by B. Love
“But you were cool with us being no strings attached.”
“Yea, but I don’ fucked around and fell in love with your ass, and I’m sick of waiting on you to love me, too.”
Leigh paused, unsure of if it was safe to follow him and finish this conversation. When they met five years ago, their attraction to each other couldn’t be denied. In that moment, Ransom didn’t want anything serious. Leigh was okay with that because she didn’t, either. For quite some time, she sought so much love and validation from men, specifically through sex, that she lost herself and her worth.
She didn’t think she had anything to offer a man besides her body and her beauty.
Leigh was the balance of both of her sisters. Where Christian was thick and Maria was slim, Leigh was slim thick. Christian’s natural hair stayed under wigs and sew-ins, Maria’s hair was always in its curly state unless she was going out, and Leigh’s hair was always bone straight. All of them shared the same cocoa brown skin tone and strong features. The main differences were the shapes of their mouths and the colors of their eyes.
Christian had slanted, coffee brown colored eyes and round, pouty lips. Maria had almond-shaped hazel eyes and bowtie shaped full lips. Leigh had under turned dark brown eyes and medium-sized lips that formed a blindingly beautiful smile. A smile that was able to get her just about anything she wanted from a man when she flashed it.
Leigh was sensual and feminine in a way that made men cling to and crave her. So she felt using her feminine beauty and body was the key to having the desires of her heart.
Even though she knew that wasn’t the case now, she was so used to her relationships revolving around sex and random dinner nights out that that was what she’d become accustomed to.
Not having her father in her life once the truth came out had fucked with her something serious. She began to seek the attention and affection of every man she came in contact with. When she met Jason, she immediately fell into puppy love with him. He took advantage of it by exchanging his version of love for her virginity. Leigh was cool with it at first, but the first time she denied him, he broke up with her.
For the next five years, Leigh tried to use sex to secure love. After going out with one of her oldest sisters, Trinity, for her twenty-first birthday, Trinity changed Leigh’s entire perspective. Trinity explained to Leigh the power of her pussy and how men were supposed to work for it and her. She told her that as long as she gave it away without making them earn it, they would never value her and everything she had to offer.
So at twenty-one, Leigh went from craving love to trying her hardest to remove the desire for it from her heart altogether. Even though she still had sexual relationships with men, it was to get what she wanted out of them. There were no more talks of love and relationships, and if a man fell for her, she’d cut him off.
Ransom was different.
Even though she didn’t want to say they were in a relationship, they damn near were. Just without the title and official commitment to one another. Ransom was her diary, holding all of her secrets, insecurities, and fears. He was her best friend, and the first person she wanted to spend her free time with. He was her lover and her safe haven. Even though she was a hitwoman who could take care of herself very well, Ransom made her feel safe and protected.
But what Ransom could never be to her was another man whom she loved that broke her heart.
Even though he began to want more from her over the years, Leigh had never been interested in risking it.
For quite some time, Ransom had been more than okay with that, but over the past six months or so… that seemed to have been changing.
Instead of following him back into the living room, Leigh went to her bedroom instead. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she placed her elbows on her thighs and palmed her face. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but eventually, Ransom was at her door, saying, “Come lock the door.”
With a hard sigh, Leigh stood and headed in his direction as she avoided his eyes. She couldn’t help but take in his wide, chiseled back as he led her to the front door of her home. When they made it, she stopped him from opening the door.
“What did you even come over for if you didn’t plan on giving me any?”
His face twisted before he chuckled. “To spend time with you. You know we can be around each other and not have sex, right?”
Leigh sighed as he opened the door. “I don’t want you to go.”
“You don’t give a fuck if I go; you just don’t want me to go without giving you no dick.”
She didn’t want to, but Leigh smiled because that was true. They had spent the bulk of the day together, and Leigh was sure it would end in sex. While she didn’t mind being by herself for the night, she didn’t want to do so until after her release.
“I hate that you feel like I only want you for sex. You should be able to tell by how I treat you, talk to you, and look at you that that’s not true. I love every moment that I spend with you, no matter what we do.”
Ransom smiled softly with the left side of his mouth. He leaned his tall frame down and placed a sweet kiss to her lips. Even though it was quick, it was passionate enough to have Leigh licking her lips to savor it as she slowly opened her eyes.
“If that was true, you wouldn’t be so fuckin’ afraid to let a nigga have all of you.” His pointer finger drew circles around her chest as he said, “That pussy is magical, but I’d trade everything I got for your heart.”
Leigh’s eyes watered as she smiled and lowered her head. Not bothering to wait for a reply, Ransom left and closed the door behind him.
She still had trouble believing words like that could come out of his mouth. You wouldn’t expect one of the biggest drug lords of Memphis to speak so sweetly. To want love so deeply. To be so laidback and chill with everything he did.
Leigh locked the door and leaned against it briefly. She closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath, trying her hardest to regain control of her emotions before she did something she would regret. Ransom couldn’t leave her so raw, so exposed, so open, and not expect her to have to be filled by someone else.
