by Shelly Ellis
“Before you start,” she said, holding up her hands as she descended the last riser to their foyer’s Afghan rug, “you first need to hear what she said to me.”
Antonio released a loud grumble and tugged at the knot in his tie. He leveled her with tired eyes and a withering gaze. “You told my mama never to touch our child again and that she had to leave your house and never come back.” He began to remove his suit jacket. “What the hell could she possibly say to—”
“She said Nate probably wasn’t your baby because I couldn’t keep my legs closed when we got married.” Paulette raised her brows. “Is that a good enough reason to kick her out?”
He paused mid-motion with one arm still in his suit sleeve. He gaped. “She didn’t . . . she didn’t really say that, did she?”
“Yes, she did, Tony!” Paulette crossed her arms over her chest. “Which made me wonder just what exactly have you told her about our marriage? Did you tell your mother that I cheated on you?”
He sighed and closed his eyes.
“Well, did you?”
“I didn’t . . . I didn’t tell her outright what happened, but she kind of . . . well, she figured it out, I guess,” he said, opening his eyes again.
“You guess?”
“I told her we were having problems, okay? I may have let it slip that I was sleeping in the guest room. Then you just . . . just popped up with Little Nate. Mom asked me why I didn’t tell her you were pregnant. I tried to make up an excuse, but I guess I . . . that I wasn’t very convincing.” He shrugged. “I tried, baby. Really, I did.”
Paulette didn’t believe that for one second. If Antonio wanted to hide a secret, he was more than capable of doing it.
He’s done it before, she thought with an inward shudder, remembering how he had lied about what had happened the night of Marques Whitney’s murder. He’d made up an elaborate story about staying up late at night in his old childhood bed at his mother’s house while agonizing over the state of their marriage, when he was really secretly tracking down Marques all night. He had waited for a chance to sneak into Marques’s apartment, then beat and strangle him to death. And Antonio had not only lied to her about that night—but also to the investigating detective. He’d done it so convincingly that she’d been appalled that she had ever doubted Antonio’s innocence. The only reason Paulette had discovered the truth about the murder was that Antonio had slipped and revealed himself to her brother Evan. If it hadn’t been for that, she’d still believe that her husband was incapable of committing murder—let alone covering up the horrendous act. But of course now she knew better.
“Your mother was totally disrespectful, Tony.”
“I know that, baby, but—”
“Instead of apologizing for what she did, she basically accused me of being a whore! Who does that? Who does that to their own daughter-in-law? She said I don’t even know if Nate is your son!”
“But you don’t know!” he blurted out with irritation, making her flinch and take a step back from him.
She watched as he gritted his teeth and took another deep breath. He ran his hand over his head. “Baby, I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did,” she whispered, now hurt. “You meant every word.”
Antonio said he’d accepted Little Nate as his son regardless of whether that was true, but she worried if some part of him would always wonder if it was true. Would the question eat him up inside? Would it add yet another wound to a marriage they were fighting so hard to heal?
“Look, baby,” he said, reaching out for her, but she took another step back, out of his reach. He dropped his hands to his sides. “Look, I love Nate. You know that! And I love you, too.”
“So show me, Tony.”
“What do you mean ‘show you’? I do it every damn day! I provide for my family. I take care of—”
“I mean show me that we come first! I refuse to come second place to Reina Williams. I’m not doing it anymore!”
The foyer fell silent. Antonio shook his head again. “I hate being put in the middle like this. Can’t you just . . . just hear her out?”
Paulette firmly shook her head. “No.”
“Be the bigger person and try again! She’s my mother, for Christ’s sake!”
“No. I’m done with her, Tony!”
“So what are we going to do when we need a babysitter? We can’t leave Nate with just anybody!”
“I’d trust Nate with a dog walker before I let your mother take care of him again,” she snapped, before walking toward the kitchen.
“Oh, come on, Paulette! Really?”
