“You were right, Daddy. This is easy when it’s for the right reasons. These motherfuckers ain’t ready for the hurricane that’s about to come into town.”
Chapter 6
Celeste pulled her hood down over her forehead and looked across the street at the familiar two-story walk-up and took a deep breath. As she took a step to cross the street, two cars whizzed by her, honking their horns. The sound of honking horns made Celeste feel a warm comfort in the center of her chest. She compared the feeling to what it would feel like when a kid came home from school to the smell of baking cookies and a sweet kiss from her smiling mother.
“Flint, oh, how I’ve missed you,” Celeste mumbled, inhaling another lungful of the smoggy air before she darted across the street.
It was hard for Celeste to imagine herself being back on her old stomping grounds after being locked up for almost two entire years. She thought she’d never get out of the hospital and away from Dr. Syed. It felt damned good to be free. Now she knew how all of the dudes her father loaned money to felt when they got released from prison.
Celeste’s father was a very successful loan shark. He had clients throughout the city and had been in business for over twenty years. He was a second-generation Italian American and was groomed to take over the “family business” from a very young age. His father, Celeste’s grandfather, started out loaning money to low-income immigrants who were struggling to find jobs. They would get loans and pay them back at 10 percent interest. When his father died and he took over the business, he decided to expand the money lending to practically anyone, and he increased the interest rate to 50 percent. With the unemployment rate in Flint going up after some of the car manufacturing warehouses went overseas, it was very easy for him to get clients.
But he quickly learned that not everyone had intentions of paying him back, so he hired a handful of big guys to make sure clients made their required payments. His name and reputation spread throughout Flint like wildfire and people knew better than to mess with Louis Sorrentino. He was ruthless when it came to getting his money back, and he played only by his rules. His business kept flourishing as the years went on and his pockets just kept getting fatter. He knew better than to keep all of his eggs in one basket, so he eventually started an escorting business.
He hired girls of all different races to go out with lonely men and women in need of a pretty face to accompany them to birthday parties, job promotions, or just one-on-one dinners. For whatever reason, this business seemed to attract mostly cops, judges, and attorneys, which was great for his other business because now he had connections that would help keep him out of trouble if clients ever tried to rat on him.
Just when he thought things could not get any better, he met Marie, Celeste’s mother. Marie came to him broke, desperate, and inexperienced. She was young and looking for a way to make money. Someone gave her his information and told her he was always looking to hire girls, and she decided to meet with him and ask for a job. Marie was an exotic beauty. She had mesmerizing eyes and a dazzling smile that lit up a room. As soon as Louis saw her, he knew he’d make her his wife. They married within a year of meeting and Celeste was born four years later.
When Celeste was born, Louis fell completely in love with his daughter. She was the apple of his eye, and he would do anything for her. As far as he was concerned, she could do no wrong, and she was his little angel.
Cee Cee learned from a very young age that she could get away with pretty much anything by playing the sweet and innocent role. Growing up in a lavish two-story house nestled in Woodcroft Estates, she would run rampant all over the house while her nanny chased after her, begging her to stop. She would break expensive vases or statues, paint on the walls, and create the biggest messes for the nanny to clean up. When the nanny complained to her father, all Cee Cee would have to do was pout and say it was an accident, and all was forgiven. The nanny was never allowed to punish or reprimand her, so Cee Cee pretty much did whatever she wanted. She went through nannies almost every month because they couldn’t handle her energy and crazy antics.
Her mother would hear all the ruckus but never cared enough to intervene. She never had time to spare for little Cee Cee. She always seemed to be running out of the house for a hair or nail appointment, a workout session with her personal trainer, or a spa day. On days she wasn’t pampering herself, she would be preparing to go out to lunch, then shopping with friends, or to a charity or fundraiser of some sort. Cee Cee would sometimes ask to go with her, but Marie almost always said no. The only time she would agree to bring her daughter with her somewhere was if it was to her benefit. For example, if it was a mother-daughter brunch or a public event where she knew the press would be snapping pictures, she’d make sure to bring Cee Cee so people would see her wholesome motherly side. Cee Cee wasn’t a dumb kid. She knew her mother was just using her for attention. Either way, she didn’t care. She loved to play her princess role, and she played it well.
