Lose Control (Firebacks Book 3)

by Linda Verji

  “When?”she asked. “And how many pairs of jeans do you have?”

  “I don’t think my wardrobe is your concern.”

  “You don’t even have one do you?” Chryssa turned away from the computer screen, swiveling to and fro on her seat as she teased, “What about shorts?”

  “Chryssa!” he snapped.

  Her mouth widened in a smile. “Yes, Dr. Stone.”

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  “Of course.” This time her laughter was audible. She could practically hear his irritation crackling over the line and it only amused her more.

  “Are you done?” Despite the reproach his words were meant to convey she could hear the smile in his own voice.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she apologized as she wound down her laughter into an occasional chuckle. “You know what we’ll do? We’ll go shopping tomorrow before we head out to Zain’s for dinner.”

  “No,” he protested. “That’s not even part of our agreement?”

  “I just made it part of our agreement. Haven’t you ever heard of the saying image is everything?” Chryssa wheedled as she whirled around on her seat. “If you want women to think of you as more than a stuffy stick, you need to look the part.”

  “I hate shopping.”

  “I’m not surprised.” She laughed. “Cheer up it will only take about four to six hours tops.”

  “What? No! I’m not-” Chryssa ended the call before Eli could finish his blustering protest. They were going shopping. End of story. She couldn’t wait to try and buy him a thong. Eli would have a heart attack.

  She was still smiling at the thought when Aaron barged into her office without even bothering to knock. “I got more information on that Hanna Clayton woman.”

  “Hit me with it.”

  Aaron handed her a file and Chryssa opened it.

  “You do realize that you’re kind of a receptionist, right?” Chryssa said as she drew the file closer and turned to the first page. Her brow furrowed at the title of the first page. “Hanna Simms Clayton. Simms. Do I know that name?”

  “You do.” Aaron nodded before he added, “Malcolm Simms.”

  He looked at Chryssa expectantly waiting for her to figure it out. It took a while but finally her eyes widened as the implications hit her. “Noooo.”

  “Yessss.”

  “She can’t be.” Even growing up in New York, Chryssa was aware of Simm’s notoriety. He’d clawed his way up the Latino crowded LA drug space to end up as the head of one of the city’s largest drug syndicates.

  “She is.” Aaron emphasized. “Malcolm Simm’s daughter in the flesh.”

  “I thought there was a rumor that one of her father’s rivals ordered a hit on her once Simms was indicted.”

  “She must’ve escaped it somehow because she lives and true to her genetics, continues to terrorize people.”

  “This is courtroom gold,” Chryssa mused as she scanned the rest of the file that detailed the rest of Hanna’s rise to criminal justice. Aaron had really done a thorough investigation. “It’s really too bad that I can’t use it.”

  “What’d you mean you can’t use it?”

  “Hanna’s practically agreed to a friendly custody discussion. Blowing up her identity will only hurt our negotiations.”

  “You mean I put in all this work and you’re not going to use it?” Aaron’s tone was outraged. “Unbelievable!”

  He flounced out of the office to Chryssa’s laughter. As she drove home later in the evening, she couldn’t help but wonder how much of Malcolm Simms had actually rubbed onto Hanna. Obviously a little bit of it had, given the way Hanna had duped Kian into signing away his parental rights. It was also unsettling to realize exactly how much she and Hanna were alike; both lawyers and both having criminal fathers. Chryssa hated to think of what else they had in common.

  She stopped by the supermarket. With Mickey in the house, her refrigerator was emptying out faster than an ATM on payday. By the time Chryssa smoothly parked her car in the underground parking lot of her own building, it was past seven p.m.

  “Hey Walt,” Chryssa greeted the doorman as she stepped into the elevator holding two bags of groceries.

  “Miss Chryssa.” He smiled. “Would you like me to help you with those?”

  “No it’s okay, they’re not that heavy.” She returned his smile. He pressed the sixth floor button for her. The elevator groaned before beginning its ascent. She asked. “How’s the script writing going?”

