by Noire
But foolish wasn’t the only thing Selah was feeling as a male nurse came to get her husband and take him downstairs for a therapy session. Rodney Ruddman had released her inner freak, and now, watching her husband get helped into a wheelchair but knowing damn well she was dying to get back to Dallas so she could see her overweight lover, had tears of frustration running from her eyes and a knot of shame eating its way through her stomach.
Selah walked toward the door with Viceroy as he was being wheeled out. Clutching her soggy tissues, she bent down to kiss him good-bye. He took her guilt for grief and reached out and wiped at her eyes.
“C’mon, now, sugar. I’m okay, baby. I’m straight. Just gimme a minute to get back on my feet and everything is gonna be just the way it used to be. I can promise you that.”
Again, Selah nodded, but behind her wet ball of tissues a hot streak of attitude flashed in her eyes. Viceroy had her twisted! Who the hell said she wanted things to go back to the way they used to be? She thought about his limp, shriveled up dick and poked out her lip. With all that good wood Rodney had been putting down on her she’d been digging her life just fine the way it was!
“Mr. Barron?”
Barron jumped and blinked his eyes real quick as his father’s personal assistant handed him the small stack of documents. He glanced around the boardroom and then looked up at the elderly assistant.
“The only signature left to record is yours,” she said gently, and placed her wrinkled hand on his shoulder. Sallie Kendall had been working for his father since before Barron was born. She loved Viceroy and had been steadfast in her prayers for his recovery. Right now her eyes were full of sadness and sympathy as she patted Barron’s shoulder again and gave him a small smile.
Barron glanced down at the documents and then pulled out his favorite fountain pen. He had just bent forward to sign his name on the dotted line when suddenly the door burst open and Viceroy’s lead secretary rushed in waving a big message pad.
“Wait, Mr. Barron!” she pleaded, waving a notepad in the air. “Wait just a second! I’m not sure you want to sign that just yet!”
Barron paused with his pen in the air.
“Why? What’s the problem?” he asked, his eyes narrowed in confusion. “Is something wrong?”
“Your mother called,” the old lady panted, blinking rapidly. “I was in the restroom and I missed the phone. But she left a message. She’s in Houston. At the hospital. She asked me to tell you that your father is out of his coma! She said he’s sitting up and talking! Praise the Lord, can you believe it? I guess y’all can tear up those papers and freeze the vote now because Mr. Viceroy just woke up!”
CHAPTER 9
Pilar Ducane walked into the kitchen of the Ducane manor and poured herself a small glass of orange juice. She took a sip of the chilled liquid, then shot a nasty look at her father as he sat at the table eating breakfast.
Digger Ducane might have landed himself a job at Ruddman Energy that paid decent money, but Pilar was still salty with his ass. Every last one of her credit cards was still canceled, and her father had put a restriction on the amount of money she could withdraw from her debit account each day.
Living on a tight string wasn’t something a bad bitch like Pilar was accustomed to doing, and she blamed her father for causing her social status to tumble into the gutter right along with her bank account balance. She didn’t give a damn about that little regular paycheck he brought in every two weeks because she wasn’t interested in that kind of temporary cash.
No, Pilar wanted that perpetual shit. The type of money that rolled in generationally on the regular, year in and year out, whether you worked for it or not.
She wanted the type of dough that her relatives the Dominions had stashed away in nooks and crannies, under the floorboards and deep in the crevices of all their pockets. The kind of money that Barron’s dumb ass had practically thrown away when he signed those papers letting the board give that ghetto bitch Mink and her street-slime Dy-Nasty access to the Dominion family trust fund!
Just the thought of those two bitches rolling around in that type of free cash every year while she struggled to get her luxury shopping on and her nails done and flounce her fine, cultured ass around in the best finery that money could buy, burned Pilar up.
She had done a damn good job of luring Barron between her sheets and wiping so much good pussy on him that she had his chocolate ass stuttering and strung out, but no matter how good she fucked him and no matter how much she hinted around, dude still hadn’t popped that big question yet.
