Daddy's Home (Firebacks Book 1)

by Linda Verji

  “Baby, please don’t be angry with me.” Zain pleaded. “I’m just trying to explain how I feel. Maybe I’m not using the right words.”

  She needed to find the right ones because he sure as hell wasn’t a fan of where the conversation was leading. She paused as she tried to figure out the right words to say. “Not you. Our situation makes me unhappy. I thought I was satisfied with being just your wife and the mother of your children. It took leaving you and going back to work for me to discover that.”

  “Zain, I didn’t make you stopping working.”

  “I know,” she sighed. “It’s not just working though. Away from you, I’m in more control. I lashed out at your mother because I was frustrated and angry about depending on you so much.”

  “I’m your man,” he protested. “You’re supposed to depend on me.”

  “I know.”

  Then what do you want? He didn’t voice the question because he could see she was just as confused as he was and the conversation had frustrated her. Taking a deep breath he said, “Look, let’s just try the counseling. Hopefully we can figure out what you need to make you happy with me ‘cause there’s no way I’m letting you go. Okay?”

  She nodded, “Okay.”

  “We good?”

  “We’re good,” she returned. He pressed a kiss to her lips.

  CHAPTER 22

  “I still don’t understand why you have to get your own apartment.” Lucky heaved the last box from the trunk. Something that sounded suspiciously like metal clinked around in there. It certainly weighed as much as metal – the box was heavier than his truck.

  “Cause I need a place to stay.” Zain closed the trunk after him. She followed him across the parking lot only carrying a blue bucket. The complex that hosted Zain’s apartment had eight floors but no elevators. He’d been lucky her place was on the second floor, because considering the number of boxes she’d made him haul up the stairs, he was surprised he was still walking straight.

  “What?” Lucky huffed as he climbed the stairs. “Chryssa finally got tired of your overeating ass?”

  “Excuse me Mister.” Zain placed her hands on her hips behind him. “That’s your baby that’s giving me a bad rep on the street, and you know Chryssa wouldn’t kick me out. I just felt like I was putting her out with the kids running around her apartment every weekend. Iris broke her Van Camp vase last week. I swear I thought Chrys was going to sue us.”

  “Don’t be too sure she won’t,” Lucky groaned as he sat the heavy box down on the first floor landing to rest. “You know that woman is always trying to squeeze some money from someone.”

  “I’m glad I got a tycoon for a husband then.” She slapped his ass as she sashayed past him with a giggle and a teasing swing of the damn bucket.

  “Oh sure!” he grumbled under his breath as he followed her up. “Take my money to pay your friends, but don’t let me pay for you to live in a hotel.”

  “What you say?” Zain leaned over the railing, her eyebrow arched as if daring him to say something else and hope her sharp mother hearing didn’t catch it.

  “Nothing.”

  It’d been a month since they’d started counseling. In that month he’d discovered just how important being a doctor was to Zain. It wasn’t just a career, it was her calling. They were still trying to figure out how they’d work in her insane hours at the hospital and his frequent out-of-town trips during football season, and still manage to raise four kids.

  They’d explored his own disappointment with her dishonesty about being on birth control. Zain had apologized for not being honest about not being ready for children. Lucky got a mouthful for setting up his marriage for failure by hanging out in strip clubs with his friends even when he knew they were temptation’s breeding grounds while Zain was called out for never speaking out about it even though she hadn’t been comfortable with it because she ‘trusted’ him. There was trust and then there was stupidity. Zain had been straddling the fence.

  Discussions on Nadifa were the most uncomfortable, of course. Neither of them had come out of that battle unscarred. Lucky definitely didn’t like being called a Mommy’s boy who needed to let go of the apron strings and Zain didn’t appreciate being berated for her lofty expectations of his relationship with his mother. Of course she was number one! But she’d needed to realize that there were other numbers he needed to take care of after her– and Nadifa was one of them.

  Counseling was uncomfortable – helpful, but very uncomfortable!

