So when my connect, Jorge Nueva, was busted
by the DEA and the Feds, I got ghost before they locked my ass down
too. I dropped everything but the cash in my safe, which amounted
to a little over $3 million. I knew that the shit wouldn’t last
long. But I was born on a dollar and a dream, so I knew I could
make it do what it do.

 The first thing I did when I touched down in
Los Angeles four months ago was find out what the hot shit was
here. My nigga, Tyler, had made the move with me, and it only took
him two weeks to get back to the money. But I wasn’t a corporate
nigga. Tyler was an engineer with mad skills. Even though I had
earned my Bachelor’s as well, I could never see myself working some
weak ass 9 to 5. So because I needed time to figure out how to get
into the drug game out west, I had to find some kind of business
that was going to keep my money flowing in the meantime. 

Being the home to the stars, it was really a
no-brainer to open a club. But the list of clubs in Hollywood and
Beverly Hills was long, and the clubs were definitely official;
none of that bullshit that you get when you come to the D. These
clubs in LA brought out the music business’ most elite players,
Hollywood’s A-list actors, and the world’s most famous athletes. So
I knew I had to come with it in order to make shit pop. But that
ain’t a thing. A nigga is real creative, so I knew South Beach
would be on the top of every website’s top ten list in a matter of
months. But all the bullshit that came with opening a club was for
the birds. Permits, licenses, ordering the liquor, hiring the
staff, meeting with the interior designer, strategizing with a
marketing team, sending out invites to PR people…Like, damn! Can’t
I just buy the space and open that bitch already?