Pilar just didn’t understand it. Everything about her was prime and she knew it. Barron should have been hopping at the chance to marry a prize piece of ass like her so he could jump her bones every night. And hell, with Viceroy on his deathbed and about to slide into his grave, it was only right that a new generation of Dominions added some fruit to the family tree and stepped up to take over the throne.
And that’s why Pilar had chucked her birth control pills in the trash and started lifting her skirt and letting Barron dig her out raw as much as possible. Because the way she saw it, the best thing that could happen would be for her to miss her next period and pop up pregnant. With Barron taking over as the CEO of Dominion Oil, Pilar and her baby would be laced for life. And unless Barron wanted her to bust up in front of that board with her lip and her belly poked out like that white girl he said was on Suge’s tape, his ass wouldn’t have no other choice but to put a ring on her finger and put a Mrs. in front of her name.
Finishing her juice, Pilar giggled her ass off inside. She was about to pull a gold-digging extraordinaire move on Lil Bump, but she didn’t feel bad about it at all. She was gonna love Barron up, and she would work her ass off to be a damn good Dominion wife.
Now, how the rest of the family was going to feel about her and Barron getting married? She glanced at her father as he slobbed down a stack of blueberry pancakes and about a pound of curled up, crunchy pork bacon. Well, that wasn’t her damn problem. Pilar was on a mission to set herself up lovely as the new queen of the Dominion castle, and whoever the hell didn’t like it could just kiss her ass!
She was sashaying out of the kitchen with much pep in her step when her phone vibrated and a text message came through. Clicking on her phone, Pilar’s heart fluttered in her chest when she saw the message was from Barron.
Her heart damn near stopped beating when she read what was staring at her from her screen. The message read, The board’s vote has been canceled. My pops just woke up.
Digger Ducane set his fork down on his plate when he saw the shocked expression on his daughter’s face. Pilar had been walking around giving him the shit treatment for weeks, but right now his baby girl looked like somebody had slapped the taste out of her mouth.
“He woke the hell up?” she shrieked, and then started punching numbers into her cell phone as she dashed from the kitchen.
“Pilar!” Digger called out behind her. “Who woke up, Pilar? Who woke up?”
But his daughter ran up the stairs without answering and Digger’s heart skipped a beat as he stared down at the half-eaten stack of blueberry pancakes on his plate.
Oh shit, he thought as his mouth went dry. He woke the hell up?
He grunted. There was only one damn person Pilar could have been talking about and he knew exactly who that was: his brother-in-law, Viceroy Dominion.
A wave of guilt washed over Digger and turned his bacon sour in his stomach. Viceroy had been his runnin’ dog for over thirty years. He’d gotten Digger started in the logistics business and had even financed his very first business loan. His brother-in-law was a ruthless businessman and he wasn’t the type to take betrayal lightly.
Especially the kind of betrayal that Digger had pulled on him when he jumped across the tracks and switched over to Rodney Ruddman’s team.
Digger pushed his plate away and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. His sister Selah was barely speaking to him behind that
shit. She had been mad as hell when she found out he was leaving Dominion Oil while Viceroy was down and out. But Selah wasn’t half as pissed as Viceroy was gonna be when he got wind of that shit, and Digger knew there was sho’nuff gonna be some hell to pay when that little bit of news landed in Viceroy’s lap.
Which didn’t make his current fucked-up situation at Ruddman Energy any easier either. After just a short time at his new job, Digger had managed to step on his own dick and get caught up with the wrong people.
When the economy tanked and his contracts started drying up at Dominion Oil, Digger had sworn on his dead wife’s grave that he would never again get so damn broke that his credit cards melted in a roadside steak house and his baby girl couldn’t afford to buy herself a new pair of shoes.
He knew the only person who could guarantee that Pilar’s future was secure was him, so after taking the job at Ruddman Energy and scoping out what he thought was a wide-open deal, Digger had jumped under the covers with an outside trucking firm and made a back-alley deal to undercut a few of Rodney Ruddman’s shipping products.
