NO SECRETS NO LIES (SIN CITY HEAT SERIES Book 3) (26 page)

    
When Jerra looked at her and slowly nodded, Keisha smoothed her hair away from
her eyes. "Jerra, Darrell is a grown man. I personally don't think for one
minute he's going to leave his family, but if he does, you have no control over
anyone but yourself. You have to be strong for your children. The rest, you'll deal
with as it comes. Okay?"

    
Jerra wiped her eyes and nose. She inhaled then exhaled before nodding again.
Keisha was right. She remembered something Darrell mentioned when he told her
about losing Roni. He said everything has a season, and everything happens for
a reason.  Maybe they'd served their purpose in each other's lives.

    
Maybe their season had come to an end.

    
Darrell pulled his Range Rover around the circular driveway of Bryan's home and
came to a stop. He practically killed the ignition and jumped out of the truck
in one movement before hurrying to the front door. However, before he had time
to ring the doorbell, door swung open.

    
Time stood still as Bryan and Darrell stared at one another before Bryan
stepped aside for Darrell to enter. "I've been expecting you."

    
Darrell walked into the large foyer, never taking his eyes off Bryan. He wanted
to see his face when he verified what he'd come here to find out. "So it's
true? She's alive?"

    
Bryan didn’t answer for a long moment then slowly nodded. "Yes."

    
Until that exact moment, a small part of Darrell still hadn’t believed it, but
hearing Bryan confirm what Marcus told him made it all too real. He looked
around him as a myriad of expressions crossed his face. Confusion, hurt,
resentment, anguish, grief...he finally settled on anger because that was the
only thing getting him through this and he directed it full force towards
Bryan.

  
"Why! Why would you...!" He advanced on Bryan with a heaving chest
and clenched fists, but stopped a few feet away. He blinked angry tears away as
he stared at the man who'd been his friend and mentor. "Bryan,
why??
"

    
"Darrell, you don't understand." Bryan tried to put his hand on
Darrell's shoulder, but Darrell roughly shoved it away.

     
Fury overcame the hurt and coursed through his veins like a shot of adrenaline
flowing through his blood stream. Darrell’s voice was deadly quiet. "I'm
not gonna ask you again. Tell me now.” His words were uttered slowly and
distinctively. “Why did you lead me to believe Roni was dead all these years?
Why did you fake her death? Why didn’t she come to me? Who...who the
fuck
ashes
did we spread the day of her service if it wasn’t hers?"

    
"Darrell -"

    
"How could you do this, Bryan? How could
she??"

    
"Don't
blame Roni. I did what I thought was best at the time. Look, Darrell, let's go
to my study. We can sit down and talk –"

    
"I don't wanna fuckin' sit down and talk! I..." Darrell turned and
took a few steps away, but when Bryan's statement sunk in, he spun around.
"You...you did what you thought was
best? 
What
you
thought
was best?!! And WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!
Huh??
" Darrell stood with
his face inches away from Bryan's. All it would take was for Bryan to blink the
wrong way and Darrell would be all over his ass. "Who the hell are you to
play God with my fuckin' life?! And Roni's??"

    
"There are things you don't know –"

    
"THEN TELL ME, GOT DAMMIT!!" Darrell yelled. He hit himself in the
chest twice with balled up fists. "I'M RIGHT HERE!!
TELL ME!
"

    
The air surrounding them was tense and highly charged. Bryan's left eye
twitched as he held Darrell's. "When I found out Roni had been shot – and
how – it was carried out execution style. I thought somebody put a hit out on
her."

  
  "That doesn’t make sense. Why would you think someone put a
hit out on her? Roni never did nothin' to nobody. She had no enemies. Rhakeem
and Luther intended that hit for me."

    
"I didn't find that out until later. Darrell...." Bryan let out a low
breath and stepped around him to sink down into an upholstered, high back
chair. He looked up at Darrell in resignation. "I assume Roni never told
you what her husband, Frank, did for a living."

