by D D Bridges
“Oh. Man-to-man, huh,” he said and I was pretty sure that he knew where I was taking this conversation.
“Yeah,” I said as I took a step toward him. “Don’t let me catch you flirting with my mother again, okay.”
He began to laugh and I wanted to slap that smirk off of his face.
“Well, man-to-man, I don’t take orders from the likes of you,” he told me. “And besides, your mother is a grown woman. If she doesn’t want me to flirt with her then she will let me know that. Why don’t you just stay out of grown folks’ business,” he said before patting me on the shoulder. I quickly pushed his hand away and got right up in his face.
“Don’t put your hands on me, man.” He was still smiling and it irked me that he obviously wasn’t taking me seriously. He pushed his jacket back and put his hands on his hips, obviously wanting to make sure that I saw his badge which was clipped to his belt.
“I don’t think you want to go there with me, Mr. King,” he told me. We stared one another down for a long moment and the only thing that was keeping me from beating his ass was that I didn’t want to be arrested for assault on a FBI agent.
After it was obvious that I didn’t have anything else to say he said, “I’ll show myself out.” He turned and headed for the door and I followed him at a distance. Just as I was about to enter the foyer I saw him standing at the door talking to my mother. They were smiling at one another and they exchanged a few words before he reached into his pocket and handed her one of his cards. He left and my mom waved at him before closing the door behind him.
I approached her quickly while she looked at the card that he had given her.
“Momma, what the hell you doin’?” I asked, snapping her out of her trance.
“Excuse me? Who do you think you’re talking too?” she said, glaring at me.
“Why did you take his card?” I said, snatching it from her so that I could look at it for myself.
“Because he offered it to me,” she said before snatching it back and then tucking it away in her bra.
“You’re gonna call him, aren’t you?” I asked.
“So what if I do?” she said. “It’s none of your business. What, you think that I can’t have a life too?”
“I don’t like him, ma’,” I told her. “He’s not good enough for you.”
“Darius, you are just jealous,” she told me shaking her head and laughing at me. “Leave me alone and take yo’ ass to bed,” she said before walking away, still laughing at me.
“That’s not funny and this conversation ain’t over,” I called after her only to hear her laughing even harder.
Chapter XXI
It had been a week since we got back from Paris and things had been pretty uneventful since then. No one had heard from or seen Francisco or his son, but I wouldn’t be able to fully relax until I knew that they were both dead or behind bars. For all I knew Francisco could be tracking my every move and just waiting on the right time to strike.
I made my way over to Terry’s room to check on him but was surprised to find that he wasn’t anywhere to be found. As a matter of fact, none of my boys were anywhere in the mansion. It wasn’t like them to just dip out without telling me, and they knew that Terry was supposed to be on bed rest. It had been hard enough trying to keep him inside, but it seemed that he had managed to escape.
Just as I was finishing my search, my phone began to ring in my pocket. It was Derek.
“Yo, Derek,” I answered immediately. “Where y’all at? And is T with you?”
“Yeah, he’s here,” Derek replied. “We got some news for you.”
“What’s up?”
“We found her. We found Melinda Johnson,” he told me.
“Good work. I knew that you would come through, bruh,” I lauded him.
“Yeah, but there’s more to it than that.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, noticing his hesitancy and the hint of disappointment in his voice.
“I just think that you should come meet us at the hideaway in Macon so that you can see for yourself.”
“What’s going on? Who is Melinda Johnson?”
“I shouldn’t tell you over the phone. You might flip out.”
“Derek, just tell me! Who is it?”
*******
I pounded on the door to the abandoned house like I was Atlanta PD. I had be fuming and in total disbelief during the whole drive over there. If what Derek had told me over the phone was true then I didn’t know how I was going to react. The past couple of months had been filled with people betraying me, but this one had the potential to sting the most.
The door swung open and Terry was standing there.
“What the hell you doing here?” I asked him as I stepped over the threshold. “You have doctor’s orders.”
“Look, I’m sick and tired of being cooped up in that big-ass house. I was about to go crazy in there,” he said.
All I could do was sigh. He was there now so there was really nothing that I could say. “You feel okay?”
“Yeah, you know me. I’m good.”
“Cool. Where is she?”
“Kitchen.”
I headed that way and as soon as I entered I saw that they had her tied to a chair with a bag over her head.
“Why the hell y’all got her tied up,” I reprimanded them.
“That chick put up a fight and we didn’t want to have to hurt her,” Mike told me.
“Yeah, and I should slap her ass to sleep for trying to bite me,” Kenny said. “And that bitch scratched me too.” He rolled up his sleeve and showed me the bloody scratch marks. Had we been in a less serious situation then I would have laughed, but I really wasn’t in a laughing mood at the moment.
“Nigga, I took a bullet and you up here crying over some scratches,” Terry chuckled as he flopped down in one of the other wooden chairs which were all spread out across the room in a disorderly fashion.
“Fuck you, man,” Kenny replied.
