by Shelly Ellis
She whipped around to face him and pressed her face into his chest, letting the smell of his cologne and the laundry detergent in his sweater fill her nose. She wept softly while he held her in his strong arms and their son continued to babble from his perch at the kitchen table.
Less than a year ago, they wouldn’t have been able to do this—stay locked in an embrace. Antonio had wanted nothing to do with her after she had cheated on him with her ex-boyfriend, Marques Whitney. She had wanted to beg him for his forgiveness, but she ultimately ended up forgiving him when he finally confessed to her that he had murdered Marques the night he found out about her affair.
Paulette opened her reddened eyes and gazed up at her husband. She remembered the moment on Christmas Day when the cops had burst into Murdoch Mansion with handcuffs in hand. She’d thought they were going to take Antonio away from her, that their life together would be the final domino that tumbled in the series of dominos she had set into motion with her bad decisions. When the cops instead placed her brother in handcuffs, Paulette had felt a mix of horror—and relief. It was an overwhelming relief that left her feeling guilty to this day. And she would be burdened with that guilt until her brother was released, until the charges were dropped against him or he was found not guilty.
Meanwhile, she and Antonio would continue to attempt to put the past behind them, each trying desperately not to remember and replay what the other had done. Antonio was a kind, loving husband and father—not a cold-blooded murderer, she told herself. Paulette was a warm, giving wife and mother—not a cheater who may have given birth to her murdered lover’s baby; she was sure that was the mental reminder Antonio had to give himself on a daily basis. They would pretend to be whole again until, eventually, their pretense became reality.
The doorbell rang, and Antonio loosened his grip around her. “That’s probably Mama,” he whispered.
Paulette nodded and reluctantly pulled away from him. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands and sniffed. “Oh, no,” she said, wiping at his chest, “your sweater’s a mess now!”
“It’s fine.” He kissed her cheek. “It’s just tears, honey. They’ll dry.”
“Maybe you can change before you head out to work,” she called to him as he walked out of the kitchen and into their foyer. She watched his receding back.
“No time, baby. I told you . . . it’s fine.”
Paulette heard him unlock and open their front door soon after. She then heard Antonio’s mother say, “Where’s my little baby?”
At the sound of Reina’s squawky voice, Paulette leaned against the kitchen counter and cringed.
Reina was supposed to watch Little Nate while Paulette ran a few errands today. The older woman was always whining that she never got to babysit him. Though Paulette could just as easily have put on her Baby Björn and taken Nate to the grocery store and the dry cleaners with her, she had decided to ask Reina to watch the baby for a few hours—more to appease her husband than anything else. Paulette felt she owed Antonio more than she could ever give him. She would do almost anything to make him happy, and what made Antonio most happy was to have the two most important women in his life getting along. Unfortunately, Reina didn’t make that easy to accomplish. Since Paulette and Antonio began dating, the older woman seemed to make it her mission to belittle and be hostile to Paulette. Her vengefulness had only picked up ferocity over the years.
“Where’s my grandbaby? Where’s my Little Tony Tony Tony?” Reina crooned as she walked into the kitchen.
“His name is Nathan,” Paulette muttered under her breath.
She watched as Reina tossed her crocodile handbag onto the kitchen island and spread her arms wide, looking a lot like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in her all-white turtleneck and slacks. She sauntered toward Nate, whose entire face was now smeared with his breakfast. Antonio trailed in after her.
Paulette pushed herself up from the counter and painted on a smile. “Good morning, Reina. How are you today?”
Reina gave her a withering glance. “Fine. I didn’t know you were here.”
“Well, I live here,” Paulette said, drumming her nails on the cool granite, feeling her anger perk up again.
“Really? Couldn’t tell that from the way the house looks,” Reina muttered as she surveyed the kitchen, wrinkling her nose at the disarray. “When’s the last time you cleaned this place up?”
Paulette inclined her head, keeping her smile firmly in place. “Probably the last time you minded your own business.”
