by Rosie Harper
"The boss would like to have a word with you," Jake his second said as they slammed the skinny young man into the wall.
"Enough!" Joshua ordered as he walked down the back alley as Jake landed a solid punch in the man's stomach. "Hello Michael," he said as the man groaned in pain trying hard to keep his balance.
"Josh, I am going to pay you back," Michael croaked around the pain in his stomach.
Michael chuckled and lit a cigarette. "This is not about the money son, this is about trying to get one up on me."
Michael began to say something in his defense, but Joshua held up a hand to stop him. Whatever he had to say was of no use. He would be used as an example. He took a draw from his cigarette and closed his eye allowing the silence to make his prey anxious. Josh always felt that in his past life he could have been a lion or a tiger as he enjoyed the chase. Most people thought of him as a psycho, but even psychosis had its place in society and he held his with pride.
"You will pay be back Michael, and if you ever steal from me again," Joshua let his words trail off as he handed his cigarette to Jake and fired punch after punch at Michael's. By the time he was done, the young man was unconscious on the ground possibly with a broken jaw.
"Get away from him!" A scream came from the door, and their heads turned to see one of the beauties running towards them she bent over Michael and threw a hateful glance up at the men around him.
"What the hell did you assholes do?!" Her rage was more of a cry for them to help but Joshua was in no mood. He walked off ignoring her.
"Call your friend an ambulance or something, he's gonna need it," he threw over his shoulder. But he didn't get much further before a bottle landed in the back of his head. He felt it coming before it broke there and as drops of blood soiled his white shirt collar he stalked back to the defiant woman who had dared assault him.
Grabbing her by the neck he slammed her into the wall, his anger at being assaulted replacing all common sense. "Do not test my faith. You are fucking lucky I didn't kill his thieving ass. Make sure he pays me what he owes and I will forget this." He let her go and she coughed trying to catch her breath.
"Whatever he owes you will have to go to his medical bills," she said to him through clenched teeth. He couldn't figure out if she had a death wish or if she was just brave. Though bravery and stupidity very often went hand in hand, case in point-the fiery dark eyes that glared at him in defiance. He stared down at her heart shaped face and slender form and knew he could break her in one go. Yet as she stood he saw a kind of strength to her that intrigued him. He decided to walk away from her.
"The name is Cara," she spat at him as he walked off. "Remember it, because if you ever touch him again I'm going to break your face."
He turned to her and smiled. He was sure it was not the last time he would be seeing her. He was actually going to make a concerted effort to ensure that.
Chapter 2
Cara sat outside the hospital room, while Simone swore up and down the hall about the piece of shit, asshole, waste of space of a man that had beaten Michael to a pulp. This wasn't the first time Michael had gotten beaten though and it wasn't the second or third time. He was Simone's brother and though she had kept his secret, Cara was beginning to think that it was time Simone knew about what Michael had gotten himself into. Well, she would try to tell her if she would stop cursing long enough to listen.
She understood Simone's fury. Their mother had died from cancer two years ago and their father had been too far down in a bottle to care much about anything. Michael had a penchant for getting into trouble and had done so at every turn. The only reason she knew about his current extra curricula activities was because the last time some dweeb had beaten him into a pulp he had managed to haul his ass to her house instead of going home to his sister. But now it was time for that to change.
"Hey Simone," she said to her friend who stopped and unintentionally glared at her. "Come sit down, I need to tell you something."
Simone walked suspiciously towards the seat she patted beside her. Cara was not one to mince her words and so she told Simone everything she knew. She had to or risk the next time Michael was beaten he would turn up dead. Simone's grey eyes blazed and her friend punched the wall outside his hospital room before walking in. Cara rushed in after her thinking Simone might just save everybody else the trouble and kill him herself.
"Wake up you idiot!" Simone screamed at her sleeping brother to no avail. His head was heavily bandaged and the doctors had said he was sedated to allow his head some time to heal. His nose had been bleeding profusely when he was brought in, and blood had come out of his ear.
He was likely higher than a jet on cloud nine at the moment but Simone didn't care. She pinched his arm and waited for a response and when none came she turned to Cara in a huff.
"I can't believe you didn't tell me!" She said in a loud whisper as one of the doctors popped a head in the room. "I tell you everything and you neglect to tell me this."
"I am sorry," Cara said trying to calm her friend down.
"Do you know who the guy in the alley was?" Simone asked.
Cara knew who the guy in the alley was. Everybody who lived on the south side of Chicago knew who the man in the alley was. She couldn't fault Simone. Cara had grown up in the projects, the part of Chicago where police thought twice about responding to 911 calls and the only justice was owned and arbitrarily exacted by the gangs and their leaders. Pretty little Simone had been lucky enough to have a mother who married her way out of the south side. They had met as youngsters through their mutual love for the water, and they had built a friendship ever since. One Cara had treasure, but one that would come to an end surely, if Simone continued with her defiance.
"Who is he?" Simone demanded.
"Joshua Chantouse," she said flatly and she didn't need to say a single thing more.
