by Carl Weber
“Take a good look,” Orlando said. “You don’t recognize her?”
I was too distracted by the Chloe motorcycle jacket to check out her face. I could say one thing about her: bitch certainly had style.
“I ain’t never seen that bitch before,” I told him. My competitive streak went beyond just the athletic stuff. I had to be the baddest bitch in the room at all times, and when someone came along who threatened that title in the slightest, I was on it in a hurry. I definitely would have remembered this chick.
“You sure about that? Take another look, because you two used to be joined at the hip.” He was having fun at my expense, and I really didn’t like it.
“Orlando, stop playing games and tell me who the fuck she is.”
“It’s Sasha.”
I whipped my head around to glare at him. “Get the fuck outta here.” Sasha was our cousin, Uncle Lou’s daughter. When she was little she used to follow me around like I was a goddess. “Isn’t Sasha like, twelve years old or something?”
Orlando laughed hard. “Maybe when you left for Europe, but that was seven years ago.”
I had a flashback of the summer before I left for finishing school, when we took a vacation in Sag Harbor and Sasha came with us. She was barely in a training bra then, but looking at her now as she walked up the driveway with Daddy, I could see that she’d become all woman.
After Uncle Lou died, it was like Sasha dropped off the face of the earth. No one had heard from her, and Daddy never talked about her. At one point my aunt and uncle had enrolled her in the same finishing school that I went to, but I figured she’d dropped out and was probably wandering around Europe trying to find herself or some shit. I’d never really expected her to graduate from that school anyway. She was my cousin and all, but the little Sasha that I knew did not have the makings of an assassin as far as I was concerned.
“Where the hell has she been anyway?” I asked.
“From what I hear she followed in your footsteps and graduated at the top of her class. Been freelancing ever since.”
“Wait a minute. She survived that place?”
“Yup.” Orlando stood up from the table and put his plate in the sink. “Not only did she survive it, but I hear she broke quite a few of your old records too.”
I couldn’t tell if he was just trying to get me riled up. “Get the fuck outta here. No fucking way. Not that chick.”
He raised both hands with a laugh. “Hey, don’t kill the messenger. I’m sure all she wanted to do was impress you. You should take it as a compliment.”
“Compliment my ass.” I was suddenly wishing my cousin had stayed wherever the fuck she’d been hiding. “What is she doing here anyway? Ain’t nobody seen her in years.”
Orlando shrugged. “Moving in, I guess. Pop said he was going to offer her a job. From the looks of the suitcases, she accepted it.”
Daddy hadn’t talked about Sasha to us, but I guess he’d known where she was all along.
“A job doing what?” I asked.
Orlando hesitated. I knew I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.
“What job, Orlando?”
He looked at the floor as he spoke. “He offered her your job as trouble shooter until you get back on your feet.”
I slammed my hand on the table. “Back on my feet! Do I look like I’m not on my feet? I can’t believe Daddy would do this to me.”
“Look, with everything going on with H.E.A.T., plus the Jamaicans and my son, we both felt like we needed to have someone around to handle problems right now. It’s your job again when you come off of maternity leave.”
“I could come off right now if Momma would watch Jordan.”
Orlando spoke quietly, like that would keep me from going ballistic. “Well, we both know that’s not gonna happen, so try and make the best of it, okay?”
“This is some bullshit and you know it,” I said.
“Hello!” I heard Daddy call out from the foyer. “Where is everybody?”
“We’re in here,” Orlando answered and I gave him the finger.
“Come see your cousin Sasha,” Daddy yelled.
I stayed put at the table, but Orlando headed into the foyer. I listened as London, Harris, and Rio all took turns greeting Sasha. It was like one big, happy family reunion, and it was enough to make me sick.
“Paris!” Daddy called after a few minutes. “Get in here!”
I threw my napkin down on the table and plastered a fake smile on my face as I went in to the foyer. They had Sasha surrounded as if she were some long lost soldier returning from war. Hell, we thought Orlando was dead and he barely got this much attention.
“Is that my fly girl cousin?” Sasha broke away from the crowd and raced toward me, arms outstretched.
I took a step back, waving her away. “I’m all sweaty. I just worked out.” I was suddenly feeling a lot less sexy than I had just a little while ago.
“I don’t care. I missed you, girl.” She threw her arms around me anyway.
I made eye contact with Rio, hoping he’d get the hint and get this bitch off of me, but he just stood there with this stupid grin on his face, watching us hug. What the hell was wrong with everyone? I mean, I guess Sasha looked good or whatever, but it was like she had them all hypnotized by her beauty, and it was really starting to piss me off.
Momma finally walked in from the backyard carrying a basket filled with freshly cut flowers from her garden.
“Sasha, baby, how are you?” She put down the flowers and swept Sasha up in a motherly. I took that as my chance to escape, heading back into the kitchen to finish my breakfast.
“Be nice,” Orlando teased me as he came in and sat down beside me at the table.
“I am,” I lied.
“Good, because we’re gonna have enough family dissention with Ma all down on H.E.A.T. Trust me, we don’t need any more.”
