The Versace League

by Shan

  “Take her to him. I will wait here for Yamin,” the leader said. He took a tug of the cigarette and then put his pistol back up once again. He watched as his partners went for Jessica and he took out his cell phone to send his boss a message. His job wouldn’t be complete until he had further driven a hole into The League.

  ONLY THE BEGINNING

  Jessica faintly opened her eyes and tried to depict where she was at the moment. She had been going in and out of consciousness all morning due to the excruciating pain that poured from the wound in her belly. Every time she had a conscious moment, she silently prayed for the life of her unborn child. She hoped that God would spare the innocent life she had carried even if she hadn’t always been so innocent in her time.

  “Uhh,” she groaned when her body bounced from the seat. She had then realized that she was in a moving vehicle and the feeling alone caused her to want to vomit. She wondered if that was a good sign or not. Had the fact that she was still sick to her stomach meant that there was still life left in her child?

  “My sweet Jessica. You’re awake,” he said to her.

  She grabbed at her stomach and then tightly shut her eyes. She hated that she didn’t tell Yamin the truth about him when she saw his right hand man Roscoe at the Ashley’s burial. She knew that if Roscoe had been around that he hadn’t too far behind him. She knew that Roscoe hadn’t been there to pay his respects and knew that whenever he was around trouble was sure to follow.

  “Jean, where are you taking me? My baby. I need to go to a hospital,” she said faintly.

  Jean laughed. He could care less about the child she carried and hoped that she would miscarry sooner rather than later. Killing her unborn had been part of his instructions when he’d sent his workers after Jessica. He didn’t want her carrying another man’s child in her by time he had taken her back home. If the bullet in her stomach wasn’t enough to get rid of the child, he would personally reach up there and snatch it out of her. Jessica was supposed carry his child not Yamin’s and that thought alone angered him. He huffed and snatched a cigar from the Benz’s ashtray and lit it up as the driver made a swift right turn.

  Jessica groaned again. Her head fell backwards and she was sent into a daze that caused her to remember her and Jean’s history.

  “Pretty, pretty girl you are,” Jean said to Jessica as he admired her glowing dark skin. They were in line at a Starbucks coffee where he had met with a few of his American clients for a business deal. On his way out, he saw something that he just couldn’t pass up. Jessica was young just the way he liked them and not only was she young, she was as beautiful as his mother. She had a natural beauty and it turned him on completely.

  “Hello,” Jessica laughed. She looked up at the older guy standing next to her and blushed. He smelled wonderful and he looked even better. His suit was Versace, his cologne Armani, and his jewelry made of some of the whitest diamonds she had ever seen. Not to mention to be an older man, he was quite handsome. His salt and pepper beard was neatly trimmed, his stature was nice behind his gray suit, and he had nice clean teeth. Jessica looked at him and then shyly turned away.

  “My name is Jean Peck, and you are?” Jean held out his hand for Jessica to shake. She looked at him and placed her hand into his. It was a handshake that had started the brink of their relationship.

  He had found out that Jessica was attending school to become a lawyer and although she was eighteen years younger than he was, the two of them hit it off pretty well. They dated for all of six months before he swept her off of her feet and in the end promised her the world if she had married him. Jessica had never felt so honored, or privileged and she agreed, but only after she had finished school. Finishing school and becoming a lawyer had been her number one priority.

  Jean was perfectly okay with that. Her longing desire to be something in life was one of the things that he had come to admire about Jessica. She didn’t want him for his money because she had wanted to make her own. He would honor her wishes and wait for her to finish school because she was not one that he wanted to let go. While waiting for her to finish school, he purchased a small but nice condo in downtown Dallas and the two of them continued to date. Jean had never been so in love in his life. Jessica had done more of the sweeping him off of his feet than he had done with her. He was head over heels for her and couldn’t wait to get her back home and show her off.

  As the years went on and Jessica finally graduated from Law school and Jean was able to detect that things had changed and not for the better.

