by D D Bridges
“You don’t want to be around? What happened to standing by your man?”
“Darius, you and I aren’t some street couple. If I wanted to live the dangerous life then I would have been with somebody like Ka’Ron. I thought things would be different with you.”
“Things are different,” I told her. “I’m not in the streets and I’m not doing anything illegal. This is all just a part of this game.”
“Well I’m done playing this game. I can’t stand around and wait for you to be killed,” she said seriously and then looked away as a tear rolled down her face. Instinctively I reached out and wrapped my arms around her. I could feel her resistance but I could also feel the passion that still reverberated between us. I wanted so badly to tell her that I loved her but a part of me was still afraid to say it. Besides, I doubted that telling her that now would make things any better. At this point our relationship may have been damaged beyond repair.
“Natalie, don’t cry,” I said gently. “Please. I did everything in my power to make sure that we all made it out of Paris alive. Terry took a bullet, but he’s okay. We all are.”
“But it’s not over, is it?” she asked me. “The next chance that you get to go after Francisco, you’re gonna take it. And what happens when one of your boys isn’t there to take a bullet for you? Have you even thought about that?”
“Nothing is going to happen to me.”
“But you can’t promise me that, Darius,” she said as she began to gently unfold my arms from around her. “I should go back to my place. I just can’t be here right now.”
“Natalie, it’s too dangerous,” I told her seriously. “Now I know that you’re scared. And I know that after everything that happened in Paris you may not trust me, but you’re gonna have to trust me on this. Francisco knows where you live, and until he’s in a cell or in the ground you need to stay here where it’s safe.”
“Fine,” she said after taking a moment to contemplate my words. “I’ll stay but I don’t want anyone to get confused about the status of our relationship.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is that I’m not your woman. At least not until you decide to end this whole thing. We’re just friends.” She folded her arms as she glared at me and I glared right back at her.
“So you’re really breaking up with me?” I said as more of a statement than a question. “After everything that I’ve done to protect you, this is how you do me?”
“I’m just doing what’s best for me,” she said confidently, but I could tell that this was hurting her. I stood there staring at her angrily. I didn’t like this one bit. I felt helpless and like I had lost all control of this situation. I was sure that Natalie had no idea how angry that was making me, or maybe she did. Maybe she was testing me to see what I would do. Even though I was mad I knew that I had to control myself.
“Fine. Get out of my face,” I said as I turned away from her and faced the window. She stood there and stared at me for a few moments but finally walked out of the room. Once she closed the door, I dropped my head as tears rolled down my face. I was both hurt and confused and really didn’t know what to do. As I stood there crying I was sure that she was doing the same.
Chapter XX
“What the hell happened?”
Walter wasted no time confronting me as soon as I walked into his office on Monday morning. He questioned me without preamble and made it clear that he wanted answers. The past few days had changed everything for our company and Walter was taking it just as hard as I was. This didn’t surprise me since Walter had invested many more years in this business than I had.
“Some bullshit, that’s what,” I replied as I stood in the middle of the office floor. Walter closed the door and walked toward me.
“Jeff already briefed me on what took place, but I want to hear it from you. What happened?”
I sighed as I turned and began to pace the floor, dropping my hands into the pockets of my slacks.
“You were right,” I said. “I should have never gone to Paris, and I should have never even considered the prospect of doing business with Francisco. That man is dangerous, and if he has things his way then we’ll all be dead.”
“Yeah, but he wasn’t the only snake in the grass. Ziegler had us all fooled,” Walter said.
“Yeah, but he still didn’t deserve to die,” I said as I stopped pacing and faced Walter. “It’s all my fault too. At least that’s what he thought when he died,” I said as I thought about the last conversation that I had with Ziegler. “Even though I had nothing to do with setting him up, there had to be something else that I could have done to prevent his death.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” he told me. “Those two have been going at it for years, long before you were in the picture. They were both seeking blood, but it looks like Francisco got him first.”
“I don’t even know how I got tied up in this game that they’re playing,” I said. I realized that I had been nothing but a pawn in each of their plans to get at one another. Strangely though, I was also the main target in all of this.
“Yeah, well you just better make sure that you’re not playing checkers while they’re playing chess,” Walter told me. “Oh, by the way, we still can’t find anything on Melinda Johnson. We don’t have any record of anyone by that name ever working here.”
“I figured,” I said. “But that’s okay. I have Derek looking into it. If anybody can find out who Melinda Johnson really is, he can.”
Suddenly the air between us became tense. Now that we had gotten all of the important business matters out of the way we had to decide if we wanted to deal with the elephant in the room. All of the things that had been going on had only been a distraction from the fact that I still felt betrayed by Walter. But the truth was that I really hadn’t been willing to accept his explanation for everything. Deep down I wanted to believe that he had his reasons for lying to me for all of this time, but I just didn’t want to accept that as the truth.
