by D D Bridges
*******
Back at the hotel that night I had become restless. Natalie was wiped out from our long day and was resting in our room. I went in search of my boys but was surprised to find that none of them were in their rooms. They left without me, but that was cool I guess. Just when I was about to turn and go back to my room I spotted D.J. on the balcony. I watched him for a moment as he sipped Cognac from his glass and stared out at the city.
“Where is everybody?” I asked as I stepped out onto the balcony with him.
He gave me a long look and he didn’t look particularly happy to see me. “They all went down to the bar to have a few drinks,” he replied. “I decided to have mine here.”
“Do you mind if I join you?” I asked and didn’t wait for his response before I started to pour scotch in the other glass that was on the table.
“Sure, brother,” he said with a placid tone before taking another sip of his drink.
I gulped my drink and let it swirl around in my mouth before allowing it to ease down my throat. “Beautiful night, isn’t it,” I said, attempting to have small talk.
“I guess.”
“Paris is some place, huh?”
“This is my fifth or sixth time coming here. I’ve honestly lost count over the years,” he informed me.
“It must’ve been nice growing up rich,” I commented and a cocky smile came to his lips.
“You have no idea,” he said as he turned toward me. “It’s unfortunate that you had to grow up in the slums while I got to enjoy the finer things in life. It’s surprising to see that you haven’t squandered my father’s fortune by now. You know how you hood-boys are; as soon as you get a little money, you waste is on shit that you don’t even need.”
“What is your deal, man?” I asked as I set my glass down and turned to him. “I ain’t done shit to you, but yet you continue to make it clear that you got beef with me.”
“It’s because before anybody knew that you even existed I was my father’s firstborn,” he said angrily through clenched teeth as he got right in my face. “I was the heir. I was the one that was supposed to carry on the family legacy. And then here you come out of nowhere and you got everything that I ever wanted. And it’s not just about the money either… You’re just like him.”
“Just like who?” I asked, confused.
“Just like our father,” he said raising his voice slightly. “You do everything just like him. The swag, the confidence, the business savvy. Hell, you even look like him. Same build and everything.”
This was all news to me. I had seen plenty of pictures of my father and could clearly see the resemblance, but unlike D.J. I never had the opportunity to observe him in his element. I didn’t know what his mannerisms were like or how he conducted himself in business. I guess when you thought about it, D.J. and I had both been robbed; him of his inheritance, and me of time with my father.
“D.J., I know that this has been hard for you,” I said. “But it’s hard for me too. I didn’t ask for any of this. My life changed overnight. And then you pop up out of nowhere making things even more complicated than they already were.”
“Well can you blame me for being upset?” he rebutted before turning away from me and resting his hands on the balcony railing.
“No, I can’t blame you,” I said as I stared at his profile. “But the point is that fighting and hating each other isn’t going to get us anywhere. Whether we like it or not, we have the same blood running through our veins. And if we’re gonna get through this then we have to stick together. That is, if I can trust you.”
“So you don’t trust me,” he said knowingly, almost as if he wasn’t surprised to learn this.
“Not completely. I still think that you have something to hide,” I said and then watched as he slowly nodded his head.
“Relax, Darius,” he said as a devious grin came to his face. “Besides, if I wanted to do something to you then I could’ve done it by now. But you’re actually not as bad as I thought you would be.”
“Yeah, neither are you,” I said after a moment passed. “I guess we should learn to like each other since we are brothers.”
“That’s true,” D.J. said but he looked as if that statement bothered him. He looked disturbed by something within himself, and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever know what that thing was.
Chapter XVII
Spring-time weather in Paris was perfect, at least on today it was. Only a handful of clouds occupied the sky and the sun was able to shine shamelessly. It was warm but not hot like I was sure it was in Atlanta. The comfortable weather was just what we needed for a day out on the town. With no business planned, me and my crew would get an opportunity to enjoy ourselves. We were able to do some more sight-seeing at some of the other historical landmarks that we hadn’t seen yet. This gave us the opportunity to learn more about the history of France which we all actually found quite interesting. To think that a bunch of kids from the hood would ever be able to experience this was unreal, but yet here we were.
After going sight-seeing I wanted to take my lady shopping. We found an entire block that was occupied with expensive boutiques and antique shops. After finding a place to park on the side of the street, Natalie and I walked hand-in-hand down the sidewalk while the fellas waited at the cars for us. Natalie found one store that she thought she would like and we went inside.
“Get whatever you want, baby,” I told her. She went off to one of the clothing racks and started looking inside of one of the dresses. “What are you doing?” I asked her as I came up behind her.
“I was looking for a price tag but I don’t see one,” she said.
“That’s because these stores don’t put price tags on their clothes,” I told her. “They expect that if you’re shopping here then you can afford it no matter the price.”
“Oh,” she said, suddenly feeling awkward. “I don’t know if I feel right about spending your money, Darius.”
