Risqué 3
Page 1
RISQUÉ 3
Copyright © 2020 by Perri Forrest
Chic Lioness Publishing, LLC
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Without limiting the right under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION(s)
For my sister
Cover Design by Brittani Williams @ TSPubCreative LLC
Photos (c) Shutterstock
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Contents
OTHER BOOKS BY PERRI FORREST
PROLOGUE
1 | TREVOR
2 | ELISE & ALYSSA BROWN
3 | TREVOR
4 | ALYSSA
5 | TREVOR
6 | CICELY
7 | TREVOR
8 | CHRIS JONES
9 | TREVOR
10 | MELODY MATHIS
11 | TREVOR
12 | TREVOR
13 | TREVOR
14 | ALYSSA
15 | SKAI
16 | CICELY
17 | TREVOR
18 | CICELY
19 | SKAI
20 | TREVOR
21 | ELISE
22 | TREVOR
23 | ALYSSA
24 | TREVOR
25 | TREVOR
26 | DINA
27 | TREVOR
28 | TREVOR
29 | DET. RAYMOND MATHESON
30 | TREVOR
31 | ALYSSA
32 | SKAI
33 | TREVOR
34 | ELISE
35 | SKAI
36 | TREVOR
37 | ALYSSA
38 | SKAI
39 | DET. RAYMOND MATHESON
40 | SKAI
41 | CICELY
42 | CICELY
43 | SKAI
44 | ELISE
45 | TREVOR
46 | CICELY
47 | TREVOR
48 | ELISE
49 | NOREEN WELLINGTON
50 | TREVOR
51 | SKAI
52 | TREVOR
53 | SKAI
54 | TREVOR
55 | TREVOR
56 | SKAI
57 | TREVOR
58 | TREVOR
59 | TREVOR
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
“Ohhh, is that fear I see in your pretty little brown eyes? Because you were so very bold a few minutes ago.”
“No bitch, you don’t see fear. Put that gun down and let’s see just how bad you really are. Why don’t we do that?”
“Oh sweetheart, let’s be clear. I don’t need the gun to deal with you. I just don’t feel like doing things any other way. See, I have somewhere very important to be after this is over, and I don’t feel like breaking a sweat.” Cicely stated the words as solemnly as she could, all while twisting a silver noise suppressor onto the front of its mate—a pink on chrome 9mm. As she was on the final twist, Cicely saw her nemesis flinch as though attempting to defeat her plans. “Don’t even think about it,” she hissed, through clenched teeth. “Your nice little body will hit the floor in a split second.”
“What the fuck do you even want?” Alyssa asked. “Why are you here?”
“This…” Cicely’s eyes rested on her opponent. She held her weapon tight, while reaching into her pocket to retrieve a small prescription bottle.
“W-w-what… is that?” Alyssa stammered, and her voice quivered. She appeared to have finally caught onto the fact that she might be in her last moments of life.
Cicely rattled the bottle, and pills could be heard hitting against the plastic. “Oh, this right here? This is your candy. It’s going to give you a sweet sendoff. It won’t seem like much at first; but you’ll feel really good after a few minutes. You might even thank me for it.”
Alyssa shook her head adamantly. “I’m… I’m n-n-not tak—”
“Oh, but you are. It’s a slower demise than feeling this lead. It’s really your call.” Cicely checked the time on her Baume & Mercier. “I have about twenty more minutes before I have to leave. So, we need to get this going.”
“Please listen…” Alyssa tried reasoning.
“There’s nothing to listen to. Nothing you could ever say would be of interest to me. You’ve said enough.”
Alyssa put her hands together, and held them up to her mouth, her eyes pleading. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why? Why have you done any of the foul shit you’ve done? You’ve been sooo disrespectful. To everybody—including me.”
“B-b-but we can talk this out. If it’s an apology you want… I’ll… I’ll give you that,” she petitioned; her hands outstretched. “Let’s just… let’s just talk it out.”
“I’m over the chat. You went from being very rude and nasty, to now wanting to mellow out. I’m not interested in conversing with you. I’m interested in seeing you take these pills and then going fast asleep,” Cicely said sternly.
“But—”
“Here!” Cicely hissed, shoving two pills in her direction. “Two at a time.”
Alyssa inhaled a deep breath, then puffed her chest out defiantly. “There’s no way that I’m taking that.”
Having reached that phase of survival mode, Alyssa’s pleading had stopped. In its place was a firm stance that CiCi could almost respect.
“That’s cute. I like that strength and gusto. Too bad it doesn’t serve this moment.”
