by Shan
Jessica wanted to know how far Aasir and Cortez’s involvement went in The Versace League if any. Yamin’s description had been brief in Jamaica only hinting at the fact that robbing banks was something of the past. For some reason she actually believed that she would find some information on Google when she typed it in the search, but of course only designer suits and bags popped up.
“Yo, get this nigga out of here! Get whatever information you can out of him and if he don’t cooperate, murk his ass!” Those words had played through Jessica’s head over and over again. She found herself questioning whether or not Yamin had killed anyone before or were Manny and Emmanuel the only ones that got their hands dirty.
What about all those nights he would sneak out? Was he possibly killing someone then? Jessica shuddered at the mere possibility that she’d been sleeping next to a killing crime boss.
“Baby?” Yamin called out again. He grabbed her hand and opened one eye to look at her.
“Yea?” Jessica answered, as she pushed him forward in the tub and began to wash his back.
“What you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me. I know you and you only get quiet like that when you’re in deep thought. What’s on your mind?”
“You mean lie to you, like you’ve been lying to me all of this time?” Jessica stated tensely.
Yamin huffed and sat back in the tub relaxing his head. He knew that he shouldn’t have deceived Jessica for so long, but there was no way he could let her know about The Versace League. The League had too many secrets and was responsible for too many lives to let anybody know about it. Now that she was his wife, he would only fill her in on what he did and that was it, but nothing too specific.
“I lied to you, but my feelings for you have never been a lie. I married you because I love you, all of that is real. I couldn’t tell you about my lifestyle because I am accountable for too many people. I know too many secrets and too many people know my secrets, that’s not just information that I can give out to anybody.”
“But I am your wife Yamin! I was your girlfriend and then your fiancé. You don’t think you should have told me before you decided to walk down that aisle with me?” Jessica tossed the towel in the water and stood to her feet. She felt so hurt and angry. She dried her hands on her shorts and began to pace the bathroom floor.
“I couldn’t tell you before then, because-you’re a lawyer, you know how shit go,” Yamin sat forward in the tub and shut his eyes tightly. A bout of nausea hit him and he held his head down to allow it to pass. He couldn’t believe he allowed himself to get so fucked up.
Jessica laughed wickedly. “So, did you marry me because you knew that if I ever found out the truth about what you did that I could never testify against you in court or was it because you wanted free legal services? Do you really love me Yamin or am I just a scheme in your list of schemes?”
“Man, I’m not about to argue with you. Hand me a towel so I can get out this damn tub-please,” Yamin placed his hands on the side of the tub and stood to his feet. He was dizzy, his stomach was turning flips, and he was still sad about Cort, he just couldn’t stop thinking about him.
“You forced me into this life Yamin! How is that fair to me? You didn’t even give me a choice!”
“Well, I’m giving you a choice now. You can either stay or you can leave. Whatever you do make the decision quietly.”
“Excuse me? Make the decision quietly! It’s that easy for you, Yamin? Is it that easy for you to just tell me that I can stay or leave? Do you really care about me?”
“I told you that I did! What else do you want me to say to you?” Yamin roared, his voice bouncing off the walls. “It’s not the time to discuss this shit, okay? My niece is still missing and the muthafucka that took her and killed Cort is still out there!”
“Oh, now it’s not the time to discuss it. You asked me what I was thinking and when I tell you, you tell me it’s not the time to discuss it. Well I wanna discuss it now. This is my life you’re playing with. My life Yamin!”
Yamin stepped out of the tub and walked over to grab a towel. He wrapped it around the lower half of his body and moved to where Jessica stood. He stopped directly in front of her and stared into her eyes. She was so beautiful to him. Her cocoa brown skin, brown eyes, and full succulent lips is what attracted him to her.
“I got more important things to worry about right now. Like I said, the choice is yours.”
With that Yamin exited the bathroom and left Jessica to her thoughts. She silently weighed her options thinking back to when she had been a little girl living in the projects on the East Side of Dallas. It had only been her mom and her little brother Marcus at the time and things were hard. Her mother was a cashier by day and an alcoholic by night. She would drink herself into misery and then take her anger out on her kids. She didn’t know who had it worse, Marcus or her.
Her mother physically abused her, while Marcus on the other hand had been sexually abused. The two of them suffered for years until their apartment caught on fire leaving their mother trapped in her bedroom to burn to death. Jessica was sixteen when it happened and Marcus was just turning fifteen. The Fire Marshall concluded that it was arson and that someone was responsible for the death.
At the end of the investigation Marcus had been arrested and tossed into jail. Jessica had always felt that her brother was innocent and tried convincing the police of that, but no one would listen to her. It was then she knew that she would become a criminal defense attorney. She had her brother to thank for her motivation and for giving her the drive to do something with her life. It had been a hard journey, but Jessica fought tooth and nail to get her law degree.
She loved her husband, but she didn’t know if she wanted to put one hundred percent faith into him. She would be choosing love and a criminal lifestyle over a life that she worked so hard to achieve.
