No Honor Amongst Thieves

by Brick

  He walked past me, then said, “I’m in my study if you want to meet me there.”

  Any slight chance of hope I may have had started to dwindle. I made my way behind him as Danny walked behind me. I found I wasn’t as comfortable with him at my back as I once was. It was as if I could feel the daggers from his eyes stabbing me from behind. I got to Daddy’s office just as he was pouring himself a glass of whatever the amber-colored liquor was in his decanter. He took a seat behind the big cherry oakwood desk. He was treating this as if it was a business meeting and not a father-daughter talk. I wouldn’t let him rattle me, though.

  I took a seat and smiled. “Hey, Daddy, good to see you. It’s been awhile,” I started.

  He took a sip of his drink watching me over the rim of his tumbler. “You’re really going to marry him, huh? Guess you have no choice since you done let him knock you up.”

  I dropped my eyes to my lap briefly, then back up at my father. “Daddy, I don’t understand what it is about Marcel that bothers you so much.”

  “He’s no more than a thug masquerading as a man.”

  “He’s good to me. He takes care of me, and he loves me, Daddy. What more of a man could you want for me? Look at what he’s done with the bistro.”

  “Humph. Took some of your money to do it too, didn’t he?”

  “Because we’re trying to make a life for our child.”

  “Your mama told me you were investing before even knowing you were pregnant.”

  “That’s what you do when you’re trying to make something as a couple.”

  Daddy didn’t say anything for a long while. He kept his drink in his hand and swiveled his desk chair around to look out the big window behind him. His backyard was indeed something nice to look at. Lush flower gardens boasting of different flowers. A stone walkway that led down to an oversized pool. Hedges trimmed to perfection. The back lawn lush and green.

  “He has no family, Sabrina. If something happened to him, who’s going to take care of you and that baby he done put in you?” Daddy asked without turning to look at me.

  “We have money saved up.”

  “More to life than money. Who’s gonna want a woman with a bastard child and a tarnished image? If he left home today and never returned”—Daddy stated, then turned around to look me square in the eyes—“who’s going to look out for you?”

  I had to catch myself before responding. His words hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt there was a threat in there somewhere. I couldn’t be certain, but I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  Daddy kept going. “That’s the kind of man he is, right? Because he has no father, no mother, that’s why he doesn’t care if you lose your father. He wants you to be out here alone just like he is. The boy don’t know what a family is because he ain’t got one, so how is he going to provide a stable home for you and a baby? He ain’t fit.”

  “I think you’re being unfair, Daddy. You came from a single-mother home yourself. You left Mama when I was 16. Let’s not talk about all the fights between you and Mama or the fact you divorced her and married your side bitch.”

  Daddy slammed his glass on the desk. A bit of the liquor sloshed around and splashed on the surface.

  “You better watch your damn mouth when speaking to me, Sabrina. I’m still your father.”

  I could feel my anger rising. I should have listened to Marcel. It was a bad idea to come here.

  “Then why don’t you act like it? If you love me like you claim, then my happiness should be all that matters,” I said.

  “I should be happy? For you? For what? That you’re throwing your life away on this piece of gutter trash?” Daddy bellowed out, then stood, slamming his fist on the desk.

  It was time for me to leave. I tried. God knew I did. I would have loved more than anything to have my father walk me down the aisle and give me away at my wedding, but it just wasn’t meant to be. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand how Daddy could be so critical of Marcel when he ran with a whole criminal enterprise himself.

  With tears in my eyes, I stood. “I think it’s time for me to leave. I came because I wanted to try to mend our relationship. I’d give anything to have you walk me down the aisle and give me away,” I said. “It’s something I’ve dreamed about my whole life, but you’re too fucking selfish to see past your own bullshit to be happy for me!”

  “You marry him, and I swear to you, Sabrina Ophelia Lanfair, you’re going to regret it! I’ll write you out of my will—”

  “Screw your will. I don’t want or need your money, Daddy.”