Antonio loudly cleared his throat and gave Paulette a warning look. She threw up her hands in a “She started it!” gesture.
Reina ignored her comment, leaned down, and undid the harness holding Little Nate in his high chair. She scooped him into her arms and held him against her oversize bosom. “Such a handsome . . . Oh, look at this mess all over your face!” she cried as she reached for one of the paper towels and began to wipe Little Nate’s mouth. “I swear your mama don’t know how to feed you!”
Paulette’s eyes narrowed into thin slits. She opened her mouth to respond just as Antonio suddenly interjected, “Actually, Mama, I’m the one that was feeding Nate. I was doing it while uh . . . while Paulette was straightening up the kitchen.”
“Uh-huh,” Reina grunted, still giving Paulette the side-eye. “Well, it was nice of you to help out, baby. You’re the good man that I raised you to be.”
Paulette noticed that Reina had made no mention of her being a good woman, but she decided not to take the bait.
“Well, I should be heading out,” he said, walking across the kitchen. He kissed his son on the forehead and his mother on the cheek. “See you later. Have a good time.”
“You be careful driving to work! I heard there was an accident on I-66,” Reina said, bouncing Nate up and down as she sat in one of the kitchen chairs.
Antonio nodded and turned to face his wife. “Behave yourself. Be nice,” he mouthed, making her sigh.
“I’ll try,” she mouthed back just before he kissed her good-bye.
The kiss was warm and tender and lingered on a lot longer than she had expected, getting more and more heat with each passing second. When she parted her lips and darted his tongue inside her mouth, she pulled away, giggling. She playfully slapped his shoulder, and Antonio gave her a wink. He smacked his lips and smiled.
“We’ll finish this when I get back home,” he whispered before turning and walking toward the kitchen entrance. He then grabbed his briefcase from one of the kitchen chairs, waved, and disappeared behind one of the Ionic-style columns leading to the foyer.
We’ll finish this when I get back home . . .
Just the promise behind those words made her touch her kiss-swollen nips. It made her nipples harden into pebbles.
Along with trust, intimacy had disappeared from their marriage because of her affair and the aftermath. It was only a few months ago that they had shared the marital bed again, and it was as lovely and steamy as she remembered it. Her cheeks warmed just imagining what they would do in that bed tonight after they put Little Nate to sleep.
Paulette turned from the kitchen entrance with a winsome smile. That smile quickly disappeared when she met Reina’s condescending glare.
“Like I said, my son’s a good man . . . a good husband, too,” Reina said, reaching for the diaper bag that Paulette had finished packing only an hour ago.
“I know he is.”
“Yeah, well, make sure you remember that!” Reina tossed the diaper bag strap onto her shoulder. “Tony may not be so forgiving—next time!”
Paulette did a double take. Next time?
Had Antonio told his mother that she had cheated on him? He was close with his mother, but he hadn’t divulged such an embarrassing secret to Reina, of all people?
“What did you say?” Paulette asked just as the older woman strode out the room.
“Come on, baby,” Reina said to Little Nate, pointedly ignoring her daughter-in-law. “Come with
Grandma.”
Paulette stared after Reina with a mix of bewilderment and fury.
Chapter 4
Dante
Dante turned the corner then pulled up to the curb in front of the rundown D.C. row house where he had spent the first eighteen years of his life. He parked his Jag, reached inside his pocket, removed a medicine bottle, then twisted open the lid and shook two OxyContin pills into his hand. He considered the pills then shook out two more before tossing all of them into his mouth. After he swallowed, he glared at his reflection in the rearview mirror, taking in the bags under his eyes, the five o’clock shadow along his chin, and frown lines around his mouth that he was sure hadn’t been there a year ago.
He was in a bad state today, and he blamed Leila Hawkins for it.
Dante knew he wouldn’t have drunk as much champagne, then eventually hard liquor last night, or called that poor excuse for an escort, if Leila hadn’t rejected him—again. Just who the hell did she think she was anyway, getting him all excited, only to blindside him?
