The Family Business 2

by Carl Weber

  “I got to go show my face. Let them blood clots see I’m still running shit!”

  Of course, Vinnie had been totally on board with Randy making the trip to Philly—another reason I had my doubts about Vinnie’s true intentions. Now my brother was gone, and I felt so scared and alone.

  “Dammit, Randy. Why didn’t you listen to me?” I hit the wall in the shower, my tears flowing harder. “Please don’t be dead.”

  “Surprise!” The shower curtain flew open. Standing there as naked as the day he was born was Vinnie with a devious grin on his face.

  I grabbed at the edge of the curtain, trying to wrest it away from him, but he pulled it farther out of my reach. “Vinnie, what are you doing? Let go!”

  “Sorry, no can do. Time’s up,” he said, looking down at his erect penis.

  I crossed my hands over my body, wishing I was anywhere but standing there naked. “No! I’m mourning my brother. I can’t even think about sex right now.”

  “Well, I’m thinking about sex, and I’m not taking no for an answer. You been pussy footing around for almost a year now, first with the ‘I don’t wanna have sex while I’m pregnant’ routine; then you used that six weeks crap to keep me away. Your six weeks are up, and we need to consummate this relationship. Or perhaps you’d prefer I consummate it with someone else?”

  I was tempted to tell him that it wouldn’t matter to me one bit if he took his hard dick elsewhere, but I knew that wouldn’t be wise. With him in charge and my brother gone, I was too vulnerable to risk angering him any more than he already was.

  “You’ve been queen bee around here for as long as I can remember, mostly because of your brother,” he said, stepping into the shower and backing me against the wall. “Well, Randy ain’t here no more, and if you don’t get on your job, I’m going to walk out there and find someone else to do the buzzing. Then you’re going to be just another whore, and you know what those boys will do to you without me or Randy to protect you. So make up your mind,” he said, as if I really had a choice.

  I studied his face and saw no trace of kindness there. Still, I hoped I could talk some sense into him. “Vinnie, come on. You said you understood; that you were willing to wait.”

  “I’m sick of you playing games with me, Ruby, but if that’s the way you want to play it, fine. I’m not going to force you to be with me. As crazy as it may sound, I really do love you.”

  He was right; it did sound crazy. I was starting to think he was totally fucking crazy, and somehow I’d allowed my brother to convince me that I should marry him. How in the world did my life get to this point?

  Vinnie stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and tossed it to me. “Here. Dry off. I’ll be in the bedroom waiting. Either you can join me or you can send Natasha in. Your brother used to brag all the time about how good she was. If I can’t have you, I might as well take your brother’s woman, since he’s not here. The choice is yours.”

  I collapsed against the wall, contemplating my options—or rather recognizing that I really didn’t have options. I had to keep Vinnie calm, at least until I figured out what I was going to do now that Randy wasn’t here to protect me. So, it was either sleep with Vinnie, or let him toss me to the wolves. No way was I going to let those bastards pass me around like they did the other girls. At least with Vinnie I knew what the fuck I was getting into. Maybe one day I’d take my baby and leave, but for now that didn’t seem possible, so I had to do whatever was necessary to survive.

  I resigned myself to my fate and walked out of the bathroom to find Vinnie lying naked on the bed with his hands propped up behind his head. I glanced over at Vincent, sleeping soundly in his crib, and I wished I could just grab him and run. But to where? I couldn’t go back to Orlando. His family would never have that. Orlando could say whatever he wanted about loving me, but Vinnie and Randy were right—I had met Orlando as a working girl, and the Duncans would never see me as anything but a whore. My son would be treated like an outcast, and if there was one thing I would do, it was protect little Vincent at all costs.

  I turned to Vinnie knowing I had no choice but to have sex with him.

  “Vin, the baby?” I motioned toward the crib where he was sleeping.

  “Relax. He don’t know what the fuck we’re doing. Now come here.” He grabbed his penis and started stroking it.

  I went over to the crib and took off my towel, throwing it over the crib to block out any view of the activities about to take place.

