She took a deep breath, then pulled off her oversized sunglasses and sauntered up the red carpet that led to Theodore’s casket. There were a bunch of beautiful floral arrangements around his casket. Arabia stepped up and looked inside.
For some reason, she felt a tear slide down her face as she leaned in and kissed his cheek ever so lightly, before laying the lone rose inside his casket.
Instantly, she felt the air around her go still. She felt the hot glares. Heard the hushed tones.
“Oh, no, she didn’t.”
“Who is that?”
“What is she doing here?”
Just as Arabia stepped back and turned on her heel to leave, she stood face-to-face with her. His wife.
Eyes ablaze with rage, the woman stood there and glared at her. Then dropped her icy stare at the Tiffany diamond on her ring finger. So this was whom her husband had found comfort and companionship in, this much younger, much more beautiful whore. She was sure the bitch had to be doing circus tricks with her tongue in order for Theodore to drape her in exquisite jewels. She reeked of hot sex and raw sensuality.
Her nose flared. She wanted to hate this hot-pussy bitch, wanted to claw her face and draw blood, but she couldn’t. She was everything she once was. Alluring. Mesmerizing. And she had breasts and ass and a tiny waist to die for.
Sure, she’d known all about her husband’s affairs, especially this one. It was her right, her duty, to know the goings-on with her husband, including who he was fucking and putting rings on. So she’d kept close tabs over the years.
All the others before Arabia had been flings. Quick fucks. But there was something about this one here that had opened her husband’s nose wide and had him running back and forth to New York to see her every chance he could. He was happier. Not as argumentative. And always more relaxed every time he returned home from his trysts with this, this . . . enchantress.
From the beginning, she’d known this one was different from all the others. She had to be in order to keep her husband’s interest for as long as she had.
Three fucking years!
Sure she’d allowed her husband’s extramarital affairs as long as he respected her, and their marriage, by not flaunting his whores in her face.
And, over the years, he had not.
But he’d fallen in love.
With this one. And now the shameless bitch had the goddamn nerve to bring her ass here.
“Missus Banks,” Arabia said, reaching for her hand. “I’m so sorry for your—”
Slap!
Arabia blinked, bringing her hand to her face.
“Bitch,” the grieving wife hissed, her nose flaring. “How dare you fuck my husband, then show your face here! You filthy slut!”
Arabia quickly recovered from the shock, and the sting, still holding her face in her hand. “If it’s any consolation,” she calmly pushed out. “Teddy didn’t suffer. He died with a smile on his face.” She leaned in closer and whispered, “In fact, he collapsed doing what he loved most. Coming inside my—”
The grieving widow spat in Arabia’s face, then attacked her, her fingernails raking her face and drawing blood. The last thing Arabia remembered—before the screams, before the fist, before the flowers were tossed about—was Theodore’s casket toppling over and his body rolling out. And his distraught wife screaming, “You fucking man-stealing whore! I will kill you dead!”
• • •
“Why haven’t I heard from you?”
Arabia held her icepack to the side of her face and winced, wondering why she answered the call. All she wanted was a hot bath and a night of quiet. She was physically exhausted, mentally drained . . . and sore from tussling around on the ground with Theodore’s wife. She’d broken one of the heels on her thirteen hundred-dollar pumps and her designer dress was ruined, thanks to that bitch. Teddy’s sons had to pull the two of them apart and pick their dead father’s body up from off the ground. What a mess.
That hurt Arabia to her heart, her and his wife rolling around on the ground, fighting on top of his body. She knew for sure, she would be going to hell if she didn’t atone for her transgressions. I’ll go see a priest first thing in the morning, and confess my sins.
In the meantime, she was down a fiancé and needed to decide if she wanted a replacement, or to keep her man count at two—for now. Yeah, that was what she’d do. Just stick with the two she already had. Juggling three men was slowly becoming more of a challenge than it was worth. And there’d never be another Theodore. So to hell with it, she reasoned in her head.
