by Love Belvin
After deading the call, I glanced over to Bilan. My palm stroking the back of her hand.
“You know what this means? Right?”
“What?” She gave me her eyes for a few seconds before going back to her phone.
Damn, that thumb moves fast…
“It means I can’t go back to waking up in the morning without you being there.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Because you’re not paying attention,” I scolded.
Bilan glanced up to me, finally placing her phone on her lap.
“Thank you,” my sarcasm delivered smoothly. “You have to move in with me, Nalib.” That was almost purred, and strategically.
Her eyes went to the back of Lamont’s head in the driver’s seat before swinging back to me.
“I’m not ready to do that.”
“And why not?”
“Because, I don’t see the need.”
“For one, your safety. I know you’re not aware, but my family is known by many, and infamous to even more across the New York Tristate and the Delaware Valley, at least. The word of our engagement will spread like wildfire. I can’t have my fiancée at the most popular diner in the area accessible to enemies of my family.”
“So, this is when your low key promise of me getting used to having armed security around me like you and your family do comes into play? Because I won’t. I’m not an Ellis.”
“Yet,” I corrected. “You’re not an Ellis yet. But I can assure you, your safety is no less important as my fiancée than it will be my as wife. Now, I believe in tradition, and wouldn’t mind allowing you to wait until we’re married to live together, but leaving you in Woodland Park and Paterson doesn’t sit well with me.”
Her face tightened and eyes widened in a flash. “So next, you’re going to tell me to quit my job?” Please believe, sweetie… “No.”
“Why, Bilan? Can you give me one reason why you cannot move into my apartment?”
“I have a dog, is one, Sadik. Did you think about that?”
I didn’t. Honestly, I didn’t know she had a dog until the party at her house. But that wouldn’t deter me.
“Bilan—”
“No! I can’t just pack up and leave. Remember, that’s my family home, Sadik. It holds lots of family memories for me. My brother will be released soon. I need to tell him I’m engaged—face the reality myself that I’ll be moving out eventually. I still have the bank to sort things out with. How long will it take to pack up the place? What to throw out? What will Ab want to keep for himself? Where will I store what I take?” She barely breathed, volume elevated too fast. Rory glanced back at us. “Do you see why I can’t get off a fancy private jet with you from a quaint beach house you bought with the snap of your fingers, and decide to quit on my former life?” Her former struggle. I understood.
She sat back into the bench, crossing her arms and gazing angrily out of the window.
“No, Sadik. You may have had your way being the ultra-demanding alpha, but here’s where you pump the brakes and wait for me to catch up. Now, if you don’t mind, please drop me off at Tasche’s instead of my place.”
“Tasche’s?” My temper flared. “For what?”
Her head whipped to face me. “Because, she needs her hair braided and I need to spend time with other people who care about me. And we won’t start the expectation of me having to clear my whereabouts with you!”
Twisting my mouth to bite my tongue, I sat back myself. My eyes caught Lamont in the rearview mirror ahead. He tried to hide his snicker.
Not from me. From Bilan.
Turning down the dark alley on the side of my house, the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight. It felt like ages since I’d left work and came home at close to four in the morning, creeping in the backyard to feed Dog before turning in. Illumination from the street lights didn’t reach back here, and the cool June air was bleaker than the coldest in the dead of winter for some reason. I whistled, approaching the opening of the gate leading into my backyard.
“Dog.”
After unhinging the metal latch, I took cautious steps into the yard. I’d picked him up from the neighbor yesterday when I got back into town and had to adjust to his aggression all over again. Being away not only suspended my normal schedule; it interrupted his norm, too. It took hours to get him to stop barking last night so I could get decent sleep.
I didn’t hear him.
“Aye!” I called louder, then whistled.
The sensor light should have clicked on by now. I pulled my cell from my bag with the free hand, and tapped to turn on the flashlight. No dog. Strange. Ignoring the stench in the air, I toed over to the kennel he mostly stayed in.
