He wanted with every fiber of his being to knock off the heads of the men who pulled him away from her that night. However, he knew that his father’s henchmen were just doing their job. If anything had happened to Glizzy, King Dex would have rained terror on the whole city. Instead, Glizzy tried every way that he could think of to find out who she was. It was no use. No one at the club that night knew who she was, nor could he locate her on social media. It would have helped if he’d gotten her real name and, had he known the night would end so chaotically, he would have pressed her for it.
Knock! Knock!
That time he couldn’t ignore the loud banging on his door. He groaned but got to his feet to see who was so hell-bent on interrupting his thoughts. When he flung open the door, he prepared to greet whoever it was with nasty words, but when he saw the stern face, he quickly pursed his lips.
“I’m going to act like I didn’t have to knock on this door twice for you to open it,” Whitney, the family housekeeper, said. She was dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a red NEBRASKA T-shirt, holding an empty basket on her hip. “It’s almost noon, boy. I know you weren’t in here sleeping. Since you were able to rip and run down these halls, I’ve never known you to sleep past nine o’clock.”
“Well, maybe a lot has changed since I’ve been gone,” Glizzy countered, but Whitney gave him a knowing look.
“A few things have changed, but not that much. Now, move.” She pushed him gently out of the way so that she could enter the room. “You didn’t bring your clothes to the washroom like I asked you.”
“Whitney.” Glizzy sighed and plopped back down on his bed. “How many times do I have to tell you that I can wash my own clothes?”
Whitney paid him no mind as she bustled around his room, picking up any stray garment that was out of place. He’d been home for less than a year after being gone for five, but she didn’t know why he thought anything would be different when he came back. She couldn’t understand how his mother, Shar, could make him clean up after himself. He was the prince, after all. And if Shar didn’t want to do it, she could at least hire somebody to do so.
It was no secret that Whitney was not fond of Glizzy’s mother. Whitney told King Dex when he first brought her home that she was trouble, but he didn’t want to listen. The next thing she knew, Shar and King Dex had given birth to a beautiful baby boy. Now, King Dex may have been a lot of things, but a deadbeat wasn’t one of them, which was why when Shar decided to check out of being a mother for a while, King Dex took Glizzy completely under his wing. Now, Whitney was completely opposed to the thought of her precious Glizzy living the street life, but it was inevitable. Not only was he the spitting image of his father, he acted just like him, too. Coming up, he always said he would be the boss just like his daddy. She just wished he could be the boss of something else.
Although King Dex told Whitney that Glizzy left to spend time with his mother, she saw right through that lie. After working with him for so long, she, unknown to him, was privy to all of his plans. At the time of Glizzy’s departure, King Dex had been working on expanding to Houston, Texas. Although that was where Shar resided, Whitney already knew the game. Glizzy, always geared up and ready to prove himself to his father, jumped at the chance to be the man in charge of an expansion project.
“I’m grown, Whit.” Glizzy grinned at the fuss the older woman was making. “My mama technically didn’t have to wash my clothes.”
“Hmm.” Whitney rolled her eyes. “Well, she could have. Hell, she needed to make up for lost time. When you first went down there, I sent her a list of the things you were accustomed to. You are a prince. There is no reason why you should have been living like a peasant!”
Glizzy burst out laughing, remembering his mother’s face when she read the letter from Whitney. Shar was mad for a whole week over it. “Does this heffa forget that I’m the one who pushed you out of my pussy?” she’d said.
In Whitney’s defense, she was the one who had practically raised him when Shar and King Dex separated. In the beginning, Glizzy was skeptical about moving to a state he had never been to, but King Dex made sure he was surrounded by familiar faces. At first, Glizzy stayed with Shar, but after six months, he knew he had to branch out on his own. The plan was for him to remain as low-key as possible until every deal was sealed, but when Shar started clocking his pockets and demanding that he pay all of her bills, he knew he had to go. He figured that if he was going to be paying any bills, they would be his own.
Whitney didn’t know all of that, though, and he wouldn’t tell her. She already hated his mother; it was no secret. Also, things in Houston ended up working out better than he had ever imagined. If it weren’t for the fact that his father had requested that he come back to Omaha, he probably would still be out there.
Glizzy opened his mouth to say something else but thought better of it. Although Whitney was technically an employee of his dad’s, she was practically like family. He should have been used to people waiting on him hand and foot by then because, like she said, he was a hood prince. He watched her tidy his room all the way up until she got to his closet.
“Wait!” he said, trying to stop her from opening the door, but it was too late.
“Boy!” she exclaimed, setting the basket in her arms on the ground. Kneeling, she grabbed a red boot from the floor of the walk-in closet and turned around to face him. “You cross-dressing now?”
The look of alarm on her face confused Glizzy’s insides. He didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended that she would even assume such a thing. There was only one way to get out of that one, or else he wouldn’t hear the end of it: tell the truth.
“I met a girl the other night.”
“You must have done some mighty good sneaking around then,” Whitney said, shutting the closet door. “Because I know whenever someone comes in and out of this here house.”
