by Noire
Mink’s bottom lip was split in the middle, and Bunni’s right eye was red.
The kitchen staff overloaded the huge round table with pans of lasagna and bowls of salad. Glasses of ginger ale, sweet tea, wine, and ice water were set on trays. Selah Dominion stood up at her spot at the table, across from Viceroy’s empty chair. Her skin was glowing, and her champagne glass was already half empty.
“Excuse me everyone,” she said, ringing her glass with her salad fork. “I have an important announcement to make.”
Lips started flapping as everybody looked clueless but interested, and Barron sat stiff in his seat as he stared closely at his mother with a questioning look on his face.
Selah refused to meet his eyes. Instead, she cleared her throat and said, “Thank you everybody for coming to dinner. I know we haven’t been eating together all that much since Viceroy went in the hospital, but I have some news to share with you tonight, and I wanted everybody to hear it at the same time.”
Selah looked around the table and met everyone’s eyes.
“Eighteen years ago, in the blink of an eye, I lost my three-year-old daughter. “But today God blessed me with proof that no matter what happens in life we should never stop hoping or praying.”
She reached under the table and picked up a small, beat-up looking baby doll with a yellow ducky for a face and black yarn for hair, then looked directly at Mink.
“After Sable was kidnapped I vowed I would sleep with this doll every night until my baby was safely back at home. Well, I received a fax from the DNA lab today, and the little girl I lost in New York all those years ago, my sweet three-year-old daughter Sable ... well ... the truth is right here in black and white.”
Barron’s heart almost stopped as Selah picked up a sheet of paper from the table and held it up high in the air. He recognized the logo even from where he was sitting.
“Mink, my darling. That beautiful little girl I lost all those years ago was you.”
Tears were streaming down Selah’s face now. The raw emotion took away her voice leaving her speechless, and all she could do was mouth the words, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
She pushed her chair back and walked over and took Mink in her arms and hugged on her like she was her long-lost daughter, finally found.
“Welcome home baby,” she whispered, crying uncontrollably now as she waved the ugly doll she’d been sleeping with for eighteen years high in the air. “Welcome home!”
Everybody broke out clapping, and Jock stuck two fingers in his mouth and let off a loud, sharp whistle. Chairs were pushed back as the family swarmed on Mink to welcome her back into the Dominion fold. There were hugs and kisses and mad love for her everywhere.
Except on Barron’s and Pilar’s faces.
Barron jumped to his feet. “Nah, hold up!” he barked. “This is some bullshit!” Everybody froze. “Lemme see that piece of paper, Mama, because I don’t believe this shit!”
Selah stared at him as she passed her son the form that had been faxed to her. “I understand how you feel, baby,” she comforted him. “This comes as a big shock to all of us Barron, and nobody has ever felt worse about Sable being taken away than you. But sometimes God sees fit to grant us a miracle, son, and you’re holding the proof right there in your hands.”
“I still don’t believe this shit!” Barron insisted. “I know it ain’t true!”
“It is true, Barron,” Selah laughed happily. “And it’s the best damn thing that has ever happened to this family. Now let’s eat, everybody!” Selah shouted and picked up her champagne glass. She turned that bad boy up to her lips and drained it. “Um ... pour me another one, Barron. A big one this time. In fact, I want everybody to knock back some wine! My baby is home, and I’m celebrating tonight!”
CHAPTER 43
Being Sable didn’t feel nothing like I thought it would. I had sat through that dinner with a brick in my stomach, and the only way I’d been able to stay in that room was by guzzling glass after glass of wine until I got dizzy.
Everybody agreed that they had never seen Selah so happy before. She came all outta her shell, and the way she throated that champagne showed me a hint of Brooklyn peeking through the mask she usually wore on her face.
Bunni was already talking about how she was gonna spend her twenty-five large reward money, but the thought of getting all that cash didn’t even excite me like I had thought it would. Bunni told me to chill and said I was numb and in shock. She said my brain just needed a minute to process all those zeros that were about to be rollin’ around in my bank account after that number one. But all throughout dinner I had sat there feeling like shit, and since I pulled ganks out the ass for a living, I figured my stomachache musta been from the wine.
