No Honor Amongst Thieves

by Brick

  But if any of the mob bosses I’d worked for thought for a second that coming after my family and me was okay, they were dead wrong. I logged onto the laptop, then went to the website for one of the many strip clubs the Giulios owned in Vegas. The one thing that set this website apart from the others was that it was a secret. There was a black hole through this website that only certain people had access to. I was one of those people.

  Once I logged on, I saw that several of the men were online as this was where most of them communicated when they didn’t want their messages to be intercepted. I logged into the chat room. I didn’t want to make this long and drawn out. I typed a simple message:

  Someone is trying to kill my family and me. If anything happens to me or any member of my family, there is a file that will be anonymously emailed to every federal agency in the United States. This is not a threat. This is my insurance policy. Don’t call my bluff.

  I logged off immediately, not wanting to see the responses or have them possibly trace my whereabouts. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that anywhere was 100 percent safe. The men I worked for were resourceful and had extremely skilled individuals working for them who could probably hack into the Pentagon if they so wanted. I unplugged the laptop, then took the battery out before putting it back in the closet.

  I looked at the time. Marcel didn’t plan to come out of Lyric’s room anytime soon, so I grabbed a blanket and a pillow and made my bed the sofa for the evening. I’d finally gone to sleep after tossing and turning for the better part of the night when a slap across my ass woke me up. The smack was so hard that I jerked awake to find my husband staring down at me.

  I turned over on my back and barked out, “Why did you hit me?”

  “Get up,” was all he said.

  He had a cell phone in his hand, one I didn’t even know he had. He dropped it on the table in the middle of the floor, then said, “Talk.”

  “About what?” I asked, kind of pissed there was stinging on my ass cheeks from his big-ass hands.

  I sat up.

  “Not you. Leo, talk,” he said again.

  I was confused. “I thought you killed him,” I whispered.

  Marcel cut his eyes at me. “I said I shot him, not killed him.”

  Leo’s voice cut in. “If you two are done forcing me to listen to your foreplay, I’d like to get to the heart of the matter.”

  “Say what you have to say, bruh,” Marcel said, the annoyance in his tone matched what was in Leo’s voice.

  “Sabrina, what made you think it was okay to threaten The Family with federal exposure?” Leo asked.

  Marcel tilted his head as he looked at me, then quirked a brow.

  I spoke up, no fear or hesitation in my voice. “If one of you assholes thinks it’s okay to come after me and mine and think I was just going to lie down and take it, you have another think coming. Someone came into our home, Leo. My child was injured, smacked around like she was a damn dog. I had a gun put to my head. I was fucking kicked and punched because someone thinks me and my husband are liabilities. That is not okay. We have never betrayed any of The Family’s trust.”

  “And why the fuck would you two automatically think it’s us?” Leo snapped.

  “Who else would come after us so damn hard like this? Who would have the fucking audacity to break into our home?” I asked.

  “Like I told the nigga you’re married to, it wasn’t me. Which meant it wasn’t anybody in The Family.”

  If only Leo’s constituents knew how gutter he could sometimes be with his language, they’d never vote for him again. He put on a good front for the public, but behind closed doors, when pushed, he could be the most hood of men.

  “And how do you know?” I barked at the phone.

  “Because for any hit to be approved, it has to go through my father, and I can assure you, he doesn’t want any fucking thing to happen to his precious son . . . Marcel.”

  There was so much venom in Leo’s voice when he spat that last part out that I could taste it.

  “Marcel isn’t his real son.”

  Leo chuckled. “What’s your point?”

  “The point is, anything is possible.”

  The fact that Leo kept chuckling annoyed me. “Sabrina, Sabrina, beautiful, sexy, little Sabrina.”

  “Lay off my wife, Leo,” Marcel said coolly.

  As if Leo had ignored him, he continued, “Stop looking at the trees and see the forest, Sabrina. I know my pseudo little brother is still there in the room with you as he keeps guard over you like a hawk.”

  “Don’t insult my wife, asshole,” Marcel said. “Are you done?” he asked.

