Rogue (In the life of the Rogue Book 1)

by KaNeshia Michelle

  My father eased another cigar between his lips and lit it. He tested a few puffs before feeling satisfied and sat back to smoke. Papa was here too, sitting in his own designated chair, not too far but far enough, from my father’s desk which used to be his.

  Papa always looked like old money; nice, tailored suits, and always sported sunglasses no matter if it was sunny outside or raining, day or night. He was a racist bastard and was mean about his digust with other races. Papa was truly a Rogue man. He loved his family and took pride in the name and the blood and the power. His reputation was as important to him as his life. Me being here, a man born of a black woman had placed a well size dent in Jarred Rogue, a man more brutal than a normal criminal would ever dreamed to be.

  Papa wasn’t much of a smoker – a cigar here and there, depending on the mood - but a heavy drinker. A brandy was attached to his hand already despite that it was only eight in the morning.

  Papa leaned back, looked at me for a moment, sizing me up and took a sip of his drink. “You pulled my son out of some shit last night, Tristan. You were the thinker; you thought on your feet and got the Rogue men out before the Feds swooped in.”

  I counted down to the racial slur that was surely coming.

  “Good to know that nigger blood ain’t overpowering the good Italian in you.”

  My father loosened another button on his jacket and Papa quickly massaged at his temples as if a headache was creeping up. It was a debate among the men if the Rogue boss and his father ever slept. I sometimes wondered if there was simply enough time to sleep. My father and Grandfather’s eyes were sharper than most dangerous crinimals, but there was something off about two Rogue men, like this life just cost too much than both was willing to pay. My father was only Fifty-eight years old; my Papa seventy-nine – both healthy looking men but tired men. A crime boss was the hardest working man I could ever picture. Papa had gotten out easy. My father had been the ideal candidate to carry the business when Eddie had struck out in the campaign a little too early.

  Could it be Johnny next?

  I shuddered at the thought of that fool running things. Johnny was the oldest at thirty-six years old but still a child. Lulina, kissing fifty in the next three years, had him so pussy whipped that even I wondered if it had of been better if he had been gay. She was domineering and a walking manipulation in every shape and form. Still even if I knew she was pure fire, I liked getting burned. As for my brother Ralph, age thrity-three, he was power hungy and very sloppy; him running the Rogue business was an out. As for me, twenty-four years old, going on twelve, I couldn’t handle a bag of popcorn from the microwave to my ratty couch without searing my fingertips.

  I was nothing more than a walking disaster… Anything less destructive wouldn’t do…

  My father took a healthy pull on his cigar. He blinked slowly. I wondered if he felt the noose tightening around his neck. He was getting older. It would be time to pick his predesscor and the picking was too slim.

  “Let’s keep this on track, Tristan,” he began, “Eddie’s on vacation at a safehouse and will be out for a while until this dies down.”

  “What’s our contact in the Bearu saying?” I asked.

  My father gave a rare smile that creased his skin in the corner of his eyes. “It was a hush hush raid that our source didn’t get wind of until it was over and had gone wrong.”

  Papa had caught the smile my father had given me and looked like he was two hiccups away from puking. “My youngest son won’t be without his consequences,” he said.

  It had been evident that Eddie’s slip up had started the shit downhill and now it was time for everyone to get their share of it.

  “And what about me?” I asked.

  Thankfully, my father answered the question. “The water’s hot but not boiling. Depending on how this conversation goes will determine how hot the water will get. Did anyone get a good look at you?”

  “The Agent I fought with put a full fledge flashlight in my face. I don’t see how he didn’t.”

  “What about Zander?”

  “You’ll have to ask him,” I told him.

  “I’m asking you!” My father barked loudly.

  It was a comforting bark, one I knew and was used to. I jumped anyway so he could feel like he rattled me.

  “Zander must have got caught with his pants at his ankles too. They fought and ended up in the room with me. I’m sure the Agent saw and could identify both of us if need be, but the scuffle was big and not even I could tell you what fully happened.”