I went back to my suite as soon as we were finished eating, and it was real late when one of the servants knocked on the door and gave me a note that said Selah wanted to see me. Bunni had gotten one of the drivers to take her across town so she could spend a few hours of pleasure with her pain slut, Kelvin, and I had already taken a shower and was stretched out across the bed still feeling sick.
“She wants me to come up there right now?”
The older black woman, whose name was Grace, nodded. “That’s what she said, Miss Mink.”
I put on my Prada bathrobe and slid my feet into the matching slippers. I didn’t know what to expect outta my new mama, Selah, but I woulda never expected what she dropped on me when I walked into her suite.
“It was all my fault!” she blurted out almost as soon as I stepped into her extra-spacious room. This was my first time seeing her without her makeup on and she really scared the shit outta me. Forget all that soft shit she had sucked down at dinner. Mami was straight liquored up now. I could smell the vodka coming off her breath real strong. Her face looked mad bloated, and it was shining with sweat. The long hair that was always perfectly whipped had been pushed back off her forehead and hung in limp strands like she had sweated it out in the shower.
“I’m sorry, Sable.” She grabbed me in a bear hug and held me close to her and cried big, rocking tears. “I swear I’m sorry. It was all my fault, baby. All my fault.”
I let her hug me for a few seconds, and then I gently pulled away. This was all a big hustle to me, but it was some crucial, real-life stuff to her, and for some reason I was starting to feel guilty as fuck.
“It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”
She clutched my hand and I let her lead me over to a huge black velour sofa on the other side of her room.
“I lost you, baby.” There was crazy pain in her eyes as she stared deeply into mine. “I lost you.”
“I don’t get it. How did you lose me? I thought I was kidnapped, so how could that be your fault?”
“It WAS my fault!” She gripped my hand and damn-near yelled in my face. “I was DRUNK, okay? Drunk! I had just seen something terrible at your father’s job, and I ran out of there and headed straight to a liquor store! I sat in a park and drank until I was ready to pass out, and then I pushed your little stroller down the block and went inside a drug store so I could get a bottle of mouthwash.
“I left Barron up front to watch you and Dane. I know I shouldn’t have. He was just a kid, and not nearly old enough to watch two toddlers, but I was only going to rinse my mouth out and come right back. I couldn’t have been gone for more than two minutes. Not even two minutes! But when I came back ... you were gone. Barron was there, Dane was still there, and your little pink stroller and ducky-doll baby were still there ... but you were gone.”
Her whole face crumpled. She squinched her eyes closed and turned down her lips, and the wails just fell all outta her mouth.
I was all fucked up. I didn’t know what the hell to do. I damn sure didn’t know what to say. I felt bad for bringing this kinda pain into her life. I felt responsible for giving this real sweet lady so much false hope and for poking my sticky fingers inside all of her most painful spots.
“It’s okay
, Selah,” I said as she put her head down and cried on my chest. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. Please don’t cry.”
And then I said the words that I had been so freakin’ unable to say to my real mother, another drunk woman who was laying up in a nursing home helpless and outta touch with reality.
“I forgive you,” I said softly. I patted her hand and stroked her sweaty hair. “I forgive you.”
I sat with her as she cried for a whole hour.
She felt so bad for being drunk when her baby was snatched. Just so damn guilty all down in her bones that twice I almost came outta my face and told her that I wasn’t really Sable. Twice I almost blurted out the truth and took back my lie. But I didn’t.
“Will you sleep with me tonight?” she asked me. Her eyes were bloodshot and her bottom lip was doing the drunk chick’s sag. “When you were a baby you used to sleep with me every chance you got because you couldn’t stand your crib. You hated the bars. You just didn’t like being fenced in. It used to drive Viceroy crazy, but I loved it.”
She put her head on my shoulder and sighed.
“I haven’t snuggled with my baby girl in almost eighteen years. Will you let me be your mommy tonight?”
