by Noire
She hit Uncle Suge with a beastly glare. “Why in the hail is they cuffin’ that poor girl up like that? I can understand about Mama Selah and her ring, but since when did being stank and crusty become a federal offense?”
Suge crossed his arms and leaned back on his monster whip and grinned as the two white dudes balled Dy-Nasty up and threw her in the back of their unmarked car. “Oh they got a lil bit more on her than that,” he laughed.
“Oh yeah, like what?” I wanted to know.
Suge shot me a fine-ass grin and then shrugged them big ol’ country ham shoulders of his. “Like blackmail, extortion, bank fraud, identity theft, and whatever the fuck else Bump and them lawyer boys feel like hitting her with when they throw the book at her criminal ass.”
CHAPTER 34
“If these mofos drag us into one more goddamn meeting . . . ,” Bunni bitched as we got dressed to go downstairs. “I’on’t know how these rich fools be getting that cheese ’cause all I ever see ’em do is talk each other to death!”
I shrugged and ignored Bunni as I peered in the mirror and combed through my fake eyelashes with a tiny little brush. Suge had brought us back to the mansion after the feds drove off with Dy-Nasty kicking and screaming in the backseat of an unmarked car, and I was so glad to be back in the lap of luxury instead of riding on a flight back to New York or locked up and sitting in somebody’s pissy bullpen that I couldn’t care less about going to another family meeting!
But I was curious about why Barron had called one, I admitted as I stepped into my thigh-high white knit Pucci dress and slipped on a pair of real sweet spiked heels. Barron’s ass had barely glanced at me at the airport as he watched the cops haul Dy-Nasty off to the bing. He had made sure they lassoed her ass up nice and tight, and then he headed back to his ride and nodded at Uncle Suge like, Leggo!
I had been shocked outta my thong when Suge opened the passenger door and told me and Bunni to get our asses back in his truck, and I had reached over and pinched the shit outta Bunni when she bucked and opened her big yakkety-yak and started whining about how the check-in lines was already out the door and he was gonna make us miss our flight.
Fuck that flight!
I had jumped back in that truck so damn fast I busted my kneecap on the edge of the door, and when we got back to the mansion and Suge took our bags out the back and told a couple of servants to carry them upstairs to our rooms, I jumped up on that big plush bed and did me a real stank stripper’s version of the I’m-so-happy dance!
Bunni was still bitchin’ as I adjusted my diamond clip-on earrings and patted the platinum-white Glama-Glo on my head that I had just brushed into brilliance. It was a real fly pageboy cut and it brought out the hazel in my eyes. I checked myself out in the mirror, admiring my stacked package from all angles until I was satisfied that my shit was set from head to toe.
I turned toward Bunni and examined her gear.
She had changed into a pair of hot-pink jeggings and a tight peach-colored tank that showed off her round titties and her toned, flat stomach. Her camel toe had a split going right up the middle, just the way she liked it, and her hips looked real cute and curvy in contrast to her tiny little waist.
“You ready?” I asked, giving her a quick nod of approval. Mami looked nice and stank with that big ol’ hoe gap showing between her legs and she knew it too.
Bunni smirked. “I was born ready, baby.” She popped her lips and smoothed her shimmery pink gloss around and grinned.
The minute we walked out the room I felt my nerves starting to get shot out. Alarm bells rang in my ears and the sour taste of dread jumped all in my mouth.
“Yo, why you think they brought us all the way back here, Bunni? What you think they taking us to Dominion Oil headquarters to say to us?”
My girl shrugged and shook her Harlem ass as she turned around and headed for the door. “I don’t know what in the hell them fools is gonna say, Mink. All I know is they better not’a brought us all the way back here just to kick our black asses right back out, ya heard?”
Suge’s office was bad as hell, and Barron’s office would sho’nuff snatch your breath away, but Viceroy’s office screamed mucho-mucho-mega-moolah from the ceiling to the floor!
It looked just like one of them stupid, mind-boggling joints you saw in billionaire’s pads on TV. It was spread out bigger than our whole damn apartment back in Harlem, and smoove and sleek as hell. There was expensive furniture and high-tech gadgets everywhere. There were so many books on his built-in-the-wall shelves that they just had to be for show because there was no way in hell one man coulda read them all.
