Daddy's Home (Firebacks Book 1)

by Linda Verji

  “That man put up those pictures of her after he raped her,” he said realizing that it was time to let Nadifa know. “Zain was raped.”

  He let Nadifa ruminate on that as he walked away.

  “Halake… Halake!” Nadifa caught up to him as he was climbing the stairs.

  Halake stopped walking and turned to face her. She stood at the foot of the stairs, slightly slouched forward with one bony hand holding the balustrade as if she depended on it to keep her standing. She was the picture of a dejected woman.

  “I’m just trying to make sure you’re happy.”

  He should’ve been angry with her, but all he felt was sadness because despite everything she was only trying to have his back the best way she knew how. The only problem was that she’d overstepped her bounds and someone had to tell her.

  “Ma,” he said, “making me happy is now Zain’s job.”

  It was time he got his wife back.

  * * *

  “You’re holding up the line,” Zain said.

  Eli ignored her as he asked, “No cheese?”

  “No!” the woman behind the counter said. “No cheese.”

  He didn’t even look up at the server, all his attention was on the burger wrapped in clear paper that sat on his plate next to the bowl of fruit and cup of yoghurt. “Low fat mayo?”

  “Yes Dr. Stone,” the server said curtly. The mustard yellow regulation shirt didn’t look good when combined with her high-yellow complexion. The way the tips of her ears reddened because of her irritation with Eli didn’t help much either.

  “Organic tomatoes?”

  “Yes.” The server eyed Eli with a cold stare designed to freeze his words as she fingered a stainless steel spatula.

  Eli didn’t notice. “Cilantr—”

  “Let’s go.” Zain pulled Eli away by the arm just as the server raised her arm because she had a feeling the spatula was headed right for Eli’s head. At the payment counter, she said, “You know that girl was about to kick your ass, right?”

  “Why?” Eli asked as he paid for their food, completely clueless as to why anyone would be irritated with him.

  Zain waited until they were seated at one of the tables to explain.

  “You’re doing that thing you do,” Zain said as she unwrapped her burger. Though Eli was a charming gentleman most of the time, he was extremely finicky when it came to his food, his work, and his space. Zain had discovered it the hard way when she worked as his RA.

  Documents had to be filed a certain way, seats arranged facing a particular direction, and his food had to be prepared in a certain way – among other things. His fastidiousness was what made him so good at a job that required rigorous attention to detail. But in day-to-day situations it could get really irritating. Zain explained, “You know…With the fussing and all.”

  “I should go apologize.” Eli started to stand, but Zain grabbed his white coat and tagged him back down to his seat.

  “Nah, don’t worry about it. She’s new. She’ll get used to you.”

  “Nope.” Eli shook his head the moment he unwrapped the burger. Peering at it over his black-rimmed glasses like it was a criminal headed for death row and he was the judge, he announced, “I can’t eat this.”

  “Why?” Zain asked. She leaned slightly forward to check out the offender. The burger looked perfectly fine to her. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “They cut my cucumber in stripes instead of circles.” He lifted one side of the whole-wheat bun to show her its contents. He pushed the plate towards her. “Do you want it?”

  “Your loss, my party!” Zain said as she grabbed the burger. She didn’t mind her cucumbers striped, circled, squared – as long as they were there. She’d had the appetite of two grown women lately – or horses as Chryssa claimed after declaring that she was thinking of applying for food stamps because Zain was eating her out of the house.

  Later, when Zain had finished both burgers and was tucking into her bowl of fruit, she asked, “You know you never did tell me what happened between you and Renée.”

  “The plumber happened.”

  “I’m sorry!” Zain was sure she’d heard him wrong. “What?”

  “The plumber,” Eli repeated simply. “She was cheating on me with the plumber.”

  Zain couldn’t help it. She burst into laughter. The very idea of anyone leaving a handsome, world-class surgeon was ludicrous! She stopped laughing when she realized he wasn’t laughing with her. He was serious. Her jaw dropped. “Renée left you for a plumber? Why?”

