The Billionaire's Club Trilogy: Deluxe Box Set

by C. L. Donley

“I’m gonna miss you, mama,” she said.

  Something in Syreeta broke. Kim was leaving her, she realized. And clearly didn’t anticipate coming back.

  How many times could you lose one child? So far this was loss number five, and she’d only had three damn kids. The last time she’d seen her youngest, it was only so he could tell her that he would no longer be seeing, helping or speaking to her again. Well okay, motherfucker!

  But Kim would be a huge loss. Kim was her ride or die. Kim was always there to help her, even when it made Syreeta sick to even ask.

  She wouldn’t have done so if it wasn’t life or death. And she certainly wouldn’t have asked for help for herself alone. Looking back, she regretted all the thousands of other people’s dollars in bail money that she’d squandered in the name of Gerald. She wasn’t fully hip to him yet then. He’d cost her so so much, and all she’d ever given him was love.

  Syreeta was hemorrhaging a lifetime of disappointment, but she wouldn’t lay it at Kim’s feet, after all she’d done for her, after all she’d endured.

  “Oh, stop all that cryin’ girl, I ain’t goin’ anywhere. I’ll still be here, you come see me whenever you want.”

  “Come with me, mama,” Kim suddenly pleaded. It was almost a whisper.

  Come with her?

  Syreeta could not conceive of anything beyond this abandoned restaurant playground. It simply didn’t make sense; it was painful.

  She’d have to get clean, find the money to bail out Gerald, worry about her boys, get a passport or whatever the hell else…it was exhausting.

  “Naw, baby you don’t need some old lady draggin’ you down. Enjoy your baby, enjoy your man. Plus your daddy gets out—”

  “Fuck him,” Kim spat bitterly.

  Syreeta couldn’t blame her at all for that. She’d long suspected that Gerald had tried to touch Kim once or twice but never knew for sure. Aside from that, he was a selfish piece of shit, at least on the drugs he was. As low as the drugs could sometimes take her, she’d never lost track of her humanity as he had. As much as she’d seen of his depravity, it seemed he could always still amaze her.

  But he would never leave her. That much she knew.

  “Mama, I’ll be a queen! You’ll have your own house, you’ll have servants, you’ll never want for anything again!”

  Well, that did sound nice.

  It sounded too good to be true actually, but if she trusted anybody to tell her the truth, it was Kim.

  She’d have to say goodbye to the life, once and for all. Dope sickness crept upon her even now, and it seemed impossible.

  “Kim, baby, let me have thirty dollars.”

  Kim stared at her astounded, somewhat disgusted.

  It was a look Syreeta was familiar with but she never really got used to.

  But ultimately she didn’t give a shit. It was a truth that was too real, one that Kim obviously didn’t know, one that very few people did. On top of what was already shaping up to be a shitty day, there was simply no paradise on Earth that could compete with the hell on Earth that was dope sickness, that stalking reality staring you in the face. If her daughter wasn’t compassionate enough to give it her, then she’d let her tired body for it, simple as that. And that was real fuckin’ talk.

  Kim wordlessly reached into her purse. My girl, Syreeta thought.

  She thumbed through a few notes as though counting them. Suddenly she threw the entire mass at her mother’s face. Notes flew everywhere and Syreeta went to grab them instinctively.

  Kim’s splint-free hand suddenly made contact with her mother’s face again and again as her anger was roused, sobs building up and out of her. Syreeta began shielding herself from her daughter’s somewhat painful attack. Bel was still as a statue behind them as he stood holding Jabari.

  “Stop, mama! Just stop!!” Kim screamed, “Why won’t you just stop!!”

  Kim was so tired of seeing her mother beat herself up for her failures.

  She’d learned all about her mother’s disease since starting Al-Anon in her teen years, learning all about her own disease that developed from years of having to worry about where the bail money was going to come from, the deposit for the house they were going to rent when they were newly clean, the house that she eventually found out they never rented and were actually squatting in. Before that, it was simply making sure they didn’t kill themselves, each other or all of them. Wielding knives during fights, watching them sleep so they don’t O.D., so they don’t choke on their own vomit or burn the house down with lit cigarettes as they nodded off.

