Maz stood silently, patiently, while Naithon flicked his lighter and toked a few times on the end of the cigarillo then retrieved his drink. “Nait…” Maz watched his friend’s skin darken, head lower, staring at the drink he held in his lap. Maz said, “He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”
An ugly snort, Naithon spouted fiercely, “Not important? You mean like my legs?” Shaking his head, he took a heavy swallow. “First he stole my girl, then he fucking broke my goddamned back. But,” he said, shaking his head again with a mirthless laugh, “I’m sure there’s something much more important than being paralyzed and cuckold.” He drained his glass then sat while Maz grabbed up the bottle of vodka and brought it over, and refilled Naithon’s drink.
“Hmm,” Maz murmured noncommittally.
Exhaling harshly, Naithon grumbled, “Fine, go get my brother.”
“Okay. Teodor’s downstairs, I’ll bring him up too. You’ll have our enduring support, Nait. We’re your true family now, your brothers by choice. Your disloyal blood brothers are just your father’s spent sperm.” He clapped Naithon on the shoulder and ambled from the room leaving Naithon alone with his ravaged thoughts, memories flowing of when his body had shattered.
“Hey, Naithon, baby.” The blonde female didn’t wait for permission to enter because Silver Dae Foxx, not her real name of course, never marched to another’s beating drum. She sauntered in, skirt barely covering her large bottom. The fuchsia wrap-around blouse did little to contain her enormous breasts. Either way she leaned, a tit threatened to tumble out.
Heavy makeup painted her face, lips dark red, thick liner swooped over brown eyes. Strong perfume overpowered the faint smell of the cigar.
Naithon put the cigar out, set the glass next to the ashtray and moved his chair to a window. The office building and his home crawled with his soldiers as well as strippers from his clubs, and groupie girls that wanted to live on the wild, dangerous side. The chair didn’t faze the women, they followed him around like felines to cream. Silver Dae claimed dominance over the others for his attentions.
Ignoring her, he stared blankly out the glass. Autumn was in full bloom, turning the green leaves to flaming colors. Under trees the grass was sprinkled with dried leaves like crinkled red and orange dandruff. When the wind gusted, the leaves wisped and rolled like tossed confetti.
The city of Chaleur, Louisiana stretched out below him, steel and glass hodge-podged with old timey shacks. Muffled roars of engines and blaring horns made their way up to his floor.
Used to his perpetual smoldering rage and broodiness, Silver sashayed to him. Leaning over Naithon from behind, she draped her arms around his neck, crossing her wrists over his broad chest, platinum locks brushed the sides of his face. He gave no reaction to her touching him.
“Baby,” Silver’s voice against his ear a tad husky from cigarettes, “you have amazingly strict discipline. Even in that chair you dress every day in a pristine suit and tie. Where’d you get that habit? From your dad?”
Naithon sat immobile entrenched in his dark thoughts, letting her pet him, his mind was immersed in his tormented past.
Pushing his tie aside, she slipped her fingers inside his shirt between buttons and stroked his chest. “Naity,” she cooed. “Such fair hair on top and such dense dark hair on your chest. So sexy.”
Forcing her fingers in further to caress the matting of hair, she sighed. “The tattoos on your back, your arms, here,” she brushed a fingertip up and across his collarbone. “Are these from the gangs or prison?”
Flashes of images of being initiated into the first gang struck him. A male had to be pounded by the others, almost to the extent Duce Delducci and his brothers had done to him, to the very edge of death. And he had to submit to the gang tattoos to be accepted, amongst other heinously evil things he had to do to prove his loyalty.
He blinked to vanish the images, but new ones arrived. The gangs were nothing compared to prison. Held down again and again, restrained while other inmates whipped him, carved tats on him, and sank the occasional shank into his ribs. Ja, he carried his life in colors on his body.
At his continued ignoring her, Silver came around the front of him and tried to slip onto his lap. Shoving her away, he growled gruffly, “You know I don’t like bitches on my lap unless you’re taking my dick. Don’t want that right now.”
She let his ire roll off her back. “Come on, lover, I know what you can do in and out of that chair, on a bed. Maybe you want me to service you? My pleasure. I’ll get right on it, sugar.”
