by T. L Smith
I’ve let things slide. Some of Connick’s secrets he’s kept and revealed later. My mother, for example, that was a massive secret I was willing to let go because it was before he knew me. But the rest, the rest is too much—they are gigantic secrets and not telling me has hurt me. Informing me who his brother is should have been high on his priority list.
Walking out of my house and down the street to meet Serena, I wonder how I fell for a man who’s clearly more fucked in the head than me. He’s more devilish than anyone I know, and that includes Derrick. Derrick never lied. He may be a lot of other despicable things, but a liar just wasn’t one of them.
Serena is standing out front of the coffee house with both of her kids. She’s holding one’s hand, while the other child is on her hip. The moment I reach her, she passes me her youngest, and I take him with shaky hands. She must know I’m not a kid person, but it doesn’t seem to faze her in the slightest.
“Thank God you’re here.” She picks up her other child and then starts walking. I follow behind her, holding the baby on my hip. “How’s work?”
Taking my eyes off the baby, who’s staring at me like he knows my secrets, I answer her, “Good. You coming back? Von’s been grumpy without you.”
She shakes her head. “No. He can whine all he wants. Fuck him, and fuck men in general.”
We stop at a play center I didn’t even know was there. Just before we walk in, Serena asks me about him.
“How’s your hunk? He seemed pretty worried about you when you didn’t turn up for work.”
“We have too much drama and too many secrets, enough to bury us both alive.” Turning back around, I follow her in. It’s loud, and the kids run around everywhere and they’re screaming. Far too many kids for my liking.
“Isn’t that the fun, though? It would be boring if you knew everything about him. Plus, some we shouldn’t really know, when you think about it.”
“No, these aren’t small ones. These are secrets he should have told me.”
She grabs the baby from me as we sit, and the other child runs off to play. “Von asked me not to bring this up when you were away, but I feel like I have to.”
My hands start clenching and unclenching waiting for what she has to say. Serena is the first person I’ve had who’s an actual friend. Someone I have found a connection with. A friend who listens to me.
But what if she finds out things about me and doesn’t want to know me anymore?
What if I’m as bad as I’ve been told all my life?
What if I take the good from everyone and suck it out like a parasite?
People that get close to me are crazy, homicidal, and downright not pleasant people.
What if I turn her into one of them?
I don’t want that for her. Maybe I should walk away now before things get worse.
“Your mother came in.”
My mouth drops open and my hands freeze.
“She was weird. She didn’t say much. Just was asking a lot of questions about you. Which I didn’t answer because she gave me a bad feel.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t you apologize. You do that a lot? I figured you weren’t close to her the minute I mentioned your age… I lied, and she agreed. She didn’t even frickin’ know how old you are.”
“I’ve seen her twice in six years, both weren’t pleasant experiences.”
She kisses her baby’s head, and I wonder if that’s how a mother’s love should be. Unconditional. I’ve never had that so I wouldn’t know.
“She was asking about him… you know… Connick.”
My hands start to move, my knuckles begin cracking as I push them back and forth in my lap.
“Did you say anything?” I ask, looking up at her.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know much. You don’t really say that much about him anyway.”
“There’s not much to say,” I tell her.
She raises an eyebrow at me. “A man like that and not much to say? I beg to differ. A man like that would have you all kinds of fucked up. And I don’t just mean emotionally.” She winks at me and I think it’s the first time I’ve laughed for a while. A very long while.
Then her hand comes down on my knee and she leans in close before she speaks, “I see the bruises. I watch you hold your midsection when you pick up something heavy. He didn’t do that to you, did he? He didn’t hurt you?”
My head starts shaking before I can even get the words out. “No, no, he would never.”
“Are you sure?”
I continue to shake my head. “It wasn’t him, I swear.”
“I believe you, but I had to ask.”
“Thank you.”
She smiles, stands, and passes me her baby, yet again. Why does she do that? And more importantly, why don’t I tell her no? I’m not a weak woman. At least, I don’t think I am. I believe circumstances made me into what I am today, but my doctor tells me all the time that I’m more than I believe. That I should start seeing it, but it’s hard when all you see is broken glass shattered all around you.
She walks off to retrieve her other child, and that’s when a chair is pulled out right in front of me. Taking my eyes off of the baby, I look up to see Nicole sitting there with her daughter next to her.
Nope, this is not happening.
I go to move then realize I can’t. The baby is sleeping.
“You don’t know when to leave, do you? Even after everything… you don’t know when to leave.” Nicole shakes her head at me in disappointment.
“If I didn’t have this child in my arms and your child next to you, Nicole, this conversation wouldn’t be happening at all.”
She rolls her eyes.
I lean in close, so her child can’t hear what I’m about to say. “I would fucking strangle your ugly ass with my bare hands, then I would cut you open like the animal you are, you piece of shit. Fucking leave now before I change my mind.”
She moves back fast, her eyes looking wild. Then a tap on her shoulder from Serena who’s standing behind her.