  She’d never lost hope that her mother could get off drugs because up to fourth grade her childhood had been relatively blissful. Her mom was cut from the same driven cloth she was, and she knew the unbearable hell that must be a moment of sobriety lying in wait to remind her of all the people she’d let down, each day an unbearable tally mark.

  “You fucked up! Bad! And we made it anyway! Without you! Because it’s not about you! Wake up! No one gives a shit about you or what you’ve done! So live! Live!!” Kim begged her.

  The moment Syreeta heard “it’s not about you” she knew Kim was up to her eyeballs in Al-Anon.

  But she was right. Her kids were grown, and she’d failed at life unequivocally.

  But she was still alive, it was true.

  Kim was trying to clean her slate. The weight of her family dragging behind her no longer motivated her to do anything but use. So Kim was cutting her loose.

  Was her measly wasted life alone enough to live for, or at least make an attempt?

  Perhaps. But definitely not today.

  But she wanted to leave the daughter that she had broken with some hope. She could at least do that.

  “I’ll think about it baby,” she nodded her head tearfully, looking straight into her eyes, “I really will.”

  Kim threw her arms around her frail mother, not worried about her dirt or sores or bad breath as she continued to sob. Syreeta embraced her with one arm, her other still occupied with a handful of wadded cash.

  “I’m sorry I did that, mama,” Kim cried.

  “It’s okay, baby,” Syreeta lied. She lowkey didn’t appreciate it. But she managed to grab about $75, and it was all about to be okay, so technically it wasn’t a lie.

  “Ready?” Bel finally spoke up.

  Kim nodded.

  Bel and Kim walked away with her arm linked around his, back to the car where his brother Fahid had waited in the front seat. Bel placed Jabari securely in the backseat. Kim waited patiently next to him as he finished. He closed the child-locked door, took a breath and braced himself to meet Kim’s eyes. She gazed back at him, giving him a slight smile of gratitude. He winked at her.

  Then he watched helplessly as sorrow enveloped her and she soundlessly sobbed. He wrapped her body in his body, muffling the sound of her wailing tears in his big broad shoulders.

  Forty Seven

  Chapter 47

  The first thing Kim noticed when they landed was the heat. The hottest she’d ever felt. It felt like she was standing behind the heated exhaust of a truck, all the time, everywhere she went. She kept waiting for it to subside but it didn’t. That’s just how the air was planning to be, she guessed. The sun seemed to be saying, “if you don’t love me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.”

  Bel, on the other hand, was soaking it up like Superman on his home planet. Jabari had evidently inherited his father’s genes because he was sleeping soundly despite the sun’s angry glare on him. If this was any indication of how life in Ghassan was going to be, she was in for an uncomfortable transition. She always found it particularly cruel that the most conservative countries also tended to be the hottest.

  Kim didn’t quite know what was going on, but apparently, Bel had suspicions that his father was murdered, and she was under strict orders not to divulge his intentions of being king.

  “Intentions? What, are they holding auditions?” she’d responded.

  “
It’s a long story, but I need to figure out who had my father killed.”

  The morning after their reunion, Bel had received the news from Fahid.

  He’d promised Kim they would go see Jabari first thing, but he hadn’t the heart to wake her.

  When he saw that Fahid was calling him, he was clueless, still so high off lovemaking he’d lost the sense even to brace himself for bad news. He’d answered the phone completely unprepared.

  “He’s gone,” Fahid simply said.

  “Shit,” Bel whispered.

  He’d wanted to throw the phone against a wall and destroy it. He wanted to pound his fist bloody on the quartz countertop and break things. But it wasn’t his house, and it wouldn’t be smart, besides. Kim was still asleep. So he quietly wept, sliding down the stainless steel refrigerator to the floor.

  He was paralyzed with anger, and it frightened him. If he were on a throne right now, whatever reckless whim he wanted to be carried out would be done without question, the consequences rippling outward for eternity. And at that moment he’d wanted every last conspirator murdered before his eyes.