How often do you find the love of your life? Jessica questioned herself. She took in a deep breath and exited the bathroom. The bedroom was empty but she could hear some sort of commotion going on downstairs. She left out of the bedroom and slowly went down the stairs.
Mommy! Mommy, help me!
Jessica could hear the sounds of a little girl’s voice as she made her way to the last step. She turned to the right and stepped inside of her living room. Immediately tears ran down her face as she spotted little Ashley on the screen, with her hands and feet tied to a tiny wooden chair.
I want my mommy! Please sir I will be good.
“Oh God,” Jessica cried out.
“Round everybody up for a meet up,” Yamin said to Emmanuel and Manny. Neither of them moved and kept their eyes fixed on the screen. Seeing little Ashley tied down and begging to be freed stirred up a lot of emotions in the both of them.
“NOW!” Yamin bellowed. He threw the remote at the entertainment system causing the TV screen to crack and the video to turn black. He looked down at the note that was balled up in his hand and damn near bit a hole into his bottom lip as he read the words again.
You took what’s mine so I take what’s yours. You started this and now I will finish it. The note read. The same person that sent him a video and note while on his honeymoon had sent him another one. It was obvious that they were fucking with him. Yamin cringed at the thought of something happening to his niece. He balled the note up in his hand and tightly shut his eyes. He couldn’t allow something to happen to Ashley too.
THE VERSACE LEAGUE
Yamin stepped out of his cocaine colored Benz and adjusted his tie. He was dressed in a custom made chocolate brown Armani suit, with Moccasins lacing his feet. He adjusted the bottom buttons on his suit jacket and headed towards their respective meeting spot for the night. They never met in the same place twice and was never given the meeting place until an hour before hand.
Hi
s mind was all over the place, but he knew he had to get it together for the sake of his niece and for the sake of the League. Everybody would be looking at him, and if he even looked like he was falling apart, muthafuckas would assume that he couldn’t handle his job. The majority of the members were family, but there were a handful of members who were around from when the League first started with his father and Uncle, and a handful of new members. Most loved Yamin as the boss, but of course there was always someone that felt they could do a better job.
"Here ya go, Ya," Manny said passing him a piece of a blunt.
Yamin took a tug of the blunt and blew a cloud of smoke in the air. He looked down at his watch and wondered what Jessica was doing at the moment. He wished that he could have told her the truth in the beginning and then maybe things wouldn’t have been so bad between them. He had never been able to sustain a relationship with any woman until now. They always suspected that he was hiding something and would always assume that it was another woman, and would eventually leave him. For some reason when he’d first met Jessica, he knew that she was the one. He knew that he couldn’t let her get away like the rest, which is why he proposed so fast and suggested that they get married quickly after. He didn’t know if it had been the fact that she was older and a lot more mature than the rest or if it had been the fact that she was independent, smart, and sexy with her own career. Either way, women like Jessica were hard to find and he didn’t want to lose her. He loved his wife and hoped that once all was said and done, she would stand by his side.
“A’ight, y’all keep it tight. Shouldn’t be in here too long,” Yamin said. He took another pull off the blunt and handed it to Emmanuel.
“Don’t worry we got it boss man. Take care of ya business,” Emmanuel said and nodded his head.
Yamin entered the building and started down the dark hallway. His shoes knocked against the wooden floor with each stride that he took. He thought about the condition his niece was in when he saw her and solemnly hoped that not a hair on her head had been harmed. He also wondered how well Donica was holding up and made a mental note to go by and check on her once the meeting was done. The past few days he slipped up and broke down a little too much, but that was the last time he would allow that to happen. He had been selfish and hadn’t thought about anyone, including his brother Aasir and his sister Aucelie. They had been handling all of the arrangements for Cortez’s funeral and he hadn’t so much as offered a hand.
I gotta get my shit together, this isn’t like me. Yamin pushed the door open and cleared his throat once he entered the room. Everyone was there-except for Cortez. He looked at the empty chair where his brother would have likely sat and swallowed the huge lump that formed in his throat. He coughed a couple of times in an attempt not to break down in front of everyone.
"Thank y'all for coming tonight on such short notice. I'm sure everyone has been made aware of Cort's passing," Yamin said. He watched as most of the eyes shot to the empty chair while others held their heads down in mourning. Cortez had been an important part of The Versace League, everyone loved and adored him and the work that he did. He was very good with computers and could hack into damn near anything. He was the baby of The League and the loss was a devastating one to everyone.
“Sorry to hear about Cortez. He is a young soul that will truly be missed,” Judge Kerrison said. He was one of the members that was around when the League first started. He was a hard ass federal judge in the court room and didn’t take no shit from anybody. He was known to give out ridiculous sentences to people whenever he was trying to teach someone a lesson.
The only time he was lenient was when he was paid through The League to throw out cases that they had been paid for. To date he felt like he may have been responsible for one of the planes that ran into the twin towers on 9/11. He had been paid five million dollars to throw out a case on a suspected terrorist and a couple of weeks later he watched the twin towers go down. He still had nightmares about that shit thinking about all the karma that would eventually come his way.