“I’m not trying to serve a moment. I’m just not—”
“Of course, you are,” Cicely insisted, aiming the gun higher. “In case you haven’t noticed, the ball is not in your court. Do it!” she ordered, pushing her hand forward. “I don’t have all day.”
Sticking firm to her decision, Alyssa shook her head, her eyes pinched closed. On the verge of tears, she replied,
“I’m not—!” The side of the gun’s butt came smashing across the left side of her skull, sending her to her knees. “Nooo!” she yelped in pain. “Please! Why are you doing this?” she sobbed, as she held onto the newly-battered area of her face.
“Take. The. Pills. The next time I have to say it, it’ll be different. Wouldn’t you rather fall asleep than—”
“Neither!” she cried. “I don’t want either. What… what I want… is my baby,” she cried. “Why would you kill my baby?”
“What the fuck did you say?”
Alyssa held onto the side of her head, blood streaming down her hand and onto the floor beneath her. “My baby,” she blurted, through the pain. “I’m pregnant. And it’s Trevor’s…”
Love…
It is the most powerful emotion.
That makes it the most dangerous.
RISQUÉ 3
1 | TREVOR
“Mannn, oh man. What the hell did I just witness?”
I wanted to bust out laughing. I already knew what Lewis was thinking even before he opened his mouth. He’d finally spoken after being silent for the longest time.
“I was waiting for you to say something, dude. You’ve been sitting real mute over there.”
“Shit, I’m something like stuck, right now.”
“Stuck?” I asked, to see what he’d say. “Stuck on what?”
“Dude, tell me this; when CiCi asked you if you handled ‘the problem’, she knew about the situation with that dude? Dude that you… snuffed?”
“Yeah.”
“Knew the whole story?”
“Yep.”
“Not the watered-down version, but the whole—”
“All of it. Can’t be a watered-down version for that shit. And for sure not where CiCi is concerned.”
“Damn. She’s gangsta, man!”
“Affirmative. A good gangsta though.”
“Man… I swear; I have never in my life been attracted to an older woman. Not until today.”
I coughed out a laugh, then looked away from the road to give Lewis a crazy-ass look. “Off limits, dude. All the way off limits.”
“Oh shit. I didn’t even think to ask. Is that you, man?”
“You could say that. She’s me—but not like that. She’s family. Like a second mother. So, just like my mother would be off limits… so is CiCi.”
“I respect it.” Lewis sighed, then stared straight ahead. “But fuck, she’s badd.”
“Man, I just told you—”
“Right. Sorry about that.”
I shook my head, amused. “It’s cool. She’s a beautiful woman. And that’s inside and out. That’s why I guard her the way I do. And hold her in the regard that I do. She’s been there for me more than my own mother in a lot of ways. Kind of accepts me for who I am. Not to mention that she’s always there when I need her. Called to check on me every day when I was in the hospital, and came to see me. My parents’ version of showing up was to bring you, and then to drive me home to make it look good. Talked to them once since then, and for about five minutes.”
“What? Serious?”
“Yep.”
“So, when I met you, that was their first time coming to—”
“As fucked up as it sounds…”
“Even your moms? Shit, I know how detached a father can be, but your Moms, though?”
“Pssh. My moms, first. Another story for another day, though.”
“Wow, man. That right there… got me fucked up. Shit seems unnatural.”
“Tell me about it. But I stopped giving a fuck, a long time ago. Realized with them, it’s always about the money. And shit, that’s fine with me. I got more money than I know what to do with, because the only parents they know how to be, are ones that shell out cold-hard cash. Been that way all my life. Put it this way… I was the nanny’s kid.” I shrugged, nonchalantly. “But like I said, it’s cool. The way I move around my life, I don’t have time to be looking in the face of judgment every ten minutes.”
Lewis blew out a loud huff of air. “Shit. They seemed like nice-ass people. At least the interaction I had with them—”
“They’re cool. Don’t get me wrong; I love ‘em. But like you said, we’re just cut from different cloths. Truth is, I never really felt a real connection to my parents. That’s why it wasn’t hard for me to leave home. And it wasn’t hard for them when I did, either. I’ve had my own places since I was 17.”
Lewis turned to me, confusion in his tone. “Wait. Huh?”
“Yep. By my senior year of high school, I was living on my own. Graduated, came to Vegas for college, liked it, and stayed.”
“College?”
“Yeah.”
“College, college?”
“Yep. Master’s degree.”
“Wait. Hold on.”
“Not a conversation I really like having.”
Lewis paused a few minutes, probably in disbelief about how I have a degree, but “work” in the field that I work in. Maybe one day I’d get into the conversation with him, but today wasn’t going to be that day.