  “Your wife just opened up a can of worms that I may not be able to put the lid back on. If The Family didn’t have a hit out on you before, they most likely do now.”

  Marcel said, “Looks like you better let those niggas know that this isn’t what they want.”

  Leo sighed. I could hear him drinking something as when he swallowed it was loud. Then he hissed.

  “Little brother, whether or not you know it, I’ve always looked out for you. Yeah, there is a bit of jealousy between you and me—”

  Marcel cut Leo off. “Nah, nigga, that’s you with the jealousy issue.”

  “True. True, but regardless, Pops loves your black ass and over the years, I’ve come to as well. I mean, hey, in my own little way. Know what I mean? So, listen to me when I tell you this.... Get Sabrina and Lyric out of the States until I see what I can do to calm shit down with The Family, a’ight? Your wife has some big balls. To threaten the whole family with no regard to their power takes brass balls, bruh.”

  I thought Marcel would be pissed at me since he was earlier anyway. I’d gone behind his back and did something he had no idea of.

  So it came as a surprise when he simply told Leo, “She did what she felt she had to do to protect her family. I do the same. Not gon’ be mad at her for that.”

  Leo grunted. “Maybe one day I’ll marry a woman who can hold her own like Sabrina over there.”

  “You can’t keep your dick to yourself, Leo,” I said, remembering a conversation I’d had with his wife a year or so ago.

  He laughed. The fact that his dick didn’t control my husband made me appreciate him more. I’d never worried about him dicking down other chicks and bringing drama home. It was quite possible that if Marcel cheated on me, I’d kill him. He knew this. I’d made it known plenty of times.

  “Yeah, yeah, so I’ve heard,” Leo finally said. “Sabrina, your father would like to see you.”

  That got my attention. I smiled a bit. “Really?” I asked.

  “Yes. Especially since he received a phone call that threatened his life because he’s your father. And because you threatened members of the mob.”

  My heart deflated. For a minute, I got happy thinking that Daddy had finally come around. Thought maybe he finally missed me to the point of wanting to see me. That wasn’t the case. He only wanted to see me because I’d placed him in a bad situation.

  “I’d suggest doing it tonight so you guys can get out of here by morning,” Leo added.

  After that, he hung up. I looked at Marcel. I was about to say something, but then something Leo had said dawned on me. I thought back to the words one of the men who had attacked me said as well—and then it hit me. It finally hit me.

  “I need to see my father.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sabrina

  Getting Marcel to let me see my father alone was like pulling a lion’s teeth while he was in the middle of a feast. He cursed and yelled, but I was adamant about going to Daddy’s alone. I needed to get something off my chest. There was no doubt in my mind that my family and I had to leave the States now. We could no longer stick around. I knew that sending that message would ruffle some feathers, but what did they expect?

  I couldn’t think about that now, though. I drove up to the front of my father’s home, got out, and walked up to the door. Danny stopped me.
I hadn’t seen him in three years. He looked much the same, just manlier. Muscles were more defined. His baby face was still there, just with more handsome features. I smiled at him.

  “What do you want, Sabrina?” he asked me.

  The tone in his voice startled me a bit.

  “I need to see Daddy,” I said.

  “He isn’t here.”

  “You’re lying. If Daddy wasn’t here, you wouldn’t be here.”

  He grunted, hands still clasped in front of him, standing as the proverbial bodyguard would. Earpiece in his ear. Gun visible on his hip.

  “Yeah, well, lots of shit has changed since the last time you were here. Mr. Lanfair isn’t here.”

  Just as I got ready to go on a profanity-laced tirade, Kat opened the door.

  “It’s okay, Danny. Let her in,” she told him.

  Danny gave me a look that unsettled me. I’d never been anything but kind to the man, so I didn’t understand his attitude toward me now. But he moved aside and allowed me entrance. Kat was still as beautiful as ever. Still had the page boy haircut that was now dyed red and styled in a way that framed her face. Her makeup was done to perfection, and she had on a tight-fitting pencil skirt that showed she was still in good shape. She had on black heels that displayed her toes and heels with straps around her ankles. The blouse she had on also showed she had a new set of perky breasts.