It wasn’t a whole lot, just some extra shit that he had leftover from his days at Dominion Oil. But Digger had hooked up a deal to sell his products to a local trucking firm at half the price that Ruddman charged them, and he stood to make a solid hunk of change under the table.
But for some damn reason, at the last minute, just as the money exchange was scheduled to go down, the local company had backed out of the deal and left him hanging.
Digger didn’t know what was up at the time, but the Texas oil bizz was a real small industry and rich people talked. And to make shit worse, for the last week or so that shrewd bastard of a boss of his, Rodney Ruddman, had started playing him real close. Digger’s invoices and sales documents had recently been sent up to their financial team for a so-called routine audit, and no matter how many times his co-workers told him this was standard procedure for new partners, he had a feeling his days with the big-time oil conglomerate were about to be over damn near before they had begun.
And that meant Digger was going to be financially fucked any which way he looked at it, and he was going to be super-fucked when Viceroy found out that his old running dog didn’t have a loyal bone in his body.
He woke the hell up?
Pilar’s words echoed in his head like alarm bells and Digger could actually feel his ass frying. Because after the stunt he’d pulled, there was no going back to Viceroy and Dominion Oil. And if Rodney Ruddman found out that he’d been playing a little side ball with his customers, there’d be no future with Ruddman Energy either.
Digger stabbed his fork into the last of his pancakes and shoveled the syrup-soggy mess into his mouth.
Yeah, he thought as he chewed the sweet wad of dough. He was fucked all right.
Ass fucked.
CHAPTER 10
The first thing Selah had done when she left Viceroy’s hospital room was to place a call to Barron. He was at Dominion Oil headquarters finalizing some paperwork and Selah knew she had to stop him.
His cell phone rang until it went straight to voice mail, and the only thing Selah could do at that point was call her husband’s secretary. She started getting nervous when nobody answered at the office either, and the best she could do was leave a frantic voice mail for her son and pray he would get it in time.
Selah walked down to the waiting room and pushed open the door. Crazy excitement danced in Dy-Nasty’s eyes and Selah frowned as she beckoned to the girl.
“Wha’ happened? Is it over? He dead yet?”
“Excuse me?” Selah said sharply as she paused in the doorway. Dy-Nasty was kicked back and lounging with her legs swung to the side and her crusty feet up in a chair. A faded corner-store toe ring complete with a fake plastic jewel was on her big toe.
“I mean,” Dy-Nasty caught herself and sat up straight, “what’s up with Daddy Viceroy? Is the old fella doin’ a’ight?”
“He’s fine,” Selah said shortly, motioning for the girl to get up and follow her down the hall. “I’ve got some business to take care of,” she told Dy-Nasty as they headed out the exit where the limousine waited.
Selah nodded as the driver jumped out and opened the back door.
“Go ahead and get in.” She waved Dy-Nasty off. “The driver will take you to the heliport and put you on the jet. My pilot’s going to drop you off at home, and then he’ll pick up Barron and Dane and bring them down here to meet me.”
Dy-Nasty bucked. “Drop me off at home? Whut? So I came all the way down here with you and now you gonna be a flat-leaver and make me ride back by myself?”
Selah smirked, nodded, and shooed her toward the limo. “That’s right. You’ll be fine, Dy-Nasty. It’s a very short ride. Take a nap or something, and by the time you wake up you’ll be there.”
Dy-Nasty was pissed off about getting the boot, but there wasn’t a damn thing she could do except poke her lip out and shoot Selah some eye-daggers as she climbed her booty in the back of the sleek, shiny whip and headed for the house.
“Uh-uh, I ain’t going,” I said and stared out the window. “I ain’t fuckin’ going.”
“Umm . . .” Peaches twisted his lips and lit into me as we sped toward the airport in his boyfriend’s whip. “I hate to be the one to tell you, boo-boo, but you ain’t got no other choice!”
I pressed a cold can of Pepsi to my dotted eye and winced. It was like the Wild, Wild West in Harlem. The bullets was flying and Peaches was tryna sneak me outta Dodge. He had jetted outta Lower Manhattan and was zipping my ass straight over the bridge to the airport.
