The Black Widow Clique

by Genesis Woods

  Before I knew it, he had me bent over the small couch in front of his bed and was fucking the shit out of me. Ole girl came out of the bathroom with a towel over half her face and watched me work my pussy all over the man she was supposed to be spending this time with. Blood still leaking from her lips and nose, she continued to watch as Benji fucked me six ways from Sunday and emptied his entire soul into me. When he called my name and came, everything seemed to be all right with the world for me. That was until he patted me on my ass and pulled out, but not before thanking me for my services and promising to call me the next day. To say I was humiliated was an understatement. I left Benji’s house ashamed and angry as fuck. Too many times I thought about turning around and killing him and his little bitch, but I couldn’t. I needed Benji’s ass to see the rest of this plan through to fruition.

  “Fee, you still there?” Benji asked, breaking me from my thoughts.

  Uncle Dro held the phone closer to my lips. “Yeah, I’m still here.”

  “Okay. Well, I wanted to stop by before I go to the board meeting. You’re home, right?”

  “I am, but I need a favor before you come by.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I need ten thousand dollars.”

  “Ten thousand dollars? For what?” he asked.

  “I owe that to someone for their services.”

  “Someone like who?”

  Uncle Dro had taken the phone away from my mouth and had put it up to his ear. “Someone who put in some work for you and my dear niece here,” he answered. “And since I now know who I’ve been working for, that price I quoted before just went from ten Gs to fifty.”

  “Fifty thousand dollars! I can’t get that type of money without being questioned,” Benji yelled into the phone.

  “Well, if you want this to stay between us, you better find a way to get that shit. You got an hour, Mr. Black, or I’ma find your ass.”

  Benji started to say something, but Uncle Dro hung up the phone before he could get it out.

  “You might as well come have a seat, niece, and watch a little ESPN with me. An hour will go by in no time. I’ll have my money and be out of your way as soon as my shit gets here.”

  “Well, can you at least tell your guard dog to take the guns off me? I’m not going to try anything,” I said.

  Uncle Dro looked at the person behind me and nodded his head. The guns were removed from my head and my back. I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but I didn’t want to let this nigga know that he had me a little spooked. I turned back to look at the person behind me but couldn’t see their face due to the ski mask they had on. My eyes scanned the small body, and I noticed the curvy frame covered in all black. Instantly, I knew my uncle’s guard dog was a bitch.

  “So you working with females now, Uncle Dro? Need a bitch to have your back now? I bet if she puts them guns down, she won’t be so tough.”

  The guard dog placed her guns on my dining-room table and smirked. “You’re more like your mama than you know,” she said as she lifted the ski mask off her face.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” was the last thing I said before she punched me in my face, knocking me completely out.

  Roman

  I sat back in the plush chair in Chasin’s office, waiting on a reply to the text I had just sent. Yeah, I knew that reaching out to Melonee right now, in the middle of the mess that was going on, could potentially hurt me in some way, but low key, I didn’t really give a fuck. I needed to see her. Needed to be next to her, for some reason, and I couldn’t explain why. All the shit that the media and some of the world were accusing me of didn’t make sense at all. The night Melonee and I were together was nothing short of amazing. Well, that was how it felt until I woke up to the police surrounding my house and every news outlet on my grass, snapping pictures of me being arrested.

  Steepling my fingers under my chin, I thought about my life and everything that had happened in the past few weeks. Not only had my CEO position at my family’s company been given to my brother, Benji, because of some damn moral clause, but the rest of my life had been spiraling out of control too. All my accounts were frozen right now and were being picked through by the IRS due to some money-laundering investigation and supposed tax evasion. The company cars I used as transportation and the penthouse apartment I considered home had been confiscated since they were all in the company’s name. The only things I had left to my name were my motorcycle collection, the beach house that I took Melonee to, and the few stacks of money that I was smart enough to keep in a safe at my old house. It wasn’t enough for me to live the rest of my life off of, but I could live comfortably for the next few years, or until I somehow got my job back.

  After picking up my phone, I looked at the screen. I deepened the scowl on my face when I noticed I had yet to receive a response.

  “So you went ahead and texted her, anyway?” Chasin asked as he walked into his office. I didn’t even turn around to acknowledge his response.

  “You should’ve never sent me that picture of her in the restaurant,” I told him.

  “I was trying to send you a picture of the woman that she was with. I don’t remember where I know her from, but I know her from somewhere.” Chasin walked around the desk and sat in the chair next to me. “Maybe she went to school with us or something.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. But I know I’ve seen her before.”

  “Did she seem happy?”

  Chasin stared at me for a second before he spoke. “Roman, man, I need you to let this thing you have for Melonee go until we clear your name. Do you not understand how bad it would look if the judge found out that you were low key stalking the girl you supposedly did not attack?”

  I cut my eyes to him and raised my chin. “Supposedly? So you think I did it or something, man?”

  With his hands held up in surrender, he sighed. “As your friend, I don’t think you did anything. But as your lawyer, I have to look at this situation both ways. Attacking a woman isn’t even in your character. However, all the evidence that’s being presented says otherwise. I mean, it’s your word against hers, and neither one of you can fully remember what happened that night. A source of mine said that she was down at the police station, giving a statement to some detective about some of the things that she seems to remember, but I haven’t heard anything yet in regard to what was said.”