“Darius, have a seat,” Walter said, waving his hand toward one of the chairs that faced his desk. He sat in the other one and then waited for me to sit before he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Listen, I know that there are some things that you don’t understand about why I didn’t tell you everything about your father,” he began to say. “And I can’t promise that you ever will understand, but trust me when I tell you that there are reasons.”
Reluctantly I looked at him. The look in his eyes pleaded with me to grasp what he was saying, but I was sure that the look in my eyes reflected the hurt and anger that I still felt when it came to this subject.
“What? Did you promise my father that you wouldn’t tell me?” I asked and his silence was the only answer that I needed. “You really expect me to believe that my father wanted me to have the money and the company, but he didn’t want me to know the truth?”
“I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true,” Walter said. “He didn’t want anything to ruin this opportunity for you.”
“I never asked for this opportunity,” I said abruptly. “I never asked for any of this. All I ever wanted was to know him. To know who he was, what he was like; but that was taken from me a long time ago. Now after all this time I’m just now finding out that he had another family. We were all living right here in Atlanta for years but I never got a chance to meet them or to even know that they existed.”
Once again we both became silent, neither of us knowing what to say. I was beginning to think that maybe I was being too hard on Walter. None of this was his fault. All he had done was exhibit his loyalty to my father’s wishes. But my father was dead. Would it really make much of a difference if he had broken his promise to him?
Walter stood up and walked over to the bookshelf on the far side of his office. He pulled out what looked like an encyclopedia. He opened it and then pulled a card from the middle of the pages. After putting the book back in its place, he walked over to his d
esk, grabbed a pen and began to write on the back of the card. After that, he handed it to me and it was then that I realized that it wasn’t a card but a photo. It was a picture of my dad and his family. I eyed the picture intently, looking at each person closely. It was a nice picture, but my dad stood out like a sore thumb. He was tall and dark-skinned and his wife appeared to be of Hispanic descent. This was my first time seeing her but I wasn’t shocked since I could tell that D.J. was mixed from the first time that I met him. She was amazingly beautiful and if he was judging solely on looks then I could see exactly why my father had married her.
I looked at each of the five kids. D.J. was the only one that I recognized but they all looked alike with their caramel colored skin and curly hair. There were two boys and three girls, the brothers and sisters that I’d never met. They looked happy, but who wouldn’t be when you were that rich. Staring at my siblings faces, I felt connected to them. I guess it was because I knew that we all had the same blood running through our veins even though I looked nothing like them.
“That’s his family,” Walter told me. “That picture was taken before the divorce. Back then they were the happiest family that I knew. But a lot has changed since then. This has all been hard on them too.”
I knew that Walter was only trying to be fair to everyone, but he’d have to excuse me if I didn’t feel sorry for them. After all, they had always been rich and they still were. And at least they had the opportunity to know my father while he was alive instead of only having pictures and stories to hold on to. I had every right to resent them, but it was hard to do that. In spite of how I felt I couldn’t deny the fact that they were my family.
“I wrote their address in Miami on the back,” Walter told me. “If you want to, you can go meet them. It’s completely up to you. They’re your family and you deserve to know them.”
I stared at the photo for a few moments longer and then rose to my feet.
“Thanks Walter,” I told him. “This really does mean a lot to me.”
“I know it does,” he said. “And I think that meeting them will help bring closure for you and them.”
I believed that Walter was right. Meeting them would be good for me, and my father’s wife could probably give me more insight on who my father was than anyone else could.
*******
Walter advised me to contact the police about our Francisco problem. I really didn’t want the police involved, but I knew that it was the right thing to do. I went through the file that Francisco had given me while we were in Paris and found the contact information for Detective Lee Willis. I figured that if I was going to involve the feds then it might as well be the one who already had knowledge of the situation and could provide insight.
Around 8:30 that evening my doorbell rang. I stood at the opening of the foyer and watched as Phillip opened the door.
“Good evening, sir,” Phillip said, stepping aside to allow our guest to enter. In walked a tall, well-built black man dressed in a shirt and tie with a tan pea-coat.
“Good evening. Detective Lee Willis. I’m here to see Mr. Darius King,” he said, flashing his badge at Phillip.
“Of course,” Phillip said as he turned toward me. “Mr. King, Detective Willis is here to see you.” Phillip politely nodded and then left us alone. I approached the detective and extended my hand.
“Detective Willis, it’s nice to meet you,” I said.
“Likewise, Mr. King,” he said, his expression remaining serious.
“Thank you for coming right over. I hope that this wasn’t too much of an inconvenience for you.”
“No, not all,” he replied. “This is what I do. Is there somewhere that we can talk privately?” Just as I was about to lead him into the library, my mother came into the foyer.
“Hello,” she said pleasantly as she approached us.