  “Something about me not being exciting enough.” Eli shrugged. “According to your friend, I was squeezing the life out of her.”

  “My frie— Oh! Chryssa?” When Chryssa stepped into court, she was a no holds barred attorney. She could make a squirrel look like a crazed chupacabra tearing apart the countryside – if she so chose. Feeling compelled to defend her friend, Zain said, “Don’t take it personal. She’s actually a really nice person when you get to know her.”

  “Chryssa Williams? Nice?” Eli laughed. “Huh!”

  It was too bad that he and Chryssa didn’t get along. From what she knew about Eli he’d be the perfect foil to Chryssa’s crazy and Chryssa could iron out his starchiness. Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head contemplatively as she looked at him.

  “Don’t even think about it!” Eli stopped her in the tracks of her budding matchmaking scheme. “Don’t you have your own love-life to worry about anyway?”

  “What love life?”

  “He’s a fool!” Eli reached for her hand as he said, “You’re a generous, intelligent woman. If he’s not man enough to handle his business, there are plenty of men who’re willing to pick up the slack.”

  “Aww!” She leaned towards Eli and kissed his cheek, “You say the sweetest things.”

  Zain began to straighten in her seat when a deep voice sounded behind her. “This how you’re doing it these days?”

  She turned abruptly. Her ponytail whipped with the quick movement as she came face-to-face with her husband. Shocked because he was the last person she expected to see, she exclaimed, “Lucky! What are you doing here?”

  “What’s up, wifey?” Lucky’s tone was cheery, but the look in his eyes as his gaze shifted between her and Eli was anything but cheery. He asked, “So this is the man trying to pick up my slack?”

  He was smiling, but Zain knew that smile.

  “Lucky, no.” Her chair squealed as she stood up and pressed a hand to his chest. “Not here.”

  He pushed Zain’s hand from his chest and kicked the foot of Eli’s seat. “What you got to say, bro?”

  “You’re misunderstanding our conversation,” Eli explained as he stood.

  “I’m not misunderstanding anything,” Lucky insisted.

  “Lucky, stop it.” Zain stood between them. She was eager to diffuse the situation, but being so small it was like trying to put out a forest fire using a fire extinguisher. “Eli, sit down.”

  “This is Eli?” Lucky’s bark of laughter drew the attention of everyone who wasn’t already watching. “Eli Stone.”

  “Dr. Eli Stone,” Eli corrected him as if things weren’t already bad enough.

  She’d started working for Eli right about the same time Lucky was trying to seduce her. Because she was half in love with Eli, she’d put off Lucky’s advances. Lucky had figured it out. Fortunately Eli had left for New York at the end of the semester and gave Lucky the space he needed to talk Zain into being his. Now, Eli was back!

  Lucky shrugged out of his jacket.

  Zain said, “Lucky put your jacket on.”

  “No, I took it off.,” Lucky said. “I wanna hear what your pal, Dr. Eli Stone, has to say about my manhood and picking up my slack.”

  He held out his green jacket to her. When she didn’t take it, he threw it on the table over her plate and her half-eaten bowl of fruit. Eli shrugged out of his doctor’s coat too.

  Oh hell no! These two were not about to fight
in front of the whole cafeteria while she stood there. Watching them pump their chest was embarrassing enough!

  “Let’s go!” Zain pushed at Lucky’s chest with both hands. When he didn’t budge, she turned her back to his chest and put her whole body into it.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he asked looking down at her, baffled but still unmoving. She pushed harder. Someone from the table beside them laughed, followed by someone else, another voice joined in the amused tittering that slowly picked up. Perhaps it was their laughter that did it because he finally took a step back, then another, and another.

  When she was sure he was moving, she turned and grabbed his arm before she walked him out of the cafeteria. She didn’t stop until they were in the on-call room.

  “What the hell was that?” Zain yelled the moment they had privacy. She paced the narrow space between the two double-decker cots that dominated the room.

  Instead of answering, Lucky sat down on one of the cots still seething in silent anger.

  “What was that out there?” Zain repeated, pointing to the door. “Coming up here and embarrassing me in my work place?”