“I’m going to heat up some leftover fettuccine because I’m hungry and too exhausted to cook,” she called over her shoulder, not looking back. “You can either join me or go eat dinner with your mama. It’s up to you,” she said, leaving her husband to stew alone in their foyer.
Chapter 9
Dante
“It’s not the end of the world, Trevor,” Dante said, casually leaning back in his chair and adjusting his tie. He spread out his hands and smiled. “We still have the option to—”
“Don’t you dare patronize me, Turner!” his client, Trevor, ordered icily. “They wanted to settle! They made the offer, and you didn’t think to let me know about it!”
Dante reached for his buttered croissant, tore a piece off, popped it into his mouth, and chewed. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, though he was growing bored with Trevor Malcolm’s drama-queen antics.
The retiree was suing his doctor and a medical group for misdiagnosing his acute ulcer as irritable bowel syndrome. The case had been dragging on for months. The medical group had finally offered to settle out of the court for a hundred thousand dollars.
“Trevor, listen to me! We can get more out of them,” Dante said, gazing at the perturbed man sitting across from him at the coffee shop table.
The coffee shop was not far from his condominium and had become his new office of sorts, now that he no longer had his spacious office at his old law firm in Tyson’s Corner.
“I’m sure they’ll offer a higher sum! This is just their first offer. If you’d accepted it, it would’ve been like leaving money on the table. Just let me—”
“But you didn’t even tell me about it!” Trevor argued, pounding his fist on the bistro table and drawing the uneasy stare of the barista behind the lacquered counter. “You let the deadline for a response pass without even mentioning it to me! The only reason why I found out about it is because the doctor reached out to me personally and asked why I rejected it. I could’ve used the money!”
“I didn’t mention it to you because it was a bad offer,” Dante said tightly, trying his best to control his temper. “As I told you before, I—”
“Bullshit, Turner! Bullshit!” Blue veins erupted along Trevor’s forehead, and the cords stood out along his reddened neck. “You work for me! You don’t get to make decisions on what offer is too low or just right. I make that call because I’m paying you—not the other way around!”
Dante jaw tightened even more. He certainly needed Trevor Malcolm’s two-hundred-dollars-an-hour fee. He still hadn’t succeeded in finding a position at another law firm and was now forced to take on clients independently, putting up his own shingle, as it were.
Dante kept silently reminding himself that he had rent and bills to pay as well as an expensive drug habit he had to fund. The money his father, George, had given him he had spent on a hefty down payment for his luxury condo, and his savings were low.
You need this money. You need this money, he kept silently reminding himself, repeating it like a Tibetan chant.
But bowing his head and biting his tongue had never been Dante’s strong points. The more Trevor yelled and blustered, the more Dante wanted to tell him to take each dollar bill of the hundred thousand dollars the medical group had offered and individually shove them up his pale, hairy ass.
“I’m the client and I damn well call the shots!”
Trevor insisted, pounding on the table again.
“Whatever you say, Trevor,” Dante muttered before taking another bite of his croissant.
“Unless you want me to get another lawyer. Is that what you want me to do?”
“Like I said . . .” Dante finished chewing and wiped his hands with a paper napkin, growing more uninterested in this argument every passing second. “Whatever you say,” he answered with a bland, painted-on smile.
“Whatever you say . . . whatever you say . . .” Trevor repeated snippily before shaking his gray head. “I never should’ve went with you,” he spat, making Dante stop smiling. “I should’ve stayed with Nutter, McElroy and Ailey—like Edgar told me to. ‘You’re a fool if you give your money to that washed-up bastard,’ he said. But I didn’t listen. I said you were fully capable. I thought you could handle it. I guess I was wrong!”
Dante tensed at the man’s words. Under the table, his hands curled into fists.
