by L. A. Banks
Balancing the Scales
by J. M. Jeffries
To the wonderful women in this book who share our passion for the otherworldly. What a pleasure it is to be bad with all of you.
From Jackie: To Miriam, welcome to the naughty girls club.
From Miriam: To Jackie, it could have been worse.
Chapter One
* * *
Paloma Alexander pushed open the front door of her home, dragged her suitcase in after her and walked into the enormous marble foyer. She started to call out to her husband, Keith, to let him know she was back in Las Vegas from her meeting in Los Angeles two days earlier than expected, but decided she would just surprise him. She and Keith hadn’t had time alone together in forever. He would be delighted with the unexpected bonus of having her all to himself for two complete days.
She dropped her house keys in the crystal bowl on the side table and frowned at the sight of Keith’s cell phone. How strange, Keith never let his cell phone out of his sight, even taking it into the shower with him.
The cell phone blinked announcing two messages waiting for him. She checked and saw they were both from her—one while waiting for her plane and the other after she’d landed. But now she was happy she hadn’t caught him, anticipating the surprised look on his face when she appeared so unexpectedly.
She erased the messages and put Keith’s phone back on the table. As she glanced up at the curving staircase, the heavy silence weighed on her. Where was the staff? In fact, she realized she hadn’t seen any of the gardeners who seemed to be forever puttering around the huge mansion.
Paloma started up the steps. A muted sound came to her and she stopped, one hand resting on the balustrade, and head tilted to listen. The sound wasn’t repeated.
She frowned as she walked up to the second story and down the long hallway, peering into open doors as she passed. The mansion was huge and she never understood Keith’s need to own so pretentious a showplace when only the two of them lived in it.
Keith wasn’t in his office though she could see a sports jacket tossed carelessly over the arm of a high-backed wing chair. The room smelled faintly of cigar smoke. Paloma wrinkled her nose. She didn’t like Keith’s cigars and liked even less that he’d been smoking in the house when she’d asked him not to.
She backed out of Keith’s office and again heard a sound. She tried to locate it, but found nothing. She headed toward the end of the hall and the double doors that opened to her sitting room. Once again she heard a sound.
Had that been a groan?
Her feet sank into thick white carpet, her steps soundless. Another moan sounded. The door to her bedroom was slightly ajar and she hesitated before pushing it open another inch.
What the hell? Her husband of fifteen years lay in the center of the bed, butt-naked, his legs apart and his eyes rolling back in his head. An equally naked woman sat on him, long braids hiding her dark face as she pumped up and down making little moans and groans as though she were dying.
Paloma caught her breath. Keith was screwing another woman!
The woman flung her braids back and Paloma saw the face of Keith’s newest protégé, Syrah. Syrah straddled him pumping up and down like an oil rig. Her firm, man-made breasts barely bounced. Her eyes were closed and though she moaned and groaned, she had a look on her face that made Paloma think she wasn’t having as much fun as Keith.
How dare they! In her house! On her bed! Paloma took a step forward wanting to yank that woman’s hair so hard the damn weave would come off. Hurt. Rage. Betrayal. She could barely breathe.
A scream built in Paloma’s throat, but she forced it back. Her fists clenched so tight, her nails cut through her skin. How could he, she thought. Hurt spiraled through her. The betrayal of what he was doing dug into her and she closed her eyes. Great, gulping sobs started in the back of her throat, but she put a fist over her mouth and swallowed hard.
She warred with the idea of storming into the room and giving him and that bitch the Lionel Richie treatment. But some innate caution stopped her. A voice in the back of her head sounded. Paloma, the voice said, stop and think.
Keith gripped Syrah’s hips and thrust one last time deep inside her. “Go, baby, go.” He shouted as though urging a horse on the race track. “That’s good. You’re the best.”