I wanted to scream and get the fugg up outta there! I liked Selah. She was cool and I felt real sorry for ganking her. And for real, her room was plusher than any hotel I’d ever seen in my life, but nah, that didn’t mean I wanted to sleep with her, okay?
But I did it. Her bed was so big it had to be custom made. It sat up on an elevated platform with a smoked marble base that was trimmed in gold. She pulled the sheets back and I took off my robe. We climbed into her bed together, and the cool satin sheets felt like a mother’s love on my skin.
I had a bunch of cousins so I had slept with plenty of females before. When you come from a family full of trifling people it was rare to have a bed all to yourself. But I had never been held by a woman in my life, and I didn’t really know how to take it when Selah scooted up behind me and put her arm around me. I lay there stiffer than a mutha as she touched my hair, then rubbed my arm. A few minutes later she was snoring softly in my ear with that raggedy little ugly ducky-doll baby clenched in her fist.
I don’t know when I fell off, but I did. And I slept good too. Damn good. I woke up the next morning and the memories from last night crashed down on me. I lay there not knowing how in the hell I was supposed to feel. I mean, I was still on my game, and getting that dough was always at the top of my to-do list, but I had never even thought about how fucked up Sable’s family was gonna feel behind me and Bunni’s grimy mess.
I peeped over my shoulder. Selah had rolled over to the other side of the bed. She looked a lot younger than she had a few hours earlier. That sleep had worked some hella miracles on her during the night. Her face looked smooth and slack, like all the stress had left her body. She looked happy. Real content. And the ugly little ducky-doll that had comforted her while her baby was gone was still cuddled in her arms.
CHAPTER 44
“That grimy muthafucka!”
Barron had sent Carla home in a limo so he could spend the night wildin’ out in his suite, and as soon as she was gone he grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal from his private stock and chugged that shit down like it was warm water.
There was no way in hell his mother should’ve gotten a copy of that DNA report. No way! He’d made a deal with the fat-headed dude who worked at the lab, and not only did that bastard cross him up by not sending him a negative report like he was supposed to, that fool had faxed a copy of the real report to Selah and blew Barron’s whole shit up in the air!
Barron felt like he was still playing college football. Rage and aggression were coming out of his pores and he wanted to tear some shit up. He sat in his room and drank until the sun came up, just a’ counting the minutes until the DNA lab opened. He was gonna go down there and bitch-slap him a nigga named Kelvin Merchant, so that fat-ass fucka just better be ready!
The lab had just opened and Kelvin sat at the front counter trying hard not to squirm. He had to pee real bad but his dick was sore and he didn’t wanna touch it, not even to aim it down into the toilet. All morning long he had been reliving his deliciously agonizing memories of his hot night with Bunni. She was a brutal hood bitch. He could still see the vicious look on her face as she inserted his meat in his favorite torture grinder and then ass-mugged him for almost two hours straight.
His dick got hard just thinking about it and Kelvin moaned. After a night like that an erection was the last thing he needed. All that hot blood rushing to his dick, stretching the tender, brutalized skin ... . He just couldn’t help it. He reached under his desk and gripped his wood, wincing as intense pain wrapped around sensual pleasure and shot straight through him. Hell yeah, he was a pain slut. Agony was his eroticism, and he had finally found someone who was willing to hurt him bad enough to make it feel good.
Closing his eyes, Kelvin stroked himself on the sly. He gripped his dick in his fist and squeezed as hard as he could. He damn-near shot off and passed out at the same time from the sheer erotic torture that was radiating through him, and he smiled and sighed as his entire body tingled with joy.
“What the fuck is your fat ass grinning about?”
“Oh!” Kelvin’s eyes flew open as he wobbled on his stool. “Excuse me, sir! How can I help ...” His words trailed off as he stared at the tall black man with the killer glare in his red eyes. Dude looked like he’d been out drinking all night, and his whole grill was twisted and scary. “Oh, Mr. Dominion ... I didn’t know you were coming by—”
“Get ya fuckin’ ass outside!” Barron Dominion grabbed him up in his collar and yanked him off his feet. The front counter was the only thing standing between them, and Barron kept him yoked up as Kelvin stumbled down the length of the long counter until they were standing face to face.