  “You’re one to talk about embarrassment,” He returned. “I’m at home waiting on your ass to come back and you’re here kissing your exes? Talking about embarrassing!”

  “Kissing? Exes?” She guffawed. “Boy, you have really lost it! All this coming from the same guy who’s got my name plastered in magazines because he slept with a stripper.”

  “So you’re fucking that joker to get back at me?”

  “That’s none of your business.” She pointed to herself. “I’m none of your business. We’re separated so I can do whatever I want, kiss whoever I want. Do you and I’ll do me, remember?”

  “I’ll tell you what, Zain.” Lucky stood up. His gaze took a slow tour up and down her body before his lips widened in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I think I’ll take your advice.”

  He left the room with those cryptic words and slammed the door behind him. Zain realized only after he’d left that she still didn’t know what he’d come for.

  CHAPTER 16

  “I’m sorry about what happened,” Zain apologized to Eli in the scrubbing area of the operating room an hour later. They were scrubbing in for a craniotomy and she didn’t want any bad blood between them. It would make assisting very uncomfortable – to say the least.

  “No, I understand,” Eli said. “He was just jealous.”

  “No, he wasn’t. He was just acting like a fool as usual,” Zain insisted.

  “I know a jealous man when I see one,” Eli’s words were muffled by the surgical mask he’d tied around his face, “And that was a jealous man.”

  After everything that’d happened between them, it was flattering to think that Lucky still had the ability to become jealous when it came to her. Zain pushed aside thoughts of her husband as she followed Eli.

  Apart from Zain, there were two other surgeons, an anesthesiologist, and two nurses assisting Eli. Overhead, the surgical lights glared down on the man lying on the table. Soft instrumental music played in the background in accompaniment to Eli working. It was enthralling to observe him in his element. Like a master artiste stroking his brush over a blank canvas, Eli left his own brand with every glance of his scalpel against the patient’s brain.

  He’d just finished burring holes into the skull of the patient and had exposed the dura when he called Dr. Maston, another attending surgeon, to take over. Zain was okay up until Dr. Maston came and stood beside her. She didn’t know if it was the doctor’s shampoo, lotion, or deodorant. She only knew that whatever it was hit her hard.

  First came the cloying heat that seemed to spread from her nostrils, knot in her throat, and sink into her gullet. It was followed swiftly by a rolling sensation deep in the pit of her stomach that told her she was about to hurl. Without warning, Zain rushed out of the operating room and into the scrubbing area. She bent over the metallic sink as the contents of her stomach hurtled into it; burgers, fruit, and all.

  The puking seemed endless. Every time she tried to lift her head, there’d be that telltale rolling in her stomach, accompanied by the world tilting sideways on its axis, and then the inevitable hurl. She barely noticed that Eli had come behind her and was keeping her ponytail from the disgusting mess in the sink.

  “Did you smell that?” Zain complained as she washed out her mouth some time later.

  “Smell what?” Eli watched her with a concerned expression.

  “The perfume on Dr. Maston!” Zain clarified with a slight wince. “It smelled like this disgusting eau de rotten egg.”

  “I didn’t smell anything.” This coming from the guy who’d once sent her to ask one of his students to shower. Could it be that she was becoming more sensitive than Eli?

  Zain wasn’t the sensitive type. Her heart began to pound.

  No! There was no way it was possible. This had to be another false alarm.

  * * *

  How could Zain do this to him?

  Lucky stared unseeingly at passing traffic as the cab weaved through it. Heavy drops of rain pelted on the glass – he barely noticed. His mind was filled with images of Zain and Eli huddled up together, laughing.

  To think that he’d gone to apologize and ask her to come home when she was already shacking up with her old boyfriend. Lucky wasn’t surprised that Zain had fallen for Dr. Eli Stone with his fucking neurological whatever degree and a corny suburban family. He was the frat boy that women like Zain married. They didn’t marry ex-corner-boys from the ghetto.