  “Hurry up! I want you to blow me,” Vinnie demanded, all the while massaging the growing shaft of his penis.

  “Can we at least start with a kiss?” I asked. The last thing I wanted to do was place my mouth on his penis. I moved over to the bed and lowered myself next to him. “Vinnie, please, let’s not cheapen it. Not if you really love me. Let’s make love,” I said, still trying to avoid giving him a blow job.

  “Sure,” he said, his voice less demanding than it had been. “I’m sorry. It’s been a while. I’m a little impatient.” He reached for me, and I swallowed my disgust as he kissed me. Vincent was a good-looking man, but his actions lately had shown me he had an ugly heart.

  “You have no idea how much I love you, do you?” he said, and I wondered what his definition of love must be.

  I didn’t even bother to answer him. I just rolled on my back, hoping we could get this over with quickly. Vinnie climbed on top of me, and we began making love, if you want to call it that. I put on a performance, moaning and grunting a little, and he screamed and shouted my name. It was over within a matter of five minutes. In the end he seemed satisfied, and that was all that counted.

  “That was terrific,” he said, slapping me on the ass. I felt like crying. Thank God the baby hadn’t woken up.

  Vinnie’s phone rang just as he was pulling his pants back on. “Hello,” he answered, sounding all chipper after getting laid. Whatever he heard on the other end, though, changed his demeanor in a hurry. He glanced at me and then rushed into the bathroom with his phone. Before he closed the door I heard him say, “Damn, man, I thought you were dead.”

  I stayed in the bed, my heart racing. His voice was muffled through the bathroom door so I couldn’t hear the conversation, but the few words I’d heard gave me hope. What if it was Randy on the phone?

  When Vinnie returned, he had a bewildered look on his face.

  “Who was that? Who’s alive?” I pressed.

  Vinnie snapped his head in my direction, almost as if he’d forgotten I was there. “Huh? Oh, nobody important. Just one of the guys from the house down in Philly who happened to be lucky enough to be down the street during the raid. He wanted to know what to do.”

  “What’d you tell him?” I asked, deflated.

  “Told him to meet us up here and bring as many of our people as he can find.” He leaned over and kissed me. “Look, I gotta take a shower. I got shit to do. But this was a great start. I’m a hell of a lot better lover than Orlando, aren’t I?” He whistled as he headed to the bathroom. It was a good thing he couldn’t read my mind, because I would have burst his bubble real fast.

  Before he went into the bathroom, he turned and said happily, “Oh, by the way, speaking of Orlando, I hear lover boy got himself killed last week.”

  “What are you talking about, Vinnie? Orlando’s not dead.” I stopped short of saying that I’d just talked to Orlando last week.

  “Yeah, he is,” Vinnie said with assurance. “Got himself killed during some big powwow with the Mexicans out west. Too bad. I wanted it to be me who pulled the trigger. Oh, well. I guess one less Duncan is one less Duncan.”

  I felt my stomach clench into a tight knot. On the phone that day, Orlando had said he was going into a meeting. Could that have been the meeting Vinnie was talking about?

  My face remained emotionless until he made his way into the bathroom and shut the door. When he was out of sight, I had to sniffle back tears as I scrambled to find my cell phone. Sure, I’d said I wanted Orlando
dead on a few occasions, but that was in the heat of anger. How could I truly want him dead? He was the father of my son.

  I dialed Orlando’s phone as soon I heard the water running in the bathroom.

  It rang three times before someone answered. It wasn’t Orlando’s voice. I froze, my heart pounding. Why was someone else answering Orlando’s phone? Maybe he just didn’t want to talk to me after I cursed him out last time, so he had someone else answer it when he saw a blocked call. Or maybe Vinnie was telling the truth and Orlando really was dead. I wanted so badly to hang up, but I couldn’t do it. Not until I knew the truth.

  “Orlando?” I asked foolishly, not knowing what else to say.

  “This is his brother Junior. Who is this?”