  When he wasn’t door-manning, Walt was a budding playwright. He beamed, “Almost done.”

  “Don’t forget I get first dibs,” Chryssa insisted just as the doors opened up to the floor.

  “You’ll be the first to see it Miss Chryssa.” Walt nodded. Considering he’d been ‘almost done’ for the last year and a half, Chryssa doubted the probability of that happening, but she said ‘Thank you’ anyway before walking towards her apartment.

  Even from the hallway she could hear the boisterous sounds of men laughter coming from inside of her apartment. Assuming Mickey must’ve invited some friends over she pasted a ready smile on her face and turned the door knob.

  The moment she opened the door, she was welcomed by the loud sound of cheering on the TV along with Mickey’s, “Oh c’mon, that was a straight up foul.”

  “A foul? The nigga just put his hands up. It ain’t his fault that Kobe walked right into them.”

  The moment Chryssa heard the voice the blood in her veins froze and the smile fell from her lips. Even after twenty years she could still recognize its distinct deep lilt.

  No! Maybe I’m wrong. Heart pounding, she took a step into the house her gaze automatically focusing on the couch. As expected, Mickey was seated there, his eyes on the basketball game that was playing on the flat screen hanging on the stone wall. Unexpected was the man seated next to him chugging on a can of beer and laughing his head off.

  Carter Williams.

  What the hell was her father doing here?

  CHAPTER 8

  Carter was unbelievable. No! Mickey was unbelievable.

  The two were so engrossed in the basketball game they were watching on her TV that neither man had even notice her entrance into the house.

  Unbelievable!

  She could feel the anger swell in her until it felt like molten lava rushing through her veins in heavy thick waves. If she was a cartoon kettle, she would’ve blown her lid by now.

  BANG. She slammed the door hard almost shaking it in its hinges. The sound was loud enough to overshadow the cheering on the TV. Startled, both men turned to find an almost blind with fury Chryssa standing at the door, shopping bags still in her hand.

  The moment her father’s eyes met hers, the memories came rushing in like a flood that had just burst its banks. Memories of the times without him;

  *

  “Let me help you with that.”Chryssa tried to tag the heavy shopping bag from Mickey’s hand as they climbed the stairs. Mr. Jackson had let them carry some cans of food that were about to expire from his store. She hated taking handouts but what was she to do? With Betty sick again, she couldn’t work.

  Chryssa’s part time jobs as a research assistant on weekday afternoons, grading high school papers at night and working at Mr. Jacksons as a cashier over the weekends could hardly pay for her books, the rent and buy food for the three of them. Her only option was to take any handouts she could get.

  “I’m eleven,” Mickey said yanking the bag away from her. “I can carry it.”

  “Fine. Hurt yourself.”

  Lately he’d been trying to act all man of the house on her. Last week she’d been called to school because he was skipping. She’d gone to look for him only to find him washing cars at Papa Frank’s. When she’d dragged him out of there by his ear he’d been crying that he just wanted to earn some money to help her out. The same day she’d gone looking for an extra job grading papers for her former high school teacher.

  Mickey was too yo
ung to be burdened too.

  “Did you get any homework today?” Chryssa asked.

  “Yeah, but I finished it on the bus.” Mickey huffed behind her. When Betty was okay she usually did as much as she could, but those days were becoming less and less. Even after all these years she was still in denial. Every time she had an episode, they had to drag her kicking and screaming to the hospital. The doctors would help her out and she would come back to reasonable normality. As soon as she left the hospital though, she would stop taking her drugs and the sickness would come again.

  At nineteen, Chryssa was old enough to walk away from it all with Mickey, but she didn’t want to. That was her mother. However she was stumped. She honestly didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like she could force Betty to take her drugs.

  By the time Chryssa got to their floor, her brother was two flights of stairs behind her. As expected the hallway to their apartment was quiet. Betty had just come from the hospital so right now the mania had died down replaced by pensive silence. Chryssa tagged at the doorknob expecting it to be open but it wasn’t.