“Can y’all at least take the damn bag off of her head,” I told them. Mike removed the bag from her head and like Derek told me over the phone, Juanita was the one now staring at me from across the room. They had duct tape over her mouth but she didn’t need to speak in that moment because her eyes said it all. Derek was the only one that I told about me and Juanita. I even told him about her being pregnant which was why he was hesitant to tell me that it was her.
Slowly I began to approach her and we didn’t take our eyes off of one another the entire time. Once I was standing in front of her Mike ripped the tape off of her mouth.
“Ahhhh! You motherfucker!” she screamed at him.
“Sorry,” he mumbled insincerely.
She calmed down and redirected her gaze back to me.
“Did they hurt you?” I asked, now standing over her.
“No,” she replied glaring at each one of them. “But once I’m free I can’t promise that I’ll be as kind to them.”
“Untie her,” I instructed them.
“What? Hell nah! That bitch is crazy,” Kenny said.
“She won’t do anything while I’m here. So untie her.”
Derek began to undo the ropes that had her hands bound and once they were free I could tell that she wanted to use them, but she restrained herself.
“We caught up with her at the airport,” Mike began to tell me. “Apparently she was about to leave town for good.”
I grabbed a chair that was nearby and placed it in front of her so that I could be at eye level with her. The longer we stared at one another the more her resolve began to crumble.
“Darius, I can explain. It’s not what you think.”
“Oh really. So you weren’t the one covering up Ziegler’s money laundering schemes and stealing money from my company for him? Huh, Juanita? Or is it Melinda?”
“Melinda Johnson was my name before I went to London,” she explained.
“London? What were you doing there?”
“I was wo
rking… as a contract killer. That’s where Ziegler found me.”
“Found you? What do you mean?” I asked, now fully intrigued.
Juanita shifted awkwardly in her chair and then sighed as she ran her hand through her hair.
“Francisco contacted my boss and put in the request to have Ziegler killed. My boss gave the assignment to me and my partner,” she said. “We followed Ziegler all over Atlanta for about two weeks. When we found out that he was going out of the states, we knew that would be our chance to get him.”
“Then what?” I asked after she paused.
“Then everything went bad. We were in London and we were about to take him out, but somebody tipped him off,” she told me. “They killed my partner and took me as a hostage. After starving me for five days they finally decided what they wanted to do with me.”
“Well obviously they didn’t kill you,” I pointed out.
“No they didn’t, but I’ve still had to pay a price for them letting me live,” she replied.
“So what was the repayment? Did they turn around and hire you to kill Francisco?” Derek asked.
“No. At the time I didn’t even know that Francisco was the client. I never knew who the client was, just the target,” Juanita said. “But Ziegler still wanted a life for a life. So he told me to kill your father.”
“What the fuck?!” I said as I stood abruptly. “Are you saying that you killed my father?!”
“NO! I was going to but he died of a heart attack before I could,” she said adamantly.
“How could you?” I said, staring her down menacingly.
“This was before I met you,” she said. “Nobody even knew that your father had another son who was next in line to take over the company. Ziegler gave me a new identity and then referred me to your father for the position as his PA. He figured that this would allow me to get close enough to take him out.”
“So after my father died that should’ve meant that you were off the hook, right?” I asked.
“No. Like I said, no one knew anything about you until you popped up out of nowhere. So Ziegler shifted his focus to you and I told him that I would do the job,” she confessed. “But as time went on, I just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t trying to catch feelings for you but I did. Ziegler was about to kill me when I refused to kill you, so I suggested that I help him steal money from your company. I convinced him that killing you wouldn’t destroy the company, which was his ultimate goal. So he agreed to let me live as long I kept my end of the deal.”
By the time she finished saying all of that I was pacing the floor in front of her. She sat there watching me and I could tell that she was nervous about what I would do.
“You betrayed me, so give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you?” I asked her.
“Because I didn’t betray you,” she told me. “I did what I had to do to save both of us. I had access to all of the company’s files and I could have done much more damage than I did. But instead I did just enough to keep Ziegler happy and for it to go unnoticed by anyone at Kingdom Enterprises. I helped you.”
“You helped me,” I said, appalled. “Are you fucking serious right now?”
Juanita stood and got right in my face. I could see the tears welling in her eyes, but she could cry me a river for all I cared. There was nothing that she could say at that moment in order for me to feel sorry for her.
“Darius, you know how I feel about you,” she said. “I did this for us, baby. I did this because I love you. From the moment that I first saw you, I knew that there was something about you. I had to have you, so I did what I needed to in order to protect you.”
In spite of the fact that she had been lying to me for five years, there was still some truth to what she was saying. I believed that she felt that she had done what she had to in order to protect me, and it was no secret that she was in love with me. But even more so now than before, we just couldn’t be together. And all of this new information made it even easier to cut her out of my life for good.
