by D D Bridges
“You better. I don’t want to have to come looking for you,” I told her playfully.
Still smiling, she began to walk away with her friends. “Bye,” she said with a wave.
I turned to begin walking back to the stairs but my path was obstructed by Kenya who had somehow found me.
“So you gon’ come here and dance with that bitch all night,” she said angrily. I simply sighed. The last thing I wanted or needed was for Kenya to make a scene. But I damn sure wasn’t about to let her think that she could step to me like that.
“What I do ain’t none of your business. I thought I already explained that to you,” I told her.
“I don’t give a damn what you say, Darius. You’re not breaking up with me,” she said.
“Are you serious right now? You really wanna try to talk about this in the middle of the dance floor?” I asked her. “Kenya, we are not together and we haven’t been for a long time.”
“You weren’t saying that while I was sucking your dick,” she said as she took a step toward me and tried to look sexy. I was so over her that it wasn’t even funny.
“Let that shit go,” I told her. “We are never getting back together, not even to just have sex.”
“Nigga, I fucking hate you!” she snapped. Next thing I knew she was pushing me and trying to slap me in my face. The people dancing near us cleared the space around us so that they could see what was going on. Leave it up to Kenya to embarrass me like that. I tried to restrain her without hurting her, but there was no need because security had already made their way over to us and was pulling her off of me.
“Mr. King, are you okay?” one of the officers asked me. I had been to the club enough times for them to know who I was. And whenever you came in and spent as much money as I was spending tonight, they normally made it their business to make sure that you weren’t having any issues.
“Yeah, I’m good. Get her ass out of here,” I told him.
“Yes, sir,” he said as the other two officers began to carry her toward the door. She was still shouting out obscenities at me as they carried her away. From the look on everyone’s faces you could tell that she was the one who really looked like a fool.
Quickly forgetting about Kenya and her antics, I went back to the private room. As I headed that way, I began to realize that something wasn’t right. Even though I was still at a distance, I could see that a group of street niggas were crowding the door and no one else could get in. I was no novice and I knew that something was about to go down.
The sound of gunshots rang out through the club. Everybody screamed while some got on the floor and others headed for the exits. I was right in the middle of the chaotic crowd, but I knew that I had to find my boys. I pulled my pistol out of the waist of my pants and began pushing my way through the crowd. Just before I got to the room, Mike came rushing out with Terry. I looked at Terry’s shirt and it had blood splattered all over it. His gun was drawn and he had that look in his eyes. He was angry, yet calm and somewhat dejected.
“Let’s go, we gotta get outta here,” Derek said as he and Kenny ran over to where we were standing. I looked around for a way out but all of the main exits were crowded.
“Follow me. I know how to get out through the back,” Mike told us. We all began to race through the hallways in the back of the club. Mike led us out of a door that led to the alley in the back of the building. As soon as we were outside Terry took off his shirt that had the blood on it and threw it in a dumpster.
“What the fuck happened?” I asked him.
“Business,” he said, now only wearing a black wife-beater and jeans.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Derek said as we all headed for the main street. We could already hear the sirens in the distance.
“Did you kill him?” Kenny asked.
“What the fuck do you think?” Terry said just as we made it to the main street. We were standing on the side-walk at the end of the block that the club was on. People were still running out of the club and trying to get away from the scene as quickly as they could.
I jacked Terry up by his shirt with one hand while I still held my gun in the other. I forced him to look at me and his eyes were still burning with anger.
“This is not the time to play fucking games,” I told him. “What the hell happened?”
He looked at me, shaking his head. “You don’t need to know, D. I don’t want you getting involved in my shit.”
“I’m already involved,” I said, upset. I quickly calmed down though because I knew that we didn’t have a lot of time.
I looked down the street and could see the police lights. They were still far out, but they were coming.
“Get him out of here,” I said to Mike as I pushed Terry toward him. I watched as the two of them ran off toward the crowd where they could blend in until they made it to Mike’s car.
Derek, Kenny, and I went in the other direction toward the other parking lot. We headed for my car, but I was distracted when I heard Natalie’s voice. I stopped and looked around, then spotted her and KaRon between two SUV’s. He had her pinned and she was frantically trying to get away from him. I was about to head in that direction but Derek grabbed my arm.
“You don’t wanna do that, man,” he told me.
“Yeah, that nigga is crazy,” Kenny added.
I pulled my arm away and headed over to them anyway. They were still arguing as I approached, but then KaRon raised his hand like he was about to pimp-slap her. I grabbed his arm before his hand could connect with her face and pushed him away from her.
“Yo, what the hell is wrong with you? You don’t put your hands on a woman. Didn’t your momma teach you any better?” I said as I stood in front of Natalie to protect her. KaRon was much bigger than I was, but I didn’t give a damn about that.
“Nah, but my daddy taught me how to beat anybody’s ass that gets in my way,” KaRon said as he got right up in my face. I could tell that he was both drunk and high.