“We had a deal, muh’fucka!” Barron barked and pushed him out the front door. He grabbed Kelvin’s fat neck and slammed him up against the side of the building, then dug his thumb deep into the meat of Kelvin’s beefy throat.
“What the fuck did I pay your fat ass ten grand for?” Barron thrust a powerful right fist into Kelvin’s soft gut, then bitch-slapped him hard upside his head.
“W-w-wait!” Kelvin stuttered as he reached out to protect himself. His fat arms flailed and his enormous belly jiggled. “I c-c-couldn’t do anything! It wasn’t even me who ran the test! I swear!”
Barron snatched him in his collar again and slammed his head up against the concrete wall. Rage exploded in his eyes and Kelvin thought dude was about to butt him in the forehead, but Barron lowered his aim and drilled him hard in the nose instead.
Hot blood spurted everywhere. “Ohh!” Kelvin shrieked and clutched his nose. He liked pain, but not like this!
Barron cursed and slapped the shit out of him again. He gripped Kelvin’s throat between his strong fingers like he was going to rip his Adam’s apple out, and then he deep drilled him in the gut so hard that vomit splashed out of the fat man’s mouth.
“I oughta kill your stupid ass!” Barron spit as he let loose with a barrage of hard punches to Kelvin’s chest and gut. “You fucked shit up! I should smash your stupid ass!”
Kelvin cried as he balled up the best he could and trembled in fear. Mr. Dominion was drunk. He was crazy as hell too. Getting his dick ripped by a chick in heels was one thing, but having an ex-football player busting him all in his grill was something else.
“How the fuck did my mother get that fax?” Barron panted when he finally stopped punching the man. “Huh? How did she get it when I paid your dumb ass ten fuckin’ grand to send me a negative report?”
Kelvin babbled and whimpered like a submissive little bitch. “I swear, Mr. Dominion. There was nothing I could do! My supervisor faxed your mother the report! She came in extra early that day, and by the time I got here it was already done!”
He couldn’t believe it when Barron
Dominion turned him loose and took a few steps back. Barron was a tall, athletic man, and he had the kind of body that Kelvin had always wanted but would never get, no matter how hard he tried. He could tell Barron wanted to fuck him up real good again, and he watched the man struggle to get his rage under control. He watched him lose the battle too.
“Umph!” Kelvin shrieked as Barron’s fist brutalized his nose again. He heard the crack as his bone broke, but before his mind could register it, Barron’s other fist caught him under the chin and snapped his head back on his neck.
“You’s a lucky muthafucka,” Barron breathed as he watched the fat man slide down to the ground. “You’re real fuckin’ lucky. ’Cause I feel like killing your ass.”
“God!” Kelvin sniffed. “I think you broke my nose!”
“Good. You better not cash my check neither, muthafucka or I’ll be back to break your ass next time.”
Kelvin cupped his hand under his nose as a steady stream of blood flowed from his nostrils. He peered through terrified eyes as Barron strode over to his fancy white car and climbed inside. He crouched there shaking, knowing his nose was terribly broken but happy as hell that his teeth hadn’t been kicked in too.
But Barron was right about one thing. Kelvin was real lucky. Because late last night, right before she had locked his dick in a spiked clamp and tied a blindfold over his eyes, Bunni had told him that her friend Mink was gonna tear him off a cool five grand in sweet cash. It was gonna be his reward for hooking her up with a positive DNA analysis that matched the sample they had on file for Sable Dominion.
Kelvin flung the warm blood from his hand as he crawled back inside the building to take care of his busted nose. This was the last time he was gonna do business with those goddamn Dominions. He was gonna tear up the check that crazy Barron had written him for ten thousand dollars, but he was damn sure gonna keep the money he got from Bunni’s friend, whether he had earned it or not. The moment she handed it over that money was going right into his vacation account. There was a pain-fest kicking off in Sweden in just a few months, and Kelvin planned on being there!