  “What is wrong with you? You’ve been walking around here quiet and bitchy?” Jean asked Jessica one night as they prepared for bed. It was a couple of weeks before the two of them would be relocating their lives to Jean’s home of Haiti. The closer and closer it got for them to leave, the more on edge Jessica had become.

  “Jean, I don’t want to uproot my life to go to Haiti. I don’t wanna go there. I have a chance to work for a prestigious firm here in Dallas and that’s what I want to do,” Jessica stated as she pulled the covers back.

  “You don’t have a choice but to go. I’ve stood by for three years waiting on you to finish law school and now it’s time for you to honor my wishes. You can practice law in my home.”

  “I’m not going Jean. I know all about your drug and sex ring. I know that you have a sex slavery ring going and I know that you force mothers and little kids to push dope for you. I don’t want anything to do with that,” Jessica said disgustedly. She’d found out all about what Jean had done for a living when one of his colleagues was arrested for smuggling drugs into the US. He had tried to hide the news of his arrest from Jessica, but she ended up reading about it in her office one morning where she had interned. The colleague was doing some snitching and Jean’s name had come up. She was repulsed when she learned that he was using women and children to manufacturer his drugs and using innocent little boys to bring it into the U.S. He was getting rich off of the poor and she didn’t want to be affiliated with anyone of that nature.

  “I guess you’re gonna sit here and tell me that you’re an angel. No, not the girl that murdered her mother in a house fire and allowed her brother to take the blame for it,” Jean huffed.

  Jessica was taken aback. She placed her hand over her chest and let out a ragged breath. She couldn’t believe that he had known that about her. It had been her number one reason for finishing law school. She knew her brother had been innocent and she wanted to use her knowledge of the law to free him. She knew he had been innocent because she had been guilty. She grew tired of the abuse her mother had handed down to her and she could no longer take it. She had burned her mother alive and she allowed her brother to take the fall. For years she felt bad about allowing her brother Marcus to take the blame for her, but she knew in time she would make it right. She would free him from prison and he would go on and live a normal life. Killing her mother had been a secret that she adamantly planned to take to her grave.

  How does Jean know? Jessica wondered as she stared into her lover’s eyes.

  Jean laughed stoically. “Did you think it was a secret? Did you think I didn’t do my research on you? It is my job to know everything and trust me I know everything.”

  Jessica didn’t have a choice. She didn’t want to lose her career that she had worked so hard for and most importantly she didn’t want her brother finding out that she was at fault for him being imprisoned for so long. For the remainder of the night Jessica was quiet. She knew that it was nothing she could do to get herself out of the situation she was in. In a couple of weeks she would be forced into Haiti and in a few months she would be married to an evil, evil man. She lay in bed and prayed that one day she would wake up from the nightmare that was just beginning.

  As time went on, the couple were living in Haiti as practically the King and Queen of the small Caribbean country. Jessica did her best to be happy, trying to get used to the
un-American lifestyle and taking advantage of the poor, but she just couldn’t. Not only that, she just couldn’t find it in herself to love Jean anymore now that she knew who he was. Having sex with him had become more of a chore than an act of enjoyment and pleasure. She hated him and the more she hated him, the worse he had begun to treat her. The verbal abuse, had turned into emotional abuse which later turned into physical abuse. After one long year, Jessica had had enough.

  One cold morning, Jean woke up to find his master bed empty and his beautiful young wife Jessica missing. He tore up the entire island of Haiti looking for her but later realized that she was gone. She had run from him and it had crushed him. She ran and she never looked back.

  It took Jessica a little while but after successfully changing her name to Jessica Mitchell. She retook the bar exam under that name and she started her life over. She was able to get a job with a law firm in San Antonio, Texas. She worked there for a year and half and was able to save up enough money to start her own firm. She moved back to Dallas figuring it was safe since she hadn’t a heard a peep from Jean. As time went by, her practice was booming and she was a well-known defense attorney in the state of Texas. She had successfully won plenty of cases and was waiting for the appeals to go through on her brother Marcus’ case.