  “You would choose him over me?”

  I wiped the tears falling down my face. “You gave me no choice.”

  Those were the last words I spoke to my father before leaving his home. I walked away with my head held high and shoulders squared. I didn’t know what possessed me to think I could talk to and find some common ground with him. His pride and his ego had always been bigger than the state of Texas. As I drove to the bistro, I cried all the tears I could cry. My baby would never know either of her grandfathers and that hurt. She wouldn’t know one because he was already dead and the other because he was an asshole who couldn’t put pride aside for the sake of our relationship.

  It had been a year since Marcel had walked back into my life. We’d fallen in love, gotten pregnant, and were getting married, all in a matter of months. Yes, we moved fast, but we didn’t feel that way. We were just happy and in love. As soon as I parked in the back parking lot, Marcel opened the door and walked out. He didn’t say a word. Just opened his arms. I had to swallow my pride and walk into them. He had been right. There would be no fixing the relationship with my father. He stood there and held me that way until my tears subsided. It was him and me against the world.

  And it would remain that way for the next three years.

  Three years later ...

  As time went on, life was good for Marcel and me. We got married two weeks after he proposed. We’d gotten married quickly. I didn’t want all of the hoopla; especially, since I couldn’t get my father to say a nice word to me. Mama, my sisters, and a priest were all in attendance as Marcel and I pledged our love for each other. Afterward, we celebrated with a feast at the bistro. Marcel didn’t want Leo to be there, and I didn’t question him on it. Anytime Leo was around, I got a strange sense of impending doom. Senior Giulio couldn’t make it but did send a nice check to make up for his absence. We took a brief trip to St. Croix for the honeymoon but had to hurry back as Marcel wanted to have the bistro opened by September that year.

  Yes, he still disappeared in the middle of the night and sometimes came back days later, but that was the nature of the business he was in. It just became a part of the routine of our lives. Any time he went away, I said a prayer to the Most High that he returned safely. Wasn’t that crazy? I said a prayer for my husband to come home safely after he’d been out there making sure someone else’s husband, brother, father, etc., wouldn’t return home? God was listening, though. Marcel always walked back into our home in one piece.

  “Daddy,” I heard our daughter, Lyric, yell when the locks on the door turned.

  I smiled. She was born two months early on the third of November 2012. That was one of the scariest and happiest times of our lives. Lyric came out kicking and screaming, and the only person who could calm her was her father. Once he took her into his arms, her screams and cries ceased. He’d been wrapped around her little finger ever since.

  On the political side of things, Daddy was chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. Leo Giulio was mayor. After the Feds couldn’t find anything tricky or illegal on him, his campaign for mayor kicked into high gear. He sold himself under the guise that he would fight for the little people while my father was a staunch women’s rights activist. How ironic? Atlanta had elected two of the biggest crooks around as mayor and chairman. Many more of their henchmen were set to take seats in the government as well.

  Marcel fell back
ward when Lyric jumped on him. It was their thing and made her laugh so hard that it was contagious. She got a kick out of taking her daddy down. She was the perfect blend of him and me with two big curly Afro puffs on the side of her head. She was taller and smarter than the average 3-year-old. She already knew how to fight and use pepper spray. She had her father to thank for that.

  “How you doing, munchkin? You’re almost stronger than I am, knocking me down like that,” he told her.

  “I told Mommy I had more muscles now, Daddy,” she bragged, then stood so she could flex her muscles.

  “Yeah, you do. I can feel them.”

  “Yeah,” she squealed and jumped up and down. “I can-I can-I can do twenty push-ups too, Daddy. Wanna see? You have to see, Daddy.”