“Well, hello to you, too, Mother,” she replied sarcastically. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?” She glanced at the time. 10:46 p.m. “At this time of night?”
Claudia huffed. “I’ve been calling you for several days now. Why haven’t you returned any of my calls?”
Arabia rolled her eyes. “I’ve been busy.”
“Busy doing what?” her mother asked incredulously.
“With work, Mother. And minding my business.”
“I beg your pardon. It could have been an emergency.”
Arabia twisted her lips. “Well, was it?”
Claudia scoffed. “Well, no. But what if it had been?”
“Then I’m sure Maya, Alexis, or Tamara would have been blowing up my phone. And since none of them have, that says to me it wasn’t.” Arabia shifted her icepack to her other cheek. “But, anyway, now that we’ve cleared that up. What is it? Is everything all right? Has Kirk taken ill?” Have you murdered another husband is what she really wanted to ask her mother, but she knew that question wouldn’t go over so well. She’d mentioned to her sisters on several occasions over the years that she believed their mother had killed at least two of her husbands for their money.
Her sisters thought her ridiculously silly for even thinking such a horrible thing. “She’d do no such thing!’ they’d shouted in her defense. Yeah, okay. Arabia believed otherwise. In her gut, she believed that her mother had targeted those men for their money, then slowly manipulated them into leaving her everything, before killing them.
For all Arabia knew, she might have even murdered her own father. That, however, she kept to herself. Her sisters would stamp her certifiably crazy, for sure, if she ever told them that. But she knew what she’d seen that afternoon she walked into her parents’ bedroom suite: Her mother standing at his bed; his IV tube in one hand, a syringe in the other. Ten-year-old Arabia saw her mother pushing something inside her father’s tube, then—startled, Claudia dropped her hand, trying to hide the syringe when she saw her standing there wide-eyed, her jaw slack.
Nervously, Claudia shooed her daughter away. “Run along, Arabia. Your father needs his rest.”
“But where’s Miss Penny? Miss Penny always gives Daddy his medicines. Not you.”
“She had to go out on an errand. Now go on. Go get ready for your piano lessons. You can visit with your father later.”
Reluctantly, Arabia turned on her patent leather shoes and walked back out the room, not before glancing over her shoulder one last time, and witnessing her mother push whatever else was left in that syringe she’d hid in her hand into her father’s tube.
Moments later, she heard Claudia wailing.
Her father was dead.
It hadn’t been all in her head. Or had it? No, no, and no. It—
“No. Kirk hasn’t taken ill,” her mother spat, slicing into her reverie. “Why would you think such a thing?”
“Well, let’s see. It seems like each of your husbands tend to mysteriously fall to their demise after around the second or third year of marriage. And . . .”
“Arabia Knight! What on heaven’s earth are you trying to insinuate here?”
“Oh nothing,” she replied snidely. “I’ve already said it. I’m simply pointing out an observation.”
Cla
udia huffed. “Well, I don’t appreciate your comments, or you trying to imply that I would have anything to do with any of my dearly departed husbands’ deaths.”
Arabia snorted. “Mmph. You said it. I didn’t.”
Claudia sucked in a breath. “You are so damn despicable. I’ve loved each and every one of my husbands. And, Kirk, thank God, is as strong as an ox. And as virile as a twenty-year-old.”
Arabia let out a sarcastic laugh. “Mother, please. Despicable is, you. You run through men. You’re nothing but a black widow spider, snaring men, then sucking the life out of them, before you run off to your next mark. You’ve never been with a twenty-year-old to know. The only men you’ve ever lured into your clutches have been old enough to be your father.”
“Well, isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black, when all you do is play the dumb mistress to men old enough to be yours. But that’s beside the point. I’ve heard tales,” she said, feeling herself becoming increasingly irritated by her daughter’s indifference toward her.
Arabia feigned a yawn. “Look, Mother, I’m exhausted from my flight.”
“Your flight from where?”
“Texas,” she huffed. “So, unless there’s something you need, I’d like to unwind for the night.”