****
It was a little after twelve the following day that Josh sat in his office mulling over some papers his accountant had sent him. The deal Michael had caused him to lose put a dent in his weekly revenue. As a drug dealer he had prided himself on a few things, one of them was never losing a client. He wasn't into plying the trade for a few hundred dollars, he ran a multimillion dollar business with an iron fist. Some two timing loser had cost him three hundred thousand dollars in three days and he intended to collect.
He hadn't been one of those idiots who sold drugs and intended to do that for the rest of his life. No, he had plans. For years he had been making his money plying drugs through the streets but he had cleaned it and built something for himself. Coming from nothing, being a drug dealer was not to be his single story. This building he stood in was to be one of the first, real estate and investment was his trade. The second would be a commercial building he would rent and the third....he hadn't decided yet. He had plans, plans that included a wife and a child eventually, but if people kept fucking with his shit there was no way he was going to accomplish it.
He shoved his hands into his pocket and stood looking out the twenty-third floor of his office building. He had built this empire from scratch. Made sure every law man, lawyer and politician who was worth a damn, was tightly fitted into his pocket and on his payroll. Taking a chance on the fast talking idiot who had cost him money was a rookie mistake. The thought kept making him angry and he could do nothing but stare out the window. He had been just another black kid on the south side, but drugs were his passport out and he had no interest in losing because some ignorant person, who lacked vision, tried to dupe him.
"You can't go in there!" His secretary was shouting. Josh turned towards his door just as it burst open with the fresh scent of the rain that clung to the wet hair in front of him and mixed with it was the subtle brew of wild apples. The other beauty from Macky's last night.
"Listen you piece of shit!" She shouted at him and he loosened his tie and stared at her with a lifted eyebrow. "Leave my brother alone," she shouted at him and tossed an envelope onto h
is desk.
It took him longer than it should have before he recognized her as the sister Michael had bragged about a few times. The gem of the family, he had said. Now here she was like fate's gift standing in his office.
"Good morning, little Miss Michael," he smiled.
"My name is Simone," she said and he admired the fire in her eyes. Her thick lips all but snared at him as he looked her up and down. Her milky brown complexion was only flawed by the tiny drops of rain that still lingered there. Her grey eyes were cloudy globes promising a fight and though she must have had one white parent, when she turned to leave her ass spoke of nothing but her African heritage. He was enthralled.
"What's in the envelope?" He asked her.
"Half the money my brother owes you," she answered turning to stare him in the face. "You will get the other half at the end of the month when he gets out of the hospital."
Josh laughed. "That is not how this works," he said coldly and took the envelope from his desk, stashing it inside.
"You nearly killed him last night because he owed you money and I know who you are, so now I am repaying it. What more is there?"
He walked around the side of his desk to stand before her, reaching the thumb of his bruised hand out to caress her cheek bones. He felt instantly drawn to her. He stepped closer so her breath caressed his neck and though she tried to avoid his gaze he could feel that turning away was something she did not want to do.
"Your brother lost me a client, and that will not just cost me three hundred thousand dollars," he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted her face to his. "He cost me that every single month until I get that client back. So unless you plan to pay me three hundred thousand per month, this means nothing."
She stared into his dark eyes and he smiled back at the grey of hers, the gaze only broken when Jake walked into the room.
"Boss, take a look at this," he said and handed Josh a letter. Josh ignored Simone as he read the papers that told him he had to pay more tax, the total of which was just a bit too much for his liking. Then he remembered something Michael had said, his sister was an accountant.
He turned back to her and smiled. "If want to free your brother from my debt, you have to do something for me."
"Not interested!" She said and shoved Jake out of her way, as she was about to walk off he grabbed her by the hand.
"Not so fast," he said and the steel in his voice told her that her day was going to be a long one.
Chapter 3
Simone felt the iron grip of one of the most dangerous men in Chicago sink into her forearm and thought in that moment that maybe, just maybe she should have taken Cara’s advice and leave him be. But what was she to do? Joshua had all but nearly killed the single most important person in her life. Never mind that Michael was an idiot by all accounts, but he was her baby brother.
“Let me go,” she said to Josh whose grip only tightened with what he no doubt perceived to be her insolence.
“You storm into the lion’s den love and then want to give us orders,” the man chuckled. “That’s not how this works.”
His henchman blocked her exit and he gestured to her to take a seat. “You are an accountant right?” When she didn’t answer his question he continued. “I need you to take a look at these tax papers and tell me how I can avoid paying all of it legally.”
He shoved some papers towards her and she ignored them.
“I am not getting involved in anything you have going on here,” she shot back at him. His unbothered expression told her that he had ways of making her do just that.
“You can do it by will or by force, but don’t test my patience because I have very little of that left.”
Simone looked at his smooth face as he stood up. Another time and another place and she would have bedded him in a jiffy. He was sexiness personified and the air of danger that surrounded him was every bit as appealing. Yes, an argument could be made that she was just as stupid as her brother for thinking what she was thinking now. He walked around his desk to the office bar he had and poured himself a drink. She watched him, admiring the way the black pants of his designer suit hugged his ass, and when he turned and flipped his jacket open to shove his hand in his pocket she could see that beneath his shirt were the kind of abs that women drooled over.
