by Brick
We’d already gotten knocked up once; they weren’t risking it again. Truth be told, neither were we. That didn’t mean we stopped having sex, it just meant we got smarter about birth control. He got condoms and I got some pills. I stopped fighting in school so much and Tone stopped playing ball. We made it to high school graduation. We both chose careers that took up a lot of time when it came to the education aspects of them. Eventually jealousy and neglect crept into our relationship.
I was jealous of all the little future doctor chicks he always hung around and he started to neglect me as his girlfriend. I didn’t think he could help it. It was just the nature of the beast. Both of us were students at the University of Miami, but we were worlds apart. Eventually we both got tired of fighting. We were young, with a child, and very unhappy. As much as it hurt me, we decided the best thing to do for Jewel was to break up. That was one heartache I never got over. I would never tell Tone that, but yeah. Even though I’d eventually move on with someone else, I never got over seeing Antonio pack his bags and leave the apartment we shared near campus.
Even though Tone was a medical student, his time management was better than mine. Mama Sheila died when Jewel was five so I was truly on my own. Law school was demanding and, as hard as I tried, I was having a hard time managing mothering full time and school. Don’t get me wrong, Tone was a great father, but Jewel was living with me. To make a long story short, Tone and I had a talk and we agreed that Jewel would be better suited to live with him since his mother would be able to look after her while he was at school. He had the help that I didn’t. Since she was seven, she had been with her father. While my career took me from the gritty streets of Miami to the courtrooms of Atlanta, Tone laid his roots in Miami. Everything was going great.
I was the youngest assistant district attorney in the Dade County DA’s office at twenty-five. I came fresh out of law school having graduated top of my class. I was the DA’s pet, as people used to say. I was taking cases, winning them left and right. I got so good that ATL came calling. They needed a new assistant district attorney. So I threw in my hat.
At twenty-eight, I was an ADA for the City of Atlanta, selected for one of the many specialized prosecution units maintained by the district attorney’s office. Head in the clouds, no one could tell me a thing. And no one did. No one told me that the old DA had lost his life because he wouldn’t play ball with the who’s who of the underworld. No one told me the new DA was a puppet for the Orlandos. I had to find that out the hard way. Lucifer Orlando was the defendant. He had killed a woman, Sade Banks, in Chicago in 2005, but we wanted him in Atlanta, as he had been connected to the murders of Fatima and Jamir Kweli in 2003.
According to the stories told, before the old DA had been killed, he had convicted Lu on a drug charge in which Jamir Kweli had convinced witnesses to testify about what they saw. From a prison cell, Lu ordered his sons to take out Jamir and Fatima. It was all a mess. By the time Lu got finished, and with all the people he had in his pocket, the old DA was dead while Fatima and Jamir were painted as the drug runners of the neighborhood. Lu was out on the streets again.
As soon as I had stepped foot in the DA’s office, the Orlando name rang out heavily. We were trying to get Lu before the Feds tried to take over. I could feel it in my bones: they would come in and try to take the case over as soon as we came down on him.
I shook my head, remembering the way that man had watched me while I tried him for murder. I lost that first case. Couldn’t get one damn witness to get on the stand. They would have rather gone to prison for perjury than testify against Lucifer Orlando. I assumed my boss, the DA, was just as amped about going after him as I was. I had been wrong. So very wrong.
A cold chill ran through me at the memories of what happened the first time I was alone in a room with Lu Orlando. I shook away the smell, and the look in his eyes.
Fast forward to 2008, Caltrone Orlando walked into my office and told me he would give me his son on a silver platter if I would play ball with him. I was so hell-bent on sending Lu Orlando to prison by then, I made a deal with the devil. It would be my undoing as, three years later, I decided to walk away from the job I loved and move back to Miami.
For some reason, I felt as if I had been played. Had Caltrone known who I was all this time? Did he seek me out because he knew the connection I had to his son, Tone?
“Caltrone, I would say it was good to hear from you as well, but that would be a lie,” I heard Carmen’s smooth voice say over the speakerphone.