  At the first sign of trouble, she’d run all the way back to the kind of guy who deserved her. Then she had the nerve to tell him to ‘do you’?

  He was damn well going to do him!

  Dinner was just he, the kids, and Marilynn. His mother had left the house in a huff after telling Marilynn that she’d never come back to his house again while Sonia was holed up in the pool-house as usual. The kids asked if Zain was coming for them on Saturday and he gave vague answers; first because he really didn’t know, and second because he wanted to forget about Zain.

  Forget her!

  Lucky waited until the kids were settled in bed and the house was quiet before he padded down the stairs, through the kitchen, and past the patio. The light drizzle peppered his face as he walked towards the pool house, but Lucky was a man on a mission and ignored it.

  He didn’t have to knock on the door. She saw him coming before he even got to the door and opened it. For a moment they stood looking at each other; Lucky at her doorstep, hands tucked into his red sweats and daring her to send him away – and Sonia held the door open, clad in just a white gown over a silky negligee, daring him to come inside.

  Her lips widened into a sultry smile and she stepped aside.

  “Come in Lucky.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Sonia led Lucky by hand to the bedroom. Once they were there, she closed the door and stood in front of him. Smiling, she shook the white gown off her slender shoulders to reveal the negligee beneath. The white fabric dipped enticingly into the V of her large breasts, draped over each curve of her body, and stopped mid-thigh.

  Zain would’ve looked better in that negligee. How could she have done this to him?

  Sonia prowled towards him, her lush lips curved into a predatory grin the closer she got. Once she was close – so close they were practically breathing the same air and her stomach was pushing against his lower body – she ran her palms over his face. The pads of her fingers lingered over his lips before she rose on tip toes and leant closer as if to kiss him. Lucky turned his head to the side at the last minute causing her lips to slide over his cheek instead.

  Zain was supposed to kiss him. How could she have done this to him?

  Sonia frowned at the stab, but didn’t say anything. She reached for the hem of his grey t-shirt instead. Her hands lightly grazed his skin as she pulled it off. He obediently raised his arms, allowing her to take it completely
off him, and leave him in only his navy blue sweat-shorts.

  “You have an amazing body,” She whispered, massaging the firm muscles of his pectorals. Her hand slid down his body, lingered over his toned abdomen, and paused between his thighs.

  “Big Daddy not happy to see me yet?” Sonia asked as she traced the length of his dormant shaft through his sweat-shorts.

  With Zain he’d be hard by now. How could she have done this to him?

  Lucky wanted to move away but stayed put. He didn’t have anywhere to be. Sonia dipped her hand into his shorts and grabbed his naked cock. Stroking it with practiced up and down motions that had it reluctantly awakening, she whispered triumphantly, “There we go!”

  To further encourage his cooperation, Sonia bent to lick his nipples and bite them. He could’ve told her that wouldn’t turn him on, but he silently let her have her way. Zain wouldn’t have needed any instructions. She knew her body just as much as he knew hers.

  Whispering of all things she’d let him do to her, Sonia continued to stroke him. She told him of how she’d make him forget every other pussy he’d ever been in as she pushed his shorts down and let them fall to the ground with a faint rustle. She flattered him with gasps of how big and hard he was and how she couldn’t wait to get him in her.

  He wanted her to just shut up and do her job because the only voice he wanted to hear was Zain’s. But even he wasn’t callous enough to do that. So he let Sonia talk as dirty as she wanted. Her heavy breasts swung underneath the silky fabric as she moved away from him and began to bend.

  “Uh!” Sonia winced as she stopped mid-bend, one hand rested on her back.

  “Are you okay?” Lucky worriedly asked. He immediately moved closer and placed his hand over her tummy.

  “I’m good,” Sonia gave him a smile stretched so tight across her face it was obvious she wasn’t. “I can do this.”

  Using one hand to supporting herself on the wall beside her, Sonia tried to lower her body again. Maybe it was the sight of the very pregnant Sonia struggling to get to her knees to please him, but it slapped Lucky out of the fog he’d been smothered in since he’d seen Zain with Eli at the hospital.