Chasing Bliss

by Sabrina A. Eubanks

  Herc had always had a habit of lurking around and just showing up at places he shouldn’t have been. He appeared at the top of the alley with his big .45 in his hand. Herc was probably sent by Cyrus to keep the situation under control, but he didn’t make a move on Bobby until Chase got that cut under his jaw. Herc probably thought Bobby had cut Chase’s goddamned throat. It was poetic justice to Chase when he ran that razor across Herc’s neck three years later.

  “What happened to this Bobby Price? Did he go to jail for hurting you like that?”

  Chase looked down at her. He wanted to tell her, “No, baby. He went to the fuckin’ cemetery for movin’ on me like that,” but this time, he decided to avoid the truth. “It would be a good thing if everybody paid what they owed, I guess.” He briefly wondered what his running tab was and how much it would eventually cost him. He hoped like hell it wouldn’t cost him Bliss Riley.

  Chapter 7

  Cyrus didn’t catch up with Chase’s elusive ass until the following Friday. He was well past just being mad at him for giving him the slip; now he was taking it personally. Who the fuck does that nigga think he is, making me kiss his black ass? Cyrus had just left Khalid, and he was leaning on him hard about getting rid of Wolf. Cyrus told Khalid he couldn’t find Chase—and hell, he couldn’t—but Khalid had given him the impression that he didn’t think Cyrus was trying hard enough.

  He’d looked for his brother’s slippery, disloyal ass everywhere. The nigga refused to answer his voicemail. That bitch Dee had her claws out covering for him. J.T. stonewalled him in his snide and obnoxious way. Corey was lying right to his face and getting gone before he could put the screws to him. He decided he’d fix Corey’s punk ass later. Cyrus had even gone to Chase’s apartment and come up empty. All this shit is ending today. Chase probably thought Cyrus was too lackadaisical to show up at his own club to check on the progress, but Cyrus figured it might be the one place he’d be able to snag that fucking defector.

  Cyrus pulled his Infiniti up in front of the club with a smile and parked right behind Corey’s Lexus, which was parked right behind Chase’s Porsche; for once, he wasn’t on his bike. Cyrus got out of his car and cracked his knuckles, smiling grimly. He’d caught both of his little pissy brothers together, most likely putting up a united front against him in his own goddamned club. They must have forgotten who’s in charge, he thought and felt like taking off his belt to remind them. Cyrus pushed on the door, but it was locked. He closed his fist and was about to pound on it, but then he remembered it this was his club. He reached into his pocket and brought out his keys.

  Cyrus walked into his still-nameless club, and despite the fact that he was extremely annoyed with Chase, he was very pleased at what he saw. He may have been avoiding Cyrus, but he’d been handling his business. Even though the place wasn’t finished, he could tell it was in the process of being totally redone. He nodded in approval as he checked out the workers who were bolting the bar into the floor and installing the recessed lighting. The décor was a little dark, but it worked: black, gray, and plum. It was going to look fantastic when it was done.

  “I thought I smelled brimstone.”

  Cyrus turned to find J.T. standing just behind him with a blueprint in one hand and a Red Bull in the other. J.T. had always been a bit of a mystery to Cyrus. He was damn near a genius of an architectural engineer, with his own flourishing company, but he had a serious dark side that never quite let him actually live in the light that could have been shining down upon his brilliant ass. Sure, he kept up appearances and handled the corporate thing quite well, but nothing seemed to give him more glee than to ride shotgun with Chase and watch a nigga get his throat opened up. Lately, though, it seemed J.T. had become the biggest advocate he knew for Chase keeping his hands clean. His theory was that they’d lived the wild style long enough, and he swore a man shouldn’t—and couldn’t—keep rolling the dice like that and that sooner or later, you’d crap out. Cyrus didn’t give a fuck what J.T. thought though. Nobody asked his ass for his opinion. As far as Cyrus was concerned, J.T. needed to be quiet and stay the fuck out of family business. “Ha, ha. Very funny, motherfucker,” Cyrus said, looking him over. “Where are my two asshole brothers?”

  J.T. laughed, drank some of his Red Bull, and tapped the blueprint against his leg. He smiled at Cyrus pleasantly. “Maybe if they were both holding a wedge of cheese, you could sniff them out.”