When they’d first married, Keith had told Paloma he wasn’t much interested in sex. At first, she’d been startled because their sex life before marriage had been so passionate. But she had been in love and didn’t care. She thought then if she loved him enough, he’d change for her. Fat chance! And here he was in her bed with Syrah. Damn him. Damn his lying, cheating heart to hell. Damn. Damn. Damn. Tears started in Paloma’s eyes as she fought not to make a sound.
Keith pushed Syrah off, his penis slick with wetness. He rolled to his knees, pushed Syrah down until her rear end was in the air and then he smacked her hard. Not once, but several times, the sound cracking through the room like a whip. Syrah moaned and wriggled her big, bubble butt in the air while Keith gripped her hips and started going at her from behind. Sweat poured down his dark sepia skin as he worked himself inside her and reached around her waist to grab at her breasts, squeezing and kneading them with his big hands while his butt pounded back and forth.
“That’s right baby. Work me hard,” Syrah cried.
Paloma wanted to leave, but found her feet rooted to the spot not wanting to watch, yet unable to look away. He pushed and shoved at Syrah, battering her like a ram.
How could he bang that low class cow? They did it animal style because that’s what they were. Animals. Syrah reached between her legs and grasped his balls. Keith cried out as he pushed inside her one more time. His buttocks clenched and he came with a roar, yelling his release and bucking against her.
Finally, Keith pulled out of Syrah and fell on the bed next to her. He ran his hands down her mahogany-colored skin, pinched her nipple and then reached between her legs to push a finger inside her. Syrah lay back, legs spread as he worked her with his fingers. Obviously, this was one bitch who needed a lot of satisfying.
Paloma felt bile rise in her mouth. She swallowed. When her husband finished with Syrah, he lay back and started stroking himself. Syrah leaned on her elbow and watched him. At one point, she checked her watch and Paloma could only stare. Syrah was in the middle of having hot and horny sex with Paloma’s husband and she was checking the time. Did she have a bus to catch?
Paloma couldn’t watch anymore. She backed away from the door, turned and ran down the hall to the stairs. She needed her mother. Her mother would help.
In the foyer, she grabbed her suitcase and let herself out after resetting the alarm. She stalked down the driveway trying to keep her rage under control. How long had the affair been going on?
She wasn’t going to let that bastard get away with this. He was going to pay for having the audacity to bring that bitch into Paloma’s home, into Paloma’s own bed. Bastard, she was going to rip his nuts off and have them as earrings. Forget she was a lady, she was going to have her revenge.
First she called a taxi and then she paced back and forth trying to decide what to do next. Her thoughts kept returning to the bedroom and the moans and groans, the slick bodies, the spanking. Is that what Keith had wanted to do to her? She knew their sex life was tame compared to what she had just seen, but had things been that bad?
Admittedly, Keith had spoken to her about her image. He’d been nagging her to change her image from classy to slutty. He’d complained her music wasn’t selling because she didn’t appeal to the younger set who had all the discretionary income these days. Obviously, he’d found his audience.
She finally called her brother, Matthew.
“Hey sis,” Matthew said.
Paloma took a deep breath. “Do you know a good divorce lawyer?”
“What’s wrong Paloma?”
She told him about what she’d just seen. “That bastard is cheating on me with that skanky
broad, Syrah, who wants to be a singer like me.” What had Keith promised Syrah to get her to do him so thoroughly? Her own contract, an album and chance at the stardom Paloma had spent the last fifteen years working for?
“I’m going to kill him,” Matthew said.
If anyone was going to kill him it would be her. “He’s not worth jail time. You didn’t answer my question. Do you know a good divorce lawyer?”
“I know one.”
“Then you call him and get things started. After you call him, I want you to start shifting my money around. I’m not gonna give that bastard a penny of anything I’ve worked for.” After all, what had he ever done but spend everything she earned on his precious Bentley, building his own recording studio and now on that tramp. How could she have been so blind? “Send Brandi to the bank to clear out the lock box. Make sure she gets all my jewelry.” Brandi was Matthew’s wife and Paloma’s stylist.