  Strange!

  She rummaged through her school bag for her keys. They jangled as she extracted them then pressed one into the door lock. The door swung open. The sight that met her would have curdled the sturdiest of blood.

  No. No. No.

  Chryssa throat closed up and she couldn’t breathe. Blood rushed to her head threatening her with a dead faint and for a moment she was too shocked to even react at the scene in front of her. That was until she had Mickey’s footsteps behind her. She immediately shut the door.

  “Michael! Go to Ray’s house.” She struggled to keep her voice from breaking.

  “Why?” he asked still coming towards her.

  “I said go to Ray’s house.” He must’ve heard the stress in her voice because he propped the bag with their food on the wall, “Okay.”

  Chryssa watched him walk away with his shoulders slumped as if he knew something was wrong. He had no idea how wrong it was. Inside the house, Betty was in the dress she had gotten married to Carter Williams in hanging from the beams of their living room.

  *

  If he’d been there, things would never have turned out the way they did. Carter had been the only one who could handle Betty. The moment he was sent to prison, everything had gone to shit. Chryssa had tried. She had tried. But she was not Carter.

  Her father might’ve been several miles away living on beans but as far as she was concerned he’d hooked Betty’s rope on those beams himself. Because of his selfishness she’d not only lost her childhood, but her mother too. And she would never, ever forgive him.

  “Chrys?” Mickey was the first to speak between the two men. There was a wary note to his voice.

  “Get out of my house.” Chryssa’s words were for her father. He’d changed a lot. Prison and age had worked a number on him. Gone was the strong muscular man she remembered carrying her on his shoulder. Instead a slender, salty haired replica with wariness in his eyes stood in his place. She repeated, “Get out of my house.”

  He wasn’t moving fast enough. She dropped the shopping bags ready to heave him out herself if she had to. But before she could get to him, Mickey had already sprung over the couch. One minute she was moving towards Carter, the next Mickey had his arms wrapped around her waist as he bodily lifted her in the air.

  “Put me down, Michael,” she growled through gritted teeth.

  “After we’ve talked.” Mickey calmly walked with her towards the bedroom. His response only made Chryssa angrier and in retaliation she muffed his head then slapped his shoulder. His body tensed but he continued walking, “Calm down Chrys.”

  Once in her room, he set her down blocking the path to the door. Though her brother had a couple of inches on her and was more built, Chryssa was sure she could take him. She stared at him angrily as he snapped the key in the lock then tucked it into the pocket of his dark wash jeans. He said, “Okay let’s talk.”

  The fact the he could be so calm when rage was pouring off of her in waves only irritated Chryssa more and for a while she didn’t even speak. Mickey leaned back against the door watching her. When she spoke her voice was tense with anger, “What’s he doing here?”

  “I thought the two of you needed to talk,” Mickey answered.

  “How many times have I told you to stop thinking when it comes to me and Carter?” Chryssa yelled.

  Mickey flinched slightly at the rise in volume of her voice but instead of responding to her question he said, “Dad.”

  “What?” she said caught off-guard by the one word response.

  “Dad not Carter.”

  “Are you kidding me? You bring this man to my house and you’re concern is that I’m calling him Carter?” She paced the room, hand on hip as she spoke.

  “Chrys, you need to forgive him,” Mickey pleaded. “He’s our father.”

  “He’s your father. My father would never go hitting banks when he knows he’s got a family waiting for him. Fathers don’t get carted off to jail in front of their children. A real father would’ve taken the first deal the government put on the table. And he certainly would’ve never chosen his ‘friends’ over his own family.” By the time she was done with her diatribe, Chryssa’s hand was shaking so hard she had to drop it from her waist. She finished off with, “So, No. He’s not my father.”