Oh, only if he were not the devils spawn.
Her eyes lifted to see his staring at her and a slow smile spread across his lips. He had seen her admiring him and she knew that just stroked his oversized ego even more, but with that realization came the fact that she knew, unless she did his bidding it was highly unlikely that she would be leaving his office the way she came. She resigned herself to his demand and flipped through the papers. Her mother had spent a butt load of money on her Ivy League education; it had better not fail her now. Not like she was running off to anywhere in particular other than back to the hospital to kill her brother herself. She had quit her job the week before when her boss had thought it was okay to walk into her little cubicle and hail insults at her for reporting a discrepancy in one of their accounts. Excuse her for thinking she was just doing her job.
She watched him whisper something to the man at the henchman, who left to do his bidding. Maybe they were preparing her body bag or something but she pushed those horrific thoughts from her mind and spent the next five minutes looking at the statements that accompanied the auditors demand and came to the conclusion that he really was not to be paying that much tax. “Fire the agency you have doing your books, because they are just trying to swindle money out of you.”
“What?” he asked her in shock, and the deadly look that slowly engulfed his face told her that she might just have gotten someone killed.
She sighed knowing that answering his question would just be digging herself deeper into a hole but she did it anyway. “You are only legally obligated to pay roughly thirty percent of the amount quoted her,” she said to him and then spent the next thirty minutes explaining the math behind it. She watched his brows furrow and loosen with every word she said, and felt drawn to the way he soaked up every bit of information she passed on to him. When she was finished talking she turned her gaze from the papers to find his eyes tracing every line of her face and found it disconcerting.
“What?” she asked him and she could feel the blush creeping into her face. She was happy that her mother’s darker skin tone had overshadowed her father’s pale skin or she would be wholly embarrassed.
“I like your mind,” he said to her barely above a whisper, and if any line in history was a panty dropping line, that one was. His face was close enough for her to lean in and kiss him and she nearly did but stopped herself just in time. She had always wanted a man who complimented her mind and not her body, and here he was packaged like the demon who cops knew should be thrown in jail for all manners of evil, but were too afraid to touch him. And even then Simone knew that there was a lot more to him than meets the eye.
“Thank you,” she responded her gaze focused on the lips that pulled her in.
He got up abruptly from the seat he had taken beside her and pulled the envelope she had tossed at him earlier. His henchman came back into his office and handed him a paper which he perused before looking back at her.
“I see you are currently out of a job,” he said and again she did not answer him so he continued. “I will let your little weasel of a brother off the hook if you come work for me as my accountant.”
Her breath caught in her throat at the offer, and her eyes widened when he told her how much he would pay her and that she could take back the money she had brought. It was all a little surreal and she looked at him suspiciously.
“What’s the catch?” she asked him.
He again smiled at her as if he was pleased by what she said. “You have to work for me for two years.”
“Why two years? Why so specific?”
His eyes flashed with a warning that she should not question him and she slowly sank back i
n her chair. “I need to think about it,” she said.
“You have fifteen minutes.”
Simone took that to mean she could leave and quickly made her way down to the front where she had left Cara waiting. Her friend was nowhere to be seen. She began to panic as she asked the receptionist who stared at her with contempt, where her friend had gone. The woman reluctantly directed her to the library around the corner.
The building known as New Horizons was home to one of the fastest growing businesses in Chicago and she had always passed it and marvel at its design. Being on the inside today she was definitely wowed by it and the library she entered to find children from the south side milling around, was heartwarming. She had heard some time ago that Joshua was trying to build up the project where he had grown up, and back then she had thought it ironic that he sold drugs on the same streets he was trying to make better. But her father had once told her that sometimes you had to take a step backward in order to move forward, and it was not until now that she had realized how true it was. She had never grown up in the projects, but her mother told her stories of how that was. This library and the free day care she passed on the way to it, where testament to something new and uplifting. God knows the community needed it.
Ok, now you are idolizing a drug dealer, stop it! She admonished herself, but truth be told she knew she was going to take the job before she found Cara with legs curled comfortably in the library lounge reading a book. She explained what had transpired and her friend made it clear that she had very little choice. Simone left her there and went back to his office only ten minutes later.
“Okay, I will take it,” she said, and his smile this time was a bit more joyful than she knew he wanted to show.
“You start now,” he said, and she didn’t object to the fact that it was Saturday. “Jae will show you around and find you an office. Welcome aboard Simone,” he finished and handed her the envelope with money. Her father was on the well to do side, hence the availability of this much cash, but she had always told herself she would make her own. Especially after he had cut her baby brother off. This was a good start in that direction provided Joshua’s illegal business did not get her in trouble. She looked at his face with urbane good looks and the languid elegance with which he poured himself another drink. He defied all the stereotypes of drug Kingpins, but she was not stupid, she knew that if she made the smallest mistake, he would put a bullet in her head and bury her in the middle of nowhere.