Everybody was sitting around a conference table as me and Bunni made our grand entrance. I tried to stroll in all cool and carefree like my ass wasn’t about to be homeless just a minute ago, but Bunni stepped up in there real lively-like, poppin’ gum with her hips wiggling and titties jiggling every damn where.
I glanced around and checked shit out as I sat down. I had figured Pilar would have her greedy-ass front and center, but to my surprise there was nobody there but Barron, Suge, Dane, Fallon, Jock, and Mama Selah.
Barron stood up as soon as my ass hit the seat good, and when the first thing he did was clamp his hard glare down on me, I knew something truly fucked up was about to go down.
“Well! We’re glad you could make it, Mink,” he said.
I rolled my eyes at his stiff ass. This dude was a wanna-be white boy for real! He ain’t have an ounce of chicken grease in his whole damn soul! I grilled him hard, but there wasn’t a damn thing to be read in his eyes, so I just smirked at him standing up there looking like an Oreo in his lil Brooks Brothers suit.
“Mama,” he said, “can you pass me those DNA results please?”
Selah dug in her purse and came out with an envelope. She pulled out two sheets of paper, and when I saw the one with the big NEGATIVE circled in red marker I almost shit.
Barron took both pages from her. He looked around the table like he had some real big announcement to make.
“Okay, we read y’all Dy-Nasty’s DNA results the other night, and despite what went down at the airport, we told the truth too. Her results really were a match for Sable. So today we’re gonna read you Mink’s results. And I’m sure everybody wants to know exactly what they say.”
No this muthafucka didn’t! I screamed inside. He did not bring me way back here just to put my shit on blast again!
But oh yes the hell he did. I realized this when Bunni snorted real loud and looked at me like our shit was cooked. My heart fell to my feet as I closed my eyes and started sliding down in my seat.
“I don’t really see the point in all this,” Fallon spoke up and said exactly what I had been thinking. “I mean, Dy-Nasty’s results already came back a match so we all know who the real Sable is, don’t we?”
Barron nodded. “Yeah,” he said, with a smug lil grin on his mug. “You got that shit right. We do know. But I wanna read Mink’s results out loud. In front of everybody.”
Bunni wasn’t having it.
“You mean to tell me you called another meeting just to tell us some bullshit we already know?” She cocked her eyes at Barron and fumed. “Man, gimme a break!” She threw her hands up in the air. “Y’all done already stabbed my girl in the heart, a’ight goddammit? And now you wanna twist the knife all up in her chest too?”
Barron shot Bunni a bitch please look, then he set the piece of paper that had the colored red marker on it face down on the table and held the other sheet up in the air and started reading real loud.
“ ‘In summary, the DNA sample submitted by Mink LaRue and tested by our lab has been compared to the DNA sample of Sable Dominion, and through extensive analysis has been determined to be a . . .’ ”
Barron paused in the middle of his sentence and grilled the shit outta me.
“We know the truth about who you are now, Mink,” he said quietly.
“I know you know the truth, dufus,” I snapped real stank. �
��I was the one who told you in the first damn place, remember?”
Barron shook his head. “Nah, we know the whole truth now. We know everything, and for one thing, it didn’t go down exactly the way you said it did.”
Okay, he had me. I sucked my teeth and threw my hands straight up in the air. He had my ass for real this time, because I had told so many lies that I didn’t know which one he was talking about!
“You told us you had a twin, isn’t that right, Mink?”
Bunni jabbed me in the ribs with her pointy elbow and whispered, “See! I told you not to tell them niggas nothin’!”
I glanced around the table real quick, then cocked my head to the side a lil bit and mumbled, “Yeah. I said I had a twin because that’s what my aunt Bibby told me. But she was lying as usual, and anyway I didn’t know nothing about it when I first came down here. I just found out.”
Barron smirked, and then went after me like he was handling a murder case in the courtroom.
“Yeah, but you also told me that you and your twin were born somewhere right here in Texas. Ain’t that right?”
