by D D Bridges
“I don’t like being apart from you,” she said. “I know I act like it doesn’t affect me, but it does. I want to be able to stand by you, but I don’t know if I can. I’m not that strong.”
“You are stronger than you think, Nat. Your strength is one of the things that I’ve always admired about you. When I was at my lowest point you were there for me, remember? I wouldn’t have made it through that without you being strong for me.”
“I know, Darius. But I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Just don’t think about that, baby. I’m gonna be okay,” I assured her. She nodded her head and I somehow knew that it was because she wanted to believe me more than she actually did.
“So, tell me what you want right this moment,” I told her.
She took a moment to think about it before saying, “Well, right now I want to go downstairs and have dinner. Then I want to spend the rest of the night with you.” She rubbed her hand across my chest and then my shoulder and down my arm. Just like that we were back on each other’s good side.
Chapter VI- D.J.
Ding, dong!
“I think someone’s at your door, papi.”
Marissa and her twin sister, Mandy, were both lying in bed with me wearing nothing but their bra and panties. I had just finished doing all kind of nasty things to the two of them and I was just about ready for another round, but depending on who was at my door that might have to wait.
The twins and I had known each other for a long time. We went to the same private school in our high school years. They came from wealth just like I did, and even though I hadn’t hooked up with them in a while, there wasn’t much about them that had changed. They were both two beautiful brunettes that were even sexier now since their bodies had filled out quite nicely over the years. And just like back in high school, they were still worried about what would happen if their daddy found out that they were messing around with me. It didn’t matter to him that I was the son of a wealthy businessman. His main concern was making sure that his daughter’s only dated white guys. That racist prick didn’t approve of interracial relationships off any sort. Since I was black and Hispanic, I knew that he would just about have a heart attack if he knew about all of the nasty things that I was going to be doing to his daughters all night.
“Are you expecting anybody else?” Marissa asked as I went into the bathroom and began to clean myself up.
“No, not that I know of,” I said just before I heard the doorbell ring again and then someone knocking loudly. At first I thought that it was the police by the way that they were knocking, but then I realized that it was probably just Allen.
“Do you want me to get it for you?” Mandy asked now standing in the doorway of the bathroom.
“No, you two stay here. I’ll get rid of them,” I said as I moved past her to get back into the bedroom. I found my pajama bottoms and put them on before going to see who was at the door. I opened the door, and as I thought, it was Allen.
“What the hell you doing, man? You just gon’ make me stand out here all night?” he complained as he barged past me and into my place.
I closed the door before turning to him.
“What do you want, Allen? I’m busy,” I told him.
“Nah, you getting’ busy. I know how you do,” he said, trying to look at me condescendingly but only managing to look envious of the fact that I got more pussy than him.
“What did I tell you about showing up at my house unannounced?” I asked him.
“What have I told you about fucking these hoes at your spot?” he said before lowering his voice and saying, “There’s too much evidence around with all the surveillance equipment.”
I hated to admit it, but I knew that he was right. The last thing I needed was for my little vixens to start snooping around after I had fallen asleep. If they were to stumble upon my surveillance room then our whole cover could be blown.
“From now on, you need to go to their place or get a hotel or something,” Allen added.
“Look man, why are you tripping? You still haven’t told me why you’re here,” I said, becoming irritated.
“I’m here because we got a problem.”
Just as he said that, Marissa and Mandy came out of the room with their clothes on and designer tote bags over their shoulders. They both were wearing halter dresses that were squeezing their sexy curves.
“Damn!” Allen said, eying them seductively.
“Hey handsome,” Marissa said, walking up to him. “You came to join the party?”
“Nah, baby, but I wish I could,” he said as he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him. I thought he was about to kiss her, which would have been nasty considering what she had just been doing with that mouth a few minutes ago. Instead, he whispered something in her ear that caused her to giggle. Allen did have some game when it came to the ladies, but I liked to think that I could charm the ladies much better than he could.
“You’re so silly,” Marissa told him. “But hopefully we’ll be able to catch you next time.”
“Yeah. We’re going to head out and let you handle your business,” Mandy said to me.
“Damn. You’re leaving?” I said while I watched their hips sway as they walked past us.
“Yeah, but we’ll catch you later,” Mandy turned to me and said as she and Marissa stood at the door.
“Alright,” I said before they left. As soon as the door closed behind them Allen was ready to get back down to business.
“You done really fucked up this time,” he said before turning and walking to the surveillance room.
“I fucked up? What the hell did I do?” I wanted to know. Once inside the room we both checked the monitors and saw that there was no activity at the King Mansion. It was about 1 o’clock in the morning and as expected, everyone was asleep. I checked the GPS tracker that I had on Francisco and he was still somewhere in Paris. I knew that it was only a matter of time before he came back to the States, especially once he found out about his son.
“We didn’t cover our tracks,” Allen said. “See, this is what happens when you don’t stick to the plan.”
“What? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” I told him.
