Loving Her In The Shadow- Sovereignty

by D J Parker

  Tommy ran a hand down his face and blew out a long breath. “It was a week after Vincenzo’s funeral. A few of the girls down at the Tit List wanted to memorialize him. You know, for old times’ sake. Vincenzo was loved down there.”

  “Was he pushing drugs in the club?”

  “That’s where the money was.”

  Nothing could move in and out of that club unless someone had given the okay. Which means, more people knew that Vincenzo was dealing drugs. “Is Fat Tony still managing that dump?”

  Tommy grunted. “You know Tit List is his life.”

  “How did Capone find my brother?”

  “She was his distro. When he got killed, he left a debt. She told me I could take over his business. Only thing I had to do was kick up a higher percentage to cover what he owed.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and asked, “How did Vincenzo find her?”

  “That’s the thing, she finds you. She sorta like runs a credit check. If everything pans out, you’re in.”

  “How did you find yourself in Harlem?”

  “Capone set that up too. She had people on the payroll—officers, business owners, tenants. She pays all of them to look the other way. I put together a team that worked for me. I supplied the product and had people selling it.” Tommy ran a shaky hand through this hair. “It was running like a well-oiled-machine. Everyone was making money. I was even close to paying off Vincenzo’s debt. Everything was going good up until this morning.”

  I was struggling to piece together the information. Nothing seemed to make sense. If she was so connected, how did Tommy get arrested? Unless he tried to double-cross her. If he did, that means my sister was in danger.

  I rose from the chair and walked across the room. I needed to place some distance between us. As much as I wanted to wrap my hands around his neck, Tommy was worth more alive than dead. But as soon as I sorted this mess out, he was dead.

  As I stood in the corner, trying to lull my rage, I asked, “Did you try to cheat Capone?”

  “Fuck no! She’s way too connected to cross.”

  “Connected,” I repeated, piecing together his information. “How does she get her money?”

  “A guy named Nice comes around.”

  I glanced down at my watch. I had a few more minutes with him before the next shift started. “What does he look like?”

  “Big black guy. The ugliest piece of shit I’ve ever seen. He’s got a scar running down the middle of his face like someone tried to cut him in half.”

  “Is he from out there?”

  “Nah. But, I see him walking around with some Latin chick in the projects every time he picks the money up from me.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. “Do you know her name?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe Maria or something.”

  “When’s his next pick up?”

  “Next Friday.”

  “If they don’t get their money, they’re going to go after everything attached to you.”

  “They don’t know about Angelina or the baby.”

  “You just told me that she found you.” I turned around to face him. “Which means she knows all about you and who you’re tied to. If she’s as connected as you claim, why are you here?”

  Tommy looked away and lit his fourth cigarette. If he was thinking what I was thinking then he’d realize Capone had used him. She wanted him to get caught. She knew I’d come. This was a message.

  “What’s going to happen to me? You can’t leave me in here.”

  “You were denied bail.” I walked over to the table and grabbed my sweater. “Biggest drug bust in history, the headlines are saying.”

  “But you can change that. You can make that all go away like you did for Vincenzo.”

  “Did I?” I tossed my sweater over my head. “Seems to me Capone tried to get my attention the first with him. Now, she’s using you.”

  “So what the fuck am I, bait?”

  “That’s exactly what you are.” I turned away from Tommy and walked over to the door. I knocked on the door and waited for Pete to appear. All the while, Tommy begged and pleaded. But I had already tuned him out.

  When the door opened, Gabriel bounced off the wall. I dug into my pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. I peeled off some bills and gave it to Pete.

  I turned to Gabriel. “Let’s go.”

  Reign

  “Shit,” I mumbled under my breath as I pulled up alongside Keith’s Mercedes Benz.

  I’d spent the past five days dodging his calls, texts, and emails. I wasn’t ready to talk to him, much less see him. But now, I had to face the last person in this world that I wanted to see.

  I glanced at the dashboard clock. It was a quarter past noon. Around this time, he would be at his office. Keith rarely worked from home unless he was working overtime to complete an assignment. He claimed that working from home fucked with his work-life-balance. As the only African-American artificial intelligence tech company in D.C., I watched Keith build his business to a successful enterprise. He went from working out of our garage to having four Stealth Solutions companies in D.C., Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago. He always spoke about expanding Stealth Solutions to New York. When I got appointed as district attorney after Michael Scappa put in his resignation midway through his term, we saw New York as an opportunity to rekindle our marriage.

  Keith always inspired hope. He was always supportive and encouraging when it came to my career. Our views on legacy and generational wealth aligned. He never asked me to compromise my career. I guess that was why it was easy to fall in love with him.

  I’ll never forget the day I met Keith. It was nine years ago. I was twenty-one-years-old, a second-year law student. I had recently called off my engagement with my undergrad sweetheart. Instead of being sad, I was relieved. It was amicable. Neither one of us had gotten engaged for the right reason. Our parents had been friends and started planning our future together long before we entered grade school. On paper, we were a match made in heaven. A power couple. Black excellence.

  If only we saw life with each other.