Juanita grabbed my hand placed it on the bulge in her stomach. I was reminded that there was one thing that was making all of this so difficult. Juanita was carrying my child. That was the one thing that I believed she hadn’t been lying about. But that didn’t matter. I couldn’t be with a woman who had betrayed me this deeply.
“Darius, I’m carrying our baby,” she said as tears rolled down her face. “Our baby deserves to have a mother and a father.”
“Don’t tell me what this baby deserves,” I said angrily as I snatched my hand away from her stomach. “I didn’t deserve to be lied to. And don’t try to make this all about that baby. You’ve wanted me from day one. And you’re still trying to make this all about you.”
“Darius, I love you,” she lamented. “We need to be together so that we can raise this child.”
“Stop being so damn dramatic,” I said harshly, showing no regard for her display of emotion. “Now this is how this is going to go. You’re gonna get on a flight to Chicago or where ever the hell you want to go. I will open an account in your name and put five million dollars in it to get you started. The only thing you have to do is never come back to Atlanta. I don’t want to see you or hear from you ever again. And as far as that baby is concerned, you can do whatever the hell you want to do with it. I don’t give a damn what you do.”
From the expression on her face I could tell that she wasn’t expecting me to say that. She was shocked that after everything that had happened she still couldn’t have me.
“Darius, how could you say that?”
“Leave, Juanita! Take the money and go start a new life. It’s that simple.”
“No! I’m not leaving,” she said as she began pounding her fists against my chest. I grabbed her wrist but she just became even more violent as she cussed me out, calling me every name in the book.
“Get her out of here,” I told Mike. He and Derek grabbed her and had to practically drag her out of the house.
*******
“Can I talk to you?” Mike said seriously as the five of us entered the mansion well past midnight.
“What is it now, Mike?” I said, obviously still agitated about everything that had just happened with Juanita.
“I need to talk to you in private,” he said raising his voice slightly which was unusual for Mike. He never raised his voice or became unnerved, but apparently, I had done something to piss him off.
Without saying anything we headed upstairs and went into the study where we could talk openly without being overheard. Even though Mike said that he wanted to talk to me in private, the rest of the guys joined us anyway. They were probably just as interested in seeing what was bothering Mike as I was.
Once we were in the study I took a seat behind my desk and the guys scattered around the room. Mike stood in the middle of the room and stared hard at me for a few seconds.
“What?” I said becoming impatient.
“That’s was cold, bruh. You didn’t have to do her like that,” Mike said.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I said, rising to my feet.
“You know what I’m talking about,” he said. “How could you talk to her like that? She’s carrying you child and you just throw her away like trash?”
“What else was I supposed to do? Did you hear anything that she said?” I said as I came around my desk and stood in front of Mike. “The woman is a murderer. She was going to kill my father and she would have killed me if she hadn’t allowed her emotions to get involved. You expect me to start playing house with somebody like that?”
“She’s obviously changed, man,” Mike said. “You’re still alive and she wants a future with you.”
“Yeah, well I don’t want a future with her,” I said. “Besides, you know that I love Natalie.”
“You’re a grown-ass man and I’m trying to figure out when you’re gonna start acting like one.”
I halted, appalled at his audacity, and got right up in his face. “What
did you say?” Mike might be the biggest one in the crew, but that didn’t mean that I was just gonna let him talk to me like that.
“You heard me,” he said, not backing down at all. “When are you going to take some responsibility for your actions? That woman is carrying your child, and you’re doing the same thing to her that your father did to your mother. You’re selfish. How are you gonna make that child pay for your mistakes and then in the same breath talk about all the time that you missed with your father.”
Mike’s words froze me and the tension that seem to fill my body was strong enough to break through a brick wall. I didn’t want to accept the fact that he was right but I knew that he was. I was running from my responsibilities and my fears, but I couldn’t expect Mike to understand why. The way I saw it, the decision that I made was in everybody’s best interest. Allowing Juanita and my child to stay here would just complicate things. Not to mention the fact that I could no longer trust that bitch. Unfortunately, in this situation the best decision may not be the morally right one.
“You know what Mike, it’s none of your business,” I told him calmly.
“Tonight you made it our business,” he said. “We’re all involved now and somebody needed to check you because that shit was foul, bruh.”
“I gotta agree with Mike on this one,” Derek said from where he was standing by the door. “Yeah, she was wrong, but you didn’t have to do her like that.”
“Yeah, I agree,” Kenny chimed in before looking away nervously.
“If it wasn’t for the kid then I’d be with you on this one, D,” Terry said to me. “But the fact that she’s pregnant by you changes everything and I gotta go with Mike on this.”
Chapter XXII
It was fucked up that my friends didn’t understand why I made the decision that I made. This was the first time that any of them had ever expressed a negative opinion about how I do things. But I guess this was a special situation. Even though I didn’t agree with Mike’s point of view, I figured that he must have felt strongly about it for him to be the first one to speak out. I was even more surprised that the rest of my boys took his side. They were each entitled to their own opinion but I wasn’t used to anyone feeling the need to correct me.