The man chuckled. I could see now where Antonio got his looks from. Tone never spoke about his father, ever. A sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach settled over me. I knew Caltrone, way more than I should have. Had conversations with him that led me to leaving the life of a prosecutor behind. Antonio was a fucking Orlando. I swallowed hard. On one hand, I was borderline disgusted and somewhat amazed I’d survived a relationship with an Orlando. On the other, my flesh crawled with the knowledge that I’d lain with Lu Orlando’s flesh and blood.
Caltrone chuckled. “Carmen, to still hold hostility for things of old is beneath you,” he said.
“Which part? The part where you impregnated me and my sister at the same time?”
“I took care of that,” he responded.
“Or the part that when you were angry enough you had no problems using your hands to get your point across?”
“I always told you to leave me alone when I was angry, but you never listened.”
“Or was it the part where you knew your son was afraid of dogs but used them against him—”
Caltrone’s smirk dissipated and his voice turned cold. “You can stop there now. I may have been unfair to you, but to my son, I wasn’t. Fear weakens men. He was afraid of dogs; I made sure he got over it.”
“Leaving a six-year-old in a room with a vicious pack of wild dogs was not the way to do it,” Carmen belted out.
“I can’t argue with your perception, Carmen. I long ago stopped explaining myself when I realized people only understand from their level of perception. You see things how you see them. I don’t dabble in emotions. I deal with logic. As you can see, he is no longer afraid of dogs, sí.”
“Kiss my ass, Caltrone. I’m only talking to you because Antonio needs help.”
Caltrone chuckled. “Sí, I know. And I agreed to help. I have people on the job.”
“I didn’t allow him to come ask for help so you could put someone on the job. You want me back home? You want your granddaughter to be a part of your life? You don’t send in the cavalry; you are the cavalry. I’ve always told myself that I would never have anything else to do with you or your harem of bitches. But someone has taken my grandchild. Most people think you’re the devil, but I know better. I don’t want to send the devil’s imps after them. I don’t even want the devil himself on the job. I want the God who tossed Satan out on his ass on the job.”
If I didn’t know anything else about the man on the phone with Carmen, I knew he was a manipulator and had a way with words. The first time he walked into my office when I was the ADA was my undoing. I knew that once I fell in with doing business with him, all morals I had were gone. But what could I do when the man who ran the underworld demanded a favor from me? I needed to see Lu Orlando in prison. So if his father was going to help me, I was all in.
I had no idea I was doing business with Tone’s father then. The fact that I’d hopped on a plane then come right to his door for the sake of our daughter . . . I’d come to call in the favor Caltrone Orlando owed me without knowing he was my daughter’s grandfather.
“I do this and you come back to Cuba, sí?” he asked Carmen.
There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. Caltrone did some kind of signal with his hand toward the house.
Antonio finally spoke up. “Mama—”
Carmen cut him off. “Sí. You get Jewel back and I come back to Cuba.”
“You don’t have to do that, Mama,” Tone said t
hen looked at his father. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
Caltrone smiled coolly. “That wasn’t part of our deal, no,” he said pointing between himself and Tone. “But, your mother knows the price of asking me for favors. I scratch your back and you have to scratch mine.”
My fists clenched at my sides while I watched on. I turned to find right behind me the young man I’d come to know as Mark. I hadn’t even heard him walk up. There was a slick smirk on his face.
“Papa wants to see you,” he said.
While a woman who didn’t know him may have been turned on by the slight Spanish accent in his deep voice, I knew better. “Get away from me,” I demanded.
“I’ve been watching you since you’ve been here,” he said. “You’re pretty, very pretty. Bet you taste like licorice,” he said then flicked his tongue out at me.
“Leave her alone, Marco. Papa said not to touch her,” Mark’s older brother, Frederick, said. He came from the back room. He was dressed all in black, with a gun holstered on his left side. I liked him better than I did the one named Mark. Mark was evil personified. At least there was a little light in Frederick’s eyes.