“Dick tease,” he murmured.
But that was all right. She would regret her choice when she saw her baby daddy, Evan, carted away in handcuffs after a judge sentenced him to twenty years to life for his attempted murder charge. She’d be begging Dante to ride his dick after that, but this time he would be the one turning her down.
With that resolved, he turned away from the rearview mirror and threw on a pair of Ray-Bans as he climbed out of his Jaguar and slammed the door shut. He cringed at the sound.
Dante hoped his hangover would get better soon, because he had something important to do today—specifically, checking on his childhood home and his daughter, Kiki, who had moved in a few weeks ago. He had left the smart-mouthed teenager a series of text messages and made phone calls to the house over the past two weeks to check on her and make sure the row house was still standing. But all his messages and calls had gone unanswered. It made him wonder just what the hell Kiki was doing in his mother’s old home. He’d figured that it was about time he found out.
The chain-link gate squeaked loudly as he wrenched it open, and he slowly made his way up the sidewalk and the porch steps. He unlocked the front door and shoved it open. The instant he did, an overwhelming smell smacked him in the face and made his weary eyes widen.
“What . . . the . . . fuck?” he shouted over the hip-hop music blaring on the stereo. He ripped off his sunglasses and stared in outrage at his living room.
His mother’s old scuffed mahogany coffee table was now littered with plastic baggies and mounds of weed. A digital scale sat at the center, where a young man with cornrows was carefully weighing one weed bundle, squinting as he did it. Kiki sat in Dante’s recliner, inserting several hand-rolled cigarettes into zip-lock bags. When Dante entered the room, the two stopped mid-motion and looked up at him, startled.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he yelled at his daughter, marching across the room and pressing the button to turn off the stereo music. “Why is all this shit in my house? Are you trying to get this place raided?”
Kiki lowered the recliner’s lever and slowly sat forward in her chair, flipping her purple braids over her shoulder as she did it. She set the plastic baggie on the table next to several others. “We ain’t gonna get raided. Don’t make it a big thing when it ain’t!”
“Don’t make it a big thing?” he cried. “Do you realize you’re running a fucking drug den out of my front parlor!”
“Yell it a little louder, why don’t you?” Kiki said drolly. “Besides, it’s Grandma’s front parlor—not yours!”
“Yo, Kiki,” the young man murmured, jabbing his thumb in Dante’s direction, “who the fuck is this dude?”
“I’ll tell you who the fuck I am!” Dante charged across the room toward the sofa where the boy was perched. “Despite what my daughter says, I’m the owner of this house. And you’re gonna have to get the hell up out of here and take all this shit with you!”
“Man, I ain’t goin’ nowhere!” Kiki’s friend shot to his feet, glaring up at Dante, curling his thick lips in challenge.
The young man was about a foot shorter than him, had a rail-thin build, and a voice that was so high Dante wondered if he’d gone through puberty yet. He didn’t find him remotely intimidating.
“Boy, don’t make me have to toss your ass out on the sidewalk!” Dante spat.
The young man’s sneer turned into a menacing smile as he raised the side of his white T-shirt, revealing the black handgrip of a Glock tucked into the waistband of his saggy jeans and boxers. “I’d like to see you try, nigga’!”
“Stop!” Kiki shouted, hopping to her feet and standing between the two. “Just stop! Why are you faking, Tee? You ain’t gonna’ shoot my daddy! He’s been shot enough already anyway.” She shoved the young man back onto the couch and then turned to face Dante. “Let me talk to you right quick.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said through clenched teeth. “Get this shit out of my house!”
“Daddy, don’t be like that!” she pleaded, tugging up her hip-huggers and leaning her head toward his kitchen. “I just wanna talk to you . . . in private. It ain’t gonna take long!”
He stood silently for several seconds then threw up his hands. “Fine. Say whatever you have to say—but I’m warning you, I’m not budging on this.”
