by K'wan
“This is my youngest boy, Sean,” Maureen said.
“Charmed.” Juliette extended her hand, expecting Shadow to kiss it. Instead, he shook it. “He’s just a darling, isn’t he, Josette?”
The princess of the Zaza clan silently considered Shadow. He felt like a baby fawn in the crosshairs of a hungry cheetah. The smaller animal knew it was about to die, but for some reason couldn’t will its legs to flee. Shadow was immediately both intrigued and frightened by Josette. She sure didn’t look like the girl he’d seen on Instagram. She’d put on about fifteen pounds in all the right places, and he couldn’t be sure, but from the way her tits sat perked up beneath the plunging neckline of her dress, it looked like she’d had some work done. He was relieved when Chippie unknowingly rescued him.
“Can everyone take their seats?” Chippie said. “Dinner is about to be served.”
Shadow made his way back to the head table, with the three women trailing behind him. When he glanced back, Josette was still staring at him like something wild and hungry. If nothing else, he knew it was going to be an interesting night.
CHAPTER 20
Right before dinner was served, Shadow was thrown a curveball. Instead of sitting near the head of the table with his father and brother, he was told to sit with the Zaza family, right next to Josette. To his father’s right, where Shadow would normally be sitting, was Orlando, who spent half the night laughing, hoisting glasses, and keeping people hanging on his every word. Shadow had to admit that there was something magnetic about the man’s personality, but he also had a sharp edge to him. It was very subtle, but it was there.
Halfway through the meal, Shadow’s phone vibrated in his pocket. It was Fresh again. He was about to answer when Mrs. Zaza started up a new conversation with him. She was quite the character. Almost everything that came out of her mouth had to do with either her own accomplishments or those of her family. She was a shallow woman, Shadow observed, who reminded him a lot of Uncle Chapman. In between her brags, she kept making remarks pertaining to Shadow and her daughter: how cute they’d be together, and so on and so forth. If Shadow didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought that she was trying to play matchmaker.
Josette’s personality was not quite as vibrant. Every five minutes or so she rolled her eyes and sighed loud enough for Shadow to hear. Even when he tried to engage her in small talk, her responses were short and half-hearted. She was about as interesting to Shadow as sunset was to a blind man. He was trying to think up an excuse to escape her when suddenly there was a shift.
It came around the time Juliette excused herself to use the bathroom. Josette waited for her mother to disappear into the hall before dropping her previous posture. She turned to Shadow and said, “Jesus, I thought she’d never stop talking! I’m sorry if my mother was embarrassing you.”
“Nah, you’re good,” Shadow said. “She just wants the best for her daughter.”
Josette studied him briefly before speaking. “You know, something I’ve noticed about you tonight is that you have a slightly inflated sense of self-importance. How does that crown fit on such a large head?”
Shadow was caught off guard by her sudden change of speed. He found himself momentarily at a loss for words.
“Relax,” she said, “I’m only joking. You’re confident. That’s a good quality in a man.” She smiled playfully and glanced around the room. “Let me ask you something. Where can a girl go for a bit of privacy?”
“Excuse me?” Shadow replied.
“I mean for this.” She dipped her hand into her bra and produced a joint. “Do you burn?”
“Like a California brush fire!”
“While Mrs. Chatterbox is gone, let’s get blazed right quick. Unless, of course, the king and queen need you to be in their line of vision at all times?”
“You must not know who you’re talking to,” Shadow said, standing and helping Josette up from her seat like a gentleman. “Follow me. I saw a dumpster around back that’ll provide the perfect cover.”
The adults were so busy getting drunk and having a good time that no one even noticed as the two teenagers headed for the exit. Moving with skill that could’ve only been born from experience, Josette snatched a bottle of whiskey from the bar on their way out the door. She was so smooth that the bartender didn’t even notice.
In the recesses of the dumpsters, Shadow and Josette Zaza smoked a joint and drank whiskey straight from the bottle. Although her weed wasn’t quite on the same level as the shit he’d smoked with Pain, he was nonetheless impressed with the strain.
