No Honor Amongst Thieves

by Brick

  Meanwhile, he stood in gray sweats, a fresh pair of white kicks, and a thick, black tee shirt that hugged the muscles in his upper body. I couldn’t read the look on his face and didn’t know what to say to start the long-awaited conversation I’d wanted to have with him for weeks now. I went from being remorseful about the place I’d put him in to being angry that he just walked away so easily. I would go from wishing he would come back to cursing him to hell, swearing he could stay where the hell he was.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but he held up his hand to stop me. “Don’t, Sabrina. If you say the wrong thing, it’s going to piss me off,” he said.

  I’d missed his voice so much. That deep, penetrating timbre always did something to me. Still, I needed to speak. Needed him to know some things. I had to get some shit off my chest.

  “I—”

  I backed away a little when he stepped closer to me as I didn’t know what this visit meant. But the look on his face told me I needed to be quiet. For as badly as I wanted this to be a social call, the last time we had seen each other the threat of him killing me was ripe. Obviously, since he was in my place and had come through the front door, Danny wasn’t posted out there anymore. He stepped closer. I stepped back again.

  “What do you want?” I asked him, timidly.

  My eyes scanned the room for anything I could use as a weapon, if need be. When he stepped closer this time, I tried to back away, but he reached out and grabbed me. The soul-stirring kiss he planted on me told me all I needed to know. I was scared. I was confused. I was elated. I was so many emotions wrapped into one that I forgot to breathe as he kissed me. His hands gripped my waist, then snaked around to grip my ass so tightly it was painfully pleasurable, causing a shiver to dance up and down my spine.

  Both of my hands came up to cup the back of his strong neck. He smelled so damn good. Just as I remembered, but richer this time around. That woodsy spice of a scent tickled my olfactory senses and gave me the comfort of familiarity. I kissed him with just as much fervor as he kissed me. . . . Tongues touching and dancing eagerly as we devoured each other. I didn’t even realize he had backed me into the minibar in my front room. Not until he lifted me, then set me on top of it. Yes, my naked ass was atop the cool granite surface, and I was sure there would be a wet spot left there when I moved.

  I had so many questions. It was just in my nature, but at the moment, I couldn’t think of one to ask him. I could sense him stepping out of his shoes. We only broke the kiss long enough for me to help him pull his shirt over his head. It dropped to the floor in a swoosh. Next came his sweats and boxer briefs. I realized that Marcel’s sleight of hand was something to be reckoned with. I hadn’t seen him pull the golden-wrapped condom from his pocket, and while he kissed me, he expertly ripped it open and placed it on.

  I was so aroused—wet and horny—that foreplay really wasn’t needed. He lifted my bottom from the bar, then worked his way inside of me. It was a slow task as he was well endowed, and it had been awhile since I’d had sex.

  “Ooh,” was all I could say, followed by my hiss and my nails digging into his arms.

  “You can talk now,” he told me in a low, guttural tone.... One that told me he was being sarcastic. No way had he expected me to talk when his dick was causing me blinding pleasure. My thighs quaked uncontrollably. My back arched against my will, and the only conversation going on was between our bodies. Marcel switched between fucking me long, hard, and deep, to a steady beat that rocked my soul to the core. He pushed my shirt over my breasts, palmed one while his mouth sucked the nipple on the other. The stimulation was almost too intense for me to handle. I’d never had sex that sent electricity through every molecule of my DNA.

  I rocked my hips back against his. My orgasm was so close I could taste it. His dick swelled inside of me. The more I moaned, the more I threw back every thrust he gave to me, the harder he became. But it wasn’t until he isolated my hip movements, made me stop moving so he could control the show, that I lost my mind. I moaned, and probably even screamed, so deep and melodious that I was sure the neighbors knew his name. It wasn’t long after he took me on a natural high that he came crashing down with me.

  It took us awhile to get ourselves together. Once the high of the sex started to dissipate, we still had to talk about the elephant in the room. On steady, but clearly tired legs, he took me to my bedroom. It was only when he laid me on the bed that he removed himself from me. I watched as he moseyed to the bathroom. Heard the water running and knew he was probably cleaning himself up. Was pleasantly surprised when he brought out a warm, soapy towel to do the same to me. Afterward, he crawled into bed behind me.