  They remained separated but they were fixing their marriage stitch by stitch, which was why he‘d have preferred she move into a hotel. A hotel said temporary. An apartment, however…

  Zain had stubbornly insisted on getting a place she could afford on her own dime.

  “Ey, weakling!” Zain called out from the landing of the second floor, “hurry up.”

  “Why don’t we trade your bucket for my box, sweetheart?” His voice dripped with bogus sweetness.

  “Hah!” Zain’s laughter trilled as she made her way towards her apartment. “You wish.”

  He couldn’t help checking out her ass as he followed her. Zain was thirteen weeks in and had started to show. So far pregnancy had been good to her. She’d grown a fine ass and tits he constantly itched to touch her. Lucky had the vague suspicion that he might have inadvertently become one of those men who kept their wives pregnant all the time. Even now he was growing hard just watching her walk.

  “Stop groping me with your eyes, Mr. Ford.” Zain didn’t turn as she opened the door. Lucky simply grinned and followed her into the apartment. She called out, “Maari, Lily, Iris!”

  The kids had already run up to the apartment while their parents unpacked the trunk. Lucky didn’t understand why Zain was shouting though. Her place was so damn small that a whisper would’ve echoed into all its two bedrooms, living room, kitchen and tiny cubicle that was supposed to pass for a shower. It was bigger than the first apartment they’d shared together while in college- but not by much.

  “Mommy.” Iris ran out of one of the bedrooms and Zain instantly picked her up. Maari and Lily were slower to follow.

  “So what do you think about Mommy’s new place?” Zain asked.

  “It’s a’ight,” Maari said. The side eye he gave his father showed that he wasn’t impressed and blamed Lucky for it. What was Lucky supposed to do? Force Zain to take his money? He wasn’t happy with her Miss Independent streak either, but he could only push so far before they’d be right back to square one. She’d given him some leeway with very little of the furniture for what would be her new house, but she’d insisted on paying for everything else with her meager resident salary.

  Iris asked, “Mommy, are you poor?”

  Lucky couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

  Zain threw him the stink eye before she walked off with the kids, silently fuming. She walked into the kitchen some minutes later where Lucky was putting away a few of her things. When she saw him, she tried to walk back out but he grabbed her arm tagging her back into the room as he closed the door so the kids couldn’t walk in on them.

  “I’m sorry.” He chuckled as he pressed wet kisses on her face while she struggled to get out of his arms.

  “You were laughing at me.” Zain complained, “I know I’m not as rich as you, but this is mine.”

  “Baby, you know I didn’t mean it that way,” he explained. “It was just funny that she thought you were broke when we both know you’re the richest woman around. You’ve got both my heart and pocket on lockdown.”

  “Oh.” A smile broke out on her face.

  “Yeah, oh!” Lucky dragged her so close to his body that not even a laser would’ve been able to cut through them. Her breasts pressed against the hard planes of his chest reminding him that it’d been more than three months since he’d last had sex. He couldn’t resist lowering his head to take more of her sugar.

  She kissed him all too willingly, but bit his lips teasingly when he cupped
her ass and ground his dick into her stomach.“Uh uh.”

  “When?” He groaned in disappointment.

  “When she’s out,” Zain said. He didn’t even have to ask who ‘she’ was.

  “Damn!” His voice was rough against her cheek and his hands were insistent as he palmed her ass. “Baby, you know I’m trying.”

  And he was trying! The problem was Sonia was trying just as hard to drag out her inevitable exit. First she refused to sign the parental agreement that legally stated their terms for Ashenafi’s care. That wasn’t what had worried him though because all he’d need to do was set Chryssa on her and she’d be toast.

  No, what worried him was the fact that she was officially holed up in his pool house and refused to leave. He’d asked her to look for an apartment – one he was willing to buy for her – but Sonia claimed that she was too ill to leave the house and that if he wanted her to get an apartment so badly he should do it himself. So that’s what he’d done.