Cee Cee did a little shake in an attempt to get rid of the jitters that had her feeling like she was standing on the edge of a skyscraper about to fall off. She didn’t know why she was so nervous standing outside of her house. Then it dawned on her that this would be the first time she’d be in the house since her father had been killed.
When the door opened, she craned her neck to look up at a tall, monstrous man with a barrel chest and a huge square chin.
“What?” the man growled, his eyes covered in black shades even though he was indoors.
“I’m looking for my mother, Marie,” Cee Cee sassed as the giant scowled at her. She knew he was the paid security, but he didn’t scare her. Celeste smirked at the idea of having paid security at their house. Her father never paid security guards. He refused to look like a weakling who needed to hire protection. Louis Sorrentino’s reputation preceded him, and he stood on his own. Sometimes Cee Cee wished he would’ve had a security team; maybe he would still be alive.
The man attempted to close the door in Cee Cee’s face, but she quickly stuck her foot between the door and the wall. “You don’t have to close it,” she grumbled. “Once you tell her it’s her daughter I’m sure I’ll be cleared to enter the castle,” she said snidely.
Cee Cee could hear the security mumbling something to someone inside. After a few minutes, the door opened fully. “Oh, shit. Look who came home. The prodigal daughter has returned from the dark side,” Vinny, her father’s old business partner, sang sarcastically. “Come on in.”
The security didn’t bother to pat her down. Cee Cee guessed they were sleeping on her, which was just what she wanted them to do. She’d also learned from a young age to never let people see your true intentions because you never knew who you could trust. Her father had sent her to shooting lessons as soon as she was old enough to sign her up for it.
“Where’s my mother?” Cee Cee asked flatly, walking farther inside, ignoring Vinny’s smart remarks about her. It didn’t take long for her to get the answer to her questions. Marie was making her way down the spiral staircase just as Cee Cee got to the marble top table that stood in the entryway beneath a crystal chandelier.
“Wow,” Marie blurted when she reached Celeste, surprise registering on her face like newly applied makeup.
“Hello to you too,” Cee Cee muttered, rolling her eyes. Her mother still looked as good as she had when she was twenty years old. Marie had beautiful, clear, wrinkle-free, smooth skin. Her hair fell in long jet-black ringlets around her face and down her back. Marie’s curvaceous, hourglass physique hadn’t changed over the years and even after birthing her daughter she still had flat abs. Marie had taken to wearing all black ever since Sorrentino’s death, so she gave off the vibe of a biker maiden and not a mother type.
Cee Cee did notice one change: her mother no longer wore the tattoo on her wrist of her and Louis’s names intertwined in the infinity symbol. It had been replaced with a large blossoming blue lotus flower instead.
Fucking traitor! Cee C
ee screamed in her head. My father hasn’t been dead a full two years, and you’ve already gotten rid of your matching tattoos.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Celeste. It’s just no one from that place called me to say you were better . . . you know . . . your depression,” Marie recovered, walking over and giving Cee Cee a dry, perfunctory hug. Cee Cee’s body stiffened uncomfortably under her mother’s touch. She shrugged away from Marie, causing her mother to shrink away from her. They had never been good at exchanging affection or pleasantries, even when Cee Cee was a little girl.
“When did you get released?” Marie asked as she readjusted her blouse.
“What does it matter, Mom? It’s not like you cared anyway. Don’t play the role of a concerned mother now,” Cee Cee snapped.
“That’s not true, Celeste. Of course I care.” Marie put her hand over her chest and looked at her daughter with hurt in her eyes.
“Oh, please, Ma. Save your dramatics for one of your charity events. You didn’t care about how I was doing in there.” Celeste rolled her eyes.