  Cyrus narrowed his eyes at him. “You callin’ me a fuckin’ rat, J.T.?”

  J.T. looked at him like he was one of God’s lesser creatures. “If the shoe fits…”

  Cyrus didn’t really feel like fucking with J.T. Sometimes he made him feel like he thought he was stupid. He probably did think he was stupid. Cyrus looked at him caustically. It was one nigga he wouldn’t mind killing himself. “So where they at, man?”

  J.T. laughed. “You ain’t blind. You saw their cars. They gotta be in here somewhere, right? It’s your club…so go find ‘em.”

  “Get back to work, J.T.”

  “I don’t work for you, Cyrus,” he sang, a little like a fuck-you song. He looked at Cyrus like he wasn’t afraid of him and walked away.

  Cyrus watched him go. One of these days, I’ma take care of that rude, disrespectful bastard. Cyrus followed J.T. just in case he tried to give Chase and Corey a heads-up that he was here. He had gone into a large room that was to become a bathroom, and he was at a counter looking over blueprints with a white guy in a hard hat.

  J.T. looked up when Cyrus’s shadow fell across the doorway. “They’re not in here. This is the crapper.”

  Cyrus’s urge to jack him in the jaw had never been stronger. He turned and went back into the biggest room and crossed it. There was an alcove on one side and a door on the other. Cyrus opened it and stepped into a large sitting room. He smiled when he heard Chase’s voice coming out of the room to his left.

  “Corey, I need you to go see what the hold-up is with the liquor license, the sooner the better. Bliss, we got a bunch of applications here. We gotta start weeding through them and hiring staff.”

  Cyrus walked into the room, and Chase looked up. He didn’t look surprised or even deflated. Instead, he looked like he’d been expecting him. He stood up behind the desk. “Hey, Cyrus. What’s good?”

  Cyrus moved further into the room. “You tell me. Where the hell you been hidin’, Smoke?”

  Chase laughed and shrugged, then walked around the desk. “I ain’t been nowhere but right here, Cyrus. It’s been busy, and time got away from me.”

  Chase’s nonchalance was pissing him off. Cyrus walked up on him and stared him down. “You been playin’ games, Smoke, and I need to talk to you.”

  Chase smiled at him engagingly. “Yeah, I know. It can wait.”

  The smile Chase wore didn’t exactly touch his eyes. He knew why Cyrus was there all right, and he was fucking with him.

  Cyrus smiled himself and shook his head. “I say it can’t wait. I’ve been waitin’ a whole fuckin’ week to speak to you, and I’m not lettin’ you put me off anymore. We’ll talk now.”

  Chase leaned on the desk and folded his arms across his chest. The smile had slid off his face. “No, Cyrus. We’ll talk when I’m good and damn ready. It’ll keep until then. In the meantime, don’t be rude and act like we’re the only two people in this room. This is your new manager, Bliss Riley.”

  The girl in the chair stood and smiled at Cyrus. She was so pretty that she looked like a doll. She offered her hand and he took it, temporarily thrown off his A game as he looked her over. She was wearing a pale pink silk dress that hugged her body in all the right places and high-heeled pumps that were the exact color of the dress. She had a string of pearls around her neck, and her hair was caught up in an intricate twist at the nape of her neck, with her bangs softly framing her face. She was beautiful, and Cyrus was instantly very impressed. She looked very classy and a bit retro.

  “Hello, Mr. Brown. It’s nice to finally meet you.”


  He smiled back. “The pleasure is mine,” he said, and he meant it. “If you’re as qualified as you are beautiful, my club will be a success.”

  Chase stood up. “She is. I’d show you her credentials, but I fucked ‘em up, so you gotta trust my judgment.” Chase eyed Cyrus with a smirk on his face. If I had my gun, I’d shoot this nigga right now.

  Bliss looked from one to the other, then picked up a folder from the corner of the desk. “It’s about time for the first interview. I’ll be out front.” She left the room in a hurry, closing the door softly behind her.

  Cyrus smiled at Chase. “That’s a nice touch, Smoke. She’s fine as hell.”