  The cigar in my father’s mouth was still burning but it was apparent the pleasant taste of an illegal Cuban was no longer important. The facts were gained and now my father placated the next move. Papa looked like he was ready to throw himself in the mix of this by giving swift orders: Eddie get his vacation and put on a leash – or maybe shot because he brought Feds to the Rogue doorstep, a noose for me and a chain around Zander’s neck with a roaring truck ready to pull him to an ugly death. Papa was a vicous man who had respected the order of things and the bloodshed the family came with.

  My father motioned to his face around the beard area. “Stop shaving, grow your beard out.” He pointed to his hair. “Bald or long – your choice but it needs to be different until I know if your sketch is out there.”

  A beard was fine but my hair growing out meant long, dark brown curls that would be hard to keep up, but I wouldn’t tell him that.

  My father went on. “Zander’s on his way to Miami.” He pulled out a black and white photo of a middle aged, pudgy man and tossed it on his desk. “That’s Eddie’s right hand man, silent partner and another mouth to feed. That’s who fingered Eddie, and that’s the one who was wearing a wire to save his own damned neck.”

  “We dealing with him?” I questioned, fascinated by the idea of Jimmy Ricky’s killers going to pay the rat a visit.

  “Stick with what’s your business,” Papa griped and my father and I both noted the tone.

  My father tapped the end of his cigar. Ashes cleared, the ember burning hotly, he put the cigar back into his mouth. “His body is going to need cleaning up. Zander can handle it with a few of the boys I got in Miami, but if you want to go, you can be with him. Tristan, you stay here then you stay here for a while; and out of the fucking sight of the damned Feds.”

  My father chanced a glance at Papa for a moment then reached for his cigar. The move had been incapable to read since he never looked to Papa when he was handling business.

  “Miami is Lougotti territory,” My father went on, “The old fart still got muscle. It ain’t strong but he’ll have enough eyes to know we’re in his backyard. I want it quiet.”

  The question of staying here or leaving seemed odd. My father gave orders, not a multiple choice question. “So why stay here when you need me in the field?”

  “Because I got bodies that could handle it.”

  “Zander’s going out there, though?” I asked.

  There was a crucial point that I was missing and my father was losing patients. Getting out seemed great. Staying here in Chicago meant watching Lulina and Johnny fake a happy marriage around me without having Zander to pick up the pieces.

  “What’s it going to be, Tristan?” He asked.

  Without much thought, I answered, “Miami.”

  Papa smiled smugly in his chair. If I hadn’t of known better he looked like he could hug me but be damned if he got up to do it. “Screw up to the end,” he said.

  My father sighed loudly before turning to his father. “Leave me with my son for a moment.”

  After we were alone, my father walked to me and touched the back of my neck and brought me into a tight hug. His warm hand on my neck had been fatherly and loving but soon turned uncomfortable and slightly terrifying as he squeezed. The pain wasn’t bad but I tensed automatically and waited until he was ready to let go.

  “You embarrassed me, Tristan.” My father pushed me away and took his seat behind his desk. “Let
me repaint this picture. You and Zander were at Eddie’s to get your dick sucked for free, so that’s why you were knee deep in a raid.”

  Talking was bad and I knew it.

  “Is that right?” He asked again but still dared me to interrupt him while he was speaking.

  I said nothing.

  Ricardo Rogue was a business man from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. Papa liked spilling blood, but my father could spill blood, but be more on the logic side instead of the physical. Yet, he could be just as murderous as my grandfather, maybe more. He brought out a long blade and put the tip right at the crotch of my pants. The move had been so quick that I didn’t catch it until I felt the pressure.

  When he spoke, it was low but steady.

  I gulped, hard.

  “You going to Miami isn’t you thinking with the head on your shoulders but with the head that has a knife aimed at it.” He bared his straight white teeth. “Dare correct me.”

  I gulped again, harder than the first time.

  “Keep thinking with your dick, Tristan and you’ll lose it.” He eased the knife away. “Here.” He pushed a brown envelope over in my direction. “There’s ten grand in there. Twenty-five hundred of it is for the body last night. The rest is to substain you in Miami until this mess blows over.”