“Hello, ma’am,” Detective Willis said as he extended his hand. I noticed that his voice was suddenly more chipper. “I’m Detective Willis. And you are…”
“Donna,” she replied, quickly taking his hand. They seemed not to realize that they were holding hands much too long for a casual greeting. I looked back and forth between the two of them as they stared at one another and they seemed to have forgotten that I was even there. I cleared my throat and shot my mother a look that let her know that I was well aware of what was going on here and that I didn’t like it one bit.
My mother glanced nervously at me before taking her hand back from the detective.
“I’m Darius’s mother,” she said, continuing her introduction.
“Oh, his mother,” Detective Willis said, mildly surprised. “You look much too young to have a grown son. I thought that a pretty, young lady like you would have been his sister.” I rolled my eyes while my mother giggled, obviously flattered by the compliment. This man had some nerve to be in my house flirting with my mother right in front of my face. But he was only a man so I guess I really couldn’t blame him. But my mother, on the other hand, needed to check herself.
“Well thank you, Detective,” she said, her tone all girly-like. “Can I get you anything? Maybe something to drink?”
“No, thank you. Your smile is refreshing enough,” he said before winking at her. I knew that if it were possible my mother would have melted right there in the middle of the floor. I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could endure.
“Uh momma, Detective Willis and I have some very important business to discuss, so…”
“Oh, I’m sorry, son. I’ll let you two get to work. And if you need anything just let me know,” she said, directing her last statement to Detective Willis. I waited until he was done watching my mother saunter out of the foyer before I turned to him.
“We can talk in the library,” I told him. I led the way to the private room which was situated near the kitchen. Once inside I closed the door behind us and then offered him a seat while I sat behind the desk. I pulled out the manila folder that I received from Francisco and put it on top of the desk.
“These are the files that I received from Mr. Baptìste,” I informed him. “This folder is full of the information that was gathered from the investigation some years ago.”
“Yes. About six or seven years ago we had an investigation going on involving Mr. Baptìste as well as Mr. Ziegler,” he told me. “But the case went cold because of insufficient evidence.”
“Well, the case is hot again.” I pulled out a black folder and handed it to him. “That’s information that we got from the briefcase of Ziegler’s assistant. It not only proves that he was stealing from my company, but that he was also laundering money.” Detective Willis looked through the files and seemed to be surprised at what he was seeing.
“Unbelievable,” he said. “If we had this information years ago then we could have locked him up.”
“Well, unfortunately you won’t be able to take him down now either,” I informed him.
“And why is that?” he asked, confused.
“Because Benjamin Ziegler is dead.”
“What?” he asked, shocked. “How?”
“Francisco Baptìste,” I said simply. “Francisco’s son was posing as Ziegler’s assistant and they worked together to set him up. They led him into a trap and tried to make it look like I was the one who had set him up. By the time we got there Ziegler and his men were dead.”
Detective Willis began to shake his head at the news. “So I guess this means that I now have to go to France to claim his body,” he said, disappointedly.
“Yeah. And while you’re there you might want to do us all a favor and take down Francisco and his son,” I told him. “That man tried to kill us and I still don’t know how me and my crew made it out of there alive. I went there to see if there was some way that the three of us could find a way to do business together. But Francisco’s plan was to take us both out all along.”
“Look Darius, Francisco may be the one responsible for killing Ziegler, but there’s nothing that I can do about t
hat,” he told me. “The crime happened in Paris so all that I can do is contact their police force and let them know what happened.”
“But you and I both know that doing that isn’t going to do any good,” I said. “Francisco probably has the police force over there wrapped around his finger.”
“Yeah, I don’t doubt that. But at this point, that’s all I can do.”
“So what do you expect me to do in the meantime?” I said. “I know that sooner or later Francisco is going to come after me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s in the States right now as we speak.”
“Look, if you spot him or his son, then give me a call and we’ll have them detained,” he said nonchalantly. It was clear to me that he didn’t understand how serious this situation was.
“If I spot him then give you a call?” I repeated for good measure. “There’s no way in hell that I’m doing that because I refuse to end up like Ziegler. If I see Francisco then I’m gonna handle him myself.”
“Darius, you don’t want to do that. Francisco is a very dangerous man, so please let the authorities handle him.”
“Look, with all due respect detective, I know better than you do how dangerous Francisco is,” I said as I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the desk. “This man had a whole army of men shooting at me and my crew when we were at his auction. One of my boys was shot and not only that, but he threatened my girlfriend. I don’t think he realizes that he’s fucking with the wrong man, okay. I am not going to let him get to me and I especially am not going to let him harm the people that I love. You understand?”
“I totally understand, but just let us do our job,” he said. “We don’t need you interfering with a federal investigation.” We both rose to our feet and I came around my desk to face him.
“I’ll take this information back to our office and put it in the system,” he said. “This is really going to help us finally solve this case, so thank you.”
“No, thank you, Detective,” I said before shaking his hand. “You know, now that we’ve finished discussing our business matters I’d like to tell you something man-to-man.”