  Everything was looking up for Jessica. She was happy and she was free. She had a great job and she had money in the bank, the only thing that had been missing from her life was the love of a man. It wasn’t long before she lucked up and ran into Yamin on one perfect night. He couldn’t have had better timing. He was way younger than she was, but he was a successful businessman and he treated her with respect. She had never felt so lucky especially considering her first husband had been a crook.

  All had been perfect with her and Yamin until her honeymoon when she discovered that she wasn’t the only one that had been living a secret life. Her husband was just as much a liar as she was. She had got way from one crook only to marry another. All had been perfect up until Cortez was killed, Ashley was killed and-Jean appeared. Had Jean been responsible for it all? Was it all because of her?

  “Did you kill Cortez?” Jessica asked from the backseat of the car. She didn’t want to be the reason that Yamin had lost his brother. He would never forgive her if he knew that she was the cause of it all. He would never forgive her if he knew that she was technically not even his wife. She had already been married when she’d met him and it wasn’t possible for her to be married again without having a divorce first.

  Jean laughed wickedly. “Of course I killed Cortez. And I am going to kill his whole fucking family. You see this isn’t about you my sweet Jessica. It’s about so much more than that….”

  Jean pointed his finger and his driver pulled into a huge landfill that was located on the outskirts of Dallas. The odor was so foul that even the closed windows couldn’t shut it out. As they drove to the back of the landfill Jessica’s body violently bounced around in the backseat. She groaned with each little hiccup and prayed that the ride would be over soon. She tried to lift her head to see where they were and where they were going, but each move she made felt like it would be her last.

  “What is this about Jean? Why did you kill Cortez and kidnap his daughter?” Jessica asked and tightly gripped her hand around her stomach.

  “Because some years ago, I stole twenty-five million dollars from a guy, and after I stole it, I killed him, and made it look like his brother did it. That twenty-five million dollars was used to keep my business from going under. I was too busy looking for you that I didn’t realize how bad things were becoming for me…”

  As the car came to a stop, Jessica looked above her to determine her location, but she couldn’t see much of anything. She used her elbow to try and sit up and a bolt of pain shot through her body and caused her to scream out.

  “Be still my sweet Jessica. It will be over soon,” Jean told her. He looked at her and smiled. She was still the most beautiful woman that he had ever laid eyes on.

  “Who was this man that you stole the money from Jean?”

  “Hadir, Yamin’s father,” Jean laughed evilly. “I robbed a thief,” he laughed again.

  Jessica was confused and Jean could see that she didn’t understand.

  “I robbed a thief and went on to live my fucking life when your pretend husband and this fucking Versace League came and took everything from me! He stripped me of every fucking thing, my money, my home, my status-and when I come to find him and I also found out that he has my wife! Imagine that!” Jean yelled. He pushed the car door open, jumped out, and went into the backseat to pull Jessica out.

  “What are you doing? You’re hurting me!” Jessica yelled. She was in so much pain she could barely stand to her feet. She tried to push Jean off of her, but she was far too weak to do much of anything.

  “He took my whole life away from me so I will take his away from him. Cortez was only the beginning of what I’m going to do to him. I’m taking his fat ass sister away from him and anyone else that means something to him and after I’m done killing everyone that he loves, I’m gonna take every string from underneath The Versace League and pull it apart piece by piece.” Jean pushed Jessica forward and reached to his driver to hand him his gun.

  Jean gripped the handle of the pistol tightly and aimed it towards Jessica. She was disposable to him. He had loved her with every breath in him and she left him only to end up with the man that had eventually taken everything from him. He had spent the past two years trying to find out who stole his life away when finally it fell right into his lap.