    
"I don't know, not really. She didn’t like to talk about Frank. I know she
was devastated by his death."

    
"When the two of them met, Frank swept Roni off her feet. She fell for him
instantly, but he was living a double life. He'd been in a loveless marriage
for almost twenty years. By the time Roni found out, she was already deeply in
love with him. Frank was just as crazy about her. He divorced his wife and
married Roni."

    
Darrell hunched his shoulders. "Okay. So what. What does that have to do
with what we're talking about now?"

    
"Frank and his ex-wife's family were Sicilian. His ex's family had ties to
one of the biggest crime families on the east coast. That's how they met. Frank
was born into that life. You could say they didn’t take too well to him
divorcing his wife and marrying another woman - a black woman at that. It was
one thing to keep her as a mistress, but to marry her was another entirely.
Once you're part of something like that, there's no getting out. But Frank did.
He just...walked away. He was under someone's protection - someone the
Sicilians didn’t wanna fuck with. When I met who it was, I understood why they
decided to let it go. This guy's protection covered Roni as well, even after
Frank passed away."

    
"Who is he?"

    
"That's not important. What
is
important is that you have to
understand that I thought the syndicate had finally made good on the threats
they'd made to Frank all those years ago. Why they would’ve waited so long and
at that particular time was beyond my comprehension, but didn’t matter. I was
sure of two things. One: Roni wasn’t gonna die. Two: she had to be protected at
all costs." Bryan met and held Darrell's eyes. "The only way we could
do so beyond a shadow of a doubt was to make it appear as if she were dead."

    
"You should’ve told me."

    
"We couldn't. I wanted to but I wasn't willing to risk Roni's life by
telling anyone. Not even you."

    
"Man, this is crazy," Darrell muttered. His hostile eyes went back to
Bryan. "You knew what I went through. I thought you understood because you
were goin' through it too. You pretended to grieve right along with me knowin’
she was still alive."

    
"I was grieving! Don't ever think I wasn’t! I don't expect you to
understand that, but in a way I'd lost her too!"

    
"Bullshit! You know it's not the same mu'fuckin' thing!" Their eyes
warred with each other's until Bryan's fell away. Darrell ran his hand along
the back of his head. "What happened after she was revived?"

    
"She still wasn’t out of the woods, nowhere near. She was barely holding
on and in a coma. The doctors we'd flown in told us there was a small chance of
Roni surviving, but we’d have to fly her to Switzerland to be treated. The
medicine and experimental procedures they used there were not sanctioned here in
the United States. The entire cost was astronomical...enough to feed a third
world country - but she survived."

    
"After you discovered the Sicilians weren't responsible for trying to kill
her and after she got better...she never...why didn't either of you let me know
then?"

    
Bryan hesitated. His next words were said gently and with as much kindness as
he could muster, but it did nothing to soften the blow "She didn’t want
you to know, Darrell."

Chapter
33

   
Darrell shook his head in denial. "I'on believe you. You lyin' to me now
the same way you have all these years."

    
Bryan stood up and held his hands palm side up. "I'm not. I know how much
you loved her, Darrell. I had no reason to try and keep you two apart. In her
defense, you have to understand, the road to her recovery was a long, slow,
painful one. She had to relearn everything. Until she was able to speak, she
communicated by blinking her eyes. Before you came home, I told her I thought
it was safe to tell you she was alive. She became extremely upset and had to be
sedated. Later, when she was a little stronger, I broached the subject again,
but…the answer was the same."

    
Darrell looked as if he wanted to say something, but turned away in disgust.

    
Bryan reached towards him then hesitated before putting his hand on Darrell's
shoulder. "Darrell, I don't think she wanted you to be burdened with the
problems that came along with her condition. She needed constant care. She felt
like you were young - too young -  to have to put your life on hold for
her."