  Silence serenaded us as the moon played voyeur.

  “You placed me in a bad situation, Sabrina. You’re supposed to be dead,” his deep voice rumbled. “You were never supposed to know that side of me.”

  I swallowed, body still humming from the sex we’d had. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” was my answer.

  “Yeah, you do.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He turned me over to look at him. “I know what you’re trying to do; trust me. I get it, but for us to do whatever this is we’re doing, we have to be up front. You know what I did.”

  I shook my head. There would be no way I could—or would—ever admit it, to him or anyone else.

  “No, I don’t know anything. As far as I know, you’re an aide to Leo Giulio, and you cook in his kitchen. That’s all I know. That’s all I’ll ever know.”

  We stared at each other for a long time. I had no idea what he was thinking, but that was the night I saved my own life. For as cruel as it sounded, if I had admitted to seeing him do anything, even after he had fucked me, I would have gone to sleep and never awakened again.

  Chapter Ten

  Marcel

  My grandmother would say that people get in you when you least expect it. If you can’t get them out of your system, then it ain’t meant for them to stop being a part of you. With Sabrina and me, that adage ran deep and true. Killing my wife, metaphorically speaking, had killed a part of me. A part I had never told her about. My family. Yeah, I had off the cuff told her about how my mother’s favorite flower was a lilac but speaking about them all in detail never ever came out of my mouth. There were too many pieces of me that were off-limits, so I thought.

  I found that the longer that I was with Sabrina, the easier little things would slip out. When they did slip out, though, I always made sure to keep it contained and not let it be anything about my “business,” especially after she learned the truth about me. My time away from her was fucking hard on a nigga; something I wasn’t used to. I felt like I was too young to be digging her like that; yet I was. I wanted her the moment I saw her the second time around, and I had been accepting of it. But when I told her I loved her in the back of that car, yeah, that all changed the game for me.

  I really wasn’t speaking to her. In front of me was my family. It was them that I was telling sorry to for losing their lives back in the day. It was their spirit that I was communicating with in explaining why my hands were covered in blood, the kid that they raised to be more than what I was—a killer, a mercenary for crime lords. In Sabrina’s eyes, I was even speaking to her younger self. I didn’t want her seeing that side of me, didn’t want her tarnished, but now she was.

  I felt like I lost her to the game, which was one of the reasons why I left as I did. Dropping her off at her place, I drove home, packed up, and then drove to South Carolina. After that, I paid for a bus ticket to drive me to Maryland. Then from there, I took a train to DC. Essentially, my movements were done in a way that would not allow for a clear-cut trail. After everything that had happened, I wasn’t sure if Sabrina had gone to the police or not. I was literally playing with my life, but I just couldn’t bring myself to harm her. All I knew was I needed to go home and visit the graves of my family, and that was what I did.

  Everything I did while bac
k in DC, I took old school. I slept on the streets, in shelters, and in abandoned homes, to bide my time. Afterward, I went to the graves of my people and communed with their spirits. It was crazy. They were the only ones I spoke all of my truths to and all of my pains. I washed my blood off my hands with the dirt of their graves, metaphorically speaking. Being with them was my counseling, and usually, I did this once a year, but after leaving Sabrina, I found myself back before schedule.

  Once I dumped my truths on them, I flew out of DC and went to Florida where I stayed low-key doing some work and cleaning up small hits on the list just to ease the time. Through it all, Sabrina stayed on my mind. We had no real relationship, but shorty had me feeling her on a level I wasn’t truly ready to accept yet. That was exceedingly clear because I had let her live. That wasn’t part of the game. I had others, who knew nothing about what I did. Only one time did I have to take care of one of my partners because they stumbled upon something they shouldn’t have, which was back in Vegas.

