The Black Widow Clique

by Genesis Woods

  “Oh, Mel . . .” I slowly shook my head from side to side, trying to stop the constant ringing in my ears. “Melonee . . . help,” I called out, not sure if she could hear me or not.

  “Fiona, you got ten seconds to open this muthafucking door, or I’ma kick it down,” she said, banging on the door again.

  Uncle Dro, who had gotten up from on top of me and was now standing behind the front door, pulled his gun from his waist and waited for Melonee to make good on her threat. I tried to stand but was able only to lift myself up on my elbows. While I remained in that position, trying to at least get the strength to make it to my knees, the door came crashing in, slamming Uncle Dro right in the face. Blood instantly began to pour from his nose, but when Melonee walked through doorway and entered my home, he had his piece cocked and aimed at her head.

  She spotted him instantly and then saw me lying in the kitchen doorway. “Whoever you are, I don’t want any problems with you. I just came here for that bitch right there,” she said through gritted teeth, eyes now trained on me. “Right about now, I don’t give a fuck if you kill me after all this shit is said and done, just as long as I get to kill that bitch first.”

  Uncle Dro picked up one of my scarves that were lying across the top of my couch and put it up to his nose to try to stop the bleeding. The whole center of his face was covered in blood and was swelling up by the minute. He looked at me and then back at Melonee. “If I let you kill this bitch, I won’t get my money. So either you pay her debt and I let you handle your business or you sit back and watch the show I was just about to put on. I’m sure it’ll bring back a few fucked-up memories for you, but you shouldn’t feel sorry for this bitch.” Uncle Dro laughed and pointed the gun at me. “Seeing as she’s the one who is responsible for everything that happened to you.”

  I looked up at Melonee to see the reaction on her face to the news Dro had just spilled, but surprisingly, she didn’t have one. Her eyes were still focused on me, but the look in them told me that she already knew. Hence the reason for her visit, I assumed. But how did she find out? I was pretty sure Cowboy didn’t tell her, and April . . . Well, that would just fuck up her whole kidnapping plan. Walking farther into my home, Melonee still had her eyes on me, obviously not caring about the gun Uncle Dro was still pointing at her head.

  “Why?” she asked, a little emotion showing when her voice cracked. “Why would you do that to me, Fiona? I thought we were best friends.”

  I rose up onto my knees and slowly crawled over to my couch. Only thing on my mind was getting to one of my guns before the opportunity to kill this bitch passed me by. Just like her, I was willing to endure whatever Uncle Dro had in store for me, just as long as I was able to kill her ass.

  After clearing my throat, I answered her question. “Because I’ve always hated how you stole my childhood away from me and didn’t even apologize for it. You and your whore-ass mama played a part in one of the worst days of my life.”

  Her eye twitched. “You’re going to stop disrespecting my mother, and I’m not gonna tell you again.”

  “Melonee . . .” I said and laughed as I pushed my hands beneath the soft cushions of my couch, feeling for my gun. When I didn’t feel it, my eyes went directly to Uncle Dro, who winked and blew a kiss at me. The grimy muthafucka had already taken it. Hopefully, he hadn’t found the one I kept taped to the underside of the coffee table. All I needed to do was distract Melonee’s ass somehow and then get my shot off. The bitch would never see it coming. And I knew April’s ass would be mad, but I didn’t give a fuck. There was always Roman to send the ransom note to. “Whore, ho, slut. I don’t see why you get so uptight when I call your mother by her rightful name. Anyone who deliberately fucks another woman’s man and messes up their happy home is a slut by my books.”

  “Funny you feel that way when it was your mama who fucked her man’s brother and got pregnant with you,” Melonee countered.

  My eyes went big as they flew over to Uncle Dro. The same shocked look was on his face that was on mine. Ain’t no way in the world Pedro was my father. I didn’t look shit like him. I looked like my father. Nose, ears, and all. The bitch had to be lying to get some type of reaction out of me, but I wasn’t going to give her one.

  “Stop lying to justify the actions of the tramp who gave birth you.”