    
"That wasn’t for her to decide, Bryan. Roni was the first person in my
entire miserable life to care about me," Darrell muttered, almost to
himself. "Why would she think I wouldn’t have wanted to be there for
her?"

    
The silence stretched between them before Bryan quietly said, "She knows
you're married and you have a child; I've sent her pictures. She thinks your
family is beautiful. I think her words ran along the lines of 'DJ is adorable
and looks exactly the way she imagined a son of yours would look'", Bryan
smiled. "She also thinks Jerra is very lovely." 

    
Darrell turned around to face Bryan. "I need to see her. I need to see her
for myself."

    
Bryan nodded. "I figured as much. So did she. She understands you need
closure. As soon as you think it’s a good time, just let me know and I'll make
the arrangements."

     
"I'm leaving in the morning."

    
Bryan's eyes narrowed as Darrell's meaning sunk in. "To go to Aruba?"

    
"Yeah. I need to know how to find her."

    
Bryan held up a hand. "Wait, just hold on a minute Darrell. I understand
this has come as quite a shock, but I think it would be better if you wait a
little while, give both you and Roni time to come to terms with all of
this."

    
"I didn’t ask for your opinion, Bryan. I don't need it and I damn sure
don’t want it. I think you've made enough decisions when it comes to my life.
The only thing I need right now is an address." When Bryan remained quiet,
Darrell's voice lowered. "You owe me."

    
Bryan rubbed his hand over his mouth and studied Darrell. "And what about
Jerra? How does she feel about you running off to see a woman who would've more
than likely been your wife if the circumstances had allowed."

    
Darrell's eyes flickered as he remembered the look on Jerra's face when she
heard him talking to Marcus on the phone, but he pushed the image out of his
mind. "The address, Bryan."

    
Fifteen minutes later, Darrell was pulling out of Bryan's driveway. He had no
doubt Bryan was probably calling Roni now. It didn’t matter to him one way or
the other. He would be in Aruba in less than twenty-four hours. Darrell
couldn’t explain exactly what was compelling him to fly to do this, but the
only thing he knew for certain was that he had to see Roni for himself. He
wouldn’t get any peace until he did.

    
Marcus and Aleesha were in the airport waiting for Darrell to come through the
gate. His flight landed about five minutes ago and the passengers were now debarking.

    
Marcus glanced at the tight set of Aleesha's lips as she continued to ignore
him. She wasn’t happy with him at all. She'd talked to Jerra and Keisha and
found out things weren't good between Jerra and Darrell, and now that he’d flown
out to Aruba to meet with Roni, the situation had gone from bad to worse.

    
In so many words, Aleesha told Marcus he was responsible for making the rift
between their friends even wider. They'd stayed up half the night arguing, and
for the first time in a long while, they’d gone to bed without making love.

    
"You're still not talking to me?"

    
Aleesha glanced at him and quickly looked away. "There's really nothing to
say, is there?"

    
"Leesh, I don't want this to be an issue between us. Jerra's upset and I'm
not saying she doesn’t have a right to be, but you don't honestly expect me to
have kept this information to myself, do you?"

    
"Of course not, but it isn't fair to Jerra either. You could've just
waited and –"

    
"No. He couldn't have waited."

    
Marcus and Aleesha turned around and saw Darrell standing behind them. He
dropped his duffel bag and sighed before putting his arms around Aleesha until
she returned the hug. "Don't be upset with Marcus about this. Things will
work themselves out."

 
   Aleesha pulled back to look in Darrell's eyes. "Yes, but
somebody's going to get hurt in the process of 'working it out'; I don't want
it to be my sista."

    
Darrell knew Aleesha wanted reassurances from him, but this was so much more
complicated than just Roni being alive. He turned to Marcus without replying
and gave him a quick hug before they left out of the terminal.  The two
men made small talk until they got back to the hotel room. Aleesha was quiet
because she knew they were waiting until they were alone to talk about the
reason for Darrell's sudden trip.