Once the liquor and weed started working their way into their systems, Josette began opening up a bit. She told Shadow what it was like growing up as the youngest child of the Zaza family, about the expectations placed upon her and constant comparisons to her older sister, Carmen. This was why she put on an air of being prim and proper when she was around her parents—she had to be perfect at all times.
Shadow related to her story, except for the part about her being involved in the family business. Whereas Shadow’s dad tried to keep him sheltered from the dirty side of the family operation, Josette had been pulled in all the way. She, not Carmen or their brother, was next in line to succeed their father.
“How do you deal with it?” Shadow asked. “Living in the shadow of something greater than yourself?” In the back of his mind, he was thinking about the dynamic between himself, his father, and Ghost.
“By reminding myself every day that nothing is greater than me,” she declared. “Not my father, not my siblings, not even the Zaza name. I am the mistress of my own fate.”
“So you’re cool with being a part of the family business?”
“I’m looking forward to it,” Josette said. “The business is my family’s legacy. I know what my father has sacrificed to bring us to where we are. Why would I not want to make sure that, for generations, the Zazas are financially set? If I have to spill a little blood in the process, as long as it isn’t Zaza blood, it is what it is.”
“That’s cold,” Shadow said, chuckling.
“That’s my life. You mean to tell me that you aren’t looking forward to the day when you have to step up for your family?”
“That isn’t exactly my lane. Ghost is heir to the throne.”
“Sean, I’m not talking about a social club of old mobsters and cooks that everyone, including my father, wants so desperately to be a part of. I mean the real seat of power. The one our parents sending us to the best schools are preparing us to handle. If there’s one thing I know about these old men who we come from, it’s that they always plan ahead. Nothing is done without careful execution. Why do you think there was so much pressure on us to hook up tonight?”
“I don’t follow you,” Shadow said.
Josette slapped her forehead in frustration. “Sean, you can’t be that oblivious to what’s going on between our families, can you?”
Before Shadow could respond, his phone rang again. This time it was Pain. When he made to answer it, Josette snatched the phone away.
“That’s rude, you know. Here we are having a deep conversation and you’re about to get on your phone.”
“Quit playing. That’s one of my guys. I wanna make sure everything’s okay.” Shadow reached for his phone, but she held it just out of his reach.
“Unless this is a call about money or blood, I think your guys will be okay,” Josette chided, clearly feeling the effects of the whiskey and weed. She held the phone behind her back, glassy eyes challenging him to come and take it. He did.
They tussled for a moment and he ended up pressing Josette against the wall behind the dumpster. They were so close that they could taste each other’s breath. That hungry look returned to Josette’s eyes and now that Shadow had a buzz he was up for the game. An invisible magnet seemed to pull them together, which they resisted at first. Eventually, however, they gave in and their lips connected. They sucked on each other’s lips as if trying to draw juice from a fru
it. Shadow felt her hand slip between his legs. He was hard as a rock.
“Nice,” Josette breathed into his mouth, squeezing his dick with one hand and steering his hand under her gown with the other. She navigated Shadow’s fingers inside her. When she took them out they were slick with her juices. Locking eyes with him, she took his hand and licked his fingers clean. “You wanna fuck me, don’t you?”
In response, Shadow undid his belt and shoved his pants down around his hips. His dick popped out like a dangerous weapon, swollen with blood and tight. He felt like he would pop if he didn’t have her. Shadow damn near foamed at the mouth when she turned her back to him and hiked up her gown. She wasn’t wearing underwear. Josette placed one hand on the wall and the other between her legs, and started playing with her pussy. Shadow pressed himself against her and began running his dick back and forth over her pussy. It was so wet that it slipped right in. Shadow’s eyes rolled back in his head as she closed her walls around him. He was barely five pumps in and felt like he was ready to bust.
Josette felt Shadow’s dick thicken and began to open and close herself, teasing him. When she felt him tense, she pulled herself off him with a moist sound, grabbed a fistful of Shadow’s braids, and kissed him again.