Licking her lips, Silver lowered to her knees in front of him. Lifting the pedals under his feet, moving both aside, she pushed his legs apart to wriggle between them then positioned the plaid afghan down to his knees. Tugging on his belt, she cooed, “We know this ain’t broke, huh, sugar?”
Shoulder-length blonde curls bounced around her shoulders as she bent over him. Her murmurs muffled from her head bending over his lap, “Yeah, how you manage such feral sex with paralyzed legs I can never figure, but,” she shrugged with a smile, “I’ll take it.”
Silver frowned up at him. “But you need to drop it down a notch, honey, no more hospital visits for me, okay? You know you really hurt Veronica bad that time you were with her. You need to leash the ferociousness of that rage a bit. I mean, not that we’re complaining, and, sure, Veronica being the true masochist that she is, asks for it super violent,” she ran a spread hand over his male package before unbuckling his belt.
“Nice, brother,” Misolav snarked in Romanian as he entered the office, his wife, Fiereza on his arm.
Never hesitating, Silver unbuttoned Naithon’s trousers as if they didn’t have an audience and grasped his zipper. Naithon considered letting her suck him off in front of everyone, but he really wasn’t in the mood, he put his palm on her head and pushed her aside.
She whined in a curse, but climbed to her feet. Smirking at the other occupants, she strolled to the nearest chair and ungracefully plunked on it.
Fiereza stared down her nose at Silver with a blatant sneer.
Silver sniffed, fluffed her fluffy blonde hair and returned the same disdainful look.
“To what do I owe this…non-pleasure?” Naithon asked in Romanian as he fixed his pants and buckled his belt. He swung the chair around to face his guests.
“Hey, it’s rude to speak in a language not everyone knows,” Silver pouted. Crossing her legs, her skirt rose up her thighs to an almost indecent height, she draped an arm languorously over the chair arm, her fingers dangled. The wrap blouse exposed more than it covered, part of an areole showed, she shifted slightly and the nipple peeked out.
In an impeccable Gucci suit, Louboutin stilettoes that she made every effort for the red soles to be seen, Fiereza sneered at Silver’s cheap hussy outfit. Arrow straight, sleek scarlet hair swished across her back, long bangs hair-sprayed to the side looked as shellacked as the varnished floor. Fiereza’s attention moved to Naithon’s lap, a penciled scarlet brow arched.
He stared back at her unblinking. Copious lashes thick and unnatural as her hair flapped over Fiereza’s golden eyes, a challenge?
Remembering her coming to his bed one night after Fiereza and Misolav had married, she had told Naithon even paralyzed he was ten times the lover Misolav was. He fucked her to spite his brother. Fast, violent, he came, didn’t wait for her, then, with contemptuous disgust, he tossed the frustrated harlot out of his room. Discarded her as fast as he had the condom.
Although she begged, he hadn’t let her near him since. He’d fallen for her sultry tricks when he was young, now she repulsed him. He didn’t find her narrow-hipped body any more attractive than one of the tall shedding trees outside.
His brother Misolav, as husky as their father with the same coloring of dark hair, brown eyes, thickening features, had moved from his wife to cross over to the bar. “Whad’ya want, babe?” he asked over his shoulder to his wife.
“Make mine bourbon rocks, thanks, honey,
” Mazonn said cheerfully entering the room. “And for you?” he grinned at Teodor Ivchenko who was right behind him.
Mazonn and Teodor were longtime friends of Naithon’s from the old country. They had all met while in prison when they were in their teens and considered themselves true brothers. Each would give his life for the other.
The three friends resembled each other in that they were all tall, broad shouldered, and handsome in a scary, brutally tough way. They could frighten a person to a heart attack with one ruthless look.
Maz winked a blue eye impudently, a ridicule to Fiereza, and grinned at Naithon. Naithon’s face was rugged and cold, the hard, black cinder eyes blank.
“All these years and you never learned manners,” Fiereza chided Maz with a snooty air. Turning from Maz to Misolav, “I’ll have wine, Misolav,” she told her husband, “you know that,” her words held a hint of condescension.
Over by the bar, Misolav sighed. Reaching for the cooler door that held the wines he asked, “What kind, babe?”
Naithon uttered in a bored tone, “Veuve Clicquot Brut.”