  I nodded my head and started playing around with my phone. I scrolled through my apps with one hand while I scratched at the light beard on my face with the other. Thoughts of sending another text message kept going back and forth in my mind. Maybe if I told her who I was, she would respond. I had had to change my phone number a few times shortly after I got arrested. Somehow the media had kept getting ahold of my shit and would call my phone all night, wanting statements or offering a shitload of money for an exclusive. It had got so bad that I had to change carriers and get a phone under my uncle’s account just to get a break from the constant harassment.

  The only people who had my newest phone number were Chasin, Marques, my parents, Uncle Kazi, and now Melonee. Hopefully, she would open at least one of my text messages and would hit me back. Right about now, I’d take a simple “Fuck off” if that meant she would respond. I knew meeting up with me was probably the last thing on her mind right now, and in all honesty, it should be the last thing on mine too. But I had to see her. I had to make sure that she knew that I would never hurt a hair on her beautiful body or let whoever had done this to us get away with it.

  I blew out a frustrated breath after checking my blank screen for the tenth time and rubbed my hand over my face. Laying my head back against the headrest, I closed my eyes and blew out a low breath. With all this shit coming down and happening to me, all I wanted to do was be in Melonee’s arms again and between her thighs. My memory was a little foggy, but I did remember the way her smooth thighs felt wrapped around my head, and the way her pussy tasted and felt.

  “Have you heard from you
r uncle yet? Wasn’t he supposed to be out here sometime this week?” Chasin asked, walking back around his desk to answer the phone that was ringing.

  * * *

  I waited for him to get off the phone before responding to his questions. “I haven’t talked to my uncle since the last time we spoke on the phone. Either he’s on one of his business trips or he’s still working on trying to see who would set me up like this.”

  “I already told you who I think it is.”

  “And I already told you that you are wrong. Marques is my boy, and he would never betray me like that. Besides, how would he benefit from taking everything away from me? Dude already has a golden ticket with his family’s chain of luxury hotels. Marques was born into money and is going to die with even more money, if he takes his job seriously.”

  Chasin shook his head as he took a seat opposite me at his desk. “I still think he has a motive. I always thought he was a little jealous of you, for some reason. Maybe it was because you got the cuter girls or something. I don’t know. But the brother moves kind of weird. When was the last time you heard from him?”

  I thought about Chasin’s question and honestly couldn’t answer it. The last time I saw Marques was when he picked me up from the airport after I came back from Russia. Other than that, he’d been MIA. Our only method of communication over the past few weeks had been a text here and there. We hadn’t spoken to one another.

  Chasin’s assistant, Renee, spoke over the intercom, interrupting my thoughts. “Hey, Chase. You have a call holding on line one from someone named Lindsey Holt and a call on line two from a Mr. Cairo Broussard.”

  Chasin cleared his throat. “Thanks, Renee. I’ll handle both calls.” I watched as he loosened the tie around his neck and sat back in his chair before he hit a button on the base of the phone. “Cai, my dude. What’s good? How’s that growing family of yours? Happy wife, happy life, right?”

  “Happy wife, happy life indeed. Although she’s been tripping for a minute now.”

  “Aw, shit. What you do now, man?” Chasin put the call on speakerphone.

  “Nothing really. I’m just trying to get Audri pregnant again, but she ain’t having it. Quiet as kept, though, I think I already knocked her up with another set of twins. Her ass been real moody lately, and she’s been craving Mama Faye’s oxtail soup for the past few weeks.” He laughed, and I could hear the smile in his tone. “Then you should see how tough she’s been on your boy lately. Man, I swear to God, I can’t even walk up the stairs sometimes before she’s whipping my shit out and pouncing on me. Taking me down any and everywhere she can get it. I ain’t complaining or anything like that. Shit, if she isn’t pregnant right now, she will be soon with the way we’ve been going at it.”

  We all shared a laugh.

  “Aye, bruh, I didn’t know you had a client with you,” Cairo Broussard said. “I heard someone else laughing in the background, which means you must have me on speakerphone. If you’re busy, call me back when you get a second.”

  Chasin looked at me and shook his head. “Naw, Cai, you good. It’s just my boy Roman Black. I just got back to the office, and this fool was already sitting in here.”

  “Roman Black? Isn’t that the cat who’s been all over the news, accused of attacking some chick at his house?”

  I cut my eyes to Chasin. We were boys and everything, but that didn’t mean he could talk about my case with some outsider. That attorney-client privilege shit still applied to this situation. Friends or not.

  “You know I can’t get into that with you, bruh. But just know that my man is a great guy, and I’ma leave it at that,” Chasin replied.

  I nodded my head at his response and started playing with my phone again. I read through a few e-mails, but I still listened to their conversation.

  “I wasn’t expecting you to, Chase, man. You’ve always been by the books.” He paused for a second and then continued. “And if you say your boy is a good dude, then I believe you. Enough said.”