“What dissention?” I asked, happy to change the subject. “I’m excited about H.E.A.T.”
“You are?”
“Hell yeah.”
I could see the relief on his face. “Glad somebody is.”
“Ma made her vote clear, but is someone else against it?”
“From what I hear, both London and Junior,” he said.
“Well, you should have known London was gonna vote with Momma. She got her head so far up Momma’s ass she could be her third intestine . . . but Junior? I’m kinda surprised about that.”
“I know. Mom got to him, convinced him it was too dangerous for the family. But I’m not so worried about the vote now. With me, you, Harris, and Pop, we’ve at least got a tie. The only real question mark is Rio.”
“Don’t worry about Rio,” I assured him. “I’ll talk to him. We’re gonna win this vote.” I took a sip of my orange juice and added, “Shit, we needed to be selling H.E.A.T. like yesterday. I’m already thinking about the G6 I’m gonna buy.”
“Yeah, well, don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” he warned. “Have you ever seen Rio go against Mom?”
I thought about what he said for a second. “You’re right. Maybe I should go talk to him now and find out where his head is at.”
“If you’re serious about that G6, then that’s exactly what you should do.”
Orlando
35
Harris had already been to Penn Presbyterian Hospital, so he knew exactly where he was going. Junior and I let him take the lead, following him into the elevator then past the nurse’s station, until we reached a door where an armed police officer stood guard.
“Harris Grant.” He handed his driver’s license to the guard, who then unlocked the door and allowed us to enter. He closed the door behind us.
Randy was in bed watching a soccer game.
“Comfortable?” Harris asked him.
He clicked off the TV and faced us. I saw the strong resemblance to Ruby, and my heart skipped a beat. Randy had a reaction to seeing me, too.
“I thought you
were dead,” he said. His tone suggested he wasn’t too happy to see me in one piece.
“I heard the same thing about you. Apparently we’re both harder to kill than some people would like.”
Randy pierced me with a look of open hostility. This was the first time we’d ever met, but this cat did not like me.
Harris crossed the room and sat in a chair next to the bed. Dispensing with any formalities, he got right to the point. “LC sent us. We need to know what you’re going to do.”
Randy narrowed his eyes and glared at Harris, but he didn’t say a word.
“So, what’s it gonna be?” Harris asked him again, unfazed by this guy’s hostility. After all, we weren’t the ones in custody.
Randy sat there breathing hard for a minute, clearly pissed off about his situation. I could relate to some extent, seeing as how I’d been held captive by someone not too long ago myself. Not that I gave a shit how this motherfucker felt. He was hiding my son. For all I cared, he could rot in jail.
“I’m not sure I like the terms of the deal anymore,” Randy finally replied.
“The terms of the deal?” Harris said with a scornful laugh. “The deal is, you either accept our assignment, or you go to prison for the rest of your life. Now stop wasting my fucking time.”
I watched Randy to see if his expression had changed. Nothing. This dude had balls of steel, that was for sure.
“Did you do the thing?” he asked Harris, who then opened his briefcase and pulled out his iPad. He typed in a few things and turned the screen to show Randy.
“One million dollars deposited in an untouchable Swiss bank account. Your money couldn’t be safer if it were in Fort Knox,” Harris explained. It was a huge sum of money, but after serious debate we had decided as a family that it was worth it. We wanted to bring Randy and his crew over to our side, and I wanted access to my son.
But Randy still didn’t seem ready to bite. “I don’t want to do this to Vinnie,” he said.
Now I wasn’t so sure if he had balls of steel or if Vinnie had him by the balls. Who the hell hesitates when there’s a million dollars on the table? Especially when all he had to do was kill a piece of shit who deserved to die anyway.
“We’re like brothers.” Randy pounded his fist against his chest in some sort of “one love” thing.
Harris leaned forward and spoke in a measured voice. “Let me tell you something about Vincent Dash. I’ve known him a long time, and he does not deserve your loyalty. Vinnie, your brother, your heart that you trust with your life, has taken over your business.”
There was a flicker of concern in Randy’s eyes, but he waved off Harris’s comment. “He just holding me space.”
“Really? Is that why I’m hearing he emptied out all of your bank accounts?”
“No way!” Randy countered vehemently.
“Check for yourself.” Harris handed him the iPad.
We all waited as Randy searched one account after another. His expression shifted from certainty to that of pure rage. He finally threw the iPad across the room.
“That motherfucker!” he roared. “I’m gonna kill him!”
The cop came running in with his gun drawn. Harris turned to the officer. “It’s okay. He just received some bad news. We have this under control. Go back outside to your newspaper.”
The cop looked at Randy, who was smart enough to calm down. The officer lowered his gun, shaking his head as he walked out.
The tone in the room changed completely. Randy turned to us and said, “I’m in. I’m all the way in. That motherfucker think he can play me for a fool.”
“Good.” Harris stood up to exit. “Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me while I make some calls to see if we can move this along.”
Junior got up to follow Harris out the door. He stopped when he noticed that I wasn’t moving.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I need to talk with Randy.”