  A month after our breakup, I packed everything up from our two-bedroom apartment and drove to my new apartment. Everything had seemed perfect that day. I looked at the time and it had been 1:11, my favorite numbers. January 11th was Daddy's birthday. The sun was shining brighter than ever. I viewed everything as a positive sign from God. The light had turned green and I drove. I didn’t see the burgundy car that took the red light until the driver slammed into my driver’s side. I lost control of the wheel and crashed into a pole. The last thing I remembered before passing out was my face slamming into the wheel, the airbag inflating, and a burning sensation against my cheek and forehead. A few hours later, a man claiming to be my fiancé was sitting in a chair beside my hospital bed. It was Keith.

  And damn was he was the best thing I could’ve woken up to. The man was sexy as hell. His earthy-brown skin inspired me to breathe. My eyes had dropped from his almond-shaped, brown eyes to scan the rest of his face. High cheekbones, angular jaw, and perfectly curved full lips displayed a map of his Nubian ancestry. His locks, stopping in the middle of his back, were pulled back into a woven style. Standing just a couple inches taller than my 5’7 frame, I knew I had met my king.

  A little over a year later, Keith proposed to me in his studio apartment. Needless to say, my parents didn’t approve of him. To them, Keith was some tech geek who rotated the same three pants. Despite holding dual master’s degrees in business and information technology, he didn’t meet their standards of success. We waited as long as we could for them to come around, but a few years later, we decided to elope.

  At some point, I counted myself lucky to be married to a man like him. He humbled me in the ways my privileged upbringing had not. Sure my father was an orphan who’d had a tough upbringing in Brownsville. But he worked his ass off to be “somebody,” as he put it. As the CEO of one of the top hedge fund companies in New Yor
k, Daddy was by far the most inspiring person I’d ever met. Yet, I couldn’t understand why he didn’t mesh with Keith. Where Daddy tolerated Keith, Mommy despised him. Unlike Daddy and Keith, Mommy came from money. She was the daughter of an investment banker and surgeon. Though she chose to stay at home to raise her family and be the trophy wife, Mommy graduated top of her class from Harvard Law School. That was where she met Daddy.

  I don’t know if she regretted not practicing law, but there was no denying how much she loved being a mother and wife. I wanted to be like her in many ways, but not at the expense of giving up my career.

  I suppose it was easy being a good wife when you had a good husband. I don’t know if my mother would’ve stayed with my father had he put her in the same position as Keith put me in. Hell, I was almost certain she would’ve never stepped out on my father the way I had stepped out on Keith. I don’t know what advice she would’ve given me had she known about Keith’s infidelity. It certainly would’ve been rooted in her disdain of Keith. I couldn’t tell Daddy or my two older sisters, Delilah and Michelle about Keith or the problems we’d been having in our marriage. I suspected they’d all tell me to leave him.

  For now, only three people knew of my deceit. Me. The Heels Snatcher. Carter.

  I felt guilty. Perhaps guiltier because I craved this stranger’s touch each passing day. Carter encouraged me to call him, but I thought the better of it. Still, I found myself wondering if I would bump into him while I was in the city. How would I respond? Would I fuck him again? No way, I tried to convince myself. Yet, I’d stared at his number long enough to remember it by heart.

  I shifted my gear into park and turned off the ignition. I stared at the three-bedroom condo that Keith and I purchased a few years ago. This place hadn’t felt like a home in a long time. I dreaded this very moment, but there was no way of getting around it. I unbuckled my seatbelt. I inhaled and exhaled slowly as I gripped the door handle.

  “Don’t argue,” I repeated to myself as I hopped out of my car.

  With each dreadful step, my heartbeat quickened. I paused briefly when I stood at the front door. My hand shook as I raised it to the door handle. Get it together. I gave myself a pep talk as I inserted my key into the slot. I inhaled and exhaled slowly as I twisted the knob and opened the door.

  I stepped into the house and every emotion I’d felt from the time we moved in here to the way I felt when I left here five days ago, came back to me in full force. I gripped the handle, trying to fight through my anxious feelings. I need to leave. Yet, I couldn’t move.

  I leaned forward, pressing my hand against my chest. My heart felt like it was being squeezed. Each heartbeat felt far in between.

  “Reign.”

  I couldn’t respond or move from the doorway, but my eyes found his. There was so much concern as Keith searched my face.

  He rushed over to me. “Baby, are you okay?”

  No, I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t find my voice. When he touched me, pain jolted throughout my body.

  He lifted me up, cradling me in his arms as he led me to the couch. He laid me along our couch and then ran away. Please don’t leave me! I’d never felt so afraid of being alone. If this is what death felt like, slow and painful, I feared the day I had to face it. I could feel tears spilling down the sides of my cheeks.

  Keith reappeared, holding a glass of water. He rushed over to me and kneeled beside me. He touched me again. I jerked under his touch, but his large hand held me close.

  “Breathe, Reign.” He practiced deep breathing, inhaling through his nose and exhaling out of his mouth. I focused on the rhythm of his breathing. I latched on to the pattern like it was my lifeline. I followed his direction, breathing in through my nose and exhaling out of my mouth. I continued until my heart began to beat normally and every loud emotion became a whisper.