“Did you really think the doctors lowballed their offer, or did you just drop the ball, Dante, like you’ve dropped the ball before? Missed phone calls . . . botched contracts . . . hearings that you weren’t prepared for . . .” He raised his chin triumphantly as Dante’s brows knitted together. “That’s right! I spoke to a few of your other clients. They all gave me the same story. They told me that you’ve been messing up, that you’ve lost your touch. They’re all thinking of firing you and getting representation elsewhere. But you know, what I can’t understand is how you got to be this way. It wasn’t just the shooting. A bullet didn’t bring you to this pitiful a state! It’s something else, isn’t it?” He scanned Dante as if he were a book filled with endless pages. “Something changed in you. Is it alcohol? Had one brandy too many? Or maybe drugs?”
Dante’s face must have changed again, because Trevor began to nod knowingly. He pointed at Dante, sneering at him like he was a smashed fly on a windshield. “It is drugs, isn’t it? Of course it is! All you lawyers are fond of having a bit of cocaine every now and then.”
He pantomimed doing cocaine by holding a finger up to his nose and sniffing for exaggeration. He snickered.
“But you’ve obviously let it get out of hand! We can all tell. You better be careful, or you’ll end up like all those other junkies on the side of the road, begging for—”
Trevor didn’t get a chance to finish. Dante leaped across the table and grabbed the other man by his necktie, yanking him forward so hard that his chin collided with the metal tabletop. Trevor screamed as the jolt made him bite down hard on his tongue. The barista behind the counter shrieked and dropped the iced mocha with whipped cream she was holding. All of the coffee shop patrons turned and stared at Dante and Trevor in alarm.
Worries about billable hours lost and about destroying what little professional reputation he had left all disappeared. Dante was all fury and retribution right now. He didn’t care what the aftermath would be.
“Don’t you ever . . . ever try to give me advice or tell me who the fuck I am! You don’t know me, motherfucka!”
“You’re crazy,” Trevor gurgled as the blood from his bitten tongue pooled in his mouth. It started dribbling over his bottom lip. “You’re fucking crazy!”
“Maybe I am,” Dante said as he let go of Trevor’s tie. He stood and grabbed his coat from the back of his chair. “But you won’t make the mistake again of disrespecting me, now will you?”
“You’re fired!” Trevor yelled as Dante strode to the coffee shop door. Out of the corner of his eye, Dante could see Trevor frantically grabbing paper napkins from the dispenser and wiping at the smear of blood along his chin. “You’re fired and I’m hiring another lawyer to . . . to sue you! I’ll . . . I’ll sue you for assault! I’ll tell all your other clients what you did! I’ll tell them that you’ve lost it . . . that you—”
Trevor’s words were cut off as Dante let the shop’s glass door fall close behind him. He shrugged into his wool coat and walked down the sidewalk back to his Jaguar, his body still tense with impotent rage. Puffs of steam burst into the cold air with each angry breath he took.
How dare Trevor tell him that he had lost his touch! How dare he call him a junkie! Dante longed to do a lot more to Trevor than what he had already, but he fought the urge to turn back around and go storming into the coffee shop again. He wanted to beat Trevor senseless, but he knew if he went back now, he stood a good chance of getting arrested.
No, he thought, shaking his head, that’s not an option.
But someone had to feel his wrath. He had to find someone who would suffer the brunt of his anger.
Suddenly, a thought dawned in Dante’s head. He halted a few feet away from where he had parked his car.
Evan’s arraignment was scheduled for today. The prosecutors had told Dante that it wasn’t necessary for him to attend the hearing since Evan would only be entering in a plea of not guilty. No evidence would be presented. But Evan would definitely have to be there in person to enter a plea.
Could he goad Evan into a fight after the hearing was over? He had heard that his half-brother had been released on bail, but if Evan assaulted Dante, he could very well end up in jail again—this time permanently.
A smile crept to Dante’s lips.
Oh, that would be perfect, he thought. It would make a lovely end to the bad day he was having. He hadn’t gotten to see it the first time Evan was arrested—to his great regret. Maybe he would get to see it this time around.
With that, he removed his keys from his pants pocket and pressed the button to open his car door. He then glanced at his wristwatch. He had less than thirty minutes to make it to the courthouse. He would have to drive fast if he wanted to make it there on time.