Shadow’s strong hands wrapped around her thin waist and he lifted her onto her tiptoes. His dick found her pussy as if it had a homing beacon. Her eyes were closed and waves of pleasure rolled over her face. “The world will bow at our feet,” she moaned into his ear. Shadow had no clue what she meant, nor did he care. All he could think about was her moist hole. Josette’s pussy was so good that Shadow wanted to take up residence in it. He had her back pressed firmly to the wall and was working her—in … out … in … out. He happened to look at Josette’s face and no longer were her eyes closed in the throes of passion. They stared at something just out of his line of vision. When he heard the sound of a bag hitting the ground, he knew that they weren’t alone. Shadow prayed that he wouldn’t turn around and find his mother, or worse, Mr. Zaza, standing behind him. What he found waiting for him behind door number three was even worse than the first two choices.
At first, he didn’t recognize her. She was dressed in a plain white shirt and black pants, same as the rest of the waitstaff who had been hired to serve at the party. Her wig was gone, replaced with fresh box braids pulled into a ponytail. The trash bag she had come to toss in the dumpster now lay at her feet, loose garbage falling from its mouth. Tears danced in her eyes at the sight of Shadow thrusting into the Cuban girl. Of all the people he thought he might bump into at his mother’s birthday party, Voodoo had not been one of them.
Voodoo’s hand went to her mouth in embarrassment. She shook her head as if trying to dislodge the image of what she was witnessing. When the first tear rolled down her cheek, she turned and hurried back inside.
Shadow tried to pull his pants up. His dick was still hard and he was having trouble tucking it back into his underwear. Holding his pants up at the waist, he ran after Voodoo.
“Wait, did you just jump out of my pussy to go and chase the help?” Josette furiously called after him.
* * *
He finally caught up with Voodoo in the hallway.
“Leave me alone, Shadow,” she said without stopping. She was crying and didn’t want him to see.
He grabbed her by the arm, but she snatched it away. “Let me explain,” he said.
“Don’t you dare put your hands on me! You probably didn’t even wash them after you climbed out of her nasty pussy!”
“Why don’t you relax and let me explain,” Shadow said.
“Explain what? That you were fucking that chick behind the dumpster like the trash she is? I knew all that shit you were talking earlier about being sorry for how things played out between us was bullshit. You still the same dog-ass nigga”
Shadow sighed. “Voodoo, I ain’t even gonna front like you didn’t just catch me jumping off out there, but what was I supposed to do? Wait until you got around to deciding if I was worthy of a second chance? I had no way of knowing where we are with this.”
“You’re absolutely right, Shadow. It’s my own fault for thinking that maybe you were starting to mature enough to have finally figured it out. I can’t believe I was actually thinking about letting your creep ass back into my life.”
At that moment, Josette came walking down the hallway. She looked pissed and half-drunk. She slowed her pace and gave Voodoo a dirty look, then took a final swig from the bottle before pouring the rest of the liquor on the floor. “Might want to get somebody to clean that up,” she said, laughing as she moseyed back into the banquet hall. Voodoo was about to go after her but Shadow stopped her.
“Chill, Voodoo,” Shadow said. “You’re better than that.”
“You know what? You’re right, I am better than that. I’m better than this …” she motioned around the hall, “and I’m for damn sure better than you.”
A beefy black man wearing a white chef’s coat and hat came into the hallway. When he spotted Voodoo, his face turned sour. “Williams, what the hell are you doing? You’re not getting paid to socialize, you’re being paid to bus tables!”
That was the last straw for Voodoo. “You know what? Fuck you and fuck this job!” she yelled. “And especially fuck you, Shadow!”
Shadow didn’t try to stop her. He knew he had fucked up bad this time. What were the odds that the girl he truly loved would work at the same place he was fucking a random chick behind a dumpster? Voodoo was a good girl and he just kept fucking things up with her. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.