  I laughed because she was on a hundred as she always was whenever he came back after being gone for a few days. That was our life. We had fallen into an easy routine. The bistro was the talk of the town. Leo had even held a few dinners and parties there. I had my own private financial advising business. Marcel had been teaching me lots of things. It started when I was pregnant. From learning how to properly use a gun to teaching me simple moves to defend myself. Five months into my pregnancy, and there I was learning how to roll over my head without harming myself or the baby. He was patient and gentle. Some shit, for the life of me, I just couldn’t get. But there was no yelling on his end. A bit of frustration but not condescendingly so. That love and patience rolled over to our daughter. She started walking at 9 months. Being born prematurely hadn’t slowed her down one bit. Our daughter had a jab that sometimes made me cringe when she swung at her father.

  When he wasn’t teaching me how to shoot or her how to fight or at the bistro, he was nestled between my thighs. For some reason, our bodies wouldn’t be denied when one wanted the other. Still no permanent cell phone for him, but a cell and home phone for me. Anytime he left to do his work, he left a number for me to call that wouldn’t work after he returned home. Of course, I could call him at the diner anytime I wanted. Life had been so well for us that it had fooled me into thinking I had married a normal man.

  But trouble was lurking nearby. We should have known. It had been too easy for far too long.

  “Let me get out of my work clothes, baby, and then you can show me. I need to see if you can beat me at doing push-ups,” he said to Lyric.

  She started jumping up and down before running to me. “Um . . . May I have a cookie after I beat Daddy at push-ups, Mommy?” she asked.

  “Yes, you can, but you have to beat Daddy first,” I said.

  “Okay,” she said.

  She ran to the middle of the front room and started mimicking the stretching techniques she often saw me and Marcel do. He walked over, cupped my face in his hands, then kissed me. Slow at first, then more intense and heated. His hands moved from my face to slide down to my ass. He gripped my cheeks, then brought me closer to him.

  He pulled back, cast a heated gaze down at me. “Missed you,” he told me.

  I smiled, then licked my lips, my arms around his waist. “Missed you more.”

  I was happy to see my then husband. It had been three days, but there was a look in his eyes that told me something was wrong. I searched his eyes asking him to tell me without actually asking him. I knew he wouldn’t. Not in front of Lyric. So I decided to wait until we were alone. After Marcel and Lyric had done push-ups until he feigned fatigue so she could win, we had dinner. Spent family time together, and then Marcel headed out to check on things at the bistro. I assured him that things were fine, but that place was his pride and joy besides Lyric and me. He had to see for himself.

  Once Lyric was asleep, I decided to sit on the couch and wait for him. Before I knew it, my eyes closed. I woke up to movement in my home. I knew it wasn’t my husband because the front door was wide open, and he wouldn’t have done that. I jumped from the sofa upon seeing a masked man leaning down over me. At least, I tried to jump up. A punch to the face knocked me back down.

  I yelped out, then brought my hands up to my face. I kicked my feet out and caught him in the nuts. I needed to get to my baby. The man in front of me fell to his knees. I picked up a vase and broke it over his head. I didn’t see the other man coming from the kitchen. He caught me by my ponytail, then threw me into the wall. It hurt, but I didn’t have time to focus on the pain. I reached underneath the chair and pulled out the mini-bat I kept there. Lesson number one from my husband was always to have weapons laying around.

  When the man grabbed my ankle, I turned over to kick him with the other one. He grabbed that one too, which meant his hands were occupied. I sat up, swung the bat, and connected to his face. He fell back. I got to my feet, then stood over him. I beat him in the face with so much intensity in the four hits that my arms began to hurt. I dropped the bat, then headed toward the hall. A gun to my head slowed me down. My head started to hurt when I looked down and saw the man had Lyric. A gloved hand covered her mouth, and her eyes were wide. Her nose was bleeding, and her hair was wild. The purple Doc McStuffins pjs she had on had splatters of blood on the front. That motherfucker had hit my child was all I could think about.

  “What do you want?” I asked him. “We have money.”

  He chuckled. “Money? If only it were as simple as money. Stop looking at the trees and see the forest, Sabrina.”

  I swallowed hard. He knew my name. That meant this was personal.

