MOTY (The Lady Kingpin Series Book 1)

by J Hoffman

  “Okay?”

  “And she feels great, too.”

  “That’s good,” he agreed.

  “And she told her friend about it.”

  Judah cut her off, “This sounds like a downward spiral.”

  “Her friend paid seven hundred dollars for a week’s supply.”

  Judah’s jaw dropped, “Seven? Hundred? A hundred dollars a day? For a branch and a leaf?”

  Natalee nodded, letting him marinate in his shock for a moment.

  “Holy shit, Nat.”

  “I know right?”

  “Can I try this stuff?”

  “Yeah, I’ll give you some in the morning. But, if all goes well, Liz said this could be huge.”

  Judah nodded, laying back down. He stared up at the ceiling, “Wow. It really could. But you better be careful. Put some barriers up so this doesn’t spiral into something really bad.”

  Natalee curled up with her head on his chest, “I just wanted you to be on the same page. So, you think I should keep selling it to her?”

  “Do you know if that plant is even legal here?”

  “See, Liz looked it up and she can’t find much about it. She said she was going to hire some kids from the college to look into it for her.”

  “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea either. Just cover all your bases and I think the extra income could be nice.” He ran his fingers through her hair gently.

  “I can’t wait to see where this goes with you. I can’t believe that happened, especially at the same time as your promotion!”

  “Me either. It is so surreal. But damn, am I grateful it is real.”

  “Maybe you can take a vacation now?”

  She felt Judah’s chest lift and lower as he exhaled, “They actually suggested it. I’m off for the next ten days.”

  Natalee popped up and looked at him, “What?! When were you going to tell me that?”

  “When you asked when my next flight was,” he grinned.

  She smiled back and cuddled up next to him again, “Well now we have to make some immediate plans.”

  “I didn’t think we could pull Jonah out of school?” He questioned.

  “Eh, he’s a good kid. It won’t kill him to miss a couple days. I’m sure he’ll be able to make up for it.”

  Judah nodded, “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  Natalee grabbed her phone and found a few nearby locations they’d be able to happily enjoy their family vacation. They planned everything down to their nightly meals. They would be gone for five days, four nights. They were leaving the following evening and driving through the night. They rented an apartment to stay in, fully furnished, and they made reservations at all the nearby restaurants. They purchased tickets for the local theme park for Jonah and movie tickets for the 4D theater. They fell asleep that night in a strong embrace that promised nothing but tranquility between the two of them and their life together.

  The next morning, Jonah walked home after they ate breakfast. Natalee ushered him to his room to pack his things and told him to pack light, but efficient. Jonah asked a million questions every step of the way, but both Natalee and Judah managed to keep the entire trip under wraps.

  That night, they loaded their bags up in the trunk, and before they were even out of town, Jonah was fast asleep in the back seat. Natalee reached across the middle console and grabbed Judah’s hand, squeezing it. He squeezed back and proceeded to twist her wedding ring around on her finger.

  Natalee had packed up a few days’ worth of the korenchudo for both of them, and she made sure to drop off some to Liz before they left, too. Knowing Jonah was sleeping, Judah turned the music down low and glanced at Natalee as they made it to the highway.

  “So, you told me how Liz thinks this would go, how do you think it’ll go?”

  Natalee sighed and watched the street lights drift past them in the mirror, “I don’t really know. Svetlana had said if you eat the leaves, you’d feel great for two days and the third day you feel like you want to die.”

  “Oh, well that’s great,” Judah grumbled.

  “But it didn’t happen to me or Liz that way.”

  “Interesting.”

  “We were talking about it and we think it’s because we aren’t chewing the leaves. Or it’s all the vodka they drink in Russia. Or something else completely out of our realm of possibilities.”

  Judah nodded, listening to her every word. That morning was his first time trying the branch and he was not pleased with the aftertaste at all, but Natalee didn’t let him suffer long. She felt that she needed to invest in stock for the brand of water she had been drinking with the leaves because it’s what she handed to Liz and Judah when they first tried it. Part of her considered it was the water she chose because imports were different in Russia, but that wasn’t what she was willing to take a chance on.

  Their drive wasn’t long, but only because they had left in the middle of the night. If they had gone during the day, traffic would have held them up an additional two to three hours. They pulled into the apartment complex around six in the morning. Natalee woke Jonah up and he looked out of the window, peering at their surroundings.

  “Where are we?” he muttered sleepily.

  “We’re staying here for our vacation!”

  “It just looks like an apartment?”