“Okay,” he responded after a few pregnant pauses. “I know all about the hands-off convos.”
“Tuh. In your line of work, I’m sure you do.”
“All I know is that I would’ve loved to have my own shit when I was in high school. That’s the life.”
I chuckled out, at a few memories that flashed by. “Yeah, it had its advantages. Being on my own taught me life way before I would’ve learned it, if I’d stayed under them. One of the most important lessons was that, degree or not, I wasn’t interested in working for somebody else. Setting their families up for life. Rather work for myself. Have the kind of open enrollment that don’t just happen in November!”
Lewis threw his head back, an energetic burst of uncontrolled laughter escaped from him. “You a damn fool, Trev!” he yelled out. “I like that shit, though. I think we’re gonna be cool.”
“We gotta be. You already got a crash-course introduction to my life. But I’m sure it’s not the craziest shit you’ve come across, on assignment.” I looked over at him and smiled. “Care to share?”
“Dude, would I?!” Lewis laughed. “But NDA’s and confidentiality agreements forbid any of that shit. I’ll write a book one day for sure. Names withheld, but that shit would blow your mind.”
“I’ll bet. Tell me this. You ever fuck any celebrities?”
“I did.” I didn’t even have to look at him to know that he had a big-ass grin on his face. “One of the faves.”
“A fave? Aww hell no! And you can’t tell me?” I yelled out.
“Yeah, man. That’s one of those hands-off convos we just—”
“That’s fuuucked up, Lewis!”
“She’s married man. Not just that, I still hit sometimes. It’s our thing.”
“Well, fuck. My man! So, you’ve had celebrity juices rainin’ all down your dick and shit. Got me a new hero!”
“I am in a slight drought, though. And since you and CiCi have this business…”
I looked over at Lucious Lyon, then back to the road. “Say no more, my friend. I got you. Got something nice for you. And while you’re enjoying yourself, you can get paid for it too. If you’re down.”
“You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me. I get to choose the flavor and get paid for it? So, basically work for free?”
“Yep.”
“Shiiit, sign me the fuck up!”
2 | ELISE & ALYSSA BROWN
A Queenz Plan, an elite event planning company, housed their home office in a highly desirable part of Henderson, Nevada. The buildings were tall, and the money was just as long as the avenues that ran through the city. Their location was inside of a multi-purpose structure with 18 floors—the entire 18th floor belonging to them, and their staff of 150. A Queenz Plan was known around the country—and what Elise Brown, hoped to soon be, internationally. Having recently been named in Forbes, they were one step closer to reaching that goal. With the
likes of Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, and Floyd Mayweather on their roster of high-profile clients, there was nowhere for them to go, but up. This was why Elise Brown took it to heart that one-half of the company’s owners, was not living up to the standards set by her late-aunt, Sable Long.
Sable Long, affectionately referred to, as “Queen Sable,” was a staple in the event planning world. Having begun her professional career working the entertainment circuit, Queen Sable, mastered the game early, securing thousands of Las Vegas’s elite clientele. Sable was the one they called upon if they wanted their special functions done the right way. From the people she hired, to the project itself, Sable crossed all T’s, dotted all I’s, and left no stone unturned. She saw to it that no client was dissatisfied. Likewise, since day one, Elise had done things as strictly as her aunt.
However, her sister, Alyssa, did not. Alyssa showed her disinterest in the business time and time again. That disinterest often led to avoidable bullshit moves and decisions. Ones that often had to be remedied by Elise, and Elise was over being Alyssa’s clean-up woman.
Today was the last straw. On this day, Elise’s temples throbbed annoyingly. Anger rested inside her big brown eyes, as she stared at the seething email before her. It was a 4-line message of succinct frustration, from her contact at MGM Resorts. The grilled wording laid out what was a major faux pas with a big piece of the planning, for their extravagant holiday party, happening next month.
Alyssa, I hope to fucking God that I’ve calmed down by the time I see you!
The short breaths Elise inhaled, then blew out, were failing at centering her to a more peaceful state of mind. Her chakras were not having it, and refused to align.
Staring at the large monitor was getting Elise nowhere. The words wouldn’t magically disappear, and the executive’s anger would not suddenly dissipate. Nothing was going to magically happen. They had fucked up. Period. And although ‘they’ hadn’t fucked up, Elise had to take one for the whole team. That’s what she would be doing when she responded to the email, then with the follow-up phone call. Hopefully, A Queenz Plan wouldn’t get kicked off of the account at the end of it all. That wouldn’t be good for the company. And if it happened, it wouldn’t be good for her sister, Alyssa, either.