  “Can I please speak to Orlando?” I said. I did not want to give my name to Junior. I knew Orlando had a soft side, but his brother scared me more than any other Duncan. It was not only because of his size, but because of the fear I heard in Vinnie’s voice any time he talked about Junior. And Junior had been there in Philly the last time we heard from Randy. Who knew what this man was capable of?

  “Is this Ruby?” Junior said.

  I pulled the phone from my ear and gasped. What was I thinking? Of course he recognized my Jamaican accent. Had I just given away our new location? I was using a burner phone, but the Duncans seemed capable of finding us anywhere.

  Little Vincent started stirring in his crib, and the sound reminded me of what was really important. I needed to know if my son’s father was still alive. I put the phone back to my ear.

  “Please, I just need to speak to him.”

  “And I need to know who’s calling. Is this Ruby?”

  I heard Junior sigh, and then he spoke, his voice anything but intimidating. “Ruby, he’s dead. He died last week. Why don’t—”

  I hung up the phone with tears in my eyes. Looking down at my baby, I wondered, How am I ever going to explain to him that his real father is dead? He never had a chance to see him.

  Paris

  26

  I’d torn apart my whole room, digging in all the spots where I normally hid my stuff, but I came up empty-handed. That’s when I barged into Junior’s bedroom.

  “Did you take my shit?” I hollered at him.

  He lifted an eyebrow like the Rock and twisted his lips, but didn’t say a word. He was too busy listening to whoever was on the phone with him.

  “I asked you a fucking question, Junior. Did you take my shit?”

  He sat up in the bed. “Hey, Sonya,” he said into the phone, “let me call you back, baby. My little sister is in here tripping about something.” He hung up and shot me a pissed off look.

  “Don’t be looking at me like that. I wanna know if you went in my room.” I folded my arms defiantly.

  He stood up and came closer, chuckling like the whole thing was some big joke. I wanted to hit his big ass. “Yeah, I went in your room.”

  “You went in my room and took my guns, didn’t you?”

  “Mm-hmm. I took them,” he said as he grabbed my arm and led me over to a chair. He pressed on my shoulder to make me sit down. “Now calm down.”

  “Where are they?” I huffed.

  “I put them all in my gun safe in the basement. You can’t be leaving shit like that around with all these kids in the house now.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, not in the mood for his little safety lecture. “I already went down to the basement, but somebody changed the combination on the gun safe.”

  He nodded. “That would be me.”

  “I need that combination.”

  “No, you don’t,” he said, still irritatingly calm. “I’m gonna be holding onto your firearms for a while.”

  “What the fuck?” I wanted to jump out of the chair and hit him, but he kept a firm grip on my shoulder. “What right do you have to take shit that belongs to me?” I fumed.

  “I don’t want to risk you doing anything stupid. Trust me. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and it’s better this way.”

  “I’m a goddamn professional, Junior. What am I gonna do that’s so stupid?” My voice shook with indignation. The nerve of my brother, treating me like I was a child instead of one of the world’s deadliest assassins.

  “Please, Paris,” he scoffed. “You’re always doing something stupid that we have to bail you out of. I’m not going to risk you going off half-cocked before we have time to assess the situation.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you people?” I yelled, shoving his hand off my shoulder. “You’re not doing anything. Alejandro deserves to die. In case you’ve forgotten, he killed our brother!”

  “Yes, and you killed his son,” Junior snapped back. “Do we really wanna go down that road again?”

  “Dammit, don’t you think I know that? That’s why I gotta do something.” I couldn’t stop myself from bursting into tears. I don’t know if it was the hormones or what, but ever since I’d given birth, my emotions were all over the place.

  Junior put his arms around me, wrapping me in a bear hug that I couldn’t escape. I didn’t want to calm down or to be okay with this the way they all seemed to be. My anger not only felt justified, but appropriate, unlike the tepid reaction they all seemed to be having.

  When I stopped fighting, he wiped my face and let me go.

  “Let’s just wait until Pop figures this whole thing out,” he said.

