by Bianca
“You can’t what? You ain’t never had a problem staying hard for me. You been fucking another bitch!” she hissed.
“Alexandria, you know better than that,” I told her. “It’s just that, I ain’t been nothing but good to you, and you keep letting other niggas hit your pussy. That shit really hurt my feelings,” I admitted to her.
“Feelings? Tuh! Frank, you ain’t got no fucking feelings, and you know that shit. Well, the only person you got feelings for is Mayhem. The only time I’ve ever seen you hurt was when you were losing your mind when you thought Mayhem was dead. If I ain’t know any better, I would swear you was fucking him and not me!” she hissed, jumped out of bed, and tried to run out of the room, but I was at the door before she could place her little hand on the knob.
Turning her around and closing the space between us, I glared down at her. Being that I was six five and she was only five seven, there wasn’t much she could do. She tried to raise her hand to hit me, but I grabbed both of her fists and held them tightly above her head.
“Look, don’t you ever in your life let no stupid ass shit come out your mouth like that again. To be quite fucking honest, Mayhem is the only reason why you are still breathing, and the fact that I still love your hoe ass and I can’t get your dog ass off my mind. Don’t ever say no foul shit like that to me again. Ever!” I growled before letting her go and walked into my closet.
I pulled my rolling chair up to my safe and took a seat. I typed in my code, and it opened right up. People would call me a fool for having a visible safe in my home, but nobody could come on my property. When you got within ten feet of my property, my motion detectors went off, and my cameras automatically sent camera feed to my phone and my watch. So if a person drove by my gate too many times, I could see everything. To be honest, there wasn’t any reason that people should be driving close to my house, because my house was the only house down here in this cul-de-sac. I bought all of this land around here for that specific purpose, so no one could live close to me. All this paranoia came from my fucking parents. The only person that came up to my gate was the mailman.
I cocked my head to the side and looked at all the stacks of money that was in the safe. Something was off. The stack of money on the top row was a little crooked.
“Alexandria!” I called out.
“What, Frank!” she hollered out from the bedroom.
“Come here!”
She dragged herself into the closet and leaned against the door. I beckoned her over to where I was sitting, and she stood behind me, but I pulled her to the side because I hated when people stood behind me.
“What?” she hissed.
“You been in here?” I asked her.
I didn’t have a problem with her going in here, but if she did, I needed her to let me know. Honestly, she didn’t have a reason to be going in here because she had a couple of my credit cards that she could use whenever she felt like it.
“Why you ask me that?”
“Because this stack of money is not the same way that the other stacks of money is laid. See, all of these are straight, and this stack right here is about a centimeter to the right.”
“What is your problem? Maybe the wind did it, Franklin,” she said.
Sighing and looking up at her, “Okay. Alex,” I called her name and paused. “The wind is not getting in here. I know you’ve been in here, and I was only asking as a courtesy. Why were you in here if you didn’t take any money?” I asked her with a concerned look on my face.
“I was going to take some money, but then I thought against it.”
“Hmmm... okay,” I told her.
“Is that it?”
“For now,” I said and gave her a tight-lipped smile.
I started pulling the money out the safe to count it, when Alex came back in the closet and placed an envelope on top of the safe.
“This came in the mail for you. I started to throw it away because it didn’t have a return address on it, but I remember the last time I threw a piece of your mail away.”
I nodded my head while I continued to count the money. After I finished counting the first fifty thousand dollars, I picked up the envelope and opened it. Inside the envelope was a card with a bunch of dots and shit on it, and I smiled. It was from my parents, letting me know that they were alive. That’s how it was every year. I only heard from them once a year when they would send me a postcard letting me know that they loved me and that they were still alive. I hadn’t seen them since I was fourteen years old, and I was now thirty-six. Often times, I wondered how they looked now and why they had been in hiding for so long. After a while, I accepted that I was never going to see them again, and one year, I wouldn’t get a postcard, which would let me know that they were dead.
Alex
There was no way that I was going to be able to steal out of Frank’s safe, and I was going to have to tell Bash that he was going to have to work even harder to get us out of here quicker. The nigga knew that his money wasn’t even in the right spot. I wanted Bash to explain to me how I was going to steal some money from him.
Honestly, when I called Frank over here a few hours ago, I low key kind of missed him. It was his first time ever staying away from here that long and not contacting me at all. That was a first, and when he told me that he had to let me go, I had to think of something because if Frank broke up with me, I would have nothing, literally. I would have had to stay at Kharisma’s house, and I would much rather sleep in a shelter than stay at her house. She would never let me hear the end of it.
After I took Frank that piece of mail that came today, I went outside to run, and hopefully text Bash for a few minutes. The Lord knew I hated this situation, but if I could last five years, I could definitely last another year. Once I was far enough away from the house, I pulled my phone out and called Bash, and after a few rings, it picked up.
“Hello,” a little girl answered.
I looked at the phone to see if I had called the right number because Bash’s number was not saved in my phone, but it was the correct number, and after a few moments, I heard muffled voices before the phone hung up.
“Odd,” I said to myself.