Outta the corner of my eye I caught Dane’s head jerking in surprise, and I nodded. “Yeah, uh-huh. I told you that.”
“And you said that both you and your twin were adopted. Am I right?”
I cut my eyes at Barron’s tight ass. It was so damn quiet in there you coulda heard an ant belch. Every damn eye at that table was on me, and for somebody who loved the spotlight my gorgeous ass was starting to sweat!
“Yeah!” I jumped real defensive. “I kinda told you that because that’s what my aunt Bibby told me! She said we was adopted! So what?”
I was done with this fool, but Barron had his foot on my throat now and that sucker was pushing hard and going in for the kill!
“And you said your mother’s name was Jude Jackson,” he kept right on sweating me. “She adopted you here in Texas and then y’all moved somewhere in New York City, correct?”
“That’s right,” I snapped. “Harlem, baby. Harlem!”
Barron pulled back a little bit and nodded.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what you said, Mink. But you were wrong because none of that is true.”
I twisted my lips. “Come again?”
“You heard me. You were wrong. Jude Jackson didn’t adopt you down here in Texas, and she didn’t move to New York with you either.”
“Huh?” I side-eyed Bunni and hunched my shoulders at that incredible nigga! “How you figure?”
“You were adopted right here in Texas, Mink. But not by Jude. And this is where you stayed. At least until our family decided to go on vacation in New York City.”
“ Whaaa?”
“Just tell her, Bump!” Uncle Suge cut in. “Stop with all the bullshit and just tell the girl. Damn!”
Barron glanced down at the paper and started reading again.
“ ‘In summary, the DNA sample submitted by Mink LaRue and tested by Cross Type Laboratory has been compared to the DNA sample of Sable Dominion, and through extensive analysis has been determined to be a . . . positive match.”
Barron grinned and let the paper fall from his fingers as me and Bunni both looked confused as fuck.
“Welcome home, Mink,” Barron said with a small smile on his lips. “I never thought I’d be saying this, but you are my sister Sable.”
“She is?” Bunni bucked.
“I am?” I screwed up my face and shot him the stupid look.
“Yeah,” Barron said and glanced at Mama Selah. “You are.”
“Whoa. Hold the hell up. I mean, yeah I would love to be Sable, but there’s no way in hell me and Dy-Nasty could both have positive results unless y’all lied or unless me and her . . .” My eyes got big as shit.
“Unless you and Dy-Nasty are identical twins,” Barron said. “And your DNA results prove you are. That’s why her test was a positive match too.”
“But then how do you know which one of us is . . .” My voice trailed off again and I stared hard at Barron.
And then I stared hard at Suge too. His eyes looked funny, but there was a small smile on his face. Like he was happy and sad at the same time.
“Hold up. I . . . I don’t get it,” I stuttered. I thought about that conversation where I fessed up to Barron and Suge and I wanted to holler, Y’all niggas know goddamn well I ain’t Sable!
“I mean, I’m up on the DNA thang and all, but how you figure, Barron?”
“Yeah, how you figure, Bump?” Jock butt in, shaking his watermelon head. “You said Mink is really Sable like you know it for sure. If her and Dy-Nasty are twins and they got the same DNA, then you really can’t prove which one of them is really real.”
“Yeah we can,” Suge said quietly. “Because Dy-Nasty was in a bus accident up in Philly when she was about two years old. Her and the lady who adopted her both got hurt and they sued the city for a gwap. I got the court records. The pictures, the doctor’s reports, the whole nine. Dy-Nasty and her moms got a nice fat check and they started liking that shit. So they spent the next ten years pulling slip and fall schemes and accident scams and filing fake claims all over the city.”
Jock shrugged. “That still don’t tell us who is who, though. How you know Mink wasn’t the one up there in Philly pulling off all those scams?”
Suge grinned. “ ’Cause I got the adoption records too. And the woman listed on the adoption papers for Dy-Nasty Jenkins is the same woman who’s listed in all the court cases against the city of Philadelphia. Her name is Pat Jenkins. She’s Dy-Nasty’s mother. I rolled up on her in Philly and convinced her to give up a little info on Dy-Nasty’s birth mother. I found out her name was Valentina, and that she was your mother too, Mink.”