“Why not? You’re my lady, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but I don’t want you to think that I’m just with you for your money,” she said sincerely.
“If I thought that then I wouldn’t be with you,” I told her. “And besides, someone as amazing as you deserves this.”
That brought a smile to her face but she still seemed unsure.
“I still don’t know,” she said. “This is just knew to me. I mean, the clothes in this store look like they’re extremely expensive.”
“Hey,” I said as I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her to me. “You know that I care about you, right?”
“Yes,” she said, allowing her body to lean into mine.
“And you know how important you are to me, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling pleasantly.
“Then I want you to stop worrying about everything and get anything that you want. This is what life is like with me, so get used to it because I’m not letting you go anywhere anytime soon.”
It was obvious that Natalie was still getting used to me and my money. I could tell that spending thousands of dollars in one store made her slightly uncomfortable, but I wanted her to relax. We were at the point in our relationship where she knew that I wasn’t trying to buy her or impress her. This was simply who I was. It didn’t matter if I was rich or not, I needed a woman that I could share my reality with, and Natalie was turning out to be that woman.
After spending about an hour and a half going in and out of stores we walked down the street to where the guys were waiting with more bags than we could carry. Terry and Kenny took them from us and loaded them in the trunk of the Maybach. Just then my phone began to ring. Everybody stopped their side conversations and watched as I retrieved the phone from my pocket. Anyone outside of our crew who wanted to get in contact with me knew that they were supposed to contact Jeff and not me directly, so we knew that something had to be up.
“This is Darius,” I answered without even checking the caller I.D.
“Darius! Where the hell are you?” a familiar voice said in a panicked tone.
“Ziegler? Is that you?” I asked.
“Of course it’s me,” he said. He sounded like he was trying to keep his voice as low as possible while still retaining his intensity. All of a sudden I heard yelling and then gunshots in the background.
“Oh shit! Mr. Ziegler are you there?” I said, beginning to panic.
“Darius, what’s wrong?” Jeff asked as he came up beside me. I looked around at all of their faces and they were all anxiously waiting to know what was going on.
“Darius, why would you set up this meeting with Francisco and then not show up?” I heard Ziegler say and he sounded like he was on the move.
“What? I didn’t set up anything,” I said innocently and still confused.
“Yes you did! You set me up,” he spat viciously. “My assistant said that you called him early this morning and said that you wanted to have an emergency meeting with me and Francisco.”
“Look, I don’t know who called your assistant but it wasn’t me.”
“I thought I could trust you,” Ziegler said bitterly. “But I can see that you and Francisco have been in cahoots all along.” Once again I heard a flurry of gunshots in the background. Things did not sound good on Ziegler’s end.
“What the hell is going on over there?” I asked as the gunshot’s faded.
“Me and my men are in a stand-off with Francisco and his men. But we are vastly out-numbered in manpower and ammunition. Francisco has men everywhere and there’s no way out of this place.”
I could hear the panic and fear in Ziegler’s voice. This was not how things were supposed to be going down.
“Mr. Ziegler, I swear to you that I had no part in this. You have to believe me,” I pleaded with him.
“If that’s true, then you and your men need to get over here and help us. We won’t be able to hold them off much longer,” he told me. “We’re at the winery across the street from the bistro that we met at the other day. Once you go inside, find the section where the red wine is and there will be a secret door that leads down to a cellar. Get here as fast as you can.”
“We’re on our way,” I said before disconnecting the call. As soon as I did my whole crew surrounded me and were waiting on their instructions.
“Ziegler is in a shoot-out with Francisco,” I informed them.
“Word?” Terry said.
“We goin’ in, boss?” Mike asked.
“Hold on. You sure you want to get in the middle of this?” Jeff asked.
“I’m already in the middle of it,” I told him. “We gotta get over there fast. It didn’t sound good.”
I sent Derek and D.J. back to the hotel with Natalie. The rest of us headed to the location where Ziegler and Francisco were, guns in hand. We walked into the winery which was only occupied by a man behind the counter.
“Show us to the secret door!” Terry shouted as he pointed his rifle at the man. He immediately raised his hands.
The man uttered something in French while pointing toward the back of the shop.
We all headed in that direction. Hidden in the corner by the red wine was a door. Mike went through first, made sure it was all clear, and then signaled for us to follow him. We went down a dimly lit flight of stairs until we came to another door. With caution, we went through that door and ended up in a hallway that extended in both directions.
“Which way?” Kenny asked looking right to left.
“Let’s try this way,” Mike said, still leading the way. We went all the way to the end of the hall and ended up at another door. This one had a big metal wheel on the front that had to be turned in order to for it to open. Mike rested his gun against the wall and used his large hands to turn the wheel and open the door.
As soon as we stepped inside I knew that we found the right place, but we were too late. Seven dead bodies lay across the large room that was filled with boxes and empty wine crates. Among the dead was Benjamin Ziegler. His body was in the middle of the floor with a single bullet wound to the chest.