  Knox, The Versace League’s veteran member was bitter about Yamin taking over when he felt it should have been him. He felt that Yamin hadn’t been doing things in the manner that they should be done and he was angry about it. He wanted to get Yamin and his brothers out of the way so that he can step up and run The Versace League the way it had been ran when Hadir was in charge, the way he remembered it being ran.

  Knox knew all about Jean and Hadir’s history and knew all about Yamin’s thirst for revenge against Jean. He knew that Jean would be the perfect person to get rid of Yamin and his brothers and leave him looking clean in the end. Knox had told Jean how Yamin had tricked the League into believing that a client hired them, to tear Jean’s life apart. No one knew about Jean and what he had done to Hadir and Alain, but Yamin and Knox. Yamin was bitter about his father and he was angry. He wanted payback and that’s what he’d gotten. Unfortunately for Yamin, he never expected that Knox turn on him and cause this chaos. Luckily Knox had gotten his and was dead for what he had done.

  It didn’t matter now. Jean no longer needed Knox to take Yamin and The Versace League down. He had already penetrated them and weakened everything they stood for. Yamin had taken away his livelihood so he didn’t have anything to lose but had everything to gain. Yamin should have stayed in his place and allowed his father’s death to remain as it was, but no he had to avenge something that had nothing to do with him. Because of that Jean would see to it that he turned his life upside down. He wanted him to feel exactly how he felt when he lost everything. Only he would do Yamin ten times worse.

  Jean didn’t know if Jessica had been part of Yamin’s revenge scheme or if he had just played Jessica and used her, but he didn’t care. As much as he loved Jessica and was still astonished by her beauty, she had betrayed him. She had left him and had wedded another man. She had allowed that man to impregnate her and he would ensure that Jessica would never be able to betray him again.

  “Wait! Jean what are you doing? Okay! I’m sorry!” Jessica begged. She held one hand up in an effort to stop Jean and the other she had placed over her stomach. She was wounded badly, but she felt as if she could make it if Jean just got her to a hospital.

  “You’re not sorry,” he laughed. “And neither am I.”

  POW!

  He fired another bullet into her and caused
her to fall backwards into the premade grave that was built just for her. A huge smile was planted across his face as he walked over to the hole that Jessica had fallen in. Watching her struggle with pain and suffer to breathe had brought him great pleasure. He hawked up a wad of his saliva and spit it on her before he walked away. He imagined that she would bleed for hours before she was incidentally covered with trash and forced to inhale the garbage that would later suffocate her. This was the price she had to pay for her betrayal and he didn’t feel an ounce of guilt as he walked away.

  “I have bad news and I have good news,” the drive said to Jean as he came closer to him. “Bad news first. I now know why we couldn’t get in contact with Roscoe. He was found dead this morning in grocery store parking lot. Also Timothy was killed by those fucking niggas that’s always guarding the dude Yamin.”

  “Fuck!” Jean cussed as he got back into the car.

  “But they have the sister Aucelie. They found her, but they said she is not talking. You sure she has everything we need to know about The Versace League?”

  “Knox said that Aucelie holds tons of secrets and that she also handles the money side of things. At least we got her. Great. Now let’s get this thing started. I want her tortured until she gives up every little bit of info she has on The Versace League. Let’s make them feel our presence even more,” Jean said and rubbed his hands together. He closed his door and looked out of the window at Jessica’s grave.

  “Do you hear that?” the driver asked once he sat inside of the car.

  “Hear what?” Jean asked.

  The driver pressed the button to let Jean’s window down and the two of them looked at one another and broke into laughter.

  “Help! Help!” Jessica cried out. As she laid in the grave that had been built a few feet underground, she wondered if Yamin had set her up. She wondered if Yamin dated her and married her because of Jean. She wanted to know if all this time, he knew that she was a liar and that she was not exactly whom she had said she was either. She wanted to find out if she had just been a part of his plan to get back at Jean. She had so much she wanted to know, but she didn’t even know if she would live to find out.