Power (Romantic Suspense) (10 page)

“I told you that you’re safe whenever you’re with me.”

She shook her head. “But—”

“I want to see those nipples again.”

She gave no response.

“Is that a yes or a no?” I sneered.

“I don’t know. It was supposed to be a—”

“What? Game? Tease? I’m not someone you play with.” I worked on keeping myself calm. “This is your first warning.”

“But—”

“No, let’s go, before you have me doing something else crazy.”

“Me?” she shrieked. “You’re the one that took your dick out in the first place.”

“Not the point,” I grumbled and opened my side of the car.

“Whatever.” She snapped. “I’m not someone you play with either.”

“Oh, we’ll see, sweetheart.” I inhaled her scent and climbed out of the limo. “We’ll definitely see.”

Chapter 6

Noah

An intellectual came to check in on a friend who was seriously ill.

When the man's wife said that he had “departed.”

The intellectual replied:
"When he arrives back, will you tell him that I stopped by?"

–Philogelos (The Laughter Lover)

M
y
phone vibrated. Before shutting the limo door, I checked the text message.

Butterfly:
We need to talk, baby.

Annoyance filled my chest. Anytime Butterfly added
baby
to a sentence, she was plotting.

I don’t need her shit today.

I typed a response.

Me:
Talk about what?

Butterfly:
We should do something about Rasheed and Domingo.

Me:
We? That isn’t your business.

Butterfly:
I want to help you. I should be by your side.

I chuckled to myself and put my phone back in my pocket. There was no need wasting the energy to explain to Butterfly, yet again, why she didn’t need to be by my side. She annoyed me enough as it was. I’d tried to be her friend, but it’s hard to care for someone that’s always prepared to slam a sharp knife into your back when the opportunity arises. Butterfly represented danger and deception. I had no time for that tonight.

Mary Jane eyed me. “Was that your girlfriend?”

“No. I don’t do girlfriends.” Before she could respond, I walked off. “Stay there for a minute. I need to handle something before we walk into the party.”

Focus. Get this chick’s breasts out of your head.

I directed my view to the location of my god son’s party.

Damn. This place brings back serious memories.

Vivian was Domingo’s first wife. He’d had five wives and twelve kids in the past ten years. He couldn’t keep his women happy, but he always provided for the children. I’d only known Vivian. The rest I didn’t get to know, understanding by wife three that none of the females would keep his attention for too long.

But standing in front of Domingo’s first wife’s house brought back many memories.

I took a hit off the blunt. Smoke left my lips and filled the space with a lovely scent.” Just because she’s pregnant, it doesn’t mean you have to marry Vivian.”

Domingo got the blunt from me, didn’t smoke it as usual, and handed the thing to Rasheed who’d been laid out on the couch in front of us. “I don’t believe in sex before marriage. I’ve already sinned. I might as well make that shit right.”

Back then, we used to hang in my parent’s basement in their old house. They didn’t live there anymore. I’d graduated from college, pretended to have some big corporate job, and bought them a new place that was far out in the country and miles away from the city. My old family house then transformed into one of my hang out spots in the city.

Stacks of record albums littered the floor. Tons of them—from jazz to classic Hip Hop, rock and roll to the blues. We must’ve been listing to music for hours that night, tired of being in the streets and needing a break. Two empty bottles of rum laid on the table. Open boxes of pizza and half-eaten meatball subs scattered among the ashtrays, piles of money, and guns.

Rasheed grabbed the blunt from Domingo. “Now that your parents are up in Mid Valley. Rasheed wonders what are you going to do with this house?”

“Don’t know.” I rubbed my eyes, leaned back in Dad’s old leather chair, and chilled.

“Man, I always loved this house,” Domingo admitted. “I couldn’t wait to get over here after school. Mrs. Hazel always kept a cake on the counter and some good roasted meat in the oven. Tell you the truth, I only became your friend to get close to your mom.”

I laughed. “Too bad Mom has good taste in men.”

Domingo joined me in the laughter. “I know right?”

Rasheed coughed. “They still think you’re a cubicle boy? Going to your nine-to-five and hoping to get a promotion like a good little square.”

If Mom or Dad knew that I was involved in gangster shit, they’d never leave it alone. Plus, I don’t bring the craziness around them. They were two good people, just unlucky with money, but hardworking nonetheless. They’d instilled some decent moral values in me, even though I didn’t use them much. They’d worked two and sometimes three jobs to keep me in new clothes and my shelves full of books.

Little did they know, all of the time they spent away on one-night shift or another provided me with hours to run the streets.

That was what swallowed me up. To me, the hood was intoxicating. Something to marvel at and be apart. The hum of the battered pavement. The color of all the gangs and hookers parading down sidewalks. I could taste the violence in the air, and I loved it. My young lungs breathing in smoke and the alluring odor of death. With each step on those blocks, a cold chill coated my skin and tingled throughout my body.

Too young to know any better, I got hooked on the game. Addicted. A fiend in the hardest sense of the word. I hid it all from Mom and Dad, being the dutiful son when they were around and then causing havoc when they weren’t.

Domingo pushed me out of my thoughts. “So what are your plans with this place, Noah? You going to move Butterfly in here and start a family?”

“Butterfly?” I laughed. “Hell no.”

