He cleared his throat after downing his third shot and then walked back over to the chair he had just been sitting in. He looked at Chasin first, then turned his attention to me. “I think you should have someone else represent you until we figure out who is behind the shit going on around you.” His Russian accent was a little thicker after his three drinks. “No disrespect to your friend and his accomplishments, but I would much rather have one of our own looking into things.”
“But your people don’t have all the connections I have with the police department,” Chasin argued.
Uncle Kazimir puffed on his cigar. “I have something even better than your little connections.”
Chasin scoffed. “Like what?”
“Debts.”
“Debts?” Chasin looked puzzled.
“I’ve killed a lot of people in my lifetime. Some under the Russian Mob’s orders and others . . .” Uncle Kazi shrugged his shoulders. “Others were some freelance contracts here and there. Some of your big officials owe me, and I feel that now is the time to collect.”
“Okay. Well, we can work together, then. Your favors from the people you know, and the connections I have with the people I know. I’m sure we’ll be able to get Roman off the hook in no time.”
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Uncle Kazi said in Russian.
Both Chasin and I turned toward the door and waited to see who would walk in. Before she even passed over the threshold, the Dior perfume Hypnotic Poison, which she’d been wearing ever since we were young, wafted into the room. When my cousin Viktoria Petrova walked into Chasin’s office, gone was the little girl with pigtails who used to follow me around during the summers Marques and I spent in Russia. In front of me now stood my beautiful grown cousin, who was one of the top defense attorneys at Banker and Bob, an international law firm in Moscow.
“Mr. Smith, allow me to introduce you to my daughter Viktoria Petrova. She will be taking over Roman’s case from this point on.”
Chasin looked at me. “Is this who you want to represent you, Ro? I mean, I understand if you want to let your family do it. But if you want me to stay on the case, I don’t have a problem doing so.”
The room went completely quiet as everyone waited for my answer. All eyes were focused on me. Before I could offer my opinion about any switch in representation, my phone vibrated in my hand. I opened the text message.
Melonee: I know we are probably breaking some type of law by doing this, but where would you like to meet?
“I gotta go,” was all they got from me as I responded to Melonee’s text. “Uh, whatever you guys come up with is fine with me.” I gave Viktoria a hug. “It’s nice to see you, cousin. I’m pretty sure we will catch up in a day or so. I gotta go take care of something right quick.” I turned and faced my uncle and my friend. “Uncle Kazi, Chasin, I’ll call you both in a couple of hours, all right?”
After grabbing my jacket off the lounge chair next to the window, I put it on and then scooped up my keys from Chasin’s desk. My phone vibrated again, and I read Melonee’s second text, which contained some address in Montecito that I wasn’t too familiar with. But I was pretty sure the navigation on my phone would lead me to it.
“Roman,” Viktoria called out. “Be careful going to see that young lady. You don’t want to make your case any worse than it is. As your previous lawyer, I’m assuming Mr. Smith here advised you to stay away, and as your new lawyer, I advise you to do the same until we’ve cleared your name. From what I’ve been told, she remembers a little bit of her attack, but not much. Her seeing you may trigger a good memory or something bad. I hope she’s worth you potentially spending the rest of your life in jail if this goes south.”
I thought about what my cousin had said as I trotted out the door. And although everything she had said might be right, I was still going to take my chances and see what happened. Melonee was most definitely worth me risking my freedom, and I had no problem trying to make her remember that too.
Melonee
I sat in the living room of Aunt Bree’s rental home and shook my leg nervously. Sending those two text messages to Roman was a big mistake. I wanted to text him back and tell him never mind, but the conversation Aunt Bree and I had had earlier kept going through my head.
“I think you should meet up with him. It might jog your memory some more about what happened that night.”
“But what if it doesn’t work that way?” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“What if I do remember what happened, and it turns out that Roman actually did attack me?”
Aunt Bree looked at me for a few seconds and then grabbed my hand. “Melonee, do you feel in your heart that this man attacked you? Forget the little shit you remembered after you hit your head when Proof’s dumb ass crashed the car. Do you honestly believe that this man hurt you?”
“In my head, I don’t think so.”
“I didn’t ask you about your head. That’s where the problem is. I asked you about your heart. What does it tell you?”
Just like last time, the little life inside me started going crazy whenever I spoke about Roman, causing my heart to flutter.
“In my heart, I don’t believe that Roman did it. Honestly, I believe he would never do anything to harm me. I know that may seem crazy, since I don’t remember everything, but there’s something about him that keeps pulling me his way. It’s like the same connection I feel with this baby, I feel with him whenever I see him or talk about him.”
“Even more reason to meet up and see what happens,” Aunt Bree said as we walked to her car. “And just so you feel safe, text him back and give him the address to the house I’m renting in Montecito. The munchkin is with Proof for a few days, and instead of giving him your home address or Mama’s address, just give him mine. That way he doesn’t know where you actually live, and I’ll finally get to meet my future nephew.”
Rubbing my hand over my swollen belly, I tried to calm my nerves down a little more, but I failed miserably when I felt the baby kick my stomach.