* * *
Dante sat on the wooden bench, waiting ten feet in front of the white metal doors leading to the courtroom, eagerly anticipating the moment when they would open.
Though he was a lawyer, he had never been enamored with courthouses. Conference rooms were where he usually preferred to be—not here. Real courthouses weren’t like the ones in the movies, which made them seem like glamorous places filled with polished wood, glistening marble, and lawyers in sleek suits. In film, every jury room had an air of tension as the forces of good and evil battled to tilt the scales of justice in their favor. In contrast, real courthouses were boring places with bleached linoleum tiles, crowded jury waiting rooms, overworked prosecutors and public defenders in bargain-basement attire, and glum-looking clerks who stood behind counters all day. Standing in line at the MVA was more exciting than sitting around a courthouse, in Dante’s humble opinion. Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to sit around here much longer.
The double doors finally opened, and he watched as a steady stream of people exited: a woman wearing a nondescript dress, an old man in a baggy suit, a couple who whispered to each other, and a police officer who was scanning his cell phone. The doors swung shut then opened again. This time, Leila walked into the hall. She whispered something through the cracked door, not looking in Dante’s direction.
He marveled at the transformation Leila had made in the two years since they had first met. She’d gone from the secretary wearing polyester-blend blouses and skirts you could get off the sale rack at JCPenney’s to the wife of a millionaire who oozed wealth and prestige from the triple string of pearls at her throat to the tortoiseshell Louboutin pumps on her feet.
She had revealed to him during one of their dates long ago that even though she had been friends with the Murdochs for decades, she had grown up poor like Dante.
Well, you ain’t poor no more, are you, baby, he thought flippantly. So much for not caring about money, huh, Lee?
His eyes traveled over the simple gray dress she wore that hugged her curves in all the right places. A less than demure split was on the side of the dress, revealing one of her long legs—legs that Dante wistfully remembered he had been standing in between naked more than a month ago.
I came this close, he thought with a mi
x of frustration and longing. This close and I could have had her!
But he hadn’t had her and probably never would—a fact that still pissed him off.
Seconds later, Evan exited the courtroom. Leila reached for his hand and held it, but Evan barely seemed to notice, still lost in a daze.
Lucky son of a bitch, Dante thought. He doesn’t even realize what he has.
Evan embodied everything Dante secretly envied and outright hated about the Murdochs. Evan had been educated at the best schools, had been given the best opportunities, and their father had set aside the cushy position of CEO at Murdoch Conglomerated for him. Now he had a woman like Leila on his arm.
What infuriated Dante the most about his brother wasn’t the money, education, or pedigree but that the world had been handed to Evan—and Evan seemed completely unaware of it. He didn’t appreciate it at all. Instead, Evan seemed to almost resent the burden of wealth and power, whereas Dante would have relished it. If he had been raised and nurtured by George Murdoch, Dante would have taken the family company to even greater heights! Under Dante, the Murdochs could have had the same stature as the Walton family who owned Walmart. But like his hookup with Leila, it was a lost cause. It would never happen.
That didn’t mean that he should let Evan go about leading his tranquil life, though. He would make sure this man suffered—heartily.
“So I heard congratulations are in order!” Dante called out just as Evan and Leila began to walk down the corridor to the elevator doors.
At the sound of his voice, Leila’s back stiffened. Evan whipped around to face him. It was as if someone had struck a match and tossed it into bowl filled with lighter fluid: Evan’s face flared with rage. He looked so furious that Dante almost burst into laughter. Instead he slowly rose from the wooden bench and walked toward them.
“I heard you two tied the knot. I didn’t get an invitation to the wedding, but frankly . . . I wasn’t expecting one.” Dante smiled. “So it’s official now, huh?”
As he drew closer, he could nearly see the gusts of hot air coming out of Evan’s flared nostrils. He could almost smell the sweat pouring out of Evan as he fought to keep himself under control.