  These weak, cowardly embarrassments to humanity. Two days?? He was sick with vengeful thoughts.

  “How?”

  “In his sleep.”

  “Who?”

  “Everyone is in mourning. But Semih and Adela have organized a banquet at which he’s expected to make an announcement. The queen was not invited. Nor was my mother.”

  The breath heaved through his nostrils as Bel’s lips became a terse line.

  “Fahid if you know something, you’d better tell me now.”

  “Only that Adela came to me weeks ago asking me for assurances of Semih’s position as advisor once I became king.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  “Nothing. My complicity, I suppose. Your presence must’ve changed whatever plans they had for me.”

  “You let that bitch poison our father?”

  “Adela is a bitch, but she is not so foolish to be caught in an assassination plot without certain assurances. It seems the French ambassador will also be at the banquet.”

  France?

  Fahid told Bel of his father’s elaborate plans to make a Ghassan a powerful player in the East, without the the backing of the UN or the IMF. Bel rubbed his forehead with his fingers. What. a. Clusterfuck. He’d known about the pipeline but not about the plan to abandon the petrodollar. Why was the old man looking for a fight? Had he been feeling nostalgic? Or perhaps feeling out the future, one without him in it? Jesus, was he thinking that far ahead?

  “So the EU needed my father out and Semih in because they can control him, with his mother as an proxy between them. They’ve probably been planning this for months, years perhaps. They have no idea they’ve got a hornet’s nest in Adela.”

  “As I said, you always know when to come home.”

  Once his father wasn’t there to protect his throne, Bel had taken an immense chance being king from afar. The country was stark naked. But he wasn’t leaving Nashville without the prince, and his queen, so there was no point in hopping on a plane just yet. He’d had to rely on Adela’s foolish pride and the country’s mourning their beloved leader to buy him enough time until Jabari was fully recovered.

  He’d looked up from the floor and saw Kim standing there watching him in a dark red floral print robe, her hair a delightful bed-headed mess. The sight cut mercilessly through his gloom.

  “Everything okay?” she asked huskily.

  He’d grinned. “No,” he admitted.

  “Tell me about it in the shower.”

  There had been no talking in the shower.

  But she’d comforted him, and they did eventually talk on the way to the hospital, where he’d told her they were going to have to leave a bit sooner than he’d planned, that they would need to keep a low profile once they land in Ghassan.

  “I’m not trying to be in the middle of some Donnie Brasco shit, Bel. Leave me and Jabari here while you handle your business.”

  “The safest place for you and Jabari is wherever I am.”

  Kim sighed. She hadn’t had a good feeling, but she hadn’t had a bad one. She’d never seen this side of Bel, and it was a side that had gained her trust.

  After they stepped off the plane and made the short trek across the desert, the city of Perga became more modern the closer they came to the palace, a mixture of skyscrapers and ancient ruins in warm vibrant colors. On her left, the back passenger window slowly revealed a view of the coastline. It was absolutely beautiful. She didn’t know what she was expecting, but the only time she’d ever been outside of the country was last year for the wedding, and it felt about the same. Like she’d stepped straight into another world and another time. Another life. In a way she had. She’d left everything behind and went about as far away as one could get from it.

  Then she saw it. The palace. Her new home.

  The stately white structure began with a flight of stairs and an impossibly long walkway to the entrance, lined with palm trees and long narrow pools on each side of the walkway, reflecting back the image of the heavenly palace the size of a hotel. Bel looked over at Kim, expecting a typical exuberant response, but under her shades, she was completely stoic. He was suddenly anxious for her to be impressed.

  “What do you think?” he suddenly asked, dissipating her reverie as she took in the view from her window.

  Kim sighed, her hand around the belly of her baby as he slept in his seat between them. Like flood rains on the dry summer soil of drought, she was barely soaking in the notion of all of them together, let alone this. It would likely be years before she would be able to bask in her new reality.