“Okay, cool, but I’ma hang over here if you don’t mind.” Junior stood next to the door. Randy had shackles on his feet, but Junior obviously wasn’t ready to take any chances.
I turned to look at Randy. He was glaring at me with the same hatred that had filled his eyes when I walked in. If he had been anyone else I might have kicked the shit out of him for looking at me that way, but I needed to set the record straight about one thing, so I ignored his disrespect and sat down next to the bed.
“I don’t know what went wrong between me and your sister, but I want to see her,” I started.
He sat up, looking me straight in the eyes. “I’ll tell you what went wrong. It started wrong. You paid her to have sex with you. You treated her like a whore.”
It sounded so bad coming out of his mouth. “Yeah, it did start off that way, but your sister, she’s special. If I had to do it all over again . . .”
“Bullshit!” he shouted, cutting me off. “You don’t make a whore your woman. I done had many a whore, and I don’t give a shit about none of them.”
“Dammit, I love her!” I shouted back.
He sat back, staring at me with a genuinely puzzled expression. “You love her. Those are strong words. Do you expect me to believe you love my sister?”
“I don’t give a damn what you believe. I love your sister. I have probably since the day we met.”
I glanced over at Junior. He was staring at me too, but I saw support in his eyes. No matter what my family thought of Ruby, I think Junior was beginning to understand just how strongly I felt about her.
“Let me ask you something,” I said to Randy, who looked a little less hostile now. “Whose idea was it to name my child after Vinnie Dash?”
Now that he’d seen his bank accounts, the mention of Vinnie’s name made him sneer.
“It was my idea,” he admitted. “He was my best friend—at the time.”
“That was fucked up,” I said.
“Good. That was the whole idea, since you fucked over my sister.”
I shook my head and reached into my pocket. His eyes followed my hand as if he expected me to pull out a weapon. Instead, I pulled out a small box and opened it for him to see the ring inside.
“Would I give this to someone if I was trying to fuck her over?” I asked.
He glanced at the diamond ring. “What the fuck is that?” he asked, though I could tell his attitude was half for show now.
“This ring belonged to my grandmother. My mother gave it to me when I told her that Ruby was pregnant. I intended to marry your sister and raise my son.”
“And why am I supposed to believe that?” he asked skeptically. “You ain’t give it to her.”
“We went to war with Vinnie’s family, and when I got back Ruby was gone.”
From the look on his face, it seemed like Randy was trying to put the pieces together.
“Think about it,” I said to help him out. “Timing is pretty convenient, don’t you think? My family goes to war with Vinnie’s family, and that’s the same time he convinces you to get your sister out of New York—to take my child away from me?”
His forehead was wrinkled in concentration as he listened.
“And now he’s taking over your crew, emptying your bank accounts. He’s a disloyal motherfucker, Randy. You still sure he’s the guy you want your sister to marry?”
His breathing was hard and fast now. I’d finally struck a nerve.
“I swear on my life, man, I love Ruby,” I said. “As soon as we get rid of Vinnie Dash, I intend to marry her.” That was, of course, if she would still have me after everything that had happened.
He gave me a sideways glance, still not a hundred percent on board with me being in Ruby’s life. That was okay with me, though. I had no doubt in my mind now that he would kill Vinnie if he got the chance. The rest of it, we’d work out later. This may not have been the most traditional start of a friendship, but something told me it was enough for the two of us.
Sasha
36
I pulled up to the Sleepy
Hollow Motor Lodge and wondered what the hell had made them pick this place. Sleepy Hollow was one of those shabby roadside motels with entrances to the rooms on the outside of the building. I already knew it wasn’t my kind of place. Then again, nothing about the Pocono Mountain region of Pennsylvania was my kind of place. I couldn’t wait to get this over with and get back to New York.
Four of Junior’s men sat in an SUV about three spaces down from where I parked. I got out and headed toward the door, where I was greeted by two more of his men smoking cigarettes and trying to look inconspicuous as they stood guard. The taller of the two was named Chris. I’d met him a few days ago at the house. He was kinda cute, and if everything went according to plan I’d be fucking him before the night was out.
“Hey, sweetie, are my cousins inside?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am, they sure are. They’ve been waiting on you,” the other guy, Rob, replied in this corny-ass country accent.
I gave Chris a seductive wink then walked up to the door. I knocked twice, and Junior opened the door before I could knock a third time. Just as I expected, the room looked like something out of a bad movie, and it smelled like mildew. Orlando, who was sitting on the dingy sofa in the room, motioned for me to come over. He was wearing a white button down shirt with a gun holster over it. It was not unlike the one Junior wore every time I saw him. Only difference was Orlando looked like a cop.
“Oh my goodness,” I said as I entered the room. “You sure this place ain’t got bedbugs?” I can’t even begin to explain how disgusting it was.
I glanced across the room and noticed our guest sitting on the bed wearing a wife beater and jeans. He was actually kind of cute with his shaved head and chocolate complexion, but I must have freaked him out when I mentioned bedbugs, because he was looking around the spot where he was sitting like I’d just screamed fire and he was wearing gasoline drawers.