Please don’t step in his poop... I cringed as I tiptoed.
My feet stopped. There was a deep red liquid and a gang of flies. A high pitch scream strained my chords and I leaped backward, dropping the container of scraps. With a shaky arm, I lifted my phone to see it again.
Dog’s eyes were open as splats of blood covered his coat. His throat was slit, and there was a gaping hole was in his torso.
“Shi—” I shuffled backward before turning and taking off for the house.
On the way, I managed to pull out my keys, dropping them on the step before making it to the door. Once inside, I was sure to lock the door behind me before sprinting to my room, switching on lights the way there. I skirted into my door and ran to the closet. Dropping to my knees, I crawled to the back of the small space. I pulled back the carpet covering the hole in the floor where I kept a small, metal sewing box I got from my mother as a kid. It always resembled an army box to me, so I kept things I wanted to hide in there, which was stupid because anyone could get inside of it. I opened the box and pulled out a small gun I’d purchased some time ago out of fear. As I took to my feet, I checked for bullets, then headed back out.
With my pulse ringing in my ears, I checked my parents’ bedroom, Ab’s old room, and the bathroom before treading toward the front of the house. I opened the linen, pantry, and other closet doors before finally turning on the lights in the dining room. The basement. Could someone be in the basement? I had no other choice. I had to check or not sleep a wink tonight. I switched on the light and made sure the flashlight function was still on, on my phone.
The sounds of the boiler unit echoed even from the top of the steps. Slowly, I took off down the stairs. Palms misting, mouth dry, joints wobbling, and heart racing. At the bottom, I clicked on another light. Moving from wall to narrow wall, I saw nothing. The laundry area and storage items seemed to still be in place. Then I traveled over to Abshir’s old space. He’d made the place his bedroom when he and my father would fight all the time about his growing heroin addiction. I used the flashlight on my phone for the dark area.
I screeched again, hitting my back against the wall.
A flat, thin bloodied tongue I knew belonged to the canine outside was on the cement floor. Bile shot from the back of my throat as I paced back to the stairs, not knowing to point the gun ahead or behind me. Back in the kitchen, I slammed and locked the door.
Hefty air shot from my mouth as I glanced around, the gun down at my side. I couldn’t believe this was happening again. The fear and threat of living alone was coming back in spades. I’d been the only one living in the house all these years, but had the eerie feeling I wasn’t alone. Someone killed Dog. Slaughtered him in my yard.
I whispered to myself, “And how were they able to get in the hou—?”
My head whipped back. Something was off. I walked back toward the back door, and in plain sight. The security panel was ripped from the wall. Wires cut and sprouting out. I couldn’t gain my lungs. My trembling hands shot to my phone as I sprinted back to my room, locked the door, and crawled into my closet.
I dialed one number that went straight to voicemail. Then I dialed the other number.
“Hello?” her male pubescent voice croaked.
“Oh, my God!” I sobbed,
relieved to hear her. “Rory!”
“Aye! Wait. Wait! What’s wrong?”
“Dog!” I tried to breathe. “My dog! Someone killed my dog. They broke into my house!” I sobbed at the reality of the words leaving my mouth.
“Hold on! Just calm down, shawtie. I hear you,” she tried speaking over me. “Stay right there. Okay? Don’t call the police. I’m calling my guy now to head over there. He gonna search the premises. He gonna shout ‘black ops, black ops’ to let you know he wit’ us. It’s gonna take us too long to get there before him because of where we at, but we on our way. A’ight?”
“Rory!”
Far away?
“Hang tight, B. I swear, you ain’t gone be by yourself for long.”
“That fat gnocchi-eating muthafucka called DEA! They shut down my fuckin’ laundromats, Sadik!” My father slapped the top of the table as we stood in his warehouse. “Every last one of them shits being searched!”