“Yea I can’t believe he’s gone. I had just talked to him hours before everything happened,” Katrina said. She was an FBI agent and had been a part of The Versace League for the last three years. She contributed to the organization by notifying The League if any of them went on the radar and would also use her database to check people out before they accepted any jobs. Every job went through her hands first and then was given to Yamin for the okay.
There were 15 total members in The Versace League, ranging from judges, police officers, and regular street niggas. Everyone served a purpose and was beneficial to the League in some kind of way.
"Preciate it y’all. Aasir should have the details for the funeral so if anyone plans on attending just get with him,” Yamin cleared his throat again. “Anyway, Cortez’s daughter, my niece, Ashley was kidnapped by the same people that killed Cortez and I need to get her back. I have no idea who this person is. All I have is 2 videos, 2 notes, and some voices that I don’t recognize. Only thing the muthafuckas told me was-” Yamin paused and pulled a plastic bag out of his suit. It contained the balled up note that had been delivered to his house along with the DVD.
“You took what’s mines so I take what’s yours. You started this and now I will finish it,” Yamin read the note and looked around the room. Everyone was stone faced. They had stolen many things in their lifetime so this was not a good clue. It could be anybody.
“That’s it?” Detective Jamison asked. He was a veteran detective of the Dallas Police Department and plenty of evidence had gone missing out of the evidence room because of him. He also got paid quite well through The League from many drug dealers just for keeping the attention off of them. He had been a dirty cop since the day he entered the Police Academy and was slowly working his way up to Lieutenant and then Captain where he would have more pull.
Yamin let out a sharp breath. He knew that he didn’t have much to go on, but he was hoping that maybe once everybody got a listen to the voices that they would recognize one. If not, then hopefully there would be some useable fingerprints. Yamin had never felt so out of whack in his entire life. He’d always done things a certain way and he’d always had control of the situation. Normally he would be the one running the show, but now someone else was running him and he had no idea who.
All he wanted was to get Ashley, kill the muthafucka that had taken her, and return her to her mother. After that was said and done, he wanted time to properly grieve, and he wanted to spend time fixing things with his wife.
Yamin played the two videos for everyone, but unfortunately no one recognized the voices. It had been a dead end just as he suspected and left half the room in tears after they were done watching. After all they had just watched the murder of Cortez and the kidnapping of little Ashley. After the meeting was concluded, Yamin handed the video and notes over to Agent Katrina to have it all processed for fingerprints.
“Aasir, come here and let me holla at you,” Yamin said to his brother after everyone had exited the room.
“What’s good bruh?” Aasir asked as he approached. He leaned against the table and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked exhausted. There were huge bags under his eyes and they were blood shot red. He hadn’t had a lick of sleep since his brother was killed and honestly didn’t know if he would sleep again. Aasir was the shortest of the three brothers at only six feet, weighing two-hundred pounds, and had a muscular build. He had skin the color of honey, some of the sexiest brown eyes known to man, kept a low cut fade, and a little fuzz on his chin that he always rubbed when he was nervous.
“You haven’t slept have you?” Yamin asked.
“Yea, I’ve been sleeping. I was out at Aucelie’s-”
“You haven’t slept since you’ve gotten the news, huh? You look like shit.”
“I’m good. I’m easy big bruh. Just been chilling with sis and making sure she’s straight.
You feel me?”
“Who’s gonna make sure you’re straight?” Yamin questioned. He could tell that his brother was hurting just as much as he was. This wasn’t easy for either of them and he felt bad for making Aasir and their sister Aucelie do it all alone. “I got you. I got us. Just like I took care of us when Pops died, I’m a take care of us now.”
Aasir nodded his head and Yamin pulled him in for a hug. For the first time since finding out about Cortez’s death, he broke down. He let it all out, all the pain he’d been harboring, the anger he held in-he just cried. He wanted his little brother back. He wanted to talk to him one last time and let him know that he loved him. He just wanted things to be like they used to be.
***
“It’s pretty good. It doesn’t taste like I thought Crab Pasta would taste,” Jessica said dabbing her mouth with her napkin.
“How did you think Crab Pasta would taste?” Yamin asked.
“I don’t know, like a crab,” she laughed.
Yamin picked up his cell phone and completely zoned out. He was doing whatever he needed to fix his relationship with Jessica, but he couldn't help that his mind was preoccupied. He felt as if he should have been combing the city from top to bottom looking for Ashley, not sitting at Red Lobster sharing Crab Pasta and sipping on wine. He blew out a deep breath and leaned back in his seat.
Unbeknownst to him, Jessica was intently staring at him with tears forming in her eyes. She'd been doing her best to accept things and focus on having a happy marriage after heavily contemplating whether she should stay or leave. Now that she had the truth about what Yamin had been hiding, it was hard to move forward. Staring at her husband from the outside, she loved him, but it was who he was on the inside that caused concern. She didn’t know this man, and it broke her heart that she even felt that way.