“You must know that your dad is on the way, huh, li’l Black?” I cooed to my round belly.
“So you’re finally admitting that it was Roman Black who raped you and got you pregnant?” Fiona asked as she walked into Aunt Bree’s living room like she lived in this house.
“How did you get in here? I know Aunt Bree didn’t let you in.”
“She didn’t. You guys left the door unlocked, like the rest of these siddity white people who live out here do, and I just walked in. I’m pretty sure when her chubby ass sees me, she’ll have something smart to say.”
“Don’t do my aunt like that. It’s not her fault that she calls you out on your bullshit and doesn’t give a fuck,” I replied. I laughed, but Fiona didn’t.
Rolling her eyes at my comment, Fiona walked farther into the living room, until she reached the couch across from the one I was sitting on and sat down. The colorful maxi dress she wore had purple hues in it that matched her hair, and the gold sandals on her feet went with the hobo bag, her bracelet, her earrings, and the necklace around her neck. After opening her purse, she pulled out a McDonald’s bag and threw it across the coffee table at me.
I took in her appearance and tried to figure out what was different about my best friend. She’d gained a little bit of weight since I came out of my coma, but there was something else that was different about Fee that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The heavy makeup on her face was typical for her whenever her skin was breaking out, and the new purple weave wasn’t a surprise to me, seeing as that was her signature hair color. Maybe it was her eyes that were different. Yes, there was something in Fiona’s eyes that didn’t look familiar to me, and this had me questioning a lot of things. But until I figured out what was really going on, I would just keep my mouth closed.
“I knew your ass was probably hungry, so I bought you a Filet-O-Fish when I stopped to get me some McNuggets. They didn’t h
ave oatmeal-raisin cookies, so I got you the sugar ones instead.”
I picked the bag up and inhaled the smell of my favorite thing to eat from Mickey D’s, the Filet-O-Fish. “Did you get extra tartar sauce on it?”
She scoffed. “Yeah, I told them to put an extra dollop of that nasty shit on there.”
After taking the sandwich out of the bag, I wasted no time taking a bite out of it and then another. With tartar sauce dripping from the side of my mouth, I continued the conversation with Fiona. “How did you know I was here? When I texted you earlier, I told you that I was going home.”
“Me, Proof, and some of the fellas met up today to discuss this new mark, and Proof told me where you were.”
“New mark? I thought y’all was taking a break.”
“We aren’t taking any type of break. There’s no time for that. Since you don’t want to go along with the plan to blackmail Roman, I figured we’d do one more hit, and then we can talk about going our separate ways.”
“I already told you that I don’t want to do this anymore, Fiona. My mind hasn’t changed since I’ve been out of the hospital. I’m good on the Black Widow Clique. Love y’all, but I’m good.” I took another bite of my sandwich and shook my head. “Even before everything that happened, I told you I was out, and I meant that shit. It’s time for me to be a full-time mother to Madison, and when I have this baby, I want to be a hands-on mother with him. My granny is too old to be watching over my kids when I’m able to do it myself. Besides, I have enough money to live off of for a minute, so it ain’t like me and mine will be hurting for anything.”
Fiona shifted in her seat, with a scowl on her face. “You and yours? What about the rest of us who need these jobs to provide for our families?”
I wiped my mouth with a napkin I pulled out of the bag and took a sip of the water I had sitting on a coaster in front of me. “Fiona, we’ve been scheming and scamming since we were sixteen. You should have more than enough money saved up.”
“Well, I don’t. And even if I did, it still wouldn’t be enough. And I know that little bit of change you are so-called sitting on won’t be, either. What? You probably only have enough to live comfortably for a year maybe? Douglas’s insurance policy didn’t leave you with that much money once everyone got their cut. What will you do after that shit runs out? Come crying back to me and the BWC to let you in on one of our jobs?” She snorted. “Good luck with that. The clique ain’t feeling the way you fucked up this last job. Which, I might add, has us questioning your loyalty with future endeavors.”
“How did I fuck up the last job? And who the fuck are y’all to question my loyalty? I’ve been down since the beginning,” I snapped. “The fucking beginning. So my loyalty should never be in question. But there comes a time in people’s lives, Fiona, where other shit starts to become more important than money.”
She laughed. “What? Like love? You really think you and Roman had some type of love connection, huh? When you were in the hospital, talking that crazy mess, I thought it was the meds, but now I can see that you really believe that shit. How dumb can you be, Melonee? The man damn near beat you to death and, as a bonus, raped you and put a little bastard baby in your belly. You should be angry right now. Instead, you wanna run around here like a dummy, acting like that child was made out of love and like that white man would ever take you seriously.”
I was really taken back by the way Fiona was coming at me. Was she really blaming me for the shit that had gone down with Roman? Or was she just in her feelings due to the fact that I didn’t want to go along with that blackmailing plan? How could I blackmail the father of my child? Especially when I could feel that we shared more than just this baby growing inside me. I rubbed my chest, trying to ease the heartburn that had crept up on me, while Fiona sat on the couch on the other side of the coffee table and typed away on her phone. I picked mine up and noticed that I had a missed text message from the number I’d come to know as Roman’s.