“And why were you in Texas?”
“Mother, I don’t care to discuss my travel itinerary with you, because frankly . . . it’s none of your business. So how may I help you? Please and thank you.”
“Arabia Pauletta-Ann Knight, don’t you dare dismiss me like I’m some common trash from off the streets! I am your mother.” Arabia cringed. She hated her middle name, even though it’d been both of her deceased grandmothers’ names combined. And she hated even more every time Claudia declared herself her mother as if she were able to ever forget that mishap.
“Yes, you are,” Arabia said forlornly. “I’m reminded of that every time your name and number flashes across my caller ID.”
Claudia’s jaws clenched. “Arabia, what is going on with you? Can you for one moment have an ounce of decency and not be so damn obnoxiously rude?”
Arabia rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I’ve already told you, Mother, that I’m tired from traveling. It’s late. I’ve had a long, grueling day. So what is it you want? You already know I have no problem hanging up on you.”
Heat flashed through Claudia. Arabia had been nothing but difficult since the day she was born. Always testing her, always challenging her, always pushing the envelope.
“Why you disrespectful little bitch,” her mother hissed. “Your sisters would never think to talk to me in this manner.”
“Maybe because you’d been a mother to them, which is more than I can say for me.”
Claudia recoiled. Her pregnancy with Arabia had been an unwanted surprise. She hadn’t wanted any more children, and thought she was done with diapers and bottles. Sadly, she was already in her second trimester when she’d learned of the pregnancy. Still, had it been up to her, she would have terminated the pregnancy right there on the spot, but her husband Phillip wouldn’t hear of it. He even threatened to divorce her. So grudgingly, she carried the baby to full-term. Seething. Resenting her unborn child.
And then came the postpartum depression that ate away at Claudia for almost two years. It had incapacitated her. Phillip had to hire a nanny to care for Arabia and her three sisters. Soon enough Claudia had to be hospitalized for her psychotic thoughts, for wanting to smother her infant daughter to death, for trying to drown her in her own bathwater.
“Why you, you ingrate!” Claudia snapped. “I provided you a good life. The very best of everything.”
Arabia scowled. “And that’s supposed to earn you a Mother of the Year award? No, Mother. You don’t get accolades for not raising me, or for shipping me off the first chance you got. You didn’t provide me anything. Daddy did. And after his death, his money—not yours—did. So let’s be clear, you never wanted me, or have you forgotten that piece of truth.”
“How dare you speak to me this way? I’ve done nothing but loved you . . .”
Arabia let out a harsh laugh. “Lady, bye. Get off your soapbox. You’ve loathed me from the moment you laid eyes on me. Admit it, Mother. For once in your pathetic life, admit that you hate me. That you’ve always hated me.” Arabia felt her cheeks heat. “I’m a big girl, Mother. Trust me. I can handle what I’ve known all along. I just want to hear it from you. So say it. Let’s finally get it out in the open. Tell me you hate me . . .”
Arabia hadn’t even noticed she’d been crying until the line went dead.
Eight
His heart pounded in his ears and his body was soaked with sweat. Eyes wide and wild, he searched the darkness with extended arms and with both hands wrapped around his gun. His trigger finger worked frantically as he shot at any damn thing that moved. Out of ammo, he lowered his arms to reload, and then it hit him . . .
There was nothing to reload. His hands were empty.
Emitting a groan of anguish, Cruze clicked on the lamp and flinched when he saw his Glock on the nightstand, untouched and in the exact position he’d left it.
Another fuckin’ nightmare.
And this one was more realistic than any of the others. It had been months since the last one, and he wished he knew what had triggered it. Was it the Rémy Martin he’d drunk at the charity dinner? That was a possibility since Remy wasn’t his usual libation. He should have stuck with Henny.