  “Just don’t leave me here alone. Okay?” she said, her low pleading tone at once arousing and heartbreaking. He held her gaze.

  The two of them had lived a life its own bitter version of nihilism. He knew he couldn’t promise, but with Kim, he didn’t have to.

  “I’ll do the best I can,” he simply said. It was a crushingly honest response. She grinned. He really did love her, she thought.

  Once they made it inside, Kim could no longer be flippant about their surroundings. The interior was ornate and opulent. The chocolate brown modern furnishings kept the cold, sculpted columns, rails and ceilings from looking too much like a museum. The light flooded in through story high windows. The ceilings had to be 50 feet high. Kim’s jaw was permanently on the floor. There wasn’t a single chore or design change that could be done without multiple laborers or scaffolds. Still, it wasn’t exactly her style.

  The entire back of the palace had rooms with second and third-floor balconies facing a pool that was the size of a backyard. It butted up against another palace which was slightly larger but not as wide. Its charming, intricate detail and faded yet vibrant hue, the color of pink lemonade trimmed in gold, indicated that it was likely the original palace. “I’ll meet you inside,” Bel told Fahid, and he nodded. Bel hurried Kim and Jabari through the courtyard to the back of the original palace, where there was a small graveyard.

  There they paid their respects to Leilani and baby Hani. Kim shed a tear while Bel wiped it away. He got down on one knee and proposed to her there. Properly, nervously. The second proposal Kim had received in her life. It was a bit morbid in front of the mausoleum with the gothic stone angel weeping over a dead mother and child, but honorable in a way and she understood. He’d even produced a ring to her utter surprise. One that fit and looked conspicuously like the rose engraved engagement rings she’d saved on Pinterest years ago, but with considerably more carats. Amara, she thought as she grinned, shaking her head.

  “Prince Belkacem,” a random servant came and bowed before them, “the queen dowager, the king’s sons and their mothers, and the king’s advisors are all waiting in the queen’s palace as you requested.”

  “Semih and Adela?”

  “They… declined the invitation, my prince.”

  “Yes, I imagine they would.�
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  He knew they would decline the invitation, but somewhere deep down Bel had hoped for a simple ending, however impossible that seemed. As he planned, the secrecy would have to continue just a bit longer.

  Semih had held his little banquet while Bel and Fahid were still in the States and Jabari still recovering. Neither Bel nor Faihid had sent correspondence of any kind, even after being personally asked. This further empowered his father’s conspirators. Adela made a statement that her son, the next king of Ghassan, had taken it as a personal slight against him and the country. At that point she seemed to feel comfortable taking their campaign against Bel public and attempted to poison his reputation with the people, saying she questioned Bel’s love for his father and the loyalties to the country of his birth. She did all this through Semih of course, the effect of which made Semih look quite ballsy but of course Bel knew the truth. Even France got in on the action, calling his lack of even a statement in the wake of the king’s death “callous” in light of all his father had done for “diplomacy in the region.”

  “Did anyone else decline the invitation?”

  “No, my prince.”

  Kim closely followed behind Bel as they made their way to the queen’s palace entrance. Several women were already seated out front on the shaded terrace, and when they saw Kim, they began to chatter excitedly and crowd her and Jabari. The rest of the company inside began to file outside at the commotion.

  When Bel greeted his mother, they wept on each other. Kim had no idea Bel could be so emotional. Psychopath, he certainly was not.

  When he’d introduced the two of them, his mother looked at Kim a long time, as though surveying her own child that was now grown. Kim was overcome by the queen’s warmth, the will to adopt her emanating from her and seducing a motherless Kim. This woman has been through much as well, she perceived. Moments later, Kim had to cover her whimpering face as she succumbed to the urge to be instantly loved. The two women slowly embraced, each crying for separate reasons.

  They all sat in the palace’s great room gathered around Bel, the men in chairs, the women on pillows on the floor. Kim was about to take a pillow next to Bel’s mom, who held a sleeping Jabari, when Bel suddenly instructed her to sit beside him. The energy instantly changed.