  Keith lifted the back of my head and tilted the cup of water against my lips. I welcomed the cool water streaming into my mouth. Drinking almost half, Keith pulled the cup away and slowly eased me up into a sitting position.

  He cupped my cheek. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded. “I am now.”

  “What happened?” His voice was laced with concern. I didn’t know why it annoyed me, but it did.

  I scooted away from his touch. “I think I had a panic attack.”

  “Do you want to go to the hospital?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “Well come to bed.” He grabbed my hand.

  “No.” I jerked my hand away. “I’m not staying.”

  “What?” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You just got home.”

  “I’m here to get my stuff.”

  “Your stuff?”

  “Yeah.” I stood up. “I want to get my stuff and head back to the city before it gets too late.”

  “You’re not starting your new position for another two days.”

  “All the reason why I want to get a head start now,” I said as I walked towards the stairs.

  “Are we not going to talk about it?”

  I could feel him following me as I climbed each step. “Talk about what?”

  “You know what.”

  “We don’t got shit to talk about,” I tossed my words over my shoulder when I reached the top of the stairs. I rolled my eyes at the pictures of us framed on our hallway walls. I pinned my clenched fists into my sides and ignored the urge to rip those frames off the walls.

  “You’re not leaving until we talk about this,” he said as he followed me into our bedroom.

  I stopped walking and turned around to face him. “You want to talk about it? Fine. Let’s talk about it. When you were out there fucking these women, did you think about me?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Exactly what the fuck I asked you!” I sunk my nails deeper into my balled palms. “Am I a fucking thought when you’re shoving your dick in another woman?”

  When he didn’t answer, I continued, “Of course not. I’m the last thing you’re thinking about when you’re screwing these women.”

  “What women? I only slept with—”

  “Does it fucking matter?” I turned around to face him. “I don’t know how many there were, how many there have been, or how many there are currently. One is as bad as four.”

  He took a step forward. “Reign—”

  I put my hands out in front of me. “I don’t want an apology. I don’t want to know why. I just want to get my shit and go.”

  “Reign, please,” he pleaded as he inched closer. “Let us at least talk about this. You’re my wife. These women are not you.”

  “Yeah, they’re lucky.” I scoffed. “But you know what, Keith? I can see how easy it is to not think about you when I’m fucking someone else.”

  Confusing lines creased his forehead. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know, Keith. You figure it out.”

  He snatched my duffle bag from my hand and stepped forward. Anger took form in every part of his face, but I refused to back down.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” He seethed.

  “Don’t worry.” I brushed past him. “He’s not you. You’re my husband, after all.”

  I grabbed my suitcase from the corner of our walk-in closet and began tossing my clothes into it. I fought to see through the blurry tears that refused to fall. My pride forbade me from ever crying in front of Keith again. He’d seen me cry far too many times. Yet, we always managed to get to this point.

  I could feel Keith’s brown eyes glaring at my back, perhaps trying to figure out if I had admitted to cheating too. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t get a kick out of watching his face morph to anger when I admitted that there’d been someone else who had all of my attention. I’d had every intention of taking my one night of weakness to the grave, but it felt too good not to tell him.

  Keith must’ve gotten tired of staring at me because shortly after, he left our walk-in closet and
slammed the bedroom door behind him. I continued loading my suitcases with work clothes and shoes. I threw a few casual pieces into the suitcase. After what happened five days ago, I put myself on a strict ratio. It was going to be all work and very little play. Besides, I had to make sure to do a damn good job as a district attorney if I had any shot at running for the seat next term.

  After stuffing most of my closet into four suitcases, I used my duffle bags to pack my underwear, bras, and other toiletry items. I lugged my bags and suitcases down the stairs, ignoring Keith as he sat on the couch. I stuffed my SUV with everything I needed to make my next years in office be the best, hopped into the driver’s seat, and looked up at the home I’d once shared with Keith.

  I pulled out my cell phone and scrolled down to Keith’s number. I clicked the message icon and began texting him.

  Reign: I know New York was supposed to be a fresh start for us, but I need to be alone right now. I

  can’t tell you when I’ll be back or ready to talk. I need time.

  Keith: I fucked up. For the first time, I’m without a wife. But, I’m not going to allow this

  marriage to end. I will be patient just like how you’ve been patient with me. I love you Reign. Please don’t give up on me.

  I read his message over and was surprised that the butterfly of hope was not fluttering around in my stomach. I had no emotion when I read his message. Deep down inside, I knew I had entered a new era.

  Nicolai

  “As you all know, Michael Scappa resigned.”

  The razor-edged voice came from behind the freezer of Tony’s Famous Sweets, a Bensonhurst neighborhood shop in Brooklyn known for its Italian ice and gelatos. The brick-stoned parlor sat at the edge of my old neighborhood, “Little Italy,” as they used to call it back when we were the majority. Everyone else... well, everyone else who was not us got chased off the block. Though the block looked quite different now, Tony was the last of the original settlers.