Or maybe it was that greasy-ass Philly cheesesteak he’d eaten earlier in the day. That joint was piled sky-high with fried onions, loaded with three kinds of cheese, and was smothered with heaping portions of mayonnaise and ketchup. His system wasn’t accustomed to eating that kind of shit. But then again, maybe it wasn’t food or drink; maybe the nightmare was brought on by his own guilty conscience.
He was dead wrong for the way he’d mind-fucked that brainiac chick in her hotel room. That Harvard degree she was so proud of was of no use while he was up in her guts, knocking her organs around.
Cruze swung his legs off the bed and took his weed paraphernalia out of the nightstand drawer and began rolling a blunt. As he tucked, licked, and rolled the tobacco paper, he wondered if there was some kind of medication that would rid him of the nightmares.
He’d thought that giving back to the community would earn him some cosmic points and allow him to sleep like a baby. Yet, despite all the good deeds he’d done, he was still being fucked with during the night.
Weary and frustrated, he gripped his head. “This bullshit is sickening,” he muttered aloud, as the gruesome images that had been haunting him for over a year began to flood his mind . . .
Blood was everywhere. Bodies were sprawled all over the house.
Reliving the tragedy was overwhelming, and Cruze took another deep puff on the blunt before pulling up more ghoulish memories.
He saw himself stepping over eleven bodies downstairs. He’d found the twelfth victim upstairs—in bed. The only satisfaction he’d gotten that bloody night was when he’d taken out the two gunmen, adding to the body count. The shooters turned out to be members of the crew. Two greedy and disloyal muthafuckas that were in cahoots with a rival drug cartel.
As far as Cruze was concerned, it was all Moody’s fault. The muthafucka let his ego bring the entire organization down. He refused to keep a low profile, always flaunting his shit. He shouldn’t have allowed any niggas access to his fly crib out in Long Island, but Moody loved showing off his possessions, and smearing his success in muthafuckas’ faces. He stayed throwing get-togethers and inviting members of the crew over.
On the night of the murders, Moody was celebrating his birthday and flashing the gift he’d bought for himself, a Cartier watch encrusted with more than twenty carats of diamonds.
Cruze wasn’t supposed to be at the birthday bash. He’d been entrusted with a high-quality shipment
and had gone out of town to transact business with a new client. But as he neared the meet-up spot, warning bells started going off in his head. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but his instincts told him that something wasn’t right with the new client who drove a flashy Lambo. Dude was probably with the Feds.
Moody, who’d been Cruze’s mentor since he was eighteen years old, had told him long ago to always follow his gut. So, with a trunk filled with kilos, Cruze turned the car around. He was about to call Moody, but changed his mind, deciding it was best to discuss the situation face-to-face.
No one had expected Cruze to show up at Moody’s doorstep that night. And no one . . . not even Moody, was aware that Cruze had a key to the crib. A key that he’d never used until that night of the murders.
Per Moody’s orders, Cruze and the rest of the squad always parked several blocks away from the spot to prevent anyone from following them to the sacred place where he and his family rested their heads.
On foot, Cruze had become suspicious when he’d approached the front door. There was no music playing, no loud voices . . . only deadly silence.
Instead of ringing the bell, he pulled his piece from the small of his back and used his key to enter. He stifled a gasp when he stepped over the bullet-ridden body of his boy, Sameer, in the foyer. Blood splattered the walls, and as he inched along, the body count began to mount.
But it felt like all the breath left his body when he came upon Ramona lying facedown on the floor in the family room. He couldn’t have screamed if he wanted to because his throat clenched shut and strangled his voice. With tears falling from his eyes, he turned her over and discovered that she’d been trying to shield her baby girl, Niyah.
Cruze doubted if he’d ever forget the sight of little Niyah’s blood-soaked, princess-themed pajamas. Shocked and dazed, he stumbled like a drunk as he backed away from Ramona and Niyah. Losing his balance, he collided into the large entertainment center. The sound of the crash alerted the intruders who were in the basement where Moody kept his stash box. As footsteps pounded up the basement steps, Cruze’s survival instincts kicked in. He quickly turned out the light and eased behind the entertainment center.
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