I called back, and no one picked up this time. I called back several more times, and then Bash finally picked up.
“Yeah, babe,” he said into the phone.
His voice was echoing, almost as if he was in a bathroom or something.
“Bash, what the hell is going on? Who was that little girl that picked up the phone just a second ago?” I hissed into the phone and turned around to look at the house to make sure Frank hadn’t come outside before I turned back around.
“What little girl? I just got out of the pool, and I’m in the bathroom getting ready to get out my swim trunks.”
“There was a little girl that answered the phone, Bash. I’m not crazy!” I damn near yelled into the phone.
“Alex. There are a lot of kids out here. My things weren’t in a locker. A little girl could have picked up the phone while I was under water. I don’t know. Chill out! Damn! You must need some dick?”
“Yes! And to tell you that—”
“Alex, is everything okay?”
I let out a little scream when Frank placed his hand on my shoulder. I turned around, and he was standing there looking at me sideways.
“Franklin, you scared the hell out of me,” I said.
“Love you. Bye,” Bash said into the phone, and he hung up.
“Why would I scare you? It’s only us out here,” he replied coolly.
“I don’t know, Frank. Maybe because I turned around and looked at the house a few minutes ago and didn’t see you, but I turn back around for a few minutes, and then all of a sudden, you’re behind me. That would scare anyone.”
“I guess you’re right,” he said and stroked his chin before he turned around and walked away, not saying another word.
“Frank,” I called out to him and picked up an extra step to catch up with
him because he didn’t stop when I called his name.
He did that sometimes, and it was really annoying. In the beginning, he ignored me a lot. I would call his name, and he wouldn’t say anything. That nigga could drift off into a deep daydream and not hear anything you said to him for hours. He literally could stare at a wall for hours. I wanted to suggest some type of therapy since he wouldn’t talk to me, but I didn’t know how that was going to go over.
“Frank!” I yelled his name, and he stopped but didn’t turn around.
“Why are you shouting?” he asked once I was at his side.
“You were doing that thing you do, when you ignore me when I call your name. Can I ask you a question?” I asked him.
He nodded his head.
“Why are you so… so Bryan Mills from Taken or Robert McCall from The Equalizer? Like… you act like you are a killer or something. You are so… like… you can tell when a fork is missing from the cabinet. Or your money not being in a straight line. Like… it’s just weird, I guess. I just want to understand you, Frank. You claim you want to marry me, but I don’t know anything about you. You don’t have any baby pictures. You don’t talk about your parents. Grandparents. Brothers. Cousins. Everybody got cousins. It seems as if your life started the day you met Mayhem.”
“Did,” he said after a few moments of silence.
“Did? Did what?”
“I did want to marry you. Now, I’m not so sure. I don’t have any cousins. No siblings. No baby pictures. No parents. And to be quite honest with you, shorty, my life did start the day I met Mayhem,” he said, making me stop, but he kept walking and right up the steps.
See, this was the secretive bullshit that I was talking about. At this point, I wished that I was semi cool with Olena and Kam because I would have been able to talk to them about Frank, but I didn’t see them often. It was crazy how I’d been with Frank for years and had only hung out with them a handful of times without the men around. Since Frank walked in the house, I sat outside on the porch and watched the street and thought of some more ways to get his money.
Taiwan
Italy
I had just woken up, and I was now staring at the ceiling. My birthday was a in a week, and Romero hadn’t said anything else about me going to Chicago since I told him that I was going by myself. I was going to bring it up to him when he took me shopping for a birthday dress. I prayed that the bruise he put on my back was completely gone by the time my birthday got here because I wanted a dress with my back all the way out. Basically, I probably needed to get a dress custom made, and I knew that I was pushing it, but over here, with the right amount of money, you could get anything that you wanted to get, whenever you wanted it done.
I slid out of my bed and went into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. I picked up my face mirror and turned around so I could see if the bruise that Romero had put on my back had faded away. That was one thing I hated about being light brown; everything showed up perfectly on me. I didn’t know Romero could be jealous like that, because to me, I was just someone that he fucked on, and I could end this contract whenever I wanted to. When he all but dragged me from that pool area with Miguel, I was surprised as fuck. He was saying that I was trying to fuck on his nephew, when I didn’t even look at his nephew like that. Hell, I hadn’t looked at another man sexually in years… well, Frank, and that was because we were both vulnerable. He was worried about his friend, and I was worried about mine. It meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. The only thing that kind of hurt me was the fact that he told me that we couldn’t even be friends and that he had to respect Alex, but fuck Alex. I’d whoop her ass.
It was early, and I wanted to take my dogs for a run before the sun started to beam and it got too hot to even walk to your car. After I finished taking care of my hygiene, I put on a pair of shorts and a muscle shirt. After tying up my sneakers, I walked outside, and both Angel and Flash sat up and became alert.
“You guys ready for a run?” I asked him as if they would answer me.
They answered me by wagging their tails, and they followed me out to the backyard. We started jogging, and I cursed myself because I had forgotten my headphones. After running toward the fence that caged my living corridors, a figure emerged from the shadows, bringing me and my dogs to a halt. It was Essie.