  Melonee smirked and walked closer to me. “Well, seems to me like you need to take a visit to Corcoran and see your uncle Max. This little story you’ve been telling yourself all these years about me robbing you of your childhood is nowhere near the truth. As a matter of fact, you might want to speak to your mama and direct your anger toward her. Because, if I remember correctly the story Max told me, it was your mama who left, because she was out there running the streets and was more worried about money and dick than she was about taking care of you and Cowboy. It was your hating-ass mama who couldn’t stand the fact that Max’s heart belonged to my mom and would never be hers.” She took a deep breath.

  “They had a nice little setup going on. Robbing men and taking their money. Just like us, but on a smaller scale,” she continued. “Your mother’s jealousy is what tore their whole little crew apart. Just like what your jealousy did to the clique. Why don’t you just admit it, Fiona? You are jealous of me. Always have been and always will be. The funny thing is, you never had to be. Everything that you went through, I went through. Not because I had to, but because I didn’t want you to feel alone. Because I was your best friend. I lost my mother that day too. Did you ever once stop to think how I felt? I didn’t even get a chance to mourn properly for her, because I was too busy making sure that you and Cowboy had a roof over y’all head after he fucked off all that money, that you had food in your belly when you sometimes didn’t eat but once a day, and a shoulder to cry on whenever you wanted to know why your trifling-ass mama didn’t love you enough to stay.”

  She now had tears in her eyes, but I wasn’t fazed by that shit or any of this bullshit she was spitting. We would see how many of those same tears came pouring down her face when I hit her with a little secret I had found out myself. I felt under the table for my gun and jumped for joy when my hand hit the barrel. I knew once I said what I was about to say, the opportunity I’d been waiting for was going to present itself. Regardless of who my father really was, this bitch still had to die.

  “Mel, I’ve never been jealous of you, and to prove that I’m not, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. It wasn’t Dezmond who killed your mother that night. It was my mother. The same bitch who killed the father of our babies.” Since I was already naked, I rose up to show her my little belly. “Sucks that he won’t be here to see our kids grow up to be siblings, but his loyalty to you was a problem for us.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Sorry . . . but not sorry.”

  The chain of events happened so fast that I didn’t even have time to react. The way Melonee leapt across the couch and landed on top of me completely caught me off guard. The gun she had tucked behind her back was at my head at the same time I pulled my gun from under the table and aimed it at hers. With murder on both of our minds and revenge in our hearts, we both pulled our triggers at the same time. The loud ringing of multiple gunshots going off echoed throughout my apartment. The smell of gun smoke filled the air.

  Everything around me went black, and when I tried to open my eyes, I couldn’t. My heart started beating at a slower pace, and I could feel my bladder releasing itself one last time. The only thing I remembered hearing before my final breath was Melonee wishing me a long, slow, and painful death in hell. The Black Widow Clique had been my life, and I had enjoyed all the money I made with the clique. But I guessed my web of lies, deception, and disloyalty had finally caught up with me, leaving everything I had hustled so hard for sitting in a safe underneath my bed.

  Did I regret anything I’d done? No. Would I do it all over again? In a heartbeat. Except this time, I would make sure all my paper came right along with me.

  Epilogue

&
nbsp; Roman

  One year later ...

  It was crazy how much my life had changed in the course of two years. Nothing could have prepared me for any of the shit I had gone through, but I would be lying if I said that if given the chance, I wouldn’t do it all over again: from the night Benji and Marques talked me into taking those Japanese investors to Decadence for a round of celebratory drinks to a couple of days ago, when I asked Melonee to be my wife. I was, indeed, a happy man, despite all the bullshit my stepmother, Julia, and her son, Benji, had put me through. And with the love of a strong woman, and with a real family having my back, I was ready to take on the world and spend the rest of my days making my life and the people I held dear to my heart my number one priority.

  As I watched Melonee play on the beach with our children, Madison and Kason, and as I contemplated the new life she was carrying, my heart was filled with a warmth I hadn’t felt since my mother passed. It was with every beat of my heart that I would live for them, and I would do all I could for them, even die for them if it meant they would live.