And Ellis Soaps would be audited again by the IRS once the DEA completed the sweeps for drugs and paraphernalia. I knew this already, had gotten the call before my father’s. I sat on the edge of the table, rubbing my face, frustrated by it all. This was Rizzo’s doing. He and his crew ran the docks we all used—legally and illegally. My business was in imports and exports, but all of the top five miscreants of the state of New Jersey had some ties to those ports. They were owned by government, but run by a former mob associate. Salvatore Rizzo. He called in a favor in his legal world. He made this clear to my father in a call as I walked in here.
My father took a deep breath, planting his chin inside the apex of his thumb and index finger. His brows lifted. “We ain’t got no way to rinse money now.”
“I understand.”
“We can call Tiff up.” Iban’s smirk matched his stupid ass sentiment. “You know she always down to ride for the family.”
I threw him hard eyes.
“We ain’t gonna involve baby girl’s clubs in this,” my father hissed.
“Besides,” I add. “She only has two clubs. Successful or not, it’s not enough to clean a day’s worth of money brought in.”
“We do have the three grocery stores, but…” my father noted.
“I know. They’re not enough to wash all of it, either.” After a beat, I offered, “It may be time we clean it through the LQs.”
Iban’s head shot up. Years ago, before his arrest and incarceration, I urged him to open a predominately cash operated business as a backup for their laundering. A true businessman knew you needed more than one stream of income. A true kingpin didn’t always get, in this day and age of digital money, that you needed more than one system for cleaning your money. My father owned twelve laundromats in the state. My brother and sister-in-law owned eight liquor stores. When they began with the business under my advisement, I warned to keep it clean. Never to run a dirty dollar through them. That was for rainy days like this. It was my father’s backup.
Iban stood straight and stretched his long arms in the air. “You already know. Just say the word and I’ll have Monica—”
Rory swung the door open. Her big eyes animated with worry. “Yo, Deek.” I acknowledged her. “Bilan.”
Shit…
In an oversized robe, freshly showered and hair damped, I sat curled up on his couch. My puffy eyes seesawed between a pacing suited, russet baldy and the skyline vista from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Two days. Two fuckin’ days!” he groused, rubbing his shiny head. “And this shit!”
I couldn’t help my sniffles or lung hiccups. Thank God the tears stopped in the shower. I was utterly exhausted.
“You have to quit. You have to move in here.” He finally turned to me, palms on his narrowed waist, suit jacket winged open.
“I can’t, Sadik. My mother’s things are there. Everything’s there at the house.”
“We’ll hire a crew. You can be there as the house is being packed up. I’ll pay for storage anywhere you want it. Or we can take it to Elliswoods Palace—shit, we can ship it down to Macen Beach—the choice is yours, but you’re coming out of there.”
“Sadik—”
His hand pushed into the air. “That’s enough.” That air of dark authority couldn’t be missed, no matter how soft his voice was. “You told me no the first time under the guise of the dog, and I acquiesced. You no longer have a dog.”
“But what about my brother? He’s coming home soon.”
Sadik’s head was shaking before I could finish my words. “Your brother’s a grown man. The house is about to be lost in foreclosure any moment now. I offered to help and you said no, which is fine because I want you here!” His finger pointed toward the marble floor. “I don’t need you having any attachments to anything other than me. You keeping that place will be a distraction from where I need you to be and that’s safe, here with me.”
I could feel my heart rupturing into two at that statement. It hurt so much. How could he want my childhood home gone? I understood the complication, but not at the risk of the absence. The last of my family’s memory being lost…snatched away. Something so precious to me was an irritant for him.
Sadik turned and noticed me crying. He strolled over and sat next to me. As much as I wanted to be alone, his arms around my shaking frame were soothing.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You have no fuckin’ idea how scared I was when Rory busted into my meeting and just mentioned your name.” His head leaned into mine, and Sadik sighed. “I’m sorry. I know it’s going to be a rough adjustment for you, but I promise, I’ll work my ass off to make you comfortable and keep you safe twenty-four hours a day.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“It’s time for you to be assigned security around the clock.”