Frederick looked at me. “Papa would like to see you now.” He took my arm in a firm hold and ushered me outside.
By then, Caltrone was off the phone. He smiled lazily when he saw me. When Tone turned around, I saw shock then anger register in his eyes.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked as he abruptly stood.
“Is this your Kenya?” Caltrone asked. “Assistant District Attorney Kenya Gates?”
“I’m no longer an ADA,” I said snidely then snatched my arm away from Frederick.
Tone’s brows furrowed as he stormed over to me. “What are you doing? Did you follow me?”
“No,” I answered.
“No, son, she didn’t follow you. In fact, she got here hours before you did. I’d say it was fate that brought us all together, sí?”
Tone’s face was stuck between confusion and anger. “Somebody needs to tell me what the fuck is going on, now!”
“Can I talk to you alone?” I asked Tone.
“Please do,” Caltrone said as he prepared to leave. “Make it quick. My grandchild is missing. I’d like to get her back as soon as possible.”
I waited until after he and his grandsons had walked off before looking back up at Antonio. “I can explain,” I started.
“I’m listening,” he all but growled out.
I started with my move from Miami to Atlanta. I told him everything, from my first trial that I lost when trying to convict Lu Orlando to the second trial when I had all the evidence possible in the world. So much so that I didn’t worry about witnesses who wouldn’t testify. Caltrone had made good on his promise. Chicago’s DA had received an anonymous tip about the murder of Sade Banks. Lu was convicted in Chicago and sent to prison there. Working in tandem with them, I got Lu charged with first-degree murder in Atlanta. I got primary jurisdiction for the City of Atlanta. I knew for a fact he didn’t kill Fatima and Jamir Kweli, but he for damn sure ordered it.
Still, I lied in the courtroom. Used every underhanded tactic I could find, with the help of Caltrone Orlando. The day Lu was sentenced to life in prison the darkness over my life lifted, partially.
By the time I was finished, Tone had no emotion on his face.
Chapter 3
Antonio
I wasn’t the type of man who was prone to outbursts of anger. Pause, let me restate that. I wasn’t the type of Orlando who was prone to bouts of anger. But as I stood in front of the mother of my child, all I saw was red. The anger management lessons my mother had taught me at a young age—something I later learned was a tactic of hers to make me less Orlando, more humane, as a means to undo my father’s lessons in Cuba—weren’t working. Heat blazed in my body. My mind was thumping, my eyes tight, as one occasionally twitched. The way my fists were balled up, I knew that if I didn’t hit something, the desire to hit an actual human being would take over and I’d find myself going after one of the many men roaming the lands. All because of Kenya.
As I stood there breathing in and out, my thick lips turned down into a tight scowl. My gaze locked on Kenya’s beautiful face. At one point, I loved her to the core of me, after the high of lust went away. Now, I felt like she was another fucking obstacle in my way and, for a second, I wanted to hate her for coming here.
While she spoke with her hands, following me as I walked away from the ears that tried to listen to us, we moved to where I could look out at the sea and allow the crashing waves to drown out our conversation. Once we were in a good spot, I turned to look at her with a blank stare and I slid my hands in my pockets. Kenya’s brown eyes were wide as she waited for my reaction.
Her dark caramel skin was flushed red. All I heard was the blood rushing in my ears and the pounding of my heart. I wanted to wrap my hands around her throat for this, something I’d never wanted to do before. I wanted to snatch her by the nape of her neck and force her off the land and throw her on a plane. But as I stared at the woman who had disrupted everything I had planned, and had me recalculating my plans, all I could do was seethe with anger. I wasn’t feeling her right now. I truly wasn’t.
I finally made out what she was saying. “Tone, you’re not listening to me. I had to use my resources too. This is our daughter. You can’t really expect me to just sit back and twiddle my thumbs! You know me better than that.”
Again, the Orlando blood in me began to rise to the surface and fuck with my mental. All I heard in my mind was, is this bitch really that stupid? But instead, I said, “You don’t know what you just did.”