“She wasn’t here. I met her at the club.”
“Oh, you mean the one you almost lost your life at because you want to be fast!”
“Come on now, Whit.”
“Don’t ‘come on now’ me, boy. I don’t know what it is with you and your father and your infatuation with the fast life.”
“How was I supposed to know that they would be shooting?”
“In the path that you’re walking, that’s something you should expect at all times. Your father told me about how you were upset with his people for getting you out of there.”
“Yeah, because they dragged me away from her.”
“Her?”
“The girl I met that night.” Glizzy sighed in exasperation. “As soon as they started busting, Dad’s goons got me out of there. When things cleared up, I ran back in to see if she was okay, but all I found was this shoe.”
“And how do you know this is her shoe?”
“Those are special edition Christian Louboutin boots, the same ones that I was going to buy Nisa before she snaked me. I noticed them on Cinderella when I first saw her, and when I found it in the club, I knew it was hers. If she is still alive, she probably hates me.”
“Wait.” Whitney had to sit down next to him to make sense of what she was being told. “So, her name is Cinderella?”
“Yeah. I mean, no. I never got her full name before all that mess happened.”
Whitney pursed her lips and studied the boy she had grown to love like her very own son. She knew when he wasn’t acting like himself, and that was one of those times. She had never seen him so out of whack behind a girl. Her hand was on his comforter, and she could feel the warmth from his body. She knew he must have been holed up in that room for a while just lying in bed. He had always been what most would call the “player” type, but she would defend him by saying he was just testing the waters. He was young, so he had every right to date until he found that special girl. His last prospect, Nisa, was one Whitney didn’t have to worry about getting too far with her prince. From what he would tell her about Nisa, she already could tell
the little heffa was after him for his money and not his heart. Glizzy found that out when he found her in bed with another man.
Whitney cleared her throat and tried to put her words in order. Although she wanted to call him silly, she could tell that this Cinderella girl was weighing heavy on his mind. “So, you really like this girl, huh?”
“Yeah. I mean, I think so,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I know you’re probably thinking I sound silly as hell, but there was something about her, Whit. I just have this feeling that if I would have finished my night off with her, she would have been around for a while. I have this big-ass cloud of ‘what if’ over my head, and it’s eating me alive.”
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. What do you think I should do?”
“I think you should finish it the way it started,” she said, standing to her feet and picking up her basket. “I think you should throw the biggest party of the year and let the city know you’re looking for your Cinderella. If what you’re feeling is real, then I can bet my bottom dollar that she is feeling the same emotions.”
Glizzy’s face broke into a smile, something it hadn’t done until she had entered the room. One thing about Whitney was that she always had an answer for everything, and right then her answer was brilliant. “See, this is why I fuck with you, Whit.”
“Watch your mouth when you’re talking to me, boy,” Whitney said, walking toward the door. Right before she closed it, she turned her head to face him. “But you know I fuck with you too, Glizzy. Now, get your handsome self up and come downstairs to get some food!”
Chapter 7
The sound of the metal from the mailbox being lifted got Vy’s attention as she was walking by the front door. She was in the kitchen at the time, and all was silent in her home, surprisingly. Her brow raised simply because the mailman had already come that day, and she instantly set all that was in her hands down on the island in her kitchen. Drawing the pistol from her waist, she eased her way to the door and looked through the peephole. When she didn’t see anybody but her elderly neighbor, Mr. Vincent, outside doing some lawn work, she opened the door. Stepping out on the porch, she stood there for a second before making another move. Her head turned left and right, eyeing the street and trying to find anything out of place. Whoever had just been at her mailbox was long gone and, from the looks of it, they left something behind.
Pulling the white envelope out of her mailbox, she wasted no time in ripping it open. Inside was a note attached to an invitation with gold lettering. She read the note:
Your services have been requested for the event attached. Please make yourself available an hour before the event and two hours after.
She rolled her eyes, already knowing what that meant. King Dex not only hired them for his dirty laundry, but he also hired them for legit cleaning jobs. It was a way to clean the money that he paid them since, after all, they were his employees. Her eyes switched to the invitation, and she read it out loud. “‘Glizzy has formally invited you to the masquerade ball of the year! Please come dressed to flatter and ready to have a good time. P.S. Cinderella, Glizzy is looking for you.’ Oh, shit!”
Suddenly, Vy wasn’t concerned that whoever had dropped the letter off knew her address. Glizzy, after all, was the son of the man whose payroll she was on. The invitation had a plus one, and Vy knew exactly who she was going to invite. Going back into the house, she picked up everything that she had set down and began again what she had started to do in the first place.
Vy had been nothing but hospitable since Ava had been staying in her large guest room in the basement. She forced Ava to eat and to at least leave her room if she didn’t want to leave the house. She felt for Ava, but she was also a realist about situations. Like that morning: she was starting to grow attached to Ava, but she didn’t have one friend without a job. She didn’t mind Ava staying with her for as long as she needed to, and she didn’t expect her to pay any bills. Still, that didn’t mean she didn’t want her to get on her feet and get some money. She would be a horrible friend if she let Ava mope around and be broke at the same time. Vy didn’t care what anybody said; happiness cost money. The only people who were happy broke were the homeless, and even they posted on every corner and begged for change. The way she saw it, the more Ava didn’t move around, the deeper the depression she was in would get. She needed to keep herself busy so her thoughts would eventually transform themselves.