  She was only ten when a barrage of policemen had burst into their house in the middle of Sunday dinner and dragged Carter off in handcuffs. They’d offered him a deal, turn in his associates and they would give him a lesser deal. Carter had spat on it ‘I ain’t a snitch’. The worst part was that the cops already knew who the others were; they just felt sorry for his family. The embarrassment of the trial was nothing compared to what Betty had turned into after his incarceration.

  “He made a mistake,” Mickey tried to explain. “He just wants to fix it and get to know us.”

  He really didn’t understand, did he? Mickey was too busy trying to play peacemaker and bring their family together that he was blind to the true situation here. Chryssa took angry strides towards the vanity table. Picking up the small vase that held dried flowers, she threw it to the ground hard. It shattered into several pieces littering the green carpet with shards of glass.

  “What the hell?” Mickey straightened from the door.

  “You see that.” She was no longer yelling but there was intensity in her eyes as she pointed to the broken vase. “You don’t get to fix something you’ve already broken. It’s gone.”

  Carter had chosen his lane. Why couldn’t he just stick to it and stay the hell away from her? She turned to Michael, “I’m not playing with you, Michael. He’s getting out of my house. If I have to remove him myself you’re going with him.”

  “Chrys, plea-” His words were cut off by a soft knock on the door.

  Their father’s deep voice echoed through the wood, “Mickey, I’m just gon go now.”

  The siblings stared down each other, both keeping an ear to the steadily fading patter of their father’s feet then the soft click as the front door shut behind him. One’s shoulders stiff with anger, the other’s slumped in disappointment.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Absolutely not!” Eli pronounced. A slow turn around while looking at the mirror only confirmed what he already knew. “I look ridiculous.”

  “No, you don’t!” Chryssa dropped the book she was reading on the coffee table and straightened on the couch. Her eyes lit up and she smiled as she exclaimed. “Your ass looks great in those shorts.”

  Eli straightened out his green polo-shirt over the black cargo shorts. The last time he’d walked around in public in anything that didn’t cover his calves was – never. He complained, “I look like a thug.”

  “Boy, don’t flatter yourself!” Chryssa said as she stood up. “You couldn’t look like a thug even if I bought you a dorug and a BB gun.”

  He tracked her progress towards him. She made the white
t-shirt, tight white capri jeans and black suede stilettos look good. He’d been itching to touch her ever since they’d met up an hour ago in front of Darlene’s, a popular apparel store. However, he didn’t know the protocol for their relationship beyond the bedroom and was letting Chryssa take the lead. It felt foreign to let someone guide any aspect of his life, including his clothing choices, but it was the least she deserved after their fiasco of a first lesson.

  Eli wasn’t stupid or blind. He knew that he hadn’t brought Chryssa to an orgasm. Now, he couldn’t help replaying every lovemaking session he’d ever had with Renée. He’d thought that the reasons she didn’t make any sounds in bed were because she was naturally meek. But maybe that was just because he wasn’t doing his job and she wasn’t the type to tell him. He was so embarrassed that if he didn’t owe Chryssa a dinner as her ‘man’ he probably would’ve backed out of their agreement.

  Considering how blunt Chryssa was, he’d expected her to rail at him for his abysmal performance at sex immediately after their encounter or today. Surprisingly she hadn’t. Instead she’d proceeded to charm him with her warm character and razor sharp wit while somehow convincing him to buy clothes he would never in a million years have thought of buying himself.

  He was fully aware of his contradictory feelings towards her. But mostly because he was gradually discovering that he’d misread her. Who she was as a lawyer was just one very small part of the real Chryssa Williams. The more time he spent with her, the more he realized it. Already by watching her with her friends and their families, he’d realized that under that prickly hard exterior was a woman who was very loyal to her friends and loved children. Now, here she was being considerate of his ego. He was intrigued by her, fascinated.

  “You have hairy legs,” she said as she stopped behind him, her proximity causing his senses to prickle in awareness. The prickling only increased when she set her chin on his shoulder and her hands on his waist. “Maybe we should shave them.”