  I cleared my throat, and let a few seconds pass before trying to speak. I had to make sure my voice didn’t shake when I spoke. “How long will we be gone?”

  “Get this done and the FBI’s inside man will be out. With that, there won’t be much of a case, but that doesn’t mean they will back off. Make the money last until you hear from me. It better last until you hear from me, Tristan.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Only buckling in for the downward spiral…

  Walking into the Miami Resort I found myself furiously patting my clothes as if they were on fire. The bright sun and heat had done a number on me. I was a long way away from the cold streets of Chicago – away from the dark and grim, the chilly days and even chillier nights. My tie had been loosened, taken off and stuffed in my jacket pocket. My face poured sweat, which I used sleeve of my jacket to wipe off. I looked out of place in the lobby; a man in a suit, tie and jacket, among the folks walking around in shorts and short sleeve shirts, and the women in sundresses and bathing suits. I fiercely wondered if the people in Southbeach Miami actually knew what winter was.

  I was three sheets flapping in the fucking wind, so the heat was even crueler.

  The flight to Miami from Chicago had been nothing more than a blur of hard liquor as I tried to drown away the heartbreak of losing my affair with Lulina. My little pep talk of being happy that she ended it because that would mean that ever closing pendulum over my head had creaked before it stopped swinging, was losing steam more and more. Zander hadn’t been wrong in his assumption of her; however, my heart had taken different paths than my head, and my dick was somewhere lost in the shuffle.

  Surely I could have better than a forty-seven year old woman who had yet to retire her wardrobe of sexy, tight, clothing that was better suited for a twenty year old.

  Lulina Wells was already used goods as far as the Families were concerned. Her marriage to Johnny had been her second, and his’ first. Before him, she was Lougotti’s young trophy wife. Lougotti ran Miami with an iron fist back in the day, and of course Lulina was tight on his ass when he held the reins. Now he was sick, close to dying, and she was sucking on the neck of the next leader of the prestigious Rogue family.

  Her life as Mrs. Lougotti was common, public knowledge. Yet, the details of that marriage were something she kept closely hidden under the surface. I wasn’t a mind reader, or a woman with that second sight, but at times when I looked in her eyes I saw pain.

  It was an old pain.

  Yet, my drinking wasn’t dedicated completely to her. I drank heavy on the flight because my mind was in the crosshairs of an actual thought that didn’t pertain to booze and ass, and me and Zander’s dwindling money. It was about what my father meant about me staying. Did he mean I could stay there, as in moving back into the compound? Was my mistake, my time served as a wife fucker, no longer a factor? Or, was he keeping me close so he could keep an eye on me? The indecision wrecked my mind. The thought that I didn’t like the most was the thought that I had made the wrong decision.

  I kept my head down as I passed people, not making eye contact, and trying not to draw attention to myself. Upstairs, somewhere, was the Rat, Eddie’s little silent partner, whose picture was burning a hole in my inside jacket pocket – that and the heat - who had caused all of the Rogue’s F.B.I misfortune. Currently he was being tortured, maybe screaming for his life, maybe begging and pleading. Or, he could have quietly let the men who were going to kill him in into the room – understanding that it was no use running or trying to fight, he had made his bed and they were going to make him drown in it with a pillow stuffed in his mouth just in case he got second thoughts on the arriagement. I was just here to clean up the mess, but I wished for the quiet chambers of my basement of body desmemberment. At least there, it was quiet and I could think. Here, where kids could be running up and down the hall laughing and playing while I was hacking off a leg, or making a two hundred pound man into an eighty-nine pound consolidated mass of limbs that could fit in a bag or two, wasn’t the best place to work.

  When you did your dirt near the public, you had to leak into the crowd, not cause enough attention that someone would remember your face. The liquor was slowly draining away and my mind cleared as the business of the Rogue life excited me. But being inconspicuous was plenty hard when you were overdressed and sweating like a pig who just found out it was next in line to be gutted and cooked.