They both strolled into the kitchen, which he also noted was covered in drug paraphernalia, making him slowly shake his head in exasperation.
Dante had only met Kiki a few months ago after she had revealed she was his daughter, and he was already regretting letting her move into the home he had inherited from his late mother. He was also starting to regret letting her wedge her way into his life. Kiki was becoming the thing that Dante despised the most: a liability. He had hoped he could teach her how to hustle properly and use her wits and ruthless cunning to move ahead in the world. Kiki had already shown potential with the way she’d helped him take care of Renee Upton. Renee was a woman he had briefly dated who had, after he rejected her, tried more than once to kill him. Kiki had been the person to find the crew to kill Renee instead.
Dante had been grateful. He had given Kiki a place to live, let her drive his car, and had taken her under his wing. And this was how she repaid him?
“What were you thinking, Kiki?” he exclaimed. “I can’t believe you would bring this shit into my house!” He gestured to a bag that showed more bundles of weed sitting on the linoleum counter.
“You told me I couldn’t keep living here for free! You said I had to get a job and start paying you some rent—so I got a job!”
“I meant a job as a receptionist or a . . . a sales girl at the Gap, for Christ’s sake! Hell, I didn’t even care if you got a job at McDonald’s or Burger King. But I didn’t ask you to become a fucking drug dealer! I certainly didn’t expect you to set up shop in my house.”
She sucked her teeth. “Like you’re one to talk.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I saw all those bottles you used to keep in your medicine cabinet!” she snarled, making him fall silent, making his stomach drop. “I saw all those pain pills you were eating like candy. You thought I was stupid and I didn’t know how you got those pills?” She shook her head. “Well, I wasn’t. I know you got a dealer, too! So you really trying to preach to me about making some money off of bud when you do what you do?”
He didn’t have a response to that. He hadn’t known that she had found out about the addiction to painkillers he had developed soon after Renee had shot him. It was now to the point that he took twenty to thirty pills a day, making it a rather expensive habit. He was spending about six to eight grand a month to keep himself stocked with pills. And the high seemed to get harder and harder to chase. Each week he was gobbling more and more pills. He had tried a few times to go cold turkey, but the withdrawal symptoms were just too painful: the chills, the body aches, the severe stomach cramping,
and the seemingly endless vomiting that would have him sitting on his bathroom floor with his head propped on the toilet seat. He’d feel like he was dying and he would only get relief after opening the medicine cabinet and shaking pills into his hands. It was a monkey he worried he would never get off his back.
Kiki inclined her head and smiled. “Now instead of getting mad, you could see this as a way for you to make some money, too. If you let us keep working out of here, we could cut you like . . . I don’t know . . . a monthly fee or some shit. Even you could use some extra cash!”
“I don’t want anything to do with your little drug operation. If the cops find out what’s happening in here, they could shut this whole place down. My name would be associated with it. Did you forget that I’m a lawyer? I can’t afford to get disbarred!”
She took another step toward him and dropped her voice down to a whisper. “Nobody would know you were part of it. It would just be me and Tee. That’s all.”
“You and Tee? Oh, that makes me feel so much better!” he shouted sarcastically. “Until today, I’d never met that kid before in my life! I’ve known him all of five minutes, and he’s already threatened me with a gun!”
“She,” Kiki corrected, making Dante squint.
“Huh?”
“It’s she, Daddy. Tee’s a girl—my girl,” she said proudly, licking her lips and placing a hand on her hip.
“You mean you’re a couple?”
She snorted. “Couple,” she repeated in a baritone voice, making fun of him.
“When the hell did you turn into a lesbian?”
She shrugged and leaned back against the countertop. “I didn’t turn into anything. I’ve always liked both, and I just got tired of dudes being assholes and trying to get you pregnant then leave you. I don’t have time for that shit! Tee and I understand each other. Plus,”—she grinned—“she knows how to eat that pussy.”
He held up his hand and cringed. There were some things he didn’t want to know about his own daughter. “Spare me the details.”