With a low growl, Leigh headed for her home office. She needed something, anything, to take her mind off of him. After cutting on her iMac desktop, she went to her room to grab her phone. There was really only one person she wanted to deal with outside of Ransom, and that was Smith. His sex wasn’t as good, but he never gave her a hassle over that or anything else.
Heading back to her office, she called Smith.
“Hello?”
“Hey, what you doing tonight?”
“Shit. You tryna come through?”
“If I can.”
“You know it. Just hit me up when you on your way.”
“Okay, cool.”
Leigh disconnected the call and placed her phone on her desk as she sat down. Opening Google Chrome, she went through the process of opening several dummy websites and entering a few passwords until she finally got to the one she really wanted — Head Hunters Black Market. Most of her jobs came from it or repeat customers.
Head Hunters was a site that allowed people, for whatever reason, to place a price on someone’s head. It was typically done in bidding form. They listed the mark’s name, a picture, and last known address if possible, along with a max price for the bid. You had to pay a five-thousand-dollar monthly fee to be able to bid on the hits, and there was no limit to how many you could bid on at a time.
If your price was chosen, you secured the hit, and the person who posted it gave you a certain amount of time to execute and deliver proof. The funds were automatically pulled when a bid was accepted, so once the proof was uploaded or delivered personally, they were then transferred from the Head Hunters account to the person who did the hit.
As a child, Leigh never would have imagined she’d grow up to be a hitwoman. Of the two other sisters that lived in their home together, Leigh was the girliest. She dressed up in Princess costumes and begged her m
other to let her wear them to school. But when the truth about Ricky came out and he left… something broke inside of Leigh. Something that honestly hadn’t been fixed yet.
The giggly, happy, little girl was replaced with a detached, angry one. She went from wanting to have sleepovers with her friends every weekend to fighting them and anyone else who looked at her the wrong way. It didn’t surprise anyone when she started catching assault charges at the age of sixteen… but Jason mellowed her out. He found ways to keep her calm so she wouldn’t shoot off. But when they broke up, she went back to her old ways.
One of the men she fucked off with when she was twenty-two was a cleanup man and hitta for Money — one of the most notorious dealers in the south. Any time Money needed someone taken care of, Forest would take care of it. One job ended up being harder than he thought it would be. Leigh was with him, and she offered to use her seductive charm to get close to the man. Forest agreed and gave her five pills to slip into his drink once she got him inside the room.
Really, Forest didn’t expect her to be able to go through with knocking the man out in preparation for his death. And honestly, a part of Leigh didn’t expect to be able to go through with it, too. But as she talked to this man who had a wife and child at home as he boasted about picking up another woman, his face slowly reminded her of her father. When she slipped the sleeping pills into his drink, she envisioned herself doing the same to her father.
Shortly after he was knocked out, she told Forest to come up, and he pulled the trigger. In a way, that was Leigh’s way of killing the part of herself that still longed for her father. Unfortunately, something else inside of her died that night, too. She became dehumanized to a certain extent, and it got worse when Foster split the money from the hit with her.
Forest took her under his wing and helped her learn ways beyond her fists to defend herself. To render her opponents useless. Eventually, she started taking on jobs for Money herself. After a few successful cleanups, Forest told her about Head Hunters… and the rest was history.
If you looked at and talked to Leigh, you wouldn’t expect her to live the life she lived as a hitwoman. She was outspoken, yes, and a little crazy, but feminine and sensual… full of life… but always ready to take one if need be.
As she glanced over the newest profiles, none of them caught her eye. She never bid on anything less than two hundred thousand dollars to ensure she would be able to make at minimum one hundred thousand.
After shutting her computer down, Leigh went into her bathroom and showered. It was January in Memphis, so it wasn’t super cold. The high for the day was sixty-three, but now that the sun was starting to set, Leigh knew it would get a little chillier. Her favorite brand of clothing was Fendi. Tonight, she dressed in pink Fendi print viscose leggings with a matching pink hoodie. Underneath, she had on a black lace bra and panty set.
She slid into her low ankle boots, then returned to the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face again before heading out. Though she expected her body to immediately take her to Smith, her heart and mind had her staring at her phone as she resisted the urge to call Ransom. Pushing her pride to the side, Leigh dialed his number and hoped his stubborn ass would answer.
As she waited, she thought back to the first day they met. A smile immediately covered her face. She knew Money wouldn’t allow her sister to see real success in the drug business, so she asked Forest for a recommendation for a good, local supplier. Ransom was a dealer, but his cousin, Jax, was a supplier. Christian had been making decent money buying weed and converting it into baked goods, but she wasn’t really seeing the profit she could because of what she had to pay the corner boys she was buying from. She’d already asked Pressure to help her out, and when he said no out of his need to protect his younger sister, Christian started looking for a supplier herself.
Forest led her to Ransom, and even though she intended to link her sister with Ransom on some business shit… she couldn’t resist the yellow, tatted hoodlum that boldly lusted after her every time they were in the same room.
“Yea?”
Her smile widened at the sound of his voice.
“Babe…”
“Just come and get this dick, Leigh.”