  There had been many nights in my life that had scared me, but all of those paled in comparison to the night Melonee tried to confront that bitch Fiona on her own and almost lost her life for a second time. Had it not been for the security detail my uncle Kazi had following her, I’d probably be raising Madison and Kason on my own.

  When Peter and Yurik had called my uncle to inform him about Melonee’s whereabouts and about the screaming match she was involved in, which could be heard from the street, I left the kids with Viktoria and made it to Ladera Heights in about ten minutes. I’d wanted to run in with guns blazing, but Uncle Kazi had thought it wise to hold off until we got an official head count of everybody in the apartment. Once the number, three, was confirmed, I walked through the busted door just in time to see Mel and Fiona pointing their guns at each other and some man I’d never seen before walking up behind my baby with his pistol aimed at her. The first bullet from my gun went through his neck and out his mouth. The second one went straight through his heart.

  When Mel slipped up for a second and turned her head to see who else was in the house, shooting, that slick bitch Fiona tried to pull her trigger but couldn’t, as her gun had jammed. The look on her face would have been funny had Mel not blown her brains out a few seconds later . . . with no remorse whatsoever. But I could tell that, that was all a front, especially when Mel began crying the minute we got home and cried in my arms all night long.

  As I watched her and the kids continue to make castles in the sand, I made a promise to always be there for her in any way that she needed. Mel was the love of my life, even if we did meet in the most unconventional way. We were two people from two separate worlds but with the same pain from suffering a loss. Losing our parents might be what bonded our hearts, but our love for each other was what connected our souls.

  Melonee

  I blushed and could feel my cheeks heat up when I saw the look on Roman’s handsome face as he watched me and our children play on the beach. It was Madison’s seventh birthday, and she wanted to have a fun day in the sun with us and the rest of our family. Everyone whom we held close to our hearts was here to celebrate my baby turning a year older.

  Viktoria and Marques, who had dubbed themselves the munchkins’ godparents, were somewhere in the house, fucking like rabbits, trying to make the first of their tribe of kids. Granny was lounging in her beach chair, soaking up the sun and chatting with some man whom she had bumped into at the grocery store earlier. And Aunt Bree wasn’t here yet, but Chasin was on his way to the airport to pick her up. Their long-distance relationship seemed to be working for right now, but I knew it was only a matter of time before Chasin made Aunt Bree move back out to California permanently. Yeah, they were racking up a gang of frequent flyer miles between the two of them, but there was nothing like waking up to your man or your woman every day and being able to spend time with him or her at the drop of a dime.

  When the hairs on the back of my neck began to rise, when my palms started to sweat, and when my stomach did that fluttery thing it always did whenever Roman was around, I knew that he was behind me. His arms slid around my waist, and his hands palmed the roundness of my full belly. I was in my ninth month and couldn’t wait to meet the newest addition to our family. When I first found out that I was pregnant again, I was a little worried about whether or not I’d carry this baby to full term. Although Kason hadn’t suffered any major complications from being born at twenty-nine weeks, I wasn’t too sure if this baby would thrive if he or she was born prematurely. All those worries were thrown out the window, though, once Roman got me to confess how thrilled I was to be carrying this baby. I swear, I hadn’t smiled so much in my life.

  Roman was making sure that his every waking minute was geared toward catering to me and making my life as stress free as possible. Roman had even cut back on his hours at RTD. After Benji’s body was found in Mexico, with his head nearly severed, Roman’s father had reappointed Roman CEO of the company. With the negative press and legal charges now behind him, the moral clause that had got him fired was the same one that got Roman rehired. Especially after Papa Black had it removed from the new contract Roman had to sign.

  And speaking of Papa Black, he was doing pretty good nowadays. He and Uncle Kazi’s goddaughter Carmen had become real close in the past few months. Whenever she wasn’t out of town, doing some work for Roman’s fine-ass uncle, she was here at the Summerland house, working out with Papa Black and keeping him heart attack free.