Shadow shuffled down the hall, thinking about what had just transpired. He had the urge to call an Uber and head home; he didn’t want to party anymore. But then Uncle Chapman came out of the banquet room looking for him.
“Boy, where have you been?”
“I’m not in the mood for no bullshit right now,” Shadow said.
“Your dad sent me to find you. They’re about to bring out your mother’s cake.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Shadow muttered in a shaky voice.
Chapman gave him a look. He knew the signs—the sagging shoulders and eyes on the verge of tears. Yes, his nephew was suffering from a broken heart. “You good?” he asked.
“Not really,” Shadow replied. He went on to tell the story of what had just happened with Josette and Voodoo. He wasn’t sure why he was spilling his guts to Chapman, except for the fact that he needed to get it off his chest and any listening ear would do.
“My poor nephew,” Chapman said, shaking his head. “You’ve really managed to step in it, haven’t you? I understand where you’re coming from, and my heart goes out to you, but let me be honest. Bitches like Voodoo are a dime a dozen. Sure, she’s cute, a true rider, and probably throws that young pussy like a grand champion, yet she’s no Josette Zaza. Voodoo represents your past, but Josette represents what could be a very bright future for you and this family.”
“Why the hell is everybody trying to push me off on this crazy Spanish broad?” Shadow snapped. Then he remembered what Millie had told him about Ghost. He was slowly trying to figure out where this was going, but needed one more piece of the puzzle to be sure. “Chapman, what did Dad try to do to Ghost and what does it have to do with what’s going on tonight?”
Chapman wasn’t surprised by the question. He had been waiting for it to come. In fact, he was a bit disappointed that his nephew hadn’t asked him sooner. “Nephew,” he said, draping his arm around Shadow, “walk with me while I give you a quick history lesson.”
CHAPTER 21
Ten minutes after arriving, Ghost wished the event would hurry up and end. He suffered through it for the sake of his mother, but neither the party nor the guests were his scene. It was a room filled with fake-ass people bending over to kiss his father’s butt. Not because they actually had love for him, but because they needed something from him.
Every so often he caught Orlando looking at him, smi
rking. He wanted to get up and slap the expression off his face, but he wouldn’t take the bait. Ghost didn’t like Orlando Zaza, though he understood the importance of the man’s relationship with his father. Orlando had powerful friends in the Cuban government and these friends could help Chance’s efforts to one day make it to Washington, DC. Ghost had been opposed to his father getting back into bed with Zaza and had told him so. He had never trusted Orlando, and trusted him even less after the incident that had soured their relationship in the first place. Ghost was largely to blame for it, and he accepted that. It just didn’t sit right that all these years later, when Chance was on the cusp of pulling off one of the greatest moves of his career, Orlando had decided that he wanted to play nice again. It didn’t seem genuine, yet the king didn’t want to hear Ghost’s concerns. He was so focused on all the pros that came with getting back into bed with the Zazas that he’d neglected the cons. Chance was determined to make the deal work, no matter what the costs—even to his own blood.
Orlando wasn’t the only one who seemed off, though. Ever since Shadow had snuck off and come back, he sat among the Zazas with a sour look on his face. The girl didn’t appear to be having a good time either. Before they crept out, Shadow and Josette had been snickering and whispering like two school kids, but now they hardly looked at each other. What had happened? When the brothers made eye contact, Ghost raised his glass in salute, to which Shadow responded by twisting his lips and averting his gaze. Shadow then caught the attention of a passing waiter and grabbed a drink from the platter he carried. Shadow wasn’t a big drinker, but he was throwing them back tonight. Something was going on with his little brother, and Ghost made a note to himself to have a conversation with him later on.
His phone went off and he answered with an attitude: “Speak.”
“It’s me,” Monster said on the other end.
“Everything okay? I’m kind of in the middle of something,” Ghost told him. Across the room he watched Uncle Chapman whisper into the ear of a man Ghost didn’t recognize. He wouldn’t have noticed had the man not looked so out of place. He wore a sweater and Timberlands at what was supposed to be a black-tie event. How had he even gotten in dressed like that?