Jeff and I both looked at one another as we stood over his body. We were both stunned at what we were seeing. A man that we had done business with for years was now dead. What struck me even more was the fact that he died thinking that I was the one responsible for this.
I began to move around the room and look at the other dead bodies. Only two of them were Francisco’s men. The other four I didn’t recognize so I assumed that they were the men that came with Ziegler.
“I don’t understand. Why would Francisco kill Ziegler?” Jeff asked. “It makes me wonder what Ziegler knew that Francisco didn’t want us to find out.”
“Yeah. That’s the only reason he would have killed him, right?” Kenny said.
“Not necessarily,” Mike said. “Maybe their meeting just went bad and Francisco decided to cap him.”
“But there wasn’t supposed to be a meeting today,” I said. “Ziegler said that someone called his assistant this morning pretending to be me and told him that we were having an emergency meeting. But I never called his assistant.”
“Speaking of his assistant, looks like he left his briefcase behind,” Terry said as he walked toward me carrying an opened briefcase. I still remembered how much I admired his briefcase the first night that we met, and it definitely looked like the one that belonged to Braxton Meyers.
“Why is his briefcase here but he’s nowhere to be found?” Jeff asked skeptically. It wasn’t until then that I noticed that he wasn’t there which was strange since he and Ziegler had been joined at the hip. I would have expected Braxton to be laying there next to Ziegler.
“Maybe he got away,” Kenny said.
“Or maybe Francisco took him as a hostage,” Mike suggested.
“Why would he do that?” I asked as Jeff began to look at some of the documents that were in the briefcase.
“I would assume for information,” Jeff said as he eyed one document in particular. “Unbelievable,” he said shaking his head before he handed me about five documents. “Take a look at that.”
I looked at the papers and got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I began to read the information.
“Francisco was right. Ziegler has been playing us all along,” Jeff stated. The documents outlined his illegal business affairs and how he was using the geared investments in our company as a cover up. Apparently he had been able to do all of this through a “mole”. Ziegler had someone from his camp working for my company.
“Somebody named Melinda Johnson has been covering for Ziegler for the past five years,” Jeff said as he looked at another document.
“Melinda Johnson? Do we even have anybody at our office with that name?” I asked him.
“Not that I know of,” Jeff replied. “But I’ll ask Walter so that he can check for us.”
“This still doesn’t explain why Francisco killed him though,” Terry pointed out.
“Yeah and we still don’t know where Braxton Meyers is,” Mike added.
“And we need to figure out who called him this morning pretending to be you,” Kenny said.
We all stood silently as the unanswered questions circulated around us. I didn’t even know where to start with all of this and the suspense was killing me.
“You know… there is one person who I can think of that could have made that call,” Terry said. After we all thought about it for a moment there was no need for him to say anything else because we all knew who he was talking about.
*******
“Stop lying!! We know that you made that call!” Terry shouted in D.J.’s face. As soon as we got back to the hotel Terry wasted no time trying to get to the bottom of this. He immediately confronted D.J. and now he had him hemmed up against the wall.
“What the fuck you talkin’ ‘bout!” D.J. spat angrily as he tried to push Terry off of him but to no avail. The two of them were about the same height, but Terry’s muscle-bound frame gave him a clear s
trength advantage.
“Get the fuck off of me!” D.J. said even more angrily now as he tried frantically to free himself from Terry.
“Look at yo’ punk ass,” Kenny said as he now stood near them. “That’s all you got?”
D.J. stopped struggling since he could see that there was no use. “Jeff, help me out man,” he said helplessly.
Jeff sighed as he took a step toward them.
“Terry…”
“Back up off me man. I got this,” Terry said as he glared at Jeff from over his shoulder.
D.J. looked at me, anger still evident in his eyes.
“That’s how you’re gonna do your brother,” he said to me. “You’re just gonna stand there and let your boys jack me up and shit?”
“We’re his enforcers,” Mike said as he took a step toward them.
“Yeah, that’s right. And we know that you got some information about what happened today,” Kenny said.
“I don’t know what the hell you are talking about,” D.J. reiterated. I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not, but it was obvious that my boys didn’t.
“Stop with the dumb act,” Terry said. “We just left a massacre and if we find out that you had anything to do with it, then that’s gon’ be yo’ ass.”
“Let him go,” I said, drawing the stares of everyone in the room.
“What?” Kenny said.
“This is not how we get answers,” I told them. They were reluctant but they backed off of him.
“Fine. Let’s tie his ass up,” Terry said. Mike put a chair in the middle of the floor and then forced D.J. to sit down. Kenny tied his hands behind his back while Derek tied his ankles to the legs of the chair. Terry watched them do this and circled D.J. like a lion circling prey.
“This is some bull shit,” D.J. said as he jerked at the ropes that had his hands restrained.
“We want some answers, D.J. And if we don’t get the right ones, it won’t be good for you,” I said as I slowly walked toward him from the other side of the room.