  “Yeah! It’s called Rent A Home. Instead of doing a monthly or yearly lease, you just book it for a few nights at a time like a hotel.”

  “That’s weird,” Jonah rolled his eyes.

  “I think it’s pretty cool,” Judah shrugged.

  “Yeah, now we don’t have to worry about the front desk or not having enough room in the fridge for our leftovers,” Natalee joked.

  “Come on, let’s unload the car.”

  “Okay, I’ll text the host,” Natalee grabbed her phone and contacted the owner of the apartment. They texted her a code to use for the lockbox hanging from the doorknob. Natalee punched in the code and a key fell out of the bottom of the box, hit the cement beneath it with a clang, and bounced off her foot.

  “Dammit!” She scattered to grab the key before she lost sight of it.

  Once she had the key securely in her hand, she slid it into the lock and turned the knob. She pushed the door open slowly, peering into the darkness. She caught sight of a light switch just inside the door and she reached in to flip it on.

  A fear boiled inside of her that she couldn’t explain. She wasn’t sure why she was terrified. Maybe it was the sudden life change they were experiencing, or maybe it was the fear that someone was standing just inside the door, ready to murder her and her family. When she unlocked the door to a hotel room, she knew it was going to be empty inside, but opening a door to an apartment that someone else owned, who let strangers check in and out whenever they pleased? That was a little intimidating for her.

  Once the light flooded the hall, she let a breath escape that she didn’t know she was retaining. The apartment was gorgeous, to say the least. They foyer lit up with leaf-shaped sconces on the walls, which bounced off the white marble floor at her feet. Dark cherry decorative stands lined the small room, and Natalee sat the key on one of them just as Judah and Jonah walked through the door behind her.

  “Wow,” Judah muttered, looking around.

  “Whoa!” Jonah yelled. “This is not what I was expecting from the outside.”

  Natalee grinned, “I’m glad you guys like it! It was pretty cheap, too. Compared to the hotels, at least.”

  “Yeah, this could be nice,” Judah walked past her with their bags weighing on his shoulders. He was only two steps into the living room before he bolted back to the foyer, the bags swinging against his sides, “Come here!”

  Natalee raised an eyebrow and followed him into the living room. A seventy-five-inch television was situated above a marble adorned fireplace. Upon further inspection, they realized the tv was embedded in the wall, and speakers were built into the crown molding along the ceiling of the living room.r />
  Tiny spotlights decorated the rest of the ceiling, like little stars. Natalee examined the light dimmer on the wall and clicked it to “Twinkle”. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but when the lights started to twinkle like stars, she couldn’t imagine what else she could’ve possibly thought.

  “Whoa!” Jonah repeated as he gazed at the ceiling. “This is so freaking cool!”

  Judah stepped next to Natalee and snaked his arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. She laid her head on his shoulder, both of them grinning.

  “This was a good idea,” Natalee murmured against his chest.

  “Yeah, thanks boss,” Judah kissed the top of her head.

  They unpacked their bags into their own separate dressers and enjoyed cold breakfast from the kitchen. Natalee had arranged for Jonah to take a tour of a nearby museum with a local young adult’s club, leaving Judah and Natalee a few hours to take a nap to regain some energy for the rest of their day.

  When Natalee woke, she saw her phone blinking with a new message notification. She slid the screen down from the top and tapped on Liz’s name.

  Liz: DAY THREE!

  She sent a picture of the messages between her and Shananne. She was raving about how fantastic she felt, and Liz told her she was happy it worked for her. Natalee stared at the picture, a ball of warm, fuzzy anxiety creeping up from the pit of her stomach. She knew by the time it reached her throat it’d feel like heartburn, or needles puncturing everything inside of her.

  She took a few deep breaths, trying to ease her mind. She couldn’t justify being afraid of someone having a negative reaction, three of them had made it to three days, and beyond, with no negative side effects. Judah was on day two and she would know the next day if he was going to be the one to have a reaction to it. But three out of three sounded successful. And what if Liz was right? What if this really could be an amazing experience to bump her family up into that higher quality of life she always wanted them to have? And she would be the one making the contribution.

  Maybe she wouldn’t feel so sheltered by Judah and his success. It would be her, Natalee, accomplishing something beyond parenting and marriage. Beyond dropping out of college, and beyond everything she thought Judah kept her around for. But would that then make her a drug dealer? Was it even considered a drug?

  If she did happen to get a free escort to a police station for having it on her or selling it to someone, what would she say? She didn’t know it was a drug, did she? She didn’t know it was legal or illegal, did she? She thought about it, long and hard. Suddenly, she felt like she was sitting in a computer chair with monitors surrounding her, circling her.