“I obviously—”
“Obvious? You want to talk about obvious?” Celeste spat, causing her mother to snap her mouth shut. “The only thing you made obvious was how much you didn’t care when you didn’t once visit me after you locked me away. You don’t give a fuck about what I do,” Celeste hissed, her eyes flattening into dashes.
“Well, I didn’t visit you because there’s been a lot of things going on here that have been keeping me busy,” Marie stated very matter-of-factly.
“Oh, yeah, like what? Betraying your dead husband by making his partner your new little boyfriend? And to add insult to injury, you move him into the house and get Dad’s tattoo covered up?”
“Boyfriend?” Vinny interrupted. “I ain’t nobody’s boyfriend,” he said with a wide, sly smirk spreading on his face.
Celeste froze for a moment, and her heart dropped at the realization of what he had just said. She looked from Vinny to Marie, but Marie was looking to the ground to avoid making eye contact with Celeste.
“Mom. Please tell me it’s not what I think it is,” she said, shaking her head left to right.
Marie didn’t say a word. Instead, she left Celeste standing there looking confused as she simply walked out of the room.
Vinny took a step and leaned in toward Celeste’s face. “You might as well start calling me Daddy,” he whispered in her ear.
Chapter 7
Tiana slowly walked up the front porch, stepped up on top of the concrete banister to the right of the door, leaned her body over a spiked piece of wrought iron, and tapped out a code on the large window.
Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap. Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap.
“Who?” a voice boomed from behind the window after a few moments.
Tiana smiled when she recognized the voice, but she didn’t answer fast enough.
“Who the fuck is it?” the familiar voice shot.
“Open the fucking door, Drake!” she called out, leaning her face closer to the window. Although Tiana hadn’t said her name she knew her childhood best friend, Drake, recognized her knock code and her voice. Tiana couldn’t see him, and he couldn’t see her, but they both knew that the other was smiling.
Tiana shoved her shaking hands deep into her pants pockets and shifted her weight from one foot to the other as she waited for Drake to open the door. Her stomach fluttered when she heard the locks clicking. She wasn’t nervous about seeing Drake; she was nervous about why she’d come to see him and the obstacles that were ahead of her.
“Gotdamn, my dreams have come true,” Drake crooned as he pulled back the door with a beaming and bright smile on his face.
Tiana blushed as she looked into his handsome caramel-colored face. Drake was still one handsome dude. Tiana rushed into him with outstretched arms and a smile so wide Drake could see all thirty-two of her teeth.
Drake bear-hugged her, lifted her off of her feet, and spun her around. “Mmmm, damn, baby girl, I missed the fuck out of you,” Drake murmured into the skin of Tiana’s neck. His warm breath sent a few heated sparks down Tiana’s spine. Having a best friend who looked like a men’s magazine model was not easy.
Tiana was on the brink of tears, she was so happy to see him too. She knew if she cried Drake wouldn’t let her live it down. They’d been teasing one another about who was the weakest since they were five years old. Where they came from crying was the biggest sign of weakness.
Drake placed Tiana back on her feet, laced his fingers through hers, and pulled her farther inside. He shut the doors and employed the ten locks he had on them. Then he pulled Tiana down the long, dimly lit hallway to his apartment door.
“What the fuck is up, Tee?” Drake chimed, referring to Tiana by the nickname he’d made for her when they were kids.
“I’m fucking back out in the world, that’s what’s up. I’m here because you’re the only person who cared enough to write to me and send me shit after that bitch doctor sent me away to that piece of shit hospital. She signed that paperwork, put me out with the trash, and never looked back,” Tiana said as they stopped together right in front of Drake’s door at the first-floor apartment.
He owned the entire building but had tenants on the other floors. Drake had done well for himself, seeing that he was the son of a deceased heroin addict and a prison lifer. Drake had started hustling when he was ten and had risen through the street ranks. He had made a name for himself in the streets and was making more money than a little boy from the hood like him could’ve ever imagined.