  “Please excuse Daniel. He’s been a bit overzealous as of late. Othello has been on the warpath, and Daniel just happened to say the wrong thing at the wrong time and caught hell from your father,” she explained with a plastered-on smile. “Anyway, what brings you by?” she asked, taking a sip from the wineglass she had in her hand.

  I followed her from the expansive black-and-white Italian, marble-tiled foyer into the sitting area near the kitchen.

  “I came to see Daddy,” I told her.

  She chuckled. “Wow, it’s been three years, girl. Took you three years? Beautiful family you have, by the way. Lyric looks just like you and Marcel.”

  I cast a blank look in her direction. “Thank you. Took me three years because Daddy practically banished me from his life.”

  She waved a hand, and her eye awkwardly twitched. I had to wonder if Daddy had hit it too many times.

  “You know how Othello can be,” she said.

  I nodded once, taking off my leather jacket and gloves. I smiled. “I do.”

  She watched me closely, then moved over to the small wooden desk in the room. She set the wineglass on top, then said, “Well, he’s not here right now—”

  “I know. That’s okay. It’s you I really wanted to see anyway.”

  “Oh?” was all she said.

  We stood there for a long time watching each other. The muscles in my jaw twitched, and I felt each pressure point I owned heat up. She pursed her lips together, then ran her tongue inside of her cheek.

  “How did you figure it out?” she finally asked.

  “Something one of the men who attacked me said finally resonated with me. Leo repeated the words to me tonight, and it triggered a memory. After Daddy hit you in the back of the limo the day the South African diplomat was killed, you came home with me. We were discussing the death of Mayor Kasim, and you asked me if I really thought he’d died of a heart attack. I foolishly said yes, and you told me, ‘stop looking at the trees and see the forest, Sabrina.’”

  I tilted my head as Kat helped me to finish the last part of the sentence.

  She shook her head as she swallowed slowly. I moved closer to the desk.

  “I finally see the forest,” I said coolly.

  The faux smile left her face, and her eyes turned cold. “I wanted you to know it was me. I told him to say those words to you before he killed you. Wanted it to trigger a memory just before you died. They were supposed to kill Lyric too,” she began. “It was supposed to look like a hit on Marcel, and you just got caught in the crossfire of your husband’s affairs. To the outside world, it would look like a robbery gone wrong. To those of us close to The Family, it would look like a hit on a man close to the Giulios. And you just had to fucking ruin it. I’m so sick of you Lanfair bitches ruining everything,” she snarled through clenched teeth.

  “What have I ever done to you, Kat? I’ve always gone out of my way to be nice to you, even when Mama and my sisters hated me for it,” I said with a frown.

  “Bitch, I don’t need you to be nice to me. That’s your problem,” she yelled, face turning red. “You think too much of yourself. You think every fucking thing is about you. I had a child beaten out of me by your father. Do you know what happened after you walked out of here and chose a goddamned cook over your father? Huh? Do you know?”

  Kat was yelling so loud and hard, I could see every muscle in her face working. I felt like shit, actually. There I was thinking it was because of Marcel’s work that we had been targeted. Shit, I thought there was a possibility that it was because of my work with the mob as well. When, in the end, it was all because of shit neither one of us had any control over. The fact that I was the reason my family had been targeted for something so trivial ate away at me.

  I shook my head. “No, Kat. What happened?” I asked just because.

  “I had to take your ass whippings for you. It got worse, progressively so, after you walked out of your father’s life. Before then, the beatings were sparse, and then every time we crossed paths with you or drove past your stupid little bistro, Othello would take his anger and resentment out on me.”

  “How is any of that my fault?” I wanted to know.

  “Oh my God. You still don’t fucking get it! You’re one spoiled little bitch. I tried to fuck your husband once. Did he tell you that?”

  My spine stiffened, and all emotions left my mind. “Excuse me?”