  Chase didn’t smile back. “I know that. Now, what the fuck do you want with me, Cyrus? Spit it out. You’ve been haunting me like a fuckin’ ghost.”

  Corey had been standing by the window staring at his feet the whole time. “Chase, please man. Don’t start Cyrus up.”

  “Don’t start him up? He started with me first, fucking stalking me when I’ve been working my ass off to get his club in order. Tell me what you want, Cyrus.”

  Cyrus ignored Chase and looked at Corey. “And where the fuck you been? I couldn’t find your simple ass either.”

  Corey looked at both of them. “I was around—just tryin’ to keep the peace.”

  Chase laughed bitterly. “Well, you kept it as long as you could, Corey. Now, fuck the peace. I said tell me what you want, Cyrus.”

  Cyrus sat in the seat Bliss had vacated. “All right. Since you don’t seem like you’re in a social mood, I got a little problem with Warren Jenkins.”

  Chase frowned. “Wolf?”

  “Yeah, Wolf. I didn’t know you knew him like that.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t know everything. What kind of beef you got with Wolf?”

  “I told him to move his shit over, and he declined.”

  Chase grunted like he didn’t believe him. “That’s your problem with him? He didn’t jump when you said so? You gotta present your case a lot stronger than that.”

  “Look, Smoke, this guy is tryina creep in where I do my business. I told him to fall back, and he didn’t. Now he’s tryin’ to intimidate some of my people, and I’m losin’ customers. I need him removed from the picture.”

  Chase gave him a skeptical look. “That’s not enough. What else did he do?”

  Cyrus stared at Chase. He knew not to embellish his story too much because Chase still had his ear to the ground enough to separate fact from fiction. He shifted in his seat. “Look, Chase—” he started and was surprised when Chase cut him off.

  “No, you look, Cyrus. It’s bad enough you come in here wanting what you want, but you got the nerve to sit there and lie to me about it. What? You think I’m stupid? Did you think I wouldn’t throw a few questions out there when you started lookin’ for me so hard? I want you to tell me the whole story, Cyrus, and don’t leave out the part about you and Khalid goin’ back into business together. How long has that shit been goin’ on? Who’s been greased because Khalid said so?”

  Cyrus was a little shocked that Chase had found out that Khalid and he were still business partners, and he wondered who leaked the information. He looked over at Corey with a shark-black tint in his eye.

  Chase held up a finger. “Uh-uh, Cyrus. Don’t you dare look at Corey. Corey ain’t tell me nothin’. That’s my word.”

  Cyrus frowned. “Then who’s been runnin’ their damn mouth to you about me?”

  “That ain’t important, and it really doesn’t matter anyway. Hey, maybe I got a crystal ball. You been lyin’ to me, haven’t you, Cyrus?”

  Cyrus laughed and shook his head. The jig was up about Khalid and him. Cyrus had promised Chase a long time ago that he would sever ties with Khalid, because Chase believed Khalid had sent Herc Mercer to kill him and Corey—not to ask about Cyrus’s whereabouts on the day he died. Chase had never trusted either one of them, especially Khalid, and he hadn’t trusted him and Rome when they split everything three ways while Cyrus was doing his bid for the gun charge. Maybe he was right, because Cyrus and Khalid had never stopped doing business, and with Herc and Rome out of the way, the money was easier to divide. Fuck this asshole and his screwed up sense of right and wrong. He’ll do what the fuck I tell him to and like it.

  Cyrus looked at Chase. There was no use trying to play the I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about card with him. His best bet was to own up and let it go, then maybe hope to strong-arm him in a couple of days. He thought he might even be able to twist his arm by threatening to use Corey. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Cyrus leaned forward and hoped he looked apologetic enough. “You know what? You’re right, Smoke. I’ve been lyin’ to you—well, not really lyin’…it was an omission. I’m sorry. I should have told you, but I know how you feel about Khalid.”

  Chase looked over at Corey, whose eyes were staring out the window. “Corey, why don’t you go check on that liquor license? You ain’t in this.”

  Corey looked away from the window with troubled eyes. “Yeah. I ain’t ever in this. Y’all gotta figure out a way to see eye to eye. Shit is always hard between y’all. Work it out, please, ‘cause I don’t know how much more of this I can take.” He left the room without another word, leaving Cyrus and Chase staring at each other.