She sauntered down the stairs in her home, fully dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of her favorite skinny jeans. As soon as her feet touched the soft carpet in her basement, she headed toward the guest bedroom where Ava had been staying the past three days. In her arms, she carried a tray of food along with some orange juice and two shots of tequila. She knocked on the door to let Ava know she was there before twisting the knob.
“I come bearing gifts,” she said with a smile as she entered the room. “Bacon, eggs, and toast. Nothing too heavy for you.”
She was pleased to see that Ava was sitting at the burgundy vanity and that the room was brightly lit. Ava was fully dressed in jeans with the knees cut out and a black off-the-shoulder tunic sweater. Her hair had been neatly placed into two braids, and she was putting the finishing touches on her eyebrows when Vy set the tray on the bed.
“Thank you,” Ava said, giving Vy a small smile back. “It smells good.”
“It tastes good, too. I know because I stole a piece of your bacon on the way down here.” Vy grinned. “You look nice. Going somewhere?”
“No.” Ava shrugged her shoulders, standing up and heading over to her food. “I’m just tired of looking crazy. Thank you for letting me stay here. I know I haven’t been that good of a house guest since . . .”
She let her voice trail off, but Vy knew what she was trying to say. She watched the pain that Ava was wearing on the inside fight hard to show on her face. Vy felt for her deeply and, as a person who’d lost both of her parents, she knew that the pain Ava was feeling would never go away. She sighed and sat down on the bed beside Ava, grabbing both shots from the tray.
“Here,” she said, handing Ava hers. “Let’s take these first, and then I’m going to put you up on game.”
Ava hesitated to take the alcohol, but then suddenly she yearned to feel the burning sensation trickle down her throat. When she grabbed the large shot, she and Vy clinked glasses before downing the liquid. The orange juice was supposed to be the chaser, but neither reached for it. Vy sat there with her eyes closed and let the alcohol lift the buzz she already had.
“I’ve already been drinking this morning,” Vy said, opening her eyes, “so please excuse me if this comes out a little harsh. Look, I know it’s only been three days, and the shit that you’re feeling is unbearable.”
“What would you know about my pain? You don’t know what I’m feeling. You don’t have any worries in the world.”
“Oh, but I do,” Vy said, shooting sharp eyes in Ava’s direction. “You’re looking at the shit I have now and assuming that I have never struggled. Both of my parents were murdered when I was sixteen. Sixteen! Imagine being a pretty sixteen-year-old with a blossomed body in the system. I lost my virginity to the man who was supposed to be my foster father two weeks after being placed in the home that he shared with his wife. I tried to tell my caseworker, but she just placed me in another home. That time my foster parents’ son had his way with me. The shit kept happening until I ran away when I was seventeen. I didn’t have any money, didn’t even graduate high school. But by the grace of God, I ran into somebody who was able to put me on this cleaning business. It may be a little unconventional, but hey, shit happens. People get killed every day, and I am paid well to clean it up. So, see, I didn’t have time to mourn their deaths, because I was too busy trying to survive.
“You’re hurt, Ava. You have every right to feel that hurt, but don’t let it become you. The past is something that is not changeable. You just have to figure ou
t where to position your future. This house, my cars? That is how I repositioned my pain. By doing for myself what keeps me happy. You are the only one in control of your emotions, so feel that pain, but check that shit at the door. We gotta put you on to some money, mama. You’ve been stuck in this house for too long.”
At first, Ava wanted to be argumentative, but the more Vy spoke, the more she had to admit that she made sense. There was nothing that she could do to change the past. The only thing she could fix was the future. She clenched her eyes shut and inhaled deeply right before the tears slid from her eyes.
“This pain,” she whispered, shaking her head. “This pain in my chest is never going to go away. Not until I find out what happened to her.”
Vy reached and grabbed Ava’s hand and squeezed it. It was quivering ever so slightly. “I need to tell you something, Ava,” she said when the final tears had fallen from Ava’s eyes. “About what may have happened to your mother.”
Ava’s eyes met Vy’s serious expression, and her brow furrowed. If she knew something about her mother’s death, why would she just now be saying something?
“You weren’t in the state of mind to hear what I’m about to tell you.” Vy answered Ava’s silent question. “And, honestly, I still don’t think you are, but then again you might never be ready, so I’m just going to tell you. With this cleaning job, our team works for one person: King Dex.”
“Okay.”
“That means any job we get sent on to do, it’s his dirty work.”
Her words suddenly clicked in Ava’s head, and her throat contracted. It was as if someone were choking her and cutting off all of her access to the air around her. If she weren’t already sitting down, she would have fallen on the king-sized bed.
Hood Tales, Volume 1 Page 6