  “We can’t wait for Daddy,” I protested. “This is not business as usual. This is family. They haven’t even given us his body back.” Junior just stood there staring at me, and I exploded. “Dammit, Junior, do you at least have a plan?”

  “Yes, I do, but we have to wait for the right moment.”

  Someone moved outside the door. “And when that moment arrives I want in.”

  We both turned to see London standing in the doorway. Her hands were on her hips, and she was wearing a decidedly un-London like expression: venomous rage. I was used to seeing London with a scowl on her face, since she always had some kind of attitude, but today her anger was through the stratosphere.

  Junior let out a frustrated sigh. Now he had two of us to deal with. “I don’t need either of you going crazy. You hear me?”

  “At least I’m trained to handle this,” I reminded him. “She’s the cowboy, not me.”

  “Hey, before there was a Paris, there was a London. I made my bones for this family when you were playing with Barbies, and I didn’t need a fancy school to teach me. I was taught by my brothers, the best there is at what they do,” London said. I wanted to smack her so bad for the jab, but that wasn’t half as bad as what she said next. “I don’t know what the heck you’re getting all upset about anyway. Orlando would be alive if it weren’t for you. This whole thing is your fault.”

  “This was not my fault.” I turned to Junior with tears in my eyes.

  Junior said, “Leave it alone, London,” conspicuously not answering my question.

  “No, Junior. Y’all be dancing around it, but we all know the truth,” London pressed on. “Even Momma and Daddy. If she hadn’t killed Miguel, Orlando would still be alive. She might as well have pulled the trigger herself.”

  “What the fuck do you know?” I fought back, rushing toward her. “You’re nothing but a fucking housewife. You don’t know shit about how this business really works. Miguel was collateral damage. So just shut the fuck up!” My fists were balled up, ready to strike her, but Junior stepped between us.

  “I know that if you weren’t such a loose cannon and a disgrace to this family our brother would be alive. The only place you can ever feel worthy is between your legs. Whore!” she shrieked.

  “I know you didn’t just call me a whore after you was fucking the enemy. You lucky Harris didn’t ask for a blood test, you nasty-ass bitch.” I hoped my words scorched her to the bone. Always acting like she was better than me, when she was the one stupid enough to get caught up with Tony Dash. At least I didn’t pretend to be a nominee for sainthood.r />
  “Just as long as you recognize that you killed our brother.” London whipped her accusation at me. I lunged toward her, but Junior snatched me out of the air like I weighed nothing and held me away from her. One second later and I would have knocked the crap outta her.

  “Stop it! Both of you! Mom can’t handle this shit right now. She just lost her son,” he warned us. The mention of my mother was all it took for us to gather ourselves.

  “Paris, go and find your child and be a mother.” He pointed at the door, but I wasn’t done with him yet.

  “I want my guns returned.” I shot a nasty look at London as I exited, purposely leaving the door open. I lingered in the hall to listen to the rest of their conversation.

  “Why did you say that to her?” Junior questioned London.

  “Because it’s true. Our brother is dead and it’s her fault.”

  “You wrong for that, London. You’re supposed to be the levelheaded one. I got enough to worry about with Paris, not to mention Mom and Dad going at it.” Junior sounded worried and tired. Normally he played his emotions closer to the vest than this.

  I could hear London moving closer to Junior. They were probably hugging.

  “I wish Vegas was here,” she said. That sentiment was probably the one thing we had in common.

  “Me too.” Junior let out a heavy sigh.

  “Me three,” I whispered to myself.

  We all knew it was impossible. In our family, Vegas had been the glue holding the Duncans together in rough times. Without him it seemed like we were coming apart at the seams.

  Orlando

  27

  I woke up in a dimly lit place, and my nose was assaulted by the strange mixture of sweet lilac and acrid sulfur. At first I couldn’t tell if I was in heaven or hell, but then a throbbing headache told me that I might not be dead after all. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw the figure of a woman hovering over me. I shut my eyes tightly, thinking maybe this was all just a dream, but when I reopened them, she was still there. Behind her was a man dressed in all white.