“You know he’ll never marry you, right?” she said.
“Who says I want marriage?” I asked her.
“Your text messages. I read them all. You will never be nothing more to him than just a quick fuck when I piss him off. He’ll never give you kids. He got fixed after we had our two sons,” she said, giving me new information.
I didn’t know that Romero had kids. Honestly, that really fucked with me, and I was sure she could tell that she was getting to me.
“His family will never accept you, Tai Tai,” she said, calling me by the nickname that Romero called me.
“Have a good morning, Essie,” I said to her and started back running.
She was saying something, but I completely blocked it out because I was feeling a way, and I couldn’t wait to mention it to him. Me and the dogs ran for about twenty more minutes before I went back to my house. I put their water and food bowls outside and filled them. After filling them, I went inside to get in the shower. I needed a long, hot shower. After I got out the shower, I oiled my body up and then went into my closet to pull out something to wear. I went with a white jumpsuit and a pair of white sandals that I received from a boutique. Romero hated that boutiques sent me clothes and stuff to advertise, but it was how I made money outside of him. It was like he wanted me to be solely dependent on him, and all them basketball wives taught me that I needed to have my own money outside of a man because they would leave you high and dry. I worked hard for those millions of Instagram followers, so I was going to do what I had to do.
After the oil had penetrated my skin enough, I put on my favorite body butter and then sprayed on my favorite perfume which was Si by Giorgio Armani. After that, I put on my robe and went and sat at my vanity so I could pull out my tools to start my makeup. My phone beeped just as I finished pulling out everything. It was a text from Romero.
Ro: Good morning, be ready in an hour. Did you sleep well?
Me: We need to talk, Romero.
Instantly, he started calling me, but I didn’t want to talk over the phone. I needed to be in his face so I could see his facial expressions, but I answered anyway.
“Yeah,” I answered and propped the phone up to my ear with my shoulder while staring at myself in my mirror.
“Tai Tai, what’s wrong? What do we need to talk about?” he answered.
“I’ll tell you when I’m in your presence,” I said and hung up the phone.
Over the years, our relationship had changed a great deal because there was no way I would have hung up on him within the first year or maybe even the second year. After so long, he started to become lax with me, which was surprising. Honestly, I thought that Romero had feelings for me that I’d never be able to reciprocate. Essie had never ever approached me about marriage and shit, and I had never even texted Romero about marrying him. I’d texted him about marriage before, but not us getting married. I knew that we could never get married because I knew for a fact that his dad thought I was just his assistant because Romero was really different when he was around. I could count on one hand how many times all three of us had been in the same vicinity.
One day we were out on the golf course behind his house, and Romero was up on me, pretending to try and teach me how to swing the golf club. His dad interrupted us, and he damn near pushed me in the pond. His dad didn’t do anything but give me a half smile and then banished me from the golf course. After that, I didn’t talk to him for a week. I remember another time, we were sitting outside on my yard swing, and when he saw his dad, he stood up and moved away from me. Listen, I wanted to stab his ass, but I would have never made it off his property.
I propped my phone up a
nd FaceTimed Olena, while I was doing my makeup. Several rings later, she answered with Pier on her shoulder. He was so spoiled.
“You trying to put him down?” I whispered, but I smiled when I heard him laughing.
“Girl, naw. His dad is playing peek-a-boo with him behind me.”
“What’s up, Taiwan,” Mayhem spoke to me.
“Hey, Mayhem,” I spoke back to him. “Olena, I’m coming home for my birthday. I’m getting a section, and I want everybody to come turn up with me. I miss y’all,” I admitted.
“Even Frank?” Mayhem queried.
I let out a low growl, making Mayhem and Olena laugh. “He can come if he wants to. I don’t hold grudges. He can even bring Alex.”
“Girl, you know she cheated on—”
“Olena!” Mayhem hissed.
“Again,” I said, ignoring Mayhem’s behind not wanting to tell me Frank’s business.
“Again, girl.”
“Frank must don’t fu… let me mind my business,” I said.
“Yeah, do that,” Mayhem said.
Disregarding him, I said, “Olena, I wanted to stay in y’all guesthouse, but Romero is talking noise about wanting Miguel and Emmanuel with me. I told him that Mayhem don’t play that crap with visitors at his home.”
“You damn right. I’m glad you know,” Mayhem said.
“So, if I have to bring them, I’ll be staying at a hotel.”
“Just…” she sighed, before continuing, “cancel that contract and bring your behind back home. I mean, it’s so much you could do, Tai. You have the following on Instagram. You be posting all types of sexy looks, and the food pictures you post be looking good. I know you got money saved up from being with him for as long as you have. Tell him you’re leaving, and that be the end of it.”
“Honestly, Lee, I don’t even think it’ll be that easy.”
Her eyes widened at my statement.
“I think he loves me. Like loves me, loves me. His wife approached me earlier after running with my dogs, talking about he’s never going to marry me, which was extremely weird to me because I hadn’t even talked about marrying him. She told me that he got fixed after they had their sons, and I didn’t even know he had kids to be honest, chile. I’m not even supposed to be talking to you about this.”