  “I tried to fuck your husband once. Men are dispensable. I thought he was like all the rest of them; thought he was like Leo. Thought maybe he was led by his dick too. But nooooo. Sabrina had gone and found her the perfect little husband. He smacked me because I tried to kiss him; then he tossed me out of the bistro like I was trash in front of the whole damn staff. Like I was nothing but a piece of shit! All in the name of Sabrina Lanfair.” Kat started pacing behind the desk like a caged animal. “Another man putting his hands on me because of you.”

  At that moment, I felt sorry for Kat. For as angry as I was at her for what she had done, my father had damaged her. From the moment she started to have an affair with him behind my mother’s back, he had been no good for her.

  “I’m sorry you—”

  “Bitch, I don’t need your apologies. I needed you to die. Why couldn’t you just die? Why couldn’t Marcel come home like he was supposed to? They were supposed to shoot him before he got into the house. Stupid fucking amateurs. Ugh! But, I should have known, perfect little Sabrina and her perfect cook husband would have an escape clause. It’s not fair that you get to have a child, and I don’t. The first time it was your mother’s fault your father beat a child out of me. The second time it was your fault because your selfish ass couldn’t let the goddamn cook go. When you walked out of here that day, the day you told your daddy you were pregnant and marrying Marcel, he . . . He beat another child out of me, Sabrina.”

  I frowned and shook my head. Daddy was wrong, so wrong for what he had done to her. And as bad as I wanted to feel for her, I couldn’t. She turned to the bookcase behind her and placed her head against the shelves. Her hands were in front of her. She was crying. Shoulders shook as sobs racked her body.

  “I can’t have any more babies. The last miscarriage, because of the severity of the beating, ruined any more chances for me,” Kat continued. “So I wanted to hurt Othello like he had hurt me. I wanted to take away his favorite child. Wanted him to know what it was to lose a child violently. Took me a whole year to plan your death, and those stupid idiots messed it up,” she shouted, then spun around quickly.

  When she did, she held a gun in her hand. She fired so quickly that I
almost didn’t dodge it fast enough. I jumped behind the couch in the room as bullets chased me. Shots rang out back-to-back in a cacophony of noise. Kat kept firing until I heard her heels running across the floor. I moved from behind the couch just as she ran. I football tackled her to the ground. The gun went sliding to the doorway. For as bad as I felt for what she’d had to endure, she sent men to harm my family and me. I’d never get over the look of fear and blood running from Lyric’s nose.

  As we wrestled on the floor, I grabbed Kat’s throat. There were grunts, claws out, and teeth bared as we fought. Kat was stronger than she looked. I could hear her skirt rip, and she managed to get on top of me. Straddling my hips, she socked me in the face. Because of the hit from the gun I’d received from the previous attack, Kat’s punch rattled my brains, and the pain made me grit my teeth. I yelled out at the second punch to my mouth. I felt my upper lip split.

  I bucked my hips, threw an elbow to Kat’s face, and knocked her off of me. I’d been wrestling with Marcel for years. Through all the training, I could probably get a full-grown man off me if push came to shove. If Kat wanted to fight, then she had to bring it. When she fell over, she tried to crawl away. I hopped on her back, grabbed the back of her shirt, then slammed her head to the marble floor. I tried to crack that bitch’s frontal lobe.

  She screamed out as her blood painted the floor. I stood, then pulled her up with me.

  “Get up, bitch,” I snarled.

  I wrapped an arm around her neck and applied pressure, just the way my husband had taught me.

  The fact that I could hear her struggling to breathe pleased me. “Arrgggh . . . give me . . . let me . . . fight ... back. Give me a . . . fair fight,” she croaked out.

  I thought about it. My husband told me never to play with a kill, but I wanted to do more than kill this bitch. I wanted to hurt her. I let her go, then shoved her forward. She stumbled, then turned to me. One of her heels had already come off. She kicked the other one off. I didn’t have that problem. I came dressed for a fight. Black leggings and a black spaghetti strapped tee shirt. Combat boots were on my feet.