“We left the body at the warehouse and didn’t burn it down like we planned to,” he told me. “The police found the body and now they’ve opened up a murder investigation.”
“Damn,” I said with a sigh. That was the last thing that I needed to hear. We were both off our game that night after how things ended up transpiring. When Darius left we didn’t even think about covering our tracks. Now things were complicated.
“Some detective named Lee Willis is working the case,” Allen informed me. “They say that he is the best in the department. He worked a big case on a French guy named Francisco before your father died. Something about money laundering or something. You know anything about that?”
“Yeah, I know all about it,” I said. “The guy that we killed that night was Francisco’s son. They’re the ones who we had a run-in with in Paris.”
“The fact that both you and Darius are connected to him means that the police will be coming for you too.”
“They will probably only go for Darius,” I said after thinking about it for a moment. “He was the one that took us to Paris so that he could get to the bottom of everything.”
“Well listen, I know a guy in the department who can make this go away,” he said. “All we need is $100,000.”
“$100,000,” I said, unimpressed by the figure. “That’s all he wants in order to make this go away?’
“Yeah, so get the money and meet me at the spot in a few days. I’ll call you and let you know when.”
“Okay, no problem.”
Chapter VII- Darius
“Pass the ball, man!” Terry shouted.
Me and my boys were on the basketball court in my backyard and we were right in the middle of an intense three on three battle. The gu
ys had been talking trash all day about who was the best on the court. Back in our high school days we were all pretty good, but it had been years since we played together. So as soon as we got to the house after work we changed clothes so that we could get a quick game in before dinner. I recruited Jeremiah to be on my team along with Terry. We had now been out there for about an hour and we were all drenched in sweat as the setting sun beat down on us.
I had the ball in my hands and Derek was guarding me. We were the only two evenly matched guys on the court since we were about the same height and weight. Terry was being guarded by Mike which was like Kobe being guarded by Shaq. Jeremiah was being guarded by Kenny. Jeremiah had about four inches in height on Kenny, but it was still a decent matchup. I worked and maneuvered trying to get into the lane, but Derek wasn’t giving me any space. I saw Jeremiah run to get open so I passed it to him. He pulled up and released his shot just as Kenny elevated in an attempt to block it. The shot went in, nothing but net, and Terry and I shouted in excitement.
“That’s game!” I shouted as I slapped hands with Jeremiah.
“Yeah, what y’all niggas got to say now?” Terry taunted.
“Man, shut up. It wasn’t a fair game anyway,” Kenny said as we all went over to the bench on the side of the court. We were all competitive so none of us liked to lose.
“Nah, you just a sore loser,” I said just before Phillip came through the opening in the gate that surrounded the court.
“Mr. King, Detective Willis is here to see you,” he announced. The detective came through the gate right behind him. Seeing Detective Willis again was a surprise, but I couldn’t say that it was a pleasant one. He really rubbed me the wrong way the last time we talked. I could tell that he was one of those guys that thought that just because he had a badge he could do whatever the hell he wanted.
“Thanks Phillip,” I said. My boys all followed Phillip into the house so that they could get ready for dinner.
“It’s good to see you again, Darius,” Detective Willis said once we were alone.
“Yeah, I guess it is, huh,” I said as he approached me. “To what do I owe this visit?”
“Well, there’s been a development in the case. I was actually hoping that you could give me some information.”
“About what?” I asked.
“Last night we found something out on the other side of town in an old abandoned warehouse,” he said. I made sure that my face didn’t give away the fact that I already knew where this was going. Once he saw that I was unaffected by this information, he continued. “Francisco’s son, Mathieu Baptìste, is dead.”
“Are you sure that it was him?” I asked, still acting as if I didn’t know what was going on.
“Yeah, we’re pretty sure,” he replied impassively, but I could tell that he was still trying to gauge my reaction. Some detective he was. I was doing a better job of reading him than he was of reading me.
“He still had his passport on him,” he told me. The detective was carrying a large envelope that he opened and pulled a few pictures out of. The pictures were large like they had been printed off of a computer. He began to show them to me and they looked the way that I expected them to. Different angles of Mathieu’s lifeless body were in each of the pictures. His brown hair was matted and unkempt, and his lifeless green eyes were staring back at me.
“Well, it looks like he got caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I said as I handed the pictures back to him.
“Looks that way. But I’m sure there’s more to the story than that. This man was obviously murdered.”
“How long did it take you to figure that out, detective?” I asked sarcastically and got a warning glare from him.
“You can make all of the jokes that you want to, but we both know why I’m here,” he said. “Now, based on what I’ve gathered from my investigation, Mathieu didn’t have any connections to anyone else in Atlanta besides you. Now I’m not saying that means anything, but I am saying that if you know something about what happened to him, then it is your responsibility to tell me.”