“You heard her… leave, whore.”
“Mommy, what’s a whore?” her child asks. Serena looks down to her kid and points at Nicole. I smile at Nicole’s kid who’s oblivious with her headphones on, watching something on her tablet and hope that Nicole’s kids get looked after.
“How dare you,” Nicole says, standing, and she looks between both of us.
“How dare I? Seriously. Do you have a screw loose? You must, right? Considering you are sitting here wrecking our perfect day. What is it? Your boyfriend loves Milanka?” Serena crosses her arms over her chest and doesn’t realize she’s one hundred percent correct right now.
I wince because she’s so right it’s amazing.
“Oh my God… that’s it. You are jealous. Yet, I bet, she wants nothing to do with him and you have your panties in a twist over nothing.”
She’s partially right.
Except Derrick’s crazy—crazy fucker he certainly is.
“She wants him, always has.”
My mouth drops open. “You’ve lost it, Nicole. You need help. Just leave.”
She straightens her back up then pulls at her child’s arm before she walks away. Serena shakes her head, taking her baby from my arms.
“Should I ask?”
“You don’t want to know, trust me.”
“But I do.” She laughs.
“High school. That’s how long she’s been like this. Had this thought in her stupid head. Because the boy she wanted was with me. Well… kind of.”
“Oh, first love. That’s one hell of a bitch.”
I shrug my shoulders because I don’t really know. Connick’s the only man I’ve had strong feelings for in my lifetime. Ones where I can feel him deep in my bones like he has set himself in there without my permission.
That’s the painful truth.
“Who was your first love?” I ask hoping to take this conversation away from me
.
“Von. Stupid, I know.”
“That’s kind of sweet.”
She fake coughs. “No, it isn’t. He’s still is the same jock I fell in love with. Except, I’m the only one that grew up.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugs it off as we walk back to where she’s parked near the coffee shop. I watch as she goes, wondering if the pain in my chest Connick has caused will ever go away. Am I wrong somehow? Broken. To be more upset with Connick and that situation, than what happened with Derrick? I don’t know what to feel right now, and it confuses the fuck out of me.
Chapter 7
Connick
Derrick’s chest is rising and falling fast. Harlin is still standing in the doorway smiling at him, and I know if she doesn’t leave soon, she’ll do something to either make the situation worse, or possibly kill him—which is the same as making the situation worse. But that can’t happen in my office, or just yet. You see, our father knows about my hatred for Derrick, and another part of our condition with the company is that no harm may befall him before I’m thirty. I don’t know why he stipulated that clause. Father has no idea who I am, or what I used to be.
Father’s company is still the largest that I own. Yes, I own others outside of his empire. And yes, I would be well-off leaving this one. But this is what I’ve always wanted—the power and the authority of what my father had built up. He was always so proud of his achievements, and I feel the same way taking over his business. He hasn’t come in for years because he trusts me completely. Everything is so close to being fully mine, until now. Until Derrick forced me to meet Milanka, and now everything could be fucked up because I want to fucking kill him.
“You think you can tell him who to see?” Harlin’s voice comes from behind Derrick.
He spins around and pins her with a look. “Get the fuck out.” He waves his hand to the door, the same door she’s still standing at and not moving away from.
She laughs, and it’s fake.
“Harlin…”
She puts her hands up in the air as a surrender. “Fine! But that thing…” she points to him, “… doesn’t deserve to breathe. And that’s coming from me.” She walks out the door, slamming it shut behind her.
“Why the fuck is she still working with you?”
Harlin and Derrick fucked many years ago before he knew her, or she knew him. Now, they can’t stand each other, and sometimes it’s fun to watch. But lately, they make me want to kill them both.
“What did you do to her, Derrick?” I walk around my desk, sitting down, so I’m not within a hand’s reach of him.
“Who… Milanka?”
I nod my head and he shakes his.
“That’s none of your business what happened between us.”
I slam my fist down hard, making the desk shake. “Tell. Me. What. You. Did. To. Her.”
“She wouldn’t fuck me like she used to and it’s because of you.”
“You raped her?” My blood is boiling now.
“No, but not for lack of trying.”
I’m up before I can stop myself. My hand makes contact with Derrick’s face and it isn’t a light punch either. It slams into him like a rocket, making him drop backward with blood instantly gushing from his nose.
“I starved her, too. Then Nicole beat her.”
Walking to my desk, I pull out my gun and aim it at him as he lays on the floor holding his nose. He is smirking at me. I shoot, missing his head on purpose and he laughs. Then I shoot again, this time straight into his foot, not missing this time. A scream rips from his throat, and I walk back to sit behind my desk, not caring at all.
He thinks it’s funny to treat her like that?
Well, I think it’s funny to see him crying like a little bitch.
The door swings open after a few minutes while I’m working on my emails. Cherry pops her head in, looks down to a screaming Derrick, shakes her head, and closes the door again. She couldn’t care less about him either. I don’t know one person who respects that man enough to care. Only perhaps his mother. Our father loves him, but also doesn’t trust him because he knows what he is, even when he hides it from the rest of us.