  With the help of a nice real estate manager named Marion and towing a protesting Victor around, he’d found her a nice three bedroom. It was far enough that she and Zain wouldn’t be cross paths but close enough that Lucky would be able to visit Ash at least once a day. She’d skimmed the pictures, decided that she didn’t like it and asked for five hundred grand so she could look for a place of her own.

  Yeah…He was stupid enough to give a stripper, who’d practically abandoned her son and refused to sign a parental agreement, that amount of money. She’d be in Mexico before the sun rose the next day and then back three months later demanding more cash. He was seriously considering hiring bouncers to carry her and her things out of the pool house.

  “Try harder. Then you can get all of this,” Zain said as she slipped a dainty hand between their bodies and cupped his dick through his shorts. She stroked him once upwards and once downwards as she whispered against his lips, “And more.”

  Yup! Sonia had some bouncers coming her way.

  * * *

  She could hear them speaking in his study.

  She couldn’t make out their words; just their voices.

  Polo and Dr. Calvin!

  Tasha despised Calvin with a passion. Not because he was an awful person or a bottom feeding weasel, which he was. But because he reminded her of what she was married to every time he came to her house – someone worse than an awful, bottom feeding weasel.

  Calvin only turned up at the Nelson home when Polo impregnated another woman. The last time Tasha had seen him, they’d been at six because number three had apparently discovered that she was pregnant again. So this new visit was what? Child number seven?

  A sudden rattling of chairs in the office caused Tasha to quickly dart away from the study door. She hurried into the den and stood behind its door. She took in silent measured breaths as she bid her heart to stop pounding so fiercely. She couldn’t let him catch her anywhere near his office because if he did…only God knew what he’d do. He might simply smile and bid her to greet Calvin, but he might also drag her upstairs where no one would hear her scream as he taught her another ‘lesson.’

  “…doing what you’re doing and I’ll always take care of you.” Polo’s voice held an edge of happiness as it wafted away from the study and got louder as the two men walked through the foyer. Tasha peered through the slit between the door and wall, watching Polo walk Calvin to the front door with his arm slung over Calvin’s slim shoulder.

  “You know I always have your back.” Calvin smiled at Polo, a sick little smile that told Tasha that there was indeed a baby number seven.

  What’s the mother’s name this time?

  It was stupidly risky and she should’ve let it go, but Tasha couldn’t help herself. She wanted to know. Polo always burnt the papers immediately after Calvin left, leaving Tasha to find out about her newest rival via the press or when the woman came pounding on their door. This time Tasha was determined to get ahead of the embarrassment.

  It was now or later! Now sounded too good to resist.

  The moment Polo and Calvin stepped outside, Tasha rushed into the study. The envelope on his desk called to her like a yellow neon sign warning her to prepare for danger. Her hands trembled as she picked it up, threw a nervous look at the open door and hurriedly extracted one of the two sheets of paper within the envelope.

  Her eyes quickly skimmed its contents. Her brow furrowed in confusion the more she read. Polo’s name wasn’t on the document. Instead, the document gave the details of a test comparing Lucky and Ashenafi, his new son’s, DNA.

  Wait! What? They weren’t a match? Zain had told her that the DNA tests had come up a match. Why did Polo even have the tests? Could Polo be doing Lucky a favor? Tasha breathed a sigh of relief. She’d been wrong, for once. It wasn’t her problem to deal with.

  Tasha stuffed the paper back into the envelope, eager to get out of the study. The envelope unfortunately slipped from her shaky hold in her nervous hurry. She bent to pick it up and saw the second sheet of paper sticking awkwardly out of the envelope. Even in her position – half bent, half standing – she could clearly read the writing.

  Ashenafi Ford against Polo Nelson II! Match!

  The horror was immediate.

  “What are you doing?”