  “Can’t you see what you’re doin’ to Corey, Cyrus? He’s always in the middle of me and you. Don’t you care?” Chase sat back down in his chair behind the desk. “If you’re not gonna tell me the whole story, Cyrus, then I got somethin’ to tell you. After I finish helpin’ you get your club off the ground, I’m gonna step outta your life for a minute and give you some time to decide what you want to do with yourself. I can’t keep livin’ the way I’ve been livin’ hanging around you. I want more out of life than knockin’ people off to help you and Khalid put a strangle-hold on your little piece of the drug trade and waitin’ for the cops to catch me. I don’t get anything out of it, and I want to be happy. I deserve to be happy.” You’ll never be happy, and neither will I. I’ll make sure of that, Cyrus thought darkly.

  Cyrus smiled wryly. “Is that what you want, Chase? ‘Cause if you want me to pay you to erase Wolf, that really ain’t a problem.”

  Chase leaned all the way back in his chair and looked at him like he was a mangy dog. “Pay me? What the hell does that have to do with staying out of lockup and being happy? You just insulted me, Cyrus, but if you want to play around with me like that, I’ll tell you what. If you can have a million dollars on my desk by nine o’ clock tomorrow morning, Wolf will be pushin’ up daisies by sundown.”

  Cyrus laughed. Chase had just requested the ridiculous, hoping he’d be left alone. Cyrus sat back in his own chair, tapping his steepled fingers together. Chase must have forgotten his infamous ace in the hole. “You got a real good sense of humor, little brother, but I ain’t laughin’. Now, I told you, I need Wolf gone, so if you want me to play hardball with you, I will.”

  They stared at each other for a long time. Chase looked away first and stared out the window that had so recently claimed Corey’s attention.

  Cyrus watched him in silence, reading his face, trying not to smile. I won! It had been a simple thing to bend Chase to his will, and he didn’t even need to say Corey’s name out loud. Cyrus wanted to lean over the desk and stick his face into Chase’s and scream, “Corey! Corey! Corey! That’s right, motherfucker! I’ll get Corey to do it, and he will if I ask him. You know how Corey hates to disappoint his brothers! He’ll do it, and he’ll fuck it up and go to jail! Even worse, he might get himself killed in the process! You can’t live with Corey’s sentencing or blood on your conscience…SO I WIN! Talk your righteous, better-than-me shit now, nigga! If I ain’t shit, you ain’t shit either! You do what I say, and I say fuck you! Go kill him!” But he didn’t say all of that. Instead, he sat there and stared at Chase, unmoved by the tears that had started to slide down his face.

  Cyrus sat, quietly watching his brother’s turmoil. Should I do
it? What if I refuse?

  Chase’s internal argument didn’t mean a thing to Cyrus, because he knew he was going to get his way. He hadn’t seen Chase cry in over ten years. Chase was as tough as they came. He had a good idea what these tears were for, but he’d deal with that when the time came. At the moment, he didn’t give a fuck. All he wanted was Wolf gone, and he wanted Chase to do the dirty deed.

  Chase sat up in his seat and wiped his eyes with the hem of his Ed Hardy T-shirt. His face was a weird mix of emotions: anger and resentment, sorrow and hurt, and acceptance and resignation. He turned his head and looked at Cyrus; his eyes were like ice. “How soon do you need it done?” he asked, standing.

  Cyrus also took to his feet, as he really didn’t want Chase standing over him at that point in the conversation. “End of next week at the very latest—but the sooner, the better.”

  Chase looked at him with his icy eyes and nodded. “All right, Cyrus. I need to let you know a few things right now, if that’s all right with you. I mean, these things might not mean shit to you, but they mean something to me…and they carry weight. You ready?”

  Cyrus shrugged. He wasn’t in the mood to hear a lecture, and he wanted to get out of there and tell Khalid the good news that they’d gotten their way, but if Chase felt like he needed to get up on his creaky-ass, crime-laden soapbox and preach one of his hypocritical sermons, then he had a moment to pretend he was listening. Cyrus smiled and said, “Go ahead, Smoke. I’m listening.”