It wasn’t always like this between us. Yes, granted, I’ve always thought of him as an entitled little prick. A mommy’s little boy. The age difference between us is only a few years, with me being older. When he was a teen, with Milanka, that’s when I got along with him because his parties were good and the pussy was even better.
“You will lose it all, you piece of shit.” His voice screams from the floor as one hand is wrapped around his foot while the other reaches for his cell phone. Standing up, I place my gun back in the drawer and walk over to him, then bend down too fast for him to react, to snatch the cell from his hand. I know who he’s trying to call—our father. That’s what payback is to him, run to our daddy. I won’t allow it, haven’t for a long time, but now he’s pushed every button possible.
The door opens again, this time Harlin and one of her men walk in. Cherry must have called her back up because they reach for a fighting Derrick, but his fists don’t connect with either of them, and he screams as they carry him out.
Derrick once thought I owned Harlin. I have owned several women for many reasons, mostly due to not being able to pay back what they were indebted to me.
Harlin? No, you can’t own her.
Fuck! You can’t make her do jack shit unless she wants to.
Holding onto Derrick’s leg and giving an extra squeeze to his injured foot, Harlin pulls the door shut as she walks out. Hiding my laugh, I think back to how I came to own Milanka’s mother. What a twisted bitch she is.
I didn’t know who she was. She owed money to one of my clubs. A significant chunk of cash which had to be paid back. They all got a caution when they borrowed too much. That caution involved them being owned if they couldn’t pay me back. A warning was also issued that they shouldn’t even think about trying to get away with it, there were consequences. We had people everywhere and knew almost everyone who owned bars in this region. So, there was no escaping the warnings and the resultant action of those warnings. It was ultimately their call as to what happened to their lives.
She was beautiful in the dark, I thought so anyway. It was the hair, it reminded me of someone until she turned and opened her mouth. Seeing as I now owned her, she was now to work at one of my sex clubs full-time. She was a willing participant and dressed like a whore without even being asked.
Ana—I’d found out her name—was willing to do anything to pay off her debt. Even pushed herself on me a few times with a resounding no being uttered from my lips.
Derrick came in one night. Actually, he was too much of a frequent visitor, and that was when I discovered who she was—the mother of the girl who he asked me to follow and scare. I didn’t think anything of that when he told me to scare a girl, it wasn’t like I was going to hurt her. Or even hand her over to him. It was just something to do to keep him away from my company. To which I still hadn’t done.
So now we had the mother, and soon I would meet the girl. I wondered what she looked like now. Was her hair still as black as the night sky? I only saw her once, and that was enough for me to take notice back then. Seeing her now was slightly terrifying me because not many women could stop me in my tracks. Though, if she were anything like her mother, it would be an easy job to do and walk away from.
“I want her,” Derrick said when he looked at the mother through the frosted glass window while she was being fucked. Not all my participants were clients, some we set up the scene with pretend participants, to get them going to use the club. And they did. It always worked once they saw someone fucking.
“You can’t,” I told him, walking away from her screen.
People were starting to walk up to watch. He followed like an errant child who had lost his lolly.
“I need her, Connick.”
I stopped and turned back to him. “What the fuck could you poss
ibly need that woman for?”
“Because I can use her to get to her daughter.”
I shook my head at him and continued walking out of the club. Ana would be working all night, and again the next few nights, then doing whatever it was we needed for her to do after that.
“You’re one sick prick, do you know that? You can have her if she wants to go to you after she’s paid me back.”
He pulled money from his pocket. “I’ll pay you for her. I’ll pay her debt.”
Shaking my head, I looked around outside in the dark before we spoke again.
“It doesn’t work like that, Derrick. I own her. What don’t you understand? You will not buy her ‘til I want to sell her, or have no further use for her, or if she has paid me back… in full. It’s a deterrent, and you erasing her indebtedness would not earn the respect I need to show everyone else.”
He pushed his money back into his pocket. “I love her.”
I laughed at him as I walked away to my car. I heard Derrick’s steps racing up behind me.
“You wouldn’t know love. So, don’t fucking laugh, you prick.”
Opening my car door, I turned to face him before I got in. “You don’t know love either, you ass. This woman doesn’t love you. Otherwise, she would be with you. Stick to the piece of ass that has your kid. That bitch loves you.”
Stepping into my car, I sat down, and before I could shut the door he stopped me.
“You’ll see. Milanka will be mine and you’ll wish she was yours.” He laughed as he walked way.
I really hate that prick.
Looking up, I see Cherry standing at my desk, her hand in front of my face clicking her fingers. “Off with the fairies, are we?” she asks.
“Yeah. What did you need?”
“She booked a trip. Milanka leaves in two days.”
I stand abruptly and my chair flies backward.
“I think you should let her go. At least for now. I mean, isn’t that what Derrick did… try to tell her what to do, and own her? You don’t want to scare her more if you want her back?”