Roman: I was wondering if we can meet up tomorrow or later on this week. I got a family emergency that I have to tend to, and I won’t be able to make it today.
I read the message over a few times before I responded.
Me: No problem. Just let me know when you’re available.
Fiona was still looking down at her phone and texting when she spoke to me again. “Muthafucka canceled on you, huh?”
“What?”
“Roman Black? That’s who you were waiting for, right?”
“How did you . . .” I trailed off, but then realization hit me. “Fucking Cowboy.” He had tapped into my phone again and must have sent Fiona my text message history.
“Fucking Cowboy is right. What the fuck are you doing, Melonee, inviting the enemy over here? Are you trying to blackmail him on your own and keep the money for yourself?”
“Like I have to do that.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
I debated in my head whether to tell Fiona my business but figured I might as well. It was the only way she would probably understand why I wasn’t tripping on being a part of the BWC like that anymore.
“It means that I don’t need to blackmail anyone for money when I have enough already.”
She had a confused look on her face. “How much is ‘enough already’?”
I licked my lips and looked Fiona dead in her eyes. “Around three mill.”
“Three million dollars, Melonee? Where the fuck did you get that kind of money?”
I went on and told Fiona about the insurance policy my mother had left behind for me that was worth five hundred K and that I’d known nothing about until a year after Madison was born. I had received a letter in the mail advising me about the money, with a check attached to the bottom. Because I wasn’t so sure how long the BWC would be together, I had taken that money and put it in an account under my child’s name, just in case anything ever happened to me. My granny would have enough money to buy Madison her first car, her first home, as well as send her to any college she wanted to go to. The lifestyle we lived wasn’t as dangerous as some, but if we were to get caught up, I would probably never see the light of day again.
“Okay, that’s only half a million. What about that other two and a half?”
I knew the next thing I said was going to have Fiona feeling some type of way, but I didn’t care right about now. I was officially done with the BWC and wished them nothing but the best.
“The other part of the money is from me saving from previous jobs and the things I got from the will Douglas left.”
“The will Douglas left?”
I nodded my head. “The reason why I was going to court all that time was Doug’s will. Doug’s daughter Riana kept contesting it, saying that the changes he had made to it weren’t legit. She tried to make the judge believe that I had somehow brainwashed her father and had made him add me to it.”
Fiona sat back in her seat, taking in everything I had just told her. Yeah, it may seem a little shady that I didn’t tell her, but this money from the will was different from the insurance shit. As soon as I got that insurance check, we split that shit evenly. Anything else, I honestly felt was all mine.
“Mel, you okay?” Aunt Bree asked as she walked into the room and saw the look on Fiona’s face.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the outfit my aunt had chosen. Some yoga pants and a matching jacket with some Timberland boots. And she had her hair wrapped up in a scarf. The kicker was the three layers of Vaseline she had spread over her face. Aunt Bree looked like she was more ready to whip ass than to lounge around her house and relax.
“What’s good, Mel? When did she get here?” she asked, raising her chin in Fee’s direction.
“We good, Auntie. Just having a friendly little conversation,” I said.
Fiona cut her eyes at me.
“Didn’t sound like it from where I was in the back. What’s going on out here? What happened to your other company?” Aunt Bree said.
“Th
e muthafucka canceled on her,” she replied, answering for me, her tone laced with attitude. She looked at me. “I see you ain’t had no problem telling someone who isn’t even a part of the clique what’s going on with you.”
“Listen, Fee—” I began, but Fiona cut me off.
“‘Listen, Fee,’ my ass. When were you going to tell us any of this shit? Does Proof know? Do any of the niggas that’s been killing muthafuckas for you for the past damn near ten years know?”
I reached across the coffee table and tried to grab Fiona’s arm and pull her to me so that she would come sit next to me, but she pulled away. Her eyes stayed on me, and she ignore Aunt Bree, who was now standing behind her, ready to fuck Fiona up if she tried to jump on me. My aunt knew I wouldn’t do anything physical while carrying this baby, but my best friend was a different story.
“Well? Do they know?” Fiona questioned.
I shook my head. “No, Fee. No one from the clique knows, not even Proof. The only people who know now are you and Aunt Bree. I told her earlier, when I was contemplating how to separate myself from the BWC.”
Fiona turned her attention to Aunt Bree and then back to me. “Let me guess. She was all for you leaving us hanging, huh?”
“I’ve been against this shit from the beginning. I didn’t want my niece living this type of life, and I know her mother wouldn’t have wanted it, either. She especially wouldn’t have wanted it, seeing as the same lifestyle is what got her killed.”
I looked at my aunt. “What are you talking about, Aunt Bree? What type of lifestyle did my mother have that caused her to die? Dezmond didn’t have any money, so I know she didn’t marry him because of that.”
Aunt Bree walked from behind Fiona and sat down on the couch I occupied. Her eyes were tearing up. I’d never seen my aunt get emotional like this. Come to think of it, I had never seen Aunt Bree cry. She’d always been the strong one in the family, the one who made sure we were all good and cried out, especially after my mother died.
The Black Widow Clique Page 22