“Chill bruh. That shit ain’t even called for,” Kenny said as he came over and pushed KaRon away from me.
“Fuck you and fuck this sorry ass nigga,” he said as he tried to reach around me and grab Natalie. I pushed him again but harder this time, causing him to bump into his Escalade that was parked behind him. He swung at me and hit me dead in my jaw. I staggered a little before swinging and hitting him in the eye. He tried to come back at me, but he slipped on a wet spot which allowed me to hit him a couple of more times. He fell to the ground and a couple of his boys jumped out of the Escalade and came at us.
I grabbed Natalie and we quickly moved away from the scene. Instead of coming after us, KaRon’s boys went to help him. We got half way across the parking lot when Natalie broke free from my grasp and turned to face me.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked me.
“You wanted me to just keep walking while that nigga beat the shit out of you,” I said.
“I can take care of myself and I can handle KaRon.”
“No man should ever put his hands on a woman,” I said adamantly.
“Do you really think that he’s gonna let you get away with that?” she said. “KaRon is dangerous. He’s gonna come after you.”
“Do I look like I’m scared of him?” I replied. “Why the hell are you even with him?”
“I’m not with him anymore,” she said quickly.
“Then why are you taking up for him?”
“I’m not. I’m just telling you that what you did was really stupid.”
“Let me take you home,” I told her.
“I gotta go find my girls,” she said as she turned to walk away.
“Natalie…”
“D, we gotta go,” Derek said as he and Kenny stood behind me.
“Hold on, damn,” I said over my shoulder. I took a couple of steps toward Natalie who had stopped and turned back toward me.
“You don’t have to be scared of him,” I told her. “I can protect yo
u if you let me.”
“Why should I trust you?” she asked as she folded her arms. “Like I said, I can handle KaRon, so just drop this, okay?”
All I could do was watch as she turned and walked away from me. I felt conflicted inside. I barely knew this girl, but I wanted so badly to be with her and to protect her. But she wouldn’t even give me the time of day and it really wasn’t my place to insist that she let me help her. But I didn’t care about that. Even if KaRon did come after me, that wasn’t going to stop me from seeing Natalie again.
Chapter IV
I was back at work on Monday after a wild and crazy weekend. I originally planned to have an uneventful night when I went to the club. I had no idea that one of my boys would end up in the middle of some shit and that I’d end up throwing hands with KaRon. Natalie was right when she said that KaRon would be coming after me. KaRon had a reputation to uphold so I knew that once people heard that he got put on his back in the parking lot he’d be looking to get revenge. But I was ready for him and just waiting on the moment that we would be face to face again.
I expected to have a smooth Monday but that wasn’t the case. The entire office had been experiencing computer problems all morning and nobody could get any work done. The IT department couldn’t even fix the problem, so I called Derek’s job and specifically requested that they send him over. He came over and fixed the problem in less than thirty minutes. He even taught my lead IT a thing or two.
Once he was finished I gave Derek a tour around the office. He was impressed with our building and how hi-tech it was. Everything was computerized, even the simple things like our coffeemaker in the break room. It was cool having Derek around. I wasn’t used to being around someone my age that I could just kick it with while I was at work.
“Man, I owe you one. You saved the whole office,” I told Derek as we came into my office.
“Hey man, I’m just doing my job,” he replied. “Besides, your problem wasn’t really that hard to fix. Just some minor glitches.”
“You know, you really are working below your pay-grade,” I said as we sat on the sofa in the center of my office. “I mean, seeing you do your thing in person was something else. I might have to tell Bill to put you on in the IT department.”
“That would be great, man,” Derek said. “But I gotta tell you something,” he said as he glanced back at the door to make sure that it was closed.
“What is it?” I said, leaning forward as worry set in on my face.
“When I went into your systems there was something off about the coding,” he told me.
“What do you mean?”
“The coding wasn’t right. There’s a certain sequence that I look for when I go into a computer system and when it’s slightly off I know that something is up,” he told me. “A system like yours, while complex, it should still have a consistent encoding.”
“So there were inconsistencies,” I said, making sure that I was following him.
“Yeah, but only slightly. The inconsistencies were just mild enough that only an intelligent mind would even notice it.”
“An intelligent mind like yours, right?”
“Well, I’m not trying to sound conceited,” Derek said as an arrogant smirk came and went from his face. “But those guys that you got in IT wouldn’t have been able to see the system lay out the way that I did. I’ve studied so many different systems and computers that nothing gets past me.”
“So what does that mean?” I asked. “Do we need a new system or something?”
“No. The problem isn’t the system,” Derek told me. “The problem is that someone has been hacking into the system. Possibly someone in this office.”
“Hacking? Are you serious?” I asked him. “How could someone in the office hack into it. We all have access to the same system.”
“Yeah, but not all employees have access to all files, right?”
“Right.”