  “Enough said,” Chasin agreed. “So what’s up, man? To what do I owe the pleasure of this call? Audri let your ass up for a breather?” As he spoke, Chasin got up from his seat and poured himself a shot of the Johnny Walker Black Label on the small bar in the corner of his office. When he offered me a glass, I shook my head and declined.

  “I’m cool for a few minutes. My baby needed to get something to drink.” He cleared his throat. “The reason I’m calling, though, is to see if you had a chance to look over that paperwork for the club thing Toby wants me to go in with him on. I told him I’d get back to him in a couple of days.”

  “You having second thoughts or something?”

  “No. It’s not that I’m having second thoughts or anything. It’s just that . . . Yeah, he and I are twins, but that doesn’t mean that I automatically trust his business dealings, you feel me? I mean, I literally became a millionaire overnight, and I want to at least keep that crazy amount of zeros in my accounts for a few years.”

  “I feel you on that, man.” Chasin gulped down his shot and winced, but he manned back up when he caught me looking at him. “I got the contract the day you sent it to me, and looked over it a little bit. From the numbers I did skim over, the deal looks pretty legit and profitable. Especially with the upgrades y’all are talking about doing to the place. I’ll look over it later tonight and then get back to you tomorrow, all right, Cai?”

  Cairo was quiet on his end of the line for a minute before he returned. Giggling and a flirty voice, which I assumed belonged to his wife, could be heard in the background.

  “Yo, Chase . . . um . . . shit . . . damn, Audri. I gotta go, bruh. Fuck. Yeah, yeah . . . Call me tomorrow, man. Good looking.”

  “I got you, man. And tell Audri I said what’s up.”

  “Yeah, will do. Later.”

  After ending the call, Chasin looked at me. “If I ever get married, I need me a wife like that.”

  I smirked. “Me too.”

  After taking his second call, from Lindsey Holt, his inside at the precinct, Chasin filled me in on what he’d learned. He said that Holt had revealed that Melonee had told the detective who interviewed her down at the station that I wasn’t the one who had raped her. Although her memory wasn’t all that clear, she’d given the detective a vague description of the person who actually did attack her. Now if she could only remember the connection we shared, shit could start getting back to the way that it was, I thought. Chasin and I went over the details of my case, including what the district attorney and the IRS were trying to charge me with. None of these charges made sense to me, but I had faith that Chasin could get me out of this shit, especially after finding out what Melonee had just told the detective.

  We were going over the strategy for my court date coming up when Chasin’s office door slammed open and a frantic Renee ran in.

  “I’m sorry, Chasin. I tried to tell him that you were in a meeting, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Who wouldn’t listen?” Chasin said.

  As soon as the question slipped from Chasin’s lips, a dark figure blocked the doorway and then walked into the room, followed by two more men, who were dressed like him in black suits. Kazimir Slutzky stepped into the room next, in a charcoal three-piece Italian suit and wing-tipped loafers, looking like the Russian boss that he was. A cigar hanging from his mouth, he looked around Chasin’s office and admired his plaques and accolades.

  I stood up from my seat and hugged my uncle. He kissed both my cheeks and then held his hand out to Chasin, who shook it. The look on his hard face already told me that this visit wasn’t going to be a pleasant one. In his thick Russian accent, he told the men who had walked in before him to leave the room and wait down at the car for him. Turning his eyes to me, Uncle Kazi blew out a cloud of smoke and sat down.

  “I assume you’re doing everything you can to make these problems for my nephew go away?” he said, addressing Chasin, with his eyes still on me.

  “We—” I began, but
Uncle Kazi held his hand up, silencing me.

  “I do not want to hear your answer, Roman. I asked your lawyer, Mr. Smith.” He blew out another cloud of smoke and turned his attention to Chasin. “Again, have you been doing everything in your power to make sure my nephew never sees a day in any of your American prisons?”

  “I, um . . . I’ve been . . . doing everything legally possible to make sure that happens,” Chasin replied.

  Uncle Kazimir shook his head. “That is not enough.”

  “Uncle Kazi,” Chasin said, trying to reason with him.

  “Mr. Slutzky to you.”

  “Mr. Slutzky, I assure you that I am going above and beyond to help Roman out. Not only is he my client, but he’s also a good friend of mine, and I would never—”

  “You would never what? Right now, I don’t trust anyone who says they have my nephew’s best interest at heart.”

  Chasin looked at me with raised eyebrows. Although I trusted my boy, Uncle Kazi did have a point. Someone was fucking with me and trying to take me down, and I didn’t have the slightest idea who it was. How did you go from having the time of your life to basically having nothing in the blink of an eye? It would take a lot for someone on the outside to get that type of access to me. But it would take someone close to me no time to throw me to the wolves and ruin my life. My mind went back to the conversation Chasin and I had had earlier about Marques. I didn’t feel in my heart that he would do anything like this to me, but he had been missing in action lately, something that was totally not the norm for him. I made a mental note to drive by his place as soon as I had handled my business here.

  Uncle Kazi got up from his seat and walked over to Chasin’s bar. After pouring himself a glass of bourbon, he downed it and poured himself another one. I could tell that something was on my uncle’s mind and that at any second, he was going to tell us what it was.