  When Roman’s soft lips touched my neck and then my shoulder, a low moan escaped my lips. The tingly feeling that had started at the bottom of my feet easily traveled to my core and exploded. This man, with his dreamy green eyes, tanned olive skin, caramel-blond hair, and beautiful soul, was my everything. There wasn’t anything about him that I didn’t love or find interesting.

  For instance, I liked the fact that he had exceptional marksmanship skills, courtesy of that sexy-ass Uncle Kazi. While Victoria and Marques had been sneaking around during their summer visits to Russia, Roman had sometimes been found in the underground bunker his uncle had, learning how to shoot. When I asked him if he had killed anyone other than Fiona’s bitch-ass father, Dro, he had simply kissed me on my forehead and had never answered the question. And then, when I asked him about those four days he and a few of Kazi’s men had spent on a crazy manhunt for April and her crew—whose dead bodies turned up on the six o’clock news the following week—mum was the word again.

  My little CEO thug was all mine, and I’d kill any bitch who tried to get in between us. Well, after I had this baby, of course.

  Kazimir

  I sat beside the pool at the luxury resort in Turks and Caicos, watching the insanely beautiful woman I couldn’t take my eyes off down her fifth dry martini. The small bikini she had on left very little to the imagination, as it showed off her newly bought breasts and ass. She wore one of those big floppy hats on her head, which covered half her face, and the view of her pink, pouty lips had my dick hard as fuck. When she looked up at me, our eyes connected for a brief second, before she turned her gaze away. I laughed at her failed attempt to play coy, but if this mouse-and-cat game was what I had to play to get her to my room, then so be it.

  Tired of basking in the sun, I pulled my tank top over my head and dived into the coolness of the water. Holding my breath, I swam to the other end of the Olympic-sized pool, came back, and then stopped in front of the person whose attention I’d been trying to get for the past hour.

  “You’ve been watching me since you took your seat over there. Do you know me from somewhere? Have we met before?” she asked.

  I shook my head no.

  “Are you sure?” she said.

  She got the same answer from me.

  “You’re not much of a talker, though. I can tell,” she noted.

  “I talk when there’s a need to.”

  She licked her lips and sat up in her
seat, pushing her chest out a little more. “Your accent, it’s very sexy. Where are you from?”

  “The United States.”

  She slid her shades down her nose to the tip and smiled. “Not with bone structure like yours. What does that say on your chest?”

  I looked down at my tattoo that read NO HONOR AMONG THIEVES in Russian. “It means you only live once.”

  Her smile widened. “Indeed you do. You come to vacation with family . . . friends . . . a wife . . . or girlfriend?”

  “I’m vacationing alone. What about you?”

  “The same.”

  “Would you like another drink, ma’am?” a young waitress asked, interrupting our conversation while her lust-filled eyes stayed on me.

  The beautiful woman’s lips tightened. “I’m not old enough to be a ma’am, suga. Remember that when it’s time for your tip. And I’ll take another dry martini, extra olives please. What about you, handsome?”

  “I’ll take two Coronas and the bill for what she’s drinking from here on out,” I told the waitress.

  Needless to say, once the drinks started flowing, so did the chemistry between us. By the time the sun had gone down, she was way past drunk and more than willing to come up to my room.

  The minute I closed the door to my room and dimmed the lights, we were on each other and ripping off the few clothes that we had on. After bending her over the couch, I drove right into her pussy and started to fuck the lining out of her. No gentleness, no names or lovemaking involved. Just straight fucking, without the slightest interruption. It wasn’t the grade A shit I was used to, but it helped me get this nut off. By the time I finished flipping her around in every possible position I could think of, it was time to get to the real reason I had brought her up here.

  “Julia, you’ve been a naughty, naughty girl.”

  Her body froze at the mention of her name. “My . . . my . . . name isn’t Julia. It’s . . . it’s Daphne,” she stuttered, pulling away from me. The terrified look on her face almost made me laugh.