“So it’s possible that one of your employees has been hacking into files that they don’t have authorized access to. Let’s just say hypothetically that someone hacked into your company’s financial files,” Derek said as he went over to my desk, grabbed pen and paper, and came back to the sofa. He began to draw a diagram. “Every time that they breach your security fire walls the system use multiplies by ten. So a system that is meant to accommodate your five hundred or so employees ends up working as if it’s accommodating fifty thousand. The more fire walls that are breached, the more that the system overloads until it eventually shuts down.”
“So you’re telling me that whoever is doing this could have access to my company’s finances,” I asked, trying not to sound anxious.
“Possibly,” he replied. “I just used that as a hypothetical example because most people commit criminal acts for money. It could be somebody from the outside though. But one thing I do know is that whoever is hacking your system really doesn’t know what they are doing.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because they didn’t know how to cover their tracks,” Derek told me. “Any real hacker knows how to cover their tracks so that there’s no trace of them being there.”
“Maybe they wanted to be caught,” I suggested.
“Maybe. But I doubt that they thought that you’d bring a computer genius in to fix the system,” Derek said as he handed me his hand-drawn diagram. It was all lines and circles that seemed to get bigger and bigger. I had no idea what I was looking at so I put it on the coffee table.
“Either way I don’t think it’s something that you need to worry about. Just tell your IT people to shore up the firewalls. That’s something that they should be able to handle.” Derek stood and I followed suit. “I’ve already been gone for over an hour so I better get back. My boss knows that I never take this long on any job.”
“I appreciate your help. You did a good job.”
“No problem. Anytime you need me just call.”
*******
It was five minutes until five o’clock and I was anxious to get out of the office. It had been a long, stressful day and I was ready for it to be over. Days like these made me wish that I was just a normal guy living a normal life, but the truth was that I wasn’t. There was a lot of responsibility that came along with all of the benefits of being me. I sometimes questioned if I could really handle it all. Was I just barely keeping my head above water? Was I fighting battles that weren’t mine to fight?
The stress and weight that I felt was unimaginable for a normal person. This was a lonely place to be in. Sure, I had family and friends and people who cared about me, but no one truly understood what I was going through. Sometimes I just needed to escape to a place where I wasn’t a CEO; a place where I wasn’t the one that people depended on. A place where I could just be Darius.
I was just about to shut down my computer when I realized that yet again we had a problem. Files that I sent to Juanita that morning that needed to be completed by the end of the day hadn’t been completed. I sighed heavily, clenching my jaw as I furiously drummed my fingers on top of my desk. This was the last thing that I needed. These files couldn’t be put off until tomorrow and it was my assistant who dropped the ball.
I pressed the speaker button on the office phone and dialed Juanita’s extension.
“Yes, Mr. King.”
“Get in here, now,” I clipped.
A few seconds later she came into my office, her purse and coat hanging over her arm.
“Is there something wrong, sir?” she asked as she approached my desk hesitantly.
“Why are the files that I emailed you this morning still not completed?” I asked. The guilty expression on Juanita’s face was also filled with remorse.
“I am so sorry, sir,” she said. “It’s just that with the computers being down this morning and everything that was going on, I got behind on my work. And honestly I forgot about them.”
“You forgot about them? I don’t pay you to forget about your work,” I reminded
her. “That is completely unacceptable, Juanita. We can’t afford to fall behind all because of your inefficiency. And I don’t need someone working for me who adds stress to my life all because they’re not dependable.”
“I said that I was sorry,” she interrupted, obviously tired of the way that I was reprimanding her. She and I both knew that she was both efficient and dependable, and that today was only an aberration. I was obviously taking all of my frustrations out on her which wasn’t right, but Juanita dared not to argue with me. Whether I was wrong or not, I was still her boss.
“I will finish them first thing in the morning,” she said.
“No, you will finish them tonight,” I rebutted.
“What?!” she said looking at her watch. “It’s already 5:00. And I have plans tonight.”
“Do you really think that I care about your plans? You will just have to cancel them. That’s the price that you have to pay for neglecting to do your work.”
The fire that burned in her eyes almost made me afraid to know what she was thinking. I was sure that she wanted to cuss me out, but I knew that she wouldn’t. In addition to her attraction for me, Juanita had a great deal of respect for me as well.
“Is there something that you would like to say?” I said, testing her.
“No sir,” she finally said after contemplating if she wanted to speak her mind.
“Good, cheer up then. At least I’m opting to stay here and help you get this done.” That seemed to make her relax some. She put her purse and coat down on the sofa, and then we got to work. She worked from my computer while I stood over her shoulder and used the iPad to assist her.
Two and a half hours later we were finished and I needed a drink.
“Do you want some Brandy,” I offered her as I headed to the far corner of my office where I had a case full of alcohol. I didn’t condone drinking during office hours, but technically we were off the clock.
“Sure,” Juanita said as she stood up from the computer but remained behind the desk. I poured the wine into two glasses and then came back over to her.