Valentina? My heart banged. What the hail? That’s the chick who was married to big Moe before he hooked up with Jude!
My mind was boggled. “Yo, did y’all tell Dy-Nasty about this shit?”
Suge grunted and frowned. “Hell no. If she’da found out we woulda never got that hellraiser outta here.”
Dane scratched his head and held up his hand. “But hold up. If all this stuff is true, then where the hell was Mink while Dy-Nasty was in Philly and all them accidents and court cases were going on?”
“Oh, I can tell you that,” Mama Selah said, opening her mouth for the very first time since I walked in the room. “Mink was right here. At home with me and the rest of our family.” She looked at me with tears in her eyes. “Except back then, baby girl, we called you Sable.”
CHAPTER 35
Me and Bunni didn’t waste no time moving outta the suite we shared. It was a real big house and there was plenty of room, so stank Mizz Camel-Toe got her own extra-large suite and you can best believe I got me my own suite too!
Finding out that my biggest lie had actually been my biggest truth had really fucked my head up. Every time Bunni walked past me she pinched the shit outta me and whispered, “Mink you is rich! You is really, really rich!”
Yeah, Bunni mighta accepted that shit one hundred percent, but I’d been playing the con game for so long that I couldn’t hardly wrap my mind around it at all.
I mean, all this shit was just so twisted up and tangled! It wasn’t like I could just call Mama up and grill her. Daddy neither. And this Valentina chick? They was all telling me she was my birth mother but I wasn’t buying that shit. I didn’t even know what that woman looked like!
Nah, there were just too many dead people in the mix and too many secrets and lies that had been kept and told. So even though I ended up getting exactly what I came to Texas for, plus a whole lot more, it wasn’t like I just jumped off the poor train and landed all happy on the rich wagon, you know. Climbing in the bed one night swearing all out that you was one person and then waking up the next day and finding out that you was somebody totally different wasn’t as easy as that shit sounded.
I’d heard all the yang Suge and Barron had spit about what they thought had happened to me and Dy-Nasty, how we had got
ten split up as babies and then ended up coming back together just to fight over a hunk of cash, but on the real tip I still didn’t know exactly who the hell I was!
But even though just the thought of it slammed me straight in the gut, I knew exactly who I wasn’t.
“Big Moe . . .” I’d moaned when I called my aunt Bibby crying like a baby after Selah announced that I was definitely the little girl she had lost in New York City that long-ago day. “Big Moe ain’t my daddy!”
“Oh yes the hell he is!” Aunt Bibby declared after I hipped her to the whole crazy story, minus the part about me getting my hands on some money. “Jude mighta been a lyin’-ass criminal but she wasn’t no fool, Mink!”
“Huh?”
“Them people are right, Mink. Valentina was your mama. And Moe sure as hell was your daddy.”
“But how could Jude have known that when she took me?”
“She didn’t! But why the hell you think she snatched you in the first damn place, huh, stupid? When Jude walked past that damn drugstore and saw a baby girl sitting up in that stroller lookin’ just like her man Moe, there was no way in hell she coulda passed you up! She had to snatch you, Mink! If Jude was gonna keep my brother tied to her titty then she needed her a baby who looked just like you. And why? Because you look just like Big Moe.”
Aunt Bibby chuckled. “The fucked-up thing is, Jude never even realized that she was actually snatching Moe’s real child. Her stupid ass never even knew!”
I was still kinda skeptical about all that, but the more Aunt Bibby talked the more I believed her. I mean, look at me! There was just no way I could be anybody else except a LaRue! And if I was a LaRue, then Dy-Nasty’s cruddy ass was damn sure one too.
Which explained why we was both such good-ass liars!
I didn’t climb in my big plush bed until real late that night, but when I did I slept solid like a rock. And as soon as I opened my eyes the next morning I looked around my new room and pinched the shit outta myself to make sure I wasn’t having a crazy-ass dream.
It was almost time for breakfast so I took a quick shower and then walked around my spacious new suite bare-coochie naked. I kinda missed having Bunni right next door, but I was digging on my privacy too. Especially since Uncle Suge had slipped up in my suite to chill with me.