  Tasha let out a small gasp as her eyes flew to the open door. Polo stood inside it, his arms crossed over his chest and his face deceptively expressionless as he looked at her then at the envelope that lay at her feet. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” The voice didn’t even sound like hers; it was mechanical and devoid of any emotion. Though fear rampantly coursed in her body, Tasha kept her steely gaze on his face as she stood to her full height and repeated, “Nothing.”

  He closed the door silently behind him. “Were you in my business again?” He didn’t raise his voice, but the menace was there with every step he took further into the room. Tasha tried to back away, but only ended up bumping against the desk.

  Polo kept coming until his body crowded against hers.

  Tasha tried to move away, but his fingers closed around her throat, lifting her until she stood on the tips of her toes and was at his eye level. He asked, “What did you see?”

  “Nothing, I swear!” She clung to his arm as his fingers squeezed into her neck. His hold wasn’t hard enough to choke her, but tight enough that she knew there’d be hell to pay if she said the wrong thing.

  “Tasha…Tasha…Tasha…Don’t lie to me!” Polo shook his head in disappointment. His grip on her throat tightened slightly. “But you won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  “N-n-no,” Tasha stammered. She wanted to slap herself for having stammered. She hated it – hated showing him fear of any kind because she knew he enjoyed it.

  “Good.” His mouth widened into a smile that lit his handsome face. He relished in her fear. Who’d have ever known that much evil could hide behind such beauty? Tasha did. He still smiled as he said, “Because you know that I’ll kill you if you say a word, right?”

  She nodded.

  Polo stared at her and tried to judge her sincerity. Her gaze remained rigid and his fingers tightened around her neck. She didn’t flinch or blink, even when she began to feel the blood rushing to her face as the air supply in her throat become thinner.

  He abruptly released the pressure and smiled, “Good. Now get down on your knees.”

  Tasha slowly slid to the floor, unzipped his pants, and knelt before him in subjugation.

  CHAPTER 23

  A trembling Sonia sat motionless on the couch, her eyes glued to the phone that sat in her hand. Sweat pooled in her armpits leaving stains on her tight, light grey t-shirt despite the fact that it was nine p.m. and the pool house had excellent air-conditioning. As if in response to the unnatural heat emanating from her skin, she shivered.

  The phone winked at her with its luminous blue, devilish light. The message it held glared back at her in ominous warning.

  Where’s my money Sonia?

>   He’d left it unsigned but the message was clear. He’d found her.

  Sonia’s eyes darted to the glass walls that enclosed the pool-house, her hearing attuned to the very least of movements. There was only eerie silence. Beyond the walls she could see nothing more than the yard-lights and the reflections they wrought on the swimming pool’s sparkling blue waters. Her gaze moved back to the message.

  Where’s my money Sonia?

  He wasn’t here yet! But he was coming. Of that she had no doubt!

  Félix hadn’t sent her any sign to remind her that her deadline was up for a while after Ashenafi was born and she’d deluded herself into thinking that he’d forgotten her, but she’d stayed holed up in the Ford home just to be cautious. Sure it was inconvenient that Lucky was a penny pincher, Zain was a weak-ass woman who took back cheaters, and Nadifa’s bootlicking ass had stopped giving her attention, but Sonia was sure that Félix couldn’t get to her here with the kind of security they had.

  Then she’d received the message: Where’s my money Sonia?

  She didn’t know how he’d gotten her new number – nobody had it. If he could get her number, he could get to her. She was in trouble – big, big trouble.

  Knock! Knock! Knock!

  Sonia jumped, startled by the sudden sound. Her chest heaved up and down as she took quick breaths and her free hand clasped her throat to keep from screaming. He was here.

  “Sonia, open up!” Lucky called.

  So caught up in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed him cross the yard. Relief coursed through her veins as she walked to the door, turned the lock, and pulled it open.

  “You’ll be moving to your new place tomorrow,” Lucky started as soon as he crossed the threshold. “I signed the contracts with the real estate agent today, got my people to move in some furniture for you so you don’t have anything to comp—”

  “A million dollars,” Sonia interrupted him. “A million dollars and I’ll give Ash to you.”