  I picked a vacant corner in the lobby to call my cousin.

  Zander sighed into the phone. “There’s a bar to the right, Tristan, I’ll meet you there.”

  I chose a booth in the back of the bar. Zander arrived not five minutes after I had taken my seat. The waitress was cute but I slipped a twenty dollar bill in her hand and told her to only come to our table when I signaled her to. She nodded and walked away and both Zander and I watched her ass as she moved.

  Zander was the first to snap out of her swaying hips and get down to business. “Man, am I glad you decided to come here with me.”

  He looked wrong as he said this. The color in his face was gone and his skin looked gray. I pushed my beer toward him and he lunged for it, finishing the drink in one gulp. He leaned over and stared at me long and hard. It’s all too easy to see how unsettled he was.

  “You didn’t see what I saw, T; they were killing him and doing it slow.”

  I may not have seen what he’s seen in the room but I’ve seen a man killed before. Afterwards I chugged a beer until the vomit taste in my mouth was gone, but I had moved on and understood that you had to get use to it. You had to get you used to the dull ache when you watched a man plead for his life then die horribly in front of your eyes, when his begging had been ignored. The more you saw it the more you ignored the dull ache.

  Zander’s a coward and it’s the first time I’ve realized it.

  I signaled the waitress for another beer. I took my time sipping the drink as I watched my cousin drain his. The fact he’s a coward doesn’t sit well with me.

  Cowards disgust those who aren’t…

  It’s the first lesson my father had ever beaten into me that actually stuck and I respected. Of course I’m sure I’m drunk – the number of drinks I’ve consumed in the last six hours has caught up with me – so I dismissed the thought, hoping I’m seeing things wrong.

  I took out a pack of cigarettes, gave Zander his smoke, and, together, we lit up. The inhale and exhale and the sheet of smoke as it left my mouth was nice. Zander liked it too.

  “How many guys are up there?” I started. I slung an arm over the back of the booth - the buzz of the drinks and the smoke taking over.

  “Three of ‘em,” he answered.


  “He make any noise?” I asked.

  Zander rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t want to think about it, Tristan.”

  “I need to know if an old lady has got her ear pressed to the door while I’m hacking his limbs.” I took another pull from the cigarette then stubbed it out. “This is what we do, okay? So how about you unhook your tits and quick acting like a bitch?”

  “Fuck you, Tristan,” he spat and took a long sip of his drink. “You’re thinking I ain’t got the heart for this. My father says as much, but you’re assholes are wrong.”

  “Listen, bitch,” – and I sipped my drink the entire time I’m talking – “Do I need to give you a moment to find your dick and screw it back on?”

  The drinks were now gone and I looked for the waitress to get her to serve another round.

  “Anything else?” She asked sweetly and smiled at me.

  Zander had smiled too which she seemed to ignore. I could feel his glare on me then. Maybe he was thinking about what his father had said in his bar before the Feds swooshed in.

  I was the looks in our little duo, which I didn’t entirely fess up to or deny. I wasn’t as tall as Zander, he being six feet and me topping out at five feet eight. My hair was curly – now a small curly afro – a light brown with a tinge of blonde highlights. I kept my face clean shaven except for a patch of hair under my chin and my lower lip. My eyes were a light brown, and if the light caught them right they could appear gold. Yet, the clean shaven look was soon about to go now that I was ordered grow out my beard.

  Zander was the typical tall dark and handsome. I would bet money that he could get women just fine. That is, if I wasn’t around to draw attention.

  Zander leaned forward and touched the waitress’ hand, waiting for her to meet his eyes. When they were looking at each other, he smiled slowly, his eyes focusing mostly on her cleavage than her face, and he attempted to try out one of my lines.

  The waitress had asked if we wanted anything else and he said: “You.”

  And with that the waitress poured his drink into his lap and strutted away. The moment struck me as ridicoulsy funny and I’m laughing with the idea that I’m going to slip her another twenty before leaving.