Before opening the front door, Drake turned around to take in an eyeful of his friend, whom he’d always loved from the day he laid eyes on her. He looked at Tiana lovingly, but then he scrunched up his face when she moved into the light that hung above the door.
Drake balked. “Damn, Tee, you look like you been through hell or just came back from it. What’s with the all black? And the dirty hoodie? And why fuck you lose so much weight? Your clothes is hanging off of you. When’s the last time you combed your hair? How’d you get the cuts on your face and hands? What the fuck were you doing in that hospital? Fighting the devil n’shit? You look rough as fuck.”
Tiana pulled the sleeves on her sweater to try to cover her hands. With the commotion of her and the girls finally getting released and the excitement of coming back to Flint, her appearance had been the last thing on her mind. With him pointing it all out, she was feeling a bit embarrassed.
She wasn’t about to let him see it, though. She twisted her lips with a smirk of satisfaction. “Well, damn, I didn’t know you were gonna be looking at me so hard. I been in a psych ward for more than a year. You think that shit is like a resort? You think they had a hair salon and little clothing and shoes boutiques for me to buy outfits so I could look all cute and pretty at the group meetings?” She looked down at her worn-out sneakers and chuckled a little. “You’re right, though. I have been fighting the devil. But I beat his ass, and now I’m back!” She and Drake both smiled and leaned in to give each other daps.
“A’ight, well, I’m still not feeling all this shit. We need to go shopping right fucking now. And this hair, nah. I’m used to my girl having her hair smelling and looking like it belongs on a hair magazine cover. Remember how your dad used to always call you his cover girl?”
Tiana’s face went dark when Drake mentioned her father. Drake immediately regretted bringing him up. “I’m sorry, Tee. I didn’t mean to get you upset and thinking about your dad.”
“No, it’s okay, Drake. I think about him all the time anyway,” she admitted. “I do remember him calling me that and how much I hated it.”
Drake smiled at her last comment. “Yeah, you did. And you got mad at him every time he said it, too. You were too much of a tomboy to be called a cover girl,” he mocked her.
“Shut up!” she replied as she gave him a playful shove. “Well, are you gonna let me in or are we gonna stand here by the door all day?”
“
No, I ain’t letting you in just yet. Right now I’m gonna go get my keys, and me and you are heading out for the day. I’m gonna take you to Nina’s to get your hair done. You need a trim and possibly even some highlights up in that mess on top of your head right now. Then we have to get those nails of yours fixed up. I was planning on going to pick up some sneakers for myself at the mall later so might as well have you pick out some outfits and kicks too.”
Tiana was surprised to hear Drake go on about doing all these things men usually avoided. She never remembered him being the type to care or even know about women’s hair, nails, and clothing. “Um, Drake, since when do you know about all this girl stuff?” she questioned him.
“Since I know how I like my women to look.” He smirked and winked at her before running inside to grab his keys.
Tee felt herself blushing. She remembered when Drake’s voice started changing and he got tall and athletic out of nowhere. She didn’t have many friends in school, especially female friends. But in tenth grade, girls started trying to talk to her and act like they were interested in getting to know her. She quickly realized that all these girls were just pretending to want to be friends with her because they wanted to ask her questions about Drake. She found it hilarious how these girls had such big crushes on him because to her he was like a brother. She just didn’t see him in that light. It wasn’t until their senior year that she began seeing him differently.
It was Friday night, and they had made plans to go catch a movie. Tiana got to his house early, and his mother told her he was in the bathroom taking a shower. Tiana excused herself and went to Drake’s room to wait for him.
Drake’s mom was on the couch high off of something. She was used to seeing her son coming home with girls all the time. Usually, she was too high or drunk to care, but she had noticed that Drake treated Tiana different from the rest. She knew Tiana was special to him because she was the only one he’d ever let in his bedroom. All the other girls never made it past the living room where he’d usually have them fuck him or suck him. His mother never complained or said anything to him because, at this point, he was the one paying all the bills, and he even gave her some money from time to time, and she wasn’t about to mess that up for herself.
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