“She loves you.”

“She better get over that really quick. I don’t love her.” I coughed. “She did us good with the take-over. That’s why I gave her control of all the brothels. We are even now.”

“Shit. You better break her heart easy then. Butterfly is a sick chick and she never gets over shit.”

“New topic.” I waved all thought of that chick away.

“Fine.” Domingo waved his hand at me. “You see this pinky ring, motherfucker?”

“Yeah.” I blew out smoke.

“Shit worth more than this whole property.”

I laughed. “Shut the fuck up.”

Coughing, I added, “Anyway, I don’t know what I’m going to do with this place. What do you suggest?”

“Nothing.” Domingo’s voice brightened. “This was always a model for my dream home. You know. All this space. Three bedrooms, right?”

“Yeah.” Too me that was small, but Domingo had grown up in a two-bedroom apartment in the projects. Not only did his mother and three sisters live there, but his grandmother, uncle who was in and out of jail, and a pregnant cousin that had nowhere to go.

Even with all the money that we were making, Domingo still didn’t have his own place. By then, he’d been taking care of them all and bunking at his main chick Vivian’s place at night.

Domingo continued, “Yeah. Do something nice with this. Don’t let it fall into waste, man. That would break my heart.”

I opened my eyes and turned his way. “Are you really serious?”

“Hell fucking yes.”

Rasheed still held the blunt. The greedy bastard had never followed the proper rules of a weed cipher—puff, puff, and pass. If anything, he had to be forced to give the blunt back.

Too high to care that evening, I let him babysit the ganja as an idea bloomed in my head. “How many months is Vivian?”

“Four months.” Domingo shifted into his nervous habit, fucking with that stupid silver cross hanging around his neck. “And with each month, she becomes even more of a bitch.”

“But you love her.” I laughed.

“Yeah. She’s still a bitch, though.”

“Man, you’re about to be a father.” I blew out a long breath. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m caking money now. That’s why we got to do that big bust man. Take some people down. Make some power moves.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Yeah. You don’t know, because you’re the only one getting rich.”

“What are you talking about? You were just bragging about your pinky ring.” I didn’t like the topic reverting to that again, but I couldn’t ignore it. “I get the same cut like everyone else. I just have less mouths to feed.”

Domingo and Rasheed’s families lived in poverty. Every relative had their hand out, begging for something. Mom and Dad expected nothing from me. I still gave them a lot, but it didn’t compare to my friends’ troubles.

“Let’s do this bust,” Domingo continued.

“Naw.” I shook my head. “It’s not the right time.”

“I got a kid on the way.”

“And I have a better idea.” I stuck my hands in my pockets and slung the house keys over to him. “Take the house. It’s yours. I’ll put everything in your name.”

Domingo didn’t even pick up the keys from his lap. I thought he would’ve been overjoyed. Instead his gaze went dark. “I ask you about doing a deal and you try to have my first child grow up in a hand-me-down house?”

The room went still. Rasheed continued to smoke, glancing at both of us.

I checked the distance from my hand to the gun. Three feet at the most. Domingo’s weapon was next to mine. We both had a good chance to grab it before the other. It would be the Wild Wild West, if anyone rushed for their pieces.

Domingo and I stared at each other. No peace or calm remaining between us. Sometimes a man didn’t have to utter words to get a point across. Sure, we’d just been smoking and reminiscing, but we’d also been through a lot. The biggest thing that differentiated the three of us was when it came time for someone to kill, it was usually my finger pulling the trigger.

I never complained. Like the allure of the streets, I’d earned an appetite for murder. Rasheed kept score of our kills on a dingy board in the back of his garage.

Rasheed: 3

Domingo: 2

Noah: 25

It was that very reason no one ever disrespected me, in anyway.

My voice went cold. “Pick those keys up and say thank you.”

Domingo’s mouth didn’t move, but his hands did. They shook in fear and told me all I needed to know.

“We don’t do the bust, because the streets are hot and our names are already on too many lips.” I rose from the chair, grabbed my gun, and cocked it. “We don’t do the bust, because the men we killed were supposed to be untouchable, but I fucking touched them, and now they’re dead. Their men are going to be looking for the people who did it, so we need to lay low.”

I centered the gun’s barrel on Domingo’s right eye. “But most of all, we don’t do it, because I just motherfucking said we won’t.”

I had no idea how long we stayed there in silence. Never had I pointed a gun on a friend. I probably could’ve handled it better, but I’d been high on the weed and my ego.

Rasheed took his time getting up from the couch.

I still kept my gun on Domingo.

“Eh” Rasheed handed me the blunt. “Why don’t you smoke, man.”

Not moving the gun, I took the blunt and placed it between my lips.

With a nervous laugh, Rasheed headed back to the couch, but not before grabbing his own gun and Domingo’s. He lounged over there and placed both pieces on his lap.

Domingo’s eyes watered as he glanced between both of us. He was lucky a tear didn’t leave his eye. I might’ve shot him just for starting the whole beef and then punking out like a baby.

“Rasheed thinks you motherfuckers need to smoke some more and get back to this music,” he said from the couch. “What’s next Biggie or Tupac? Naw. Rasheed thinks we should probably slow it down. What about some Luther Vandross?”