  Tracy Moore. Baby girl was thick like a milkshake and a pretty sista who had a habit of fucking snooping. That’s what ended up getting her killed. Her pretty face, phat ass, and gift of sucking dick couldn’t save her for shit. After I dragged her in the bathroom, banged her head against the shower wall, then snapped her neck, I made her death as pretty as possible in respect for the little bit of a relationship we had. After that, I sent flowers to her funeral and flew to Italy.

  Killing was my life, and, yes, there were parts of it that gave me pride; there were also parts that no sane man would allow to be shared between the people of his family. I had slipped, and I didn’t know what to do besides what was natural, and that was to end Sabrina.

  As September rolled into October and October into November, I kept my eyes on the news. I saw nothing about me being linked to the kills in Red Hook. I flew to South Africa, chilled a few weeks, killed some more, mingled, fucked, and still saw nothing in the news. Sabrina had kept her mouth shut, and she had made herself a permanent occupant in a part of me that I had thought long dead.

  It was because of that that I came back to the States and Georgia to see her. I also was still weighing killing her. But when I stepped back into her world, when I saw her, once again my mind flipped on me and changed. I ended up digging that kitty out and made my choice, right then and there. It would be another two weeks before I verbally said what that choice would be, and, no, I wasn’t asking her to be my wife.

  We were nowhere near ready for that at that time because I wasn’t about to fly off to Paris or some shit and propose to her after leaving her out to dry so many damn times. Nah, we needed to be on the same page for a question like that, and as I said, we weren’t ready. We were young and trying to see what this even was. I mean, a brotha had casually said that he was going to kill her too many times to be popping the question.

  But, yeah, we were chilling down in Midtown dodging her handler Danny. I pulled her to some steps hidden off the side of one of the buildings. I held her as she sat on my lap, and she sipped on some Starbucks. A white mocha latte, I think it was. Her nose was a little red from the strong chill we had going on in Atlanta, something that usually didn’t go down, but how fucked up the climate was, I wouldn’t be shocked if a blizzard hit us hard any time now.

  “Brina, been thinking that as long as you keep seeing things as you do in regards to me,” I found myself saying while I watched cars go by, “I’ll be good with that and won’t do anything reckless because you have me trusting you.”

  The sudden shift of her body against me, the sensation of her tensing up at my words had me studying her presence. My arms found themselves wrapping around her snuggly. Not too tight, but just right. It had me remembering how good she felt against my hands when they gripped and held on to her as I pumped in and out of her. We were on some animalistic shit the first time we fucked. It was like on the cusp of something soft and slow on her behalf as well, but through the whole experience, Sabrina felt good to me, like I knew she would.

  My palms itched in remembrance of holding her ass in my hands, sliding over the small of her back, then upward to feel her breasts swell in both my hands. Shit was candy for me, and while I remembered all of that, it left me with a weird feeling that I finally realized what it was.

  “You make me want to protect you, not that you need it, but I’d fuck a bitch up if someone came stupidly at you. That’s why I’m telling you this. If you can honestly tell me that you can be good with all of who I am right now, then I’ll believe it, and we can keep on learning each other, a’ight?” I added knowing that she had to be thinking I was a crazy nigga.

  I mean I was. I honestly was. I was a liar, a manipulator, and a killer, but above all of that, I also was a man who was once raised in love and understood what that looked like because I had seen it. I knew respect, and I knew loyalty as well. So, I was offering her a little of that in trust that she would not betray me and since I was damn good at reading people; then I’d wait and see if she would give the same in return.

  “All right, Marcel, I meant what I told you before, and you leaving me like that hurt me deeply. I need your spark, strangely, so I’ll keep seeing things as I do. I promise,” she whispered against my neck while hugging me. “Just don’t leave again without giving me some type of link.”

  Seeing things as she did meant she hadn’t seen anything at all. Here we were building on whatever this was we had, and she already hit me with the first boundary for us. I wasn’t sure that I knew how to do that yet, but because she was trusting me, I figured that I could attempt to make a small move toward what she needed and introduce her later to a burner phone. As I hugged her, I told her that I would and spent the rest of the day with her relaxing, and we managed to get some good sex in there too.