“I did what I had to for our daughter,” Kenya rushed out again, keeping her distance.
“You don’t fucking make deals with my father! You don’t do that and expect not to lose out on your end,” I shouted then clamped my mouth shut trying to chill the lion within.
Kenya stared up at me, then tilted her head to the side as if I had said something ridiculous. “He owes me. I’m not making a deal. So this is different.”
I settled into a quiet anger, and my voice came out in low, even tones. “Nothing about this is different, Kenya. You saw what he did to me with regard to my mother. He twisted everything to his favor and now my mother has lost her freedom because of this. Because she asked me to use her as a bargaining chip, or additional icing on the fact that I was coming back home to be an Orlando.”
“I know him. He’s a man of his—”
Cutting her off, I sliced my hand in the air. “You don’t know him!” I shouted. “I do. I am his son. You know only what he wants you to believe. He is an ominous actor who wears many faces and holds many cards. You just played in it. You just allowed him to play you. Do you not see it?”
Kenya gave a quick jerk of her head, turned her lips down, then rolled her eyes as she spoke. “Whatever. I’m going to do and risk all for my daughter, regardless of what you think, Antonio,” she said heatedly as if she knew better than I.
Because of that familiar attitude of hers, I laughed. She used to be a sweet woman who was laidback in life. When she became a lawyer all that changed. She became hard-edged, and the woman I used to know became a stranger who I didn’t really like dealing with all the time. Those were the tough years with Kenya, when our daughter was young. Kenya became a subtle manipulator in her work. Once her job broke her down, and she quit law to open up a bakery, the softness in her started to come back. Though, even opening that bakery, I felt, was a front.
It was when Kenya came out in front of my father and told me about how she knew him that everything from our past, and our fights, made sense. She had been trying to hide her dirty deeds and it had started to weigh on her. So what she didn’t know until today that I was an Orlando? My mother had intentionally made sure I always used her last name so the taint of being an Orlando wouldn’t hinder me. I didn’t make it my business to tell anyone who my father was. But he for damn su
re went after her with specific reason. Because she was linked to me.
“You should have been doing whatever you could back home and not with my father, because now you are going to be whatever you can to keep him at his word, and I can’t save you from that shit because you laid your fucking ass in that bed. And, in the process, you fucked up what I had going on.” Running a hand through my hair, I walked to the side. “He’s been playing you since day one of you meeting him, Kenya. Do you not understand that? Why would he come to you of all fucking people about Lu? Huh? Let me tell you why.”
In my anger, all English melted away and I was speaking the tongue of my mother: Spanish. I knew Kenya understood me because I’d taught her well, back when we were kids.
“Because my father invests himself in all his children and what they do. You were tied to me. So because he watches me, he watches you. He knew about Jewel the day you birthed her!” My hands smacked together as I spoke. Heat rose around the collar of my shirt and I tried to ignore it as the blood rushed in my ears. “He has pictures of both of our graduations. He came to you because it was his way to introduce himself to you and keep tabs on me at the same time. He is why I broke us up, to keep you safe and make sure that you and Jewel had a normal life, and here you fucking go! You never listen to what the hell I have to say. Never!”
Kenya stood speechless in front of me. She tucked behind her ear her crinkled, long hair that lifted behind her due to the breeze, and she kept her mouth shut. Though, I saw her jaw ticking in anger like my own. I knew she hadn’t seen me this angry in a long time. Not since we were kids and I was protecting her. As I paced back and forth like an animal in the wild, my mind was already thinking of how to make the best of this while trying to school my ex on what she was dealing with.
“Now you’re his pawn and I can’t do shit about it. So if he wants to fuck you, guess what’s going to happen? If he wants to tear you apart in front of me, to teach me a lesson because I’ve been gone for so long, Kenya, he will strip you, and take pieces of your flesh little by little.” By this time I was back in her face. I thumbed my nose. I kept my voice low hoping this shit was sinking in because, by the fact that she was here, I knew that she didn’t give a damn about her life.