Leigh laughed as she started her car. “How do you even know what I’m about to say? Maybe I was about to call and apologize or ask if we could go somewhere and hang or something.”
“I know you. If I don’t give you what you want, you will get it from someone else. And it’s my fault because I put you in your feelings and I know what that does to you.”
She nibbled on her top lip as she thought over his words. Ransom knew her so damn well. Sex had always been her escape from any feeling she didn’t want to feel. That way of existing and numbing herself was toxic as hell, but it was what she knew. Suddenly… sex wasn’t the only thing on her mind. It didn’t seem like the perfect solution. It actually felt like a burden that was causing a rift between her and the man she cherished most.
“I just… would like to spend a little more time with you… if that’s okay. Whatever you want to do we can do.”
“Why?”
He wasn’t going to make this easy… okay.
“Because I don’t just want you; I need you. Can I spend the night with you… please?”
Leigh waited anxiously for his response. It took a few seconds, but he sighed and replied with, “Pretty girl… you know you never have to ask.”
This… this was what Leigh needed. Being in the middle of his king-sized bed, on his chest, wrapped in his arms. When she first made it to Ransom’s home, they went to Hattie B’s to eat some hot chicken. Then, they went to Mischief’s sports bar for some drinks and a few rounds of pool. Mischief, whose real name was Nya, was one of Leigh’s brothers from another mother. When they were done playing pool, they walked around downtown for a while before heading back to Ransom’s place.
As soon as they made it in, they took a shower and climbed into the middle of his bed. As much as Leigh may not have wanted to admit it… being with Ransom in this capacity was just as satisfying as making love to him would have been. Just being in his presence was enough these days. And that was scary as fuck because it meant she was comfortable with him. Used to him. Attached to him.
She found herself trying to force sex to convince herself that that was what this was about. And unfortunately, Ransom was clearly getting sick of her shit. If she wasn’t careful, he would stand on his word and cut her off. And Leigh had no idea how she would function after that.
“Red wants out,” Ransom blurted randomly.
For a moment, Leigh’s rubbing of his chest ceased. When it picked back up, she asked, “Out of what?”
“The business. He proposed to his girl and she said yes.”
Sitting up, Leigh looked down and into his dark brown eyes. Ransom was devastatingly handsome. He had light, yellow skin and a baby face, but make no mistake about it, Ransom was nothing to fuck with. His muscular build and tattoo-covered arms, neck, and chest gave his young face and features an aged roughness. Leigh’s hand slid down his tapered fade, then his bulging bicep before returning to his cut six-pack.
“How do you feel about that?”
Ransom shrugged as he stared into her eyes. When he told Leigh that Red’s girlfriend was pregnant, she felt like this was coming. What she wasn’t expecting was for Red to want to leave the drug game and his closest friends, but Leigh couldn’t blame him for it, either.
“I’m used to it by now. It’s just me and Jax left.”
Leigh smiled softly before pecking his lips. Ransom had started his business from the ground up with nine of his closest friends. Out of the ten that started, two were dead, four were in jail, and Red was now the second to leave because of his desire to be a legit family man.
“Well, you know Jax gon’ always ride, family or not.”
“Yeah,” was all Ransom said before letting out a sad sigh.
Jax and Ransom were cousins. Jax D
iesel had a way of getting under Maria’s skin like no other. She only tolerated him because he had a security business with Nash and was related to Ransom. It was cute seeing Jax get Maria all riled up, mainly because her mean ass never let a man get close enough to her to make her feel any type of emotion. So whatever reaction Jax was able to get out of her… her sisters appreciated. Because it reminded them that she could feel.
“Is that why you were on one earlier?”
Ransom chuckled as he nodded his head. “Yeah. I’m getting old, Leigh. A nigga gon’ be thirty-three this year. And I’m ready for it to be my time to start a family and leave this shit behind.”
“What about Jax? What will he do if you leave?”
“That mane straight. He got the security business with Nash. Besides, I’m the dealer and he’s the supplier. He can make money without me.”
“True, and you can make money without him, but y’all are twice as powerful together.”
Ransom turned his head to the left, avoiding her eyes. Leigh didn’t take offense to it. She knew him well enough to know that that meant he was actually thinking about what she said.
“Still. I’m gonna start making moves to retire by thirty-five. He already knows that, but I guess it’s time I let you know, too.”
“Okay. You know I will rock with you either way.”
Ransom returned his eyes to hers. “I want to be married by then, too. So you got until my birthday to get your shit together. If you don’t, we’re through.”
Leigh nibbled on her top lip as she broke his gaze. Ransom’s birthday was four months away. There was no part of her that wanted to lose him, but she also couldn’t see herself randomly wanting to be in a committed relationship by then either when what they had was working so beautifully.
“Are you giving me an ultimatum?”
“Nah. I’m telling you how I’m moving, and you can either fall in line or get left behind.”
Their eyes remained locked for a few seconds before Leigh looked away and laid back down. Ransom released a quiet chuckle before asking, “You gon’ have an attitude for the rest of the night now?”