A cab cruised down the street and when the driver saw her, pulled to a stop. She got in and gave him her mother’s address out in Henderson.
“I’ll get Brandi to the bank ASAP. Where are you now?”
“In a cab, on my way to mom’s. I need some down time to think about what I’m going to do next.” Okay, she really wanted to hide. She wanted to lie in bed and eat bread pudding and have her mother fuss over her, just like she did when Paloma had been a child. That was the cure for every bad thing that had ever happened in her life.
Her brother laughed. “Good, I’ll give you a call as soon as I loot your accounts.”
“That isn’t illegal or anything, is it? I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
“I’m your lawyer, not his. Keith doesn’t have the balls to get dirty with me, so stop worrying.”
Too true. At six foot five inches, her brother was a former linebacker at LSU and could pretty much intimidate Satan. “I love you little brother.”
“I love you, too, big sis. Don’t worry, we’re going to get through this…together.”
She needed to hear that. “Thank you.” She disconnected and leaned back in the taxi. She was going to get through this. She would. She just didn’t know how.
The taxi pulled up to her mother’s house and Paloma paid the driver, grabbed her bag and got out. She was halfway up the stone path when her mother opened the front door.
Marianne Justin was a tiny, elegant woman with soft brown skin, a narrow face and hazel eyes. She was dressed in a beige Chanel suit, a gold necklace with matching bracelets and dainty Jimmy Choo shoes on her size five feet. Her mother dressed to go to the grocery store. Her dark brown wig was fashionably styled and her delicate face was the mirror image of Paloma even though Paloma was five inches taller and thirty pounds heavier.
At the sight of her daughter, Marianne Justin’s welcoming smile faded. “Paloma, what’s wrong?”
Paloma set her suitcase down on the stone flagstones, needing to feel her mother’s embrace to take away the pain. She abruptly burst into tears.
Marianne reached up and stroke Paloma’s face. “What happened?”
“Let’s go inside, the neighbors don’t need to hear me wailing away out here like a little kid.”
Inside the cool, rambling ranch house, Paloma tucked her bag in the hallway closet as her mother walked to the kitchen to fix her some sweet tea. Sweet tea was her mother’s cure all for life’s every ill.
Paloma went into the living room and sat down in her mother’s wicker rocker to stare at the rock garden that surrounded the patio.
Her mother’s heels clicked on the tiles as she made her way back into the living room. She set down a tray containing two frosted glasses and a pitcher full of tea on the coffee table. “Now tell me what’s wrong?” she asked as she poured tea and handed a glass to Paloma.
Paloma took a long sip and when she finished, she said, “Keith is cheating on me.”
Her mother sat on the chair opposite her. “What do you intend to do?”
“My first thought was murder, but I don’t want to go to jail. My second thought was revenge, but I don’t know what to do. My third thought was divorce, but somehow that seems too easy. I want him to suffer, I want him to hurt.” The pain inside Paloma grew and shattered until the tears filled her eyes again.
“Murder’s a little drastic, revenge would work easily enough, and divorce is definitely the way to go, but…” Marianne’s voice trailed away as she stared thoughtfully at the garden.
“Hell’s bells, please don’t suggest I try and work it out with Keith. You’ve never been his biggest fan. He had that bitch in my bed.” Frankly she half-expected her mother to load her shot gun and head out with guns blazing. That’s what Paloma wanted to do.
Marinane shook her head. “I’m not suggesting anything. I just want you to know I’ll be supportive of any decision you make. Personally, I want to skin him alive, chop him into little pieces and dump the debris over the Hoover Dam.”
Paloma laughed. No one was more classy and lady-like than her mother, but to hear her talk so savagely was…well, it was funny.
With one eyebrow raised, Marianne said, “You’re surprised?”
Paloma nodded. “Where did you get this vicious streak?” Note to self: stay on my mom’s good side.
“No one,” Marianne said in a fierce tone, “hurts one of my babies and gets away with it.”