Misolav stiffened. Fiereza smiled widely, purred, “Ah, you remembered.” She turned her golden brown eyes to Naithon, lips rouged a deep red curved in a sexy kitten smile. Her gazed flicked to Silver then to Naithon’s groin. “Showing the hooker that you aren’t completely broken? Perhaps I married the wrong brother.”
At her husband’s harsh gasp, and Naithon’s cold blank blink, she shrugged. “Just kidding. Relax, Misolav, it was a joke.”
Teodor muttered, “Ja, as soon as you realized Misolav, not Naithon, was the heir apparent, you closed your slutty legs to Nait and spread your ass cheeks wide for Mislo.”
“Shut your filthy mouth, you bastard.” Misolav shoved the tip of the corkscrew into the wine bottle with irritation.
Used to Naithon’s friends disparaging her for her trampy ways, swaying lean hips, Fiereza sauntered over to where her husband was making the drinks. She set a manicured hand on his shoulder, he stiffened under it. She whispered in his ear, most of it was inaudible, but the word ‘cripple’ was clear.
Standing near Naithon, Mazonn flushed dark red, shoulders rigid, fists clenched, he started across the room to where the couple whispered, barking, “Your fault, you bastard, Mislo, it’s your fault he-” Naithon shot out a hand, stopping him.
Steaming, Maz glanced at Teodor who looked just as grim, then he let out an angry breath. The two friends moved to flank Naithon as if protecting him.
Naithon started in Romanian, then at Silver’s glare switched to English. The years in America hadn’t softened his behavior or thick accent. “What do you want, Misolav? Why are you here?”
Everyone waited while Mislo passed out drinks. He refilled Naithon’s glass without asking, took a healthy swig of his own drink and replenished it, then took another huge gulp. “Ah,” he groaned, “that’s good. Of course you always have top shelf, Nait.”
“Mislo,” Naithon growled. Mazonn and Teodor edged towards Misolav.
“Okay, fine. We’ve had trouble with the Delduccis.”
Naithon shrugged wide shoulders. “So what? That’s nothing new.”
“Yeah, but Brother-”
“Don’t call me Brother!” Naithon barked so furiously the women jumped.
Guilt scribbled across his thick face, Mislo said, “You need to forgive, Brother. We are family, blood, it was an accident-”
“Accident?” Instead of rising, Naithon’s voice lowered, deepened with darkness. His fingers coiled around the wheel rims and tightened, his knuckles turned white.
Trying to soothe the ruffling feathers, Fiereza tutted, “Come on boys, it’s water under the bridge, let’s-” at the seething, dangerous look on Naithon’s face, she broke off and drank her wine.
Naithon growled, “Just spit out your garbage, Misolav, and get the hell out of here while you can still walk.”
Mazonn and Teodor with matching fuming expressions crept closer to Misolav as a double threat.
Gulping hard, Misolav sucked down his drink and set the empty glass on the bar. He faced his brother. “They’re trying to take over our territory, Nait. The Delducci family has become brazen and fearless. We tried to meet with them but Ignacio, the old man blew us off.”
Settling his bulky shoulders back in his chair, Naithon drew big fingers through the thick blond hair that curled on the ends, and bumped a shoulder. “So? What’s it to me? Da took everything I had, every dollar I’d saved, every business I opened and owned.
“He forged papers to rob me blind then kicked me out on the street when I was a teenager. Left me with nothing. The gang I had to join to make a living got caught, and I got thrown into prison and then had to start all over at 22. Two years later you steal my girl, cripple me. Get the fuck out of my house.” He swung his wheelchair away from his brother.
“No, wait.” Mislo held his hands out, palms up. “Just because you and Fiereza were lovers when you were a teenager, you couldn’t expect her to wait for you while you were in prison.”
Naithon swung the chair back, his face a reviling mask of hatred he spouted, “You forget, Brother, we were together when I got out. For months, until you fucked her.”
“Get over it, Nait,” Mislo said in sneering exasperation, “you were an infant, she needed a man-”
“Get the fuck out.” Eyes narrowed to slits, Naithon spun his chair and wheeled across the room, away from his brother.
Misolav stepped towards him then halted when Maz and Teo blocked his way. His hands back up, Mislo said hurriedly, “Listen, our old man is sick. Delducci’s taking too much, we’re gonna lose our shirts.”