  I yelled, “So what do you want?”

  “We’re just going to wait for the man of the house to get home, and then we can talk,” he said nonchalantly.

  He was arrogant because he knew he had the upper hand.

  “Okay, fine. Just let my daughter come to me,” I pleaded.

  “Now why would I do that?”

  “She’s scared you, you piece of shit. Your beef is with her parents. Let her go.”

  He pointed the barrel of the gun upward to tap his temple. “Let me think about it. Hmm. Nope. Have a seat on the couch,” he said.

  I would have, but all I could think about was the look of terror on my baby’s face. I rushed for the man only to have him whack me in the face with the butt of the gun. I went down hard, blood flying from my nose, dripping down my lips like a faucet.

  “Mommy,” I heard Lyric scream before the man covered her mouth again.

  “Now, we can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. Choice is yours, bitch. Get on the fucking couch,” the man yelled, this time with much more bass in his voice.

  I was dizzy; my world was spinning as I pulled myself up from the floor. One of the men I’d injured earlier had come to his senses. He snatched me from the floor, then threw me on the couch. I closed my eyes so the room would stop spinning, but it didn’t help. I could hear the other man on the floor coming to as well. I was outnumbered again.

  “Mommy, you’re bleeding. I want my mommy,” Lyric yelled again.

  “Shut up,” the man spat.

  “You shut up,” she shot back.

  He slapped a hand back over her mouth. Next thing I heard was the man grunting in pain. She had bitten him. Wouldn’t stop biting him. He finally yanked his hand from her mouth and shoved her into the wall. She hit her head and started crying.

  “You son of a bitch,” I yelled out.

  Tried to get up, but got a gun pointed in my face for the effort. I looked down at the floor to see Lyric stirring. She crawled through the man’s legs and ran for me. Before they could catch her, she was on the couch with me. The man closest to me tried to take her, but I wasn’t having it. They’d have to kill me to get her away from me. I swung out wildly. Sometimes my feet connected. Sometimes my hands did, but either way, I fought. Gun or no gun, they weren’t getting her from my arms.

  “That’s enough,” the man, who I assumed was the leader, yelled. “Leave the child with the bitch. We still have them, and that’s all that matters.”

  The other man stopped, then punched me in the stomach for the hell of it. I g
roaned out, then lurched forward and emptied my stomach.

  “Stop it,” Lyric cried, then threw her little frame over my body as if she could protect me. “I want my daddy.”

  I wanted him too. I was scared, frightened to the point I was shaking. My chest was heavy and eyes burned. Every time I inhaled and exhaled, my chest felt as if it was caving in, but I wouldn’t let my daughter go.

  “It’s okay, baby,” I whispered to her. “He’ll be here soon.”

  “And he’s going to beat their asses when he gets here,” she added.

  That was her daddy speaking through her. He had taught her certain words and phrases by default. I’d often told him to watch what he said around her, but to no avail. I’d stopped fighting against it after a while.

  “Yes,” was how I responded.

  “I want my doll, Mommy,” Lyric said after a while.

  We had been sitting and waiting for at least thirty minutes, and the longer we waited, the more worried I became. Marcel should have been back by now.

  “I want my doll, Mommy. I need my doll,” Lyric said.

  “Shhh, be quiet now. We can’t get your doll.”

  She bucked and threw a tantrum like never before. “I want my doll,” she cried loudly. “Give me my dollllll!”

  “Shut that little bitch up, or I’m going to cap her,” the leader shouted.

  I snapped my head in his direction. “Fuck you. She wants her doll. She’s a kid, and she’s scared. Can’t you see that?”

  He jumped up and rushed over. I couldn’t see his face, but behind his mask, I could see his eyes and mouth. His eyes had turned to slits. Mouth balled and turned into a snarl. “Quiet her or I shoot her.”

  “I want my dolllll!” Lyric kept at it, and I knew I couldn’t make her stop until she got her doll.