Detective Willis looked at me as if he actually expected me to give him some information that he could use to crack this case. Actually, he was looking at me as if he thought that I pulled the trigger myself. Even though I witnessed the murder, I didn’t kill him. And it wasn’t as if I went out looking for him. With the way that things played out, it was obvious that Mathieu had probably been following me for days and chose that moment to reveal himself. Looks like he got caught up in his own game.
“Do I need to remind you that this is the same guy who was living and working under a false identity,” I said. “Then he deceived a man who was one of the most prominent businessmen in this city and had him killed.”
“That is all true,” Detective Willis said. “And had we caught him, then he would have been convicted and locked up for a very long time. But that won’t happen now because he’s dead.”
“Well, I hope you don’t expect me to shed any tears,” I told him dispassionately. “I didn’t even mention the fact that he and his father tried to kill me and my boys.”
“I know that,” he said, seeming frustrated. “But if you know anything about how Mathieu Baptìste died then you need to tell me so that I can cover you.”
I stared long and hard at the detective. He was a brother and I was pretty sure that he was from the hood as well, so he knew that what he was asking me to do was against the rules. I understood that he was only doing his job, but ratting out Allen and D.J. wasn’t going to benefit me in any way. And besides, I wasn’t a snitch. And I didn’t want the police to take them down. I wanted to deal with those two motherfuckers myself.
Detective Willis was still looking at me and waiting for a reply.
“Good night, detective,” was all that I gave him and he knew what the deal was.
He nodded his head slowly since he knew that I was going to be uncooperative. I don’t know what else he expected, especially since he knew that I didn’t like him.
“Fine, Darius,” he said before he turned and began to walk away.
“Yo, hold up,” I said before he got too far away. He turned back to me as I stepped toward him. “Did you talk to my mother on your way in?” I questioned him.
“As a matter of fact, I did,” he said. He looked like he wanted to smile but chose to suppress it instead. “She’s a really special lady.”
“I think that I would have to agree with you for once,” I said, a little surprised by the fact that he was willing to pay my mother such a high compliment even though he knew that I didn’t approve of him trying to woo her.
“Yeah well, I think you should know that I asked her out and she accepted,” he told me. I guess he thought that he could appease my anger by being forthcoming, but obviously he didn’t know a damn thing about me. The fact that he was bold enough to tell me that he did the very thing that I warned him not to do made me want to knock him out. This would be one of the few times that I chose to respect his badge and not do what my instincts were telling me to do.
“Well, I’m unaccepting your invitation for her,” I told him. “My mother doesn’t know what’s good for her. If she did then she wouldn’t be trying to date a nigga like you.”
“Oh, a nigga like me, huh,” he said, getting right up in my face. “You know what, the fact that you think that you can make these types of decisions for your mother proves that you’re nothing more than a little boy stuck in a grown man’s body.”
“Don’t even go there,” I responded immediately. “You may be able to wave that badge around and make people think that you’re respectable, but I know a dog when I see one.”
“You don’t know me,” he said, not backing down at all. “And you never will know me. But why don’t you try to stop acting like a spoiled brat long enough to let your mother decide if I’m man enough to treat her in a respectable manner. You can’t always have things your way.”
We stared one another dow
n a while longer before he turned and walked away. I didn’t know why, but there was just something about that man that I didn’t like. Maybe it was the fact that other than his badge, he seemed to be just your average around-the-way brother. As a matter of fact, he was a lot like the type of men that my mom used to date when we lived in the old ‘hood. The only difference between those men and Detective Willis was that he had a steady job. So I guess you could say that my mother was upgrading, but I still didn’t like him. The sooner that nigga got out of my house, the better.
*******
About thirty minutes later I was showered, changed and joining everyone for dinner. We all sat around the table and held hands while my mother said grace. I could tell that my mom was really beginning to enjoy having a house full of people. It was like we were a big family which was something that we never had the privilege of enjoying. For so long it had just been the two of us. I guess that’s why I was so protective of her. My whole life she was all that I had and I was all that she had. But maybe it was time for me to let go the same way that I begged her to for years.
My mother was a beautiful and amazing woman who had sacrificed a lot for me. It would be selfish of me to stand in the way of her being happy. But why did she have to be happy with Detective Willis? The more I thought about the two of them being together, the more I struggled to find something that was likable about him. I guess that you could say that he was good-looking if tall and light-skinned was your thing. He did have a pretty good job, so that was a plus. But I just had this nagging feeling that made me feel like he couldn’t be trusted. Maybe it was just my possessive nature, but what could I say? I loved my mother and I was a man who had become used to having things go my way.
Laughter and conversation filled the dining room as we all dug in to the dinner that Ms. Martha prepared. With my boys around it wasn’t hard to find a reason to laugh since they were all full of humor in their own way. Natalie was sitting to my right and Leah was sitting beside her. I noticed that the two of them had begun to grow really close and I thought that was good for both of them. They both needed a friend, especially Leah. She had been through so much and I was beginning to worry about her. I knew that she had some choices to make and that I could only do so much to protect her. Hopefully she would take everybody’s advice and stay away from Allen for good.