I shifted my head. “Like, at work?”
Sadik took another fortifying breath. “I’ll give you a couple of days to a week to do it, but Bilan, you’re going to have to quit. It’s too much of a risk leaving you at that diner. It’s a high traffic area…too many people in and out of there. And while I do have the money, it’s a huge liability to have armed security at that diner while you’re working. You’re going to have to do it. You’re going to have to quit for me, honey.”
And such was my life…
It had change drastically in the past six weeks. I resigned as assistant baker from Michelle’s Diner. It was ceremonial; the party, cards, and tears. I, myself, cried in the backseat of Sadik’s Range Rover that technically was mine as I was driven from the diner, back to my new home. Life was…different. It was enough I’d had a change since the absence of school and the addition of Sadik, but this was completely unrecognizable now that I didn’t go into the diner daily.
Sadik lost an armed guard to me. Lamont was now my assigned security. Anywhere I went, so did he. Because I needed a guard, my fiancé insisted I had a comfortable vehicle for us, hence the brand spanking new Range Rover. Each day, I woke up to robust attention from a man’s hands and hungry mouth. After we’d finally make it out of bed, I’d shower with him or meet him in the kitchen, where he’d feed us both breakfast. Kissing the man off to work had become a practiced science for me. I’d find something to fill the hours with while Sadik worked, and greeted him when he made it home at night.
We talked—God, we talked a lot—about his family, my future, and his business. Bonding over conversations was my absolute favorite feature of our relationship. I learned you don’t know a man until you’ve lived with them. The man was the biggest Type A personality if I’d ever seen one. He was ridiculously predictable around the apartment, wanting his personal toiletries and clothing organized in a specific manner. All of Sadik’s domestic habits, good and bad, were interesting, but nothing topped his superb sex. He’d use ropes in and out of the bedroom.
Mind-blowing…
Not having a job or school put more time on the clock I needed to kill, so I spent time with my friends. Once, I went out to a club with them. That didn�
�t go over so well, with Lamont being so big and conspicuous in the crowd. So, I ended up leaving early. But I’d had Tasche and Randi over to the apartment, especially when Sadik traveled. I spent time getting to know Monica and the girls—on and off the Elliswoods compound. Lia delivered a healthy baby girl. I didn’t hear many details beyond that by neither Sadik or Monica. Monica stayed with Iban, but hadn’t forgiven him. Earl and Iban hadn’t warmed to me, but they also seemed preoccupied during dinners when we’d eat with the family sometimes twice a week.
No matter how much I tried to fill in the time, I was still bored. I told Sadik I needed a job. Of course, he offered me a role at Ellis International, to which I declined. Customs was not a field I cared to get into. He mentioned applying for a position at Ellis Academy, Irene’s charter school system. While that was more of my speed because of my field, it gave me pause because that would be the finality of my independent identity. I wasn’t even married into the family yet, and could easily assume their world.
And Abshir was released from prison in early July. It was a mess, but the norm for my brother and me. In the middle of a Tuesday, I got a call from the company Sadik paid to have the house secured with an alarm system. They said a Black male, brown skinned, and over six feet tall had let himself into the house with a key.
I flew over to Woodland Park, forgetting about notifying Lamont. Under the weather, I had no plans of leaving out this particular day. When I pulled up to the house, two police cars were in front, along with a gang of familiar faces who were not all neighbors. I parked and walked inside, moving in between hoodlums, leaning on the railing and sitting on the porch.
“Daaaaaaamn,” one sang, I was sure about me.
Another whistled and a few more snickered. I was annoyed right away. When I walked inside, I saw bodies in the living room.
“Oh, here the fuck Ms. America is,” I heard hissed.
My face stretched as I took him in. Abshir had put on a good twenty pounds or more. He was bigger and had grown out a full beard.