  Several days later, I was sitting in front of Leo Giulio. Initially, when he had gotten married, I was a little shocked by that. From all the flirting Leo did, seeing him wife someone made me laugh because it was all a ploy, in my opinion. He might love his woman; I didn’t know. Didn’t care; wasn’t my business. But the woman he had on her knees before I came into his office let me know that he was still doing him and not giving a damn about anyone.

  “Good to see you back, Marcel,” he said, leaning back while swirling a crystal glass of something clear and brown in it.

  Arms crossed, I nodded. “You know me. With the work I have to do for your campaign and representing your office, there are times when I must travel, and that traveling has come to an end for now.”

  A slick smile spread across his face, and bright white teeth flashed me as he gave a hearty laugh. “Exactly, and the work you’ve done for me was spot-on and much respected. Thank you for your dedication to me and my vision.”

  “Of course,” was all I said.

  Chilling in a large chair, I rested back with my elbows on the arms of the chair; legs stretched out in a black suit staring across at my handler. He had a strange look in his eyes as if he were calculating something which was how he always looked. It was as if he always needed to be ahead of the game, but that wasn’t my problem.

  “What do you need of me?” I asked, waiting on his catch to why he called me in his office.

  “As you’ve heard, a lot of changes have been going on since you’ve been gone. Father is in Italy, while my mother is doing tours of Europe. Which leaves me—”

  “As my boss. Got it before you said it. What do you need?” I said interrupting him.

  Dude didn’t go through the proper channels, so I was a little ticked off about it.

  Leo gave me a look, one where his eyebrow raised up sharply, and the corner of his nose wrinkled up as if something stunk.

  I watched him thumb his nose while taking his time to answer me.

  Me? I just sat there with a blank expression waiting. They thought I was their dog to call and snap fingers at, at will. I was, but I wasn’t, feel me? Through it all, I deserved respect, but, of course, I never verbalized it unless
I felt like it. I let my actions demand respect at all times. Unfortunately, Leo sometimes forgot that I wasn’t a mindless minion. During those times, I often had to buck at his ass if he pressed me.

  Tension rose between us until Leo gave a guttural sigh, then reached out to pour from his crystal decanter into his glass. “The IRS is sniffing. It’s time we dumped something which brings me to why you’re here. My father knows that you have a love for the old place, cooking and all. I don’t want anything to do with it considering that holding on to a place linked to criminal activities will only tarnish my reputation further.”

  “What does that have to do with me?” I asked ready to get to the point already.

  “We’re reluctantly letting it shut down. After six months, the place will be bought in your name, along with the title given to you. Do with it as you want,” he said as he took a deep gulp of his drink.

  The clicking of ice in his glass fell in rhythm with the ticking of my jaw. I sat there assessing the situation. Running the bistro was the last thing on my mind to do. Dropping this on my lap was interesting, though. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for such a thing, but since niggas were dropping shit on me, it didn’t hurt to listen and contemplate things.

  “But I’ll have to stay linked and tied to your family? I’ll owe you all?”

  Yeah, I needed to know what the trap was.

  “Now we get to the business.” Leo grinned like a Cheshire cat and smirked. “No, we’ll have no ties to your business, although The Family will continue to use your other services, of course.”

  He gave a knowing chuckle because we both understood what that meant.

  “The old man was reluctant in closing it; however, he felt adamant about giving you the place and land around it. He believes that you, of all people, will love the place as he did and will keep the business going,” he explained.

  I sat back thinking about all the times his old man would get on my ass about learning every level of the business. He made me start from the ground up with cleaning the outside and inside of the restaurant. That meant picking up trash, cleaning bathrooms, sweeping, fixing whatever was broken, painting, etc. After I mastered that, I was elevated to kitchen duty where I was the bus boy. From there, I helped plate food. Then from there, I was a greeter, then waiter, then back in the kitchen to where I rose up to become head chef. My lessons continued even after that with learning management as a means to understand how to keep the place running. I never realized the old man was grooming me to take over, not some kid he picked up off the street who he found digging in his trash. Now, it appeared that I’d be a businessman.