“I can’t just up and leave like that, Peaches,” I protested into a tissue filled with the blood that Gutta had punched outta my nose. “It ain’t that simple, dude.”
“Don’t be stupid! It ain’t that hard neither unless you wanna die! You gots ta get up outta here and take your ass back to Texas, Mink. Ta-day!”
I was grateful as hell that Peaches had tracked me down and rescued me from Gutta’s crazy ass, but I wasn’t feeling this plan of his at all!
I shook my head and got dizzy as shit.
“Boy you know I can’t go back down there to them Dominions ! Their real daughter rolled up in the joint, remember? They ain’t gonna let me stay there no more. Especially after they get them damn DNA results back and find out I was gankin’ them the whole time!”
Peaches smirked, dismissing my excuse. “You’s a con-mami, Madame Mink. A grifter. Your life is one big game of chance. Cross all them other bridges when you get to ’em. You can lie your way around that DNA test when the time comes, but right now you gots ta go!”
“B-b-but”—I glanced down at my black and white funeral dress that was covered in big red splotches of blood—“I can’t get on no airplane looking like no stabbed-up penguin!” I protested. “As soon as some nosy-ass square peeps me walking around looking like a crime victim they gonna call the police. And besides, I ain’t got no ends on me. I hid my last little bit of money at the crib. I taped it way up inside the toilet bowl plunger!”
Peaches smirked and waved me off. “I gives not a damn about none of that. You gots to get up outta here, Mink. Gutta is gonna execute your yellow ass if you step foot back in Harlem, baby. Don’t worry. All we gotta do is call Bunni and tell her where your money is. She can get that shit and grab you some clothes and whatnot, and then she can catch a cab and meet us at the airport ’cause both of y’all heffas gotta disappear.”
“But what about you?” I moaned, scared as shit and trembling in my thong. “We can’t leave you here by yourself! What’s gonna happen if Gutta comes after you?”
Peaches sucked his teeth and tried to sound all brave.
“Just let that fool come fuckin’ with me if he wanna! I’ma run right up in his tight ass, okay? He probably got his lil chocolate cherry took while he was upstate in the bing, but if he didn’t and he brings it over here, it’s gonna be minez!”
I stared at Peaches as sile
nt tears rolled from my eyes. I owed this dude my life in so many damn ways that I couldn’t even count them all. He was like a mama, a daddy, a big brother, and a best friend all rolled up in one. He had done more for me than anybody else in the whole damn world, and I woulda never forgave myself if Gutta or somebody went at his throat just because I had fucked up.
“P, please.” I waved him off. “I don’t believe nothin’ you saying right now, boo. You talkin’ all that gangsta shit about drillin’ Gutta’s hole when that ain’t even your role. You’s a bottom bitch, remember? You ain’t no top, so don’t go out there tryna pop nobody’s cherry and don’t be playing Superman no more tryna save my ass neither, okay?”
He twisted his lips and cut his eyes at me as he drove. “You don’t know everything about me, Madam Mink! Yeah I look damn good in a hot-pink dress but I ain’t nobody’s faggot! Besides”—he pursed his extra-glossy lips and batted his eyelashes—“when I feel like being on the bottom, I’m a bottom. And when a fool gets too fly and I need to be on top, then I gets my ass up on top! Now call Bunni,” he demanded, and reached into his bra and passed me his cell phone. “Call her,” Peaches said. “And tell her to meet us at JFK.”
A chill went through me as I thought about that killer look I’d seen in Gutta’s eyes. And then I grabbed that phone and did exactly what the hell Peaches said.
With Dy-Nasty out of her hair, Selah headed back to the visitor’s lounge and got down to business. Seeing Viceroy wide awake and sitting up in bed like that had shocked the shit out of her, but now that he was alert she wanted to make sure her husband was as comfortable as possible. The male nurse had said Viceroy would be downstairs in therapy for quite a bit, and it was going to take at least two hours for the jet to get Dy-Nasty to Dallas and then fly back with Barron and Dane, so there were a couple of key things Selah could do while she waited.