“So what,” Naithon grunted. “Means nothing to me. Let that bitch Verona take care of him, she certainly was never a mother to me.”
“Don’t you talk about my mother like that!” Now angry, Mislo rolled his hands into fists.
Maz and Teo, faces like rocks moved to stand a blockade between Mislo and Naithon.
Silver Dae took that heated moment to slide out of the room. Fiereza merely sipped her wine and watched the action.
Calming down, Misolav said with careful pleading, “The cousins. Think about the innocent cousins, Naithon, the babies, Verona’s nephews, there’ll be no roof over their heads, you want that for them?”
Scowling, Naithon rumbled coldly, “No one ever gave a damn about me. What do I care?”
“Da might have kicked you out, Nait, but it’s still your heritage. You want the Delduccis to take over what is the Adranokovs’? You want Delduccis living on our land? In our house? Rubbing it in our- your face?”
Brows low over angry hooded eyes, Naithon stared at the plaid afghan on his lap. Squinting one eye, he looked up at his brother. “When did they get so big? Last time I saw them I was…ah, 24. That girl, the baby sister was home on holiday.”
He thought back to that day. They’d attended a meeting at the Delduccis’ with another gang, the Riveaux Knights. A fourth faction, a motorcycle gang, the Foes of God, was trying to take over everyone’s territory. They’d come muscling in with AK-47’s and kamikaze attitudes.
Practically native Cajuns from the beginning of time, early on, the Riveaux Knights had fought the Adranokovs and the Delduccis, but realizing all sides were losing too much, they made a pact. Each stayed to their own territory, no more battles amongst the three gangs.
But when the Foes of God decided their shit up north Mississippi wasn’t good enough or big enough, they made the error of coming to Chaleur and trying to take over. It’d been months of hell, heavy losses on all sides. But, the three original mobs, the Adranokovs, the Delduccis, and the Riveaux Knights conquered the gang.
It had been a brutal bloody battle. What was left of the limping Foes of God turned tail and skedaddled back to whence they came and peace carried on again.
Naithon remembered the meeting after the smoke cleared. They were in the Delducci mansion, Ignacio Delducci had a banquet served. Women hanging all
over Naithon, drunk and sloppy he had looked up and caught a glimpse of the little girl he’d seen years ago. Duce’s baby sister.
The child Duce had been titillating them with his plans to deflower. He’d nailed her pup to the front door. What had he said? Old man Ignacio had plans to sell the girl when she became of age, but Duce had plans of his own.
A rare guilt had tugged at Naithon’s gut that day. He’d seen her, a beautiful child, a terrified child, and he was going to leave her there knowing her future, her brother’s plans to rape her. Repeatedly, for years. Duce tortured and killed a tiny puppy, Dio knows what hell he’d rain on her.
For once, the guilt bit him and he was pulling his cell out to call the uniforms, the police. None of them ever had dealings with the cops unless it was the corrupt ones they owned. His phone in his hand, Naithon was just about to dial when Ignacio had pulled up. The way he glowered at everyone, Naithon thought the girl was safe, and he left. He’d always wondered. Had Duce torn her up? Destroyed that innocent gentleness out of those amazing green eyes?
Still, she was a hated Delducci, she was one of them. She was what, maybe three, a year before her brothers had almost beaten him to death, and then around four the day Duce threatened her rape. Still, she was one of them and deserved his undying hatred and vengeance.
At the time of the banquet she was close to twelve, he was going on twenty-four. It was before his old man ripped everything from him again and tossed him destitute out on the street for the second time.
After Misolav stole his girl, Fiereza, and after the horror of prison that had changed his life for the worse, again…he shook his head. But it was before he broke his back. He remembered the girl though. At her young age she had the promise of becoming a great beauty, there was still the gentleness, and pure innocence glowing in those great green eyes. Her father had sent her abroad, thank Dio, it saved her, for a while anyway, kept Duce from between her child’s legs.
Naithon recalled there was another unremarkable sister, Melonie. Plain as mud and tubby, Melonie made no secret of her crush on Naithon. He kept a wide berth between them, rudely brushing her off, she never got the hint. Talk about octopus hands.
Distilled Duplicity Page 3