Before Paloma could answer, her cell phone rang. She checked it seeing her brother’s number on the display. “Hello, Matthew,” she said.
“Paloma, I just checked with the banks. You’re broke,” he said without preamble.
“I’m what?” Had she heard him right? How could she be broke? This year alone had brought in almost fifteen million in song revenue alone.
“Everything’s gone. The money markets, savings accounts, checking accounts, everything’s gone. The house is mortgaged to the roof. He hasn’t paid the car insurance on any of your cars in three months.”
A numbness stole over her as she tried to make sense of what her brother was saying. “I have over forty-five million dollars in the bank. What the hell happened to all my money?” How could Keith do this to her? Fucking bastard. He was going to pay.
“I thought I’d call your accountant to ask what was going on, until I remembered he’s a partner with Keith in the recording studio and because Keith wouldn’t be able to get at your accounts with the accountant’s help, I decided to bypass him. So I had to go through things on my own and from what I can tell Keith has been siphoning money for the last year. A lot has gone to his recording studio, but a lot is just missing and I don’t see what he’s spent it on.”
She gripped the cell phone. “What about the safety deposit box at the bank?” She had stocks and bonds in the box along with her jewelry.
“Brandi’s not back yet.”
“When she gets back, call Christies and start arrangements to auction off my jewelry.” That would give her a few hundred thousand dollars or so. “I’ll call Harry Winston to let him know.” She had a couple pieces Harry had been wanting to purchase and had been nagging her to sell them to him.
“That could present a problem. Since you and Keith were married in Nevada and that’s a community property state, you’ll have to make a gift of your jewelry to someone you trust to hold it for you until after the divorce is final. Otherwise, it’s a marital asset.”
Her stomach knotted. She was poor again. Oh, God. She couldn’t be poor again, not after working so hard to get her and her family out of poverty. “Is there anything left at all?”
Her brother paused for a long moment. She could hear him breathing. Finally he said, “There’s about a hundred and ten thousand dollars in one of the savings accounts.”
“A hundred and ten thousand dollars! That isn’t enough money for a shark divorce lawyer.”
“Sis, don’t worry about paying a lawyer. You put me through law school, and helped me start my practice, my money is your money. I’ll pay for the damn divorce lawyer.”
P
aloma appreciated her brother’s comment, but couldn’t see through the anger. She reeled from the knowledge that fifteen years of albums, tours, Vegas shows and product endorsements was gone and she only had a hundred and ten thousand dollars. What the hell had Keith done with forty-five million dollars? No wonder he was dogging her into signing the new five-year contract for the casino. He needed more money to steal.
“Thanks, Matt.” She disconnected and put her phone away and turned to her mother. “That asshole has taken all my money.”
Her mother lifted her regal chin. “Your heart, your pride and now your money. What do you intend to do?”
A bitter taste laced her tongue. She swallowed it down. If nothing else now was not the time to be weak. “I’m going to make him pay. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but he will answer for this.”
Her mother picked calmly at a thread and then said in a sweet voice. “Kill him.”
Paloma stared at her mother. “What? Did I hear you right?”
“You heard me dear, I said kill him.”
She thought about getting Keith out of her life permanently. In a strange way that would be a blessing. But did she have the stomach to do it? She would be the first person that any sane person would suspect because she would have two strong motives. Besides, death would be too tidy. “I’m not going to kill him, I am going to punish him.”
“How?” Her mother sipped her tea.
For a surreal moment, she wondered how her mother could act so self-possessed and tranquil. Anyone eavesdropping would think they were talking about what they’d scored on their latest shopping expedition. “I don’t know how, but I do know I want him to suffer. For a long, long time.” Was eternity long enough?
Her mother’s perfectly groomed eyebrow rose. “How will you accomplish that?”
Paloma stood, her mind made up. “I’m going to New Orleans.”
“No.” Marianne shook her head, a look of fear in her eyes. “Don’t do that. The price is too high.”