  She looked up and there were monitors going upwards into blackness. Every monitor had a different memory, a different thought. But they were all hers. She started opening file paths on the monitor directly in front of her.

  Svetlana>korenchudo>legalities

  Nothing.

  Svetlana>plant>illegal

  Nothing. She tried a new approach.

  Botany>Russia>legal

  Nothing.

  She was back on the edge of the bed with Judah behind her, sleeping soundly. She relaxed, looking at the large vanity mirror across from her. She didn’t know if it was illegal, and she didn’t know much about it at all. It was worth a shot, she thought. She responded to Liz.

  Natalee: Spread the word.

  Immediately, she responded again.

  Liz: YAAASSSS.

  Natalee looked back at Judah before she dragged herself to the bathroom to take a shower.

  Twenty-Six

  Natalee told Liz to set up any meetings for after they returned from vacation. She took that time to enjoy her husband and her son. They ate and explored and ate some more. They enjoyed every moment and took more pictures than they knew what to do with. Natalee told Judah she decided to go through with it to see where it could go. Judah agreed and told her if she kept him involved, and she stayed safe, he was going to support her even if it is something as wild as selling branches for a hundred dollars apiece.

  Liz was waiting for them when they pulled in the driveway. Natalee was tired from the trip but excited to get the ball rolling with her new business endeavor.

  “We have six orders,” Liz said excitedly. “They all want one week each.”

  Natalee wasn’t even out of the car yet, but her jaw dropped to the floor. She looked back to Judah, gaping. He stared back her, frozen solid.

  “Seriously?” Natalee looked back at Liz.

  “Yes! Shananne said there are more people who showed interest in it, but they haven’t given her an actual answer yet.”

  “Wow, this is insane.”

  “Tell me about it! I knew this was a great idea!”

  Natalee climbed out of the car and unlocked the door to the kitchen. “This is really crazy. I can’t believe this one bit.”

  “I think you might need to get another bush from Svetlana really, really soon.”

  “Yeah, I can focus on that tomorrow. When is the first meeting set up?”

  “I told Shananne we could meet up tomorrow so we could get everything prepared.”

  “Okay, and she didn’t say anything bad about it? Like, we know now that letting it be detached from the rest of the plant for at least a week is fine?”

  “From what I can tell, she’s doing just as great as we are.”

  “This is incredible,” Natalee repeated, still shocked that it was moving as quickly as it was.

  Natalee gasped and looked at Liz, “I don’t think I have enough leaves!”

  “Oh shit,” Liz looks toward the bush on the window sill.

  Natalee pushed it to the side to count the dried leaves. “There’s only thirty-six, and we need forty-two.”

  “We need forty-nine,” she corrected.

  “Forty-nine?” Natalee questioned Liz.

  “Yeah, Shananne wants another week, too.”

  “Shit! So, we need forty-nine and we have thirty-six. So, we need thirteen more.”

  “Well, how many days does it take for them to dry out?”

  Natalee thought for a moment, “I don’t know, I’ve always had a surplus. Maybe two days?”

  “Wait, wait. This could be good for us.”

  “Good? How?”

  “We don’t want to get too in over our heads right off-rip, right?”

  “Right,” Natalee leaned against the counter, crossing her arms.

  “So, if we up the price we can-,” Liz stopped talking as Natalee raised her index finger.

  “Raise the price? We already doubled it from the original price!”

  “They don’t know what the original price was. They think the original price is a hundred for one day’s supply.”

  Natalee sighed, “Okay, you’re right about that.”

  “So, if we up the price again, we’ll see how interested they really are. Supply and demand. They want forty-nine days’ worth of product and we only have thirty-six. And we aren’t going to tell them we have thirty-six, we’re going to tell them we have twenty-four.”

  “Why twenty-four?”

  “So, all three of us,” she waved her hand between the two of them, and in the general direction of Judah, “have at least four days’ worth. A leaf definitely dries out within four days, right?”

  Natalee shrugged, “I mean, probably.”

  “Then we keep a weeks’ worth for all of us. We need twenty-one of them, that leaves fifteen. And now they’re three hundred dollars.”

  Natalee whistled, “I think you’re going a little overboard with that. Three hundred is double what I was thinking.”

  “You really think one fifty a bag will expose how intense this shit really is?”

  She rolled her eyes, “I still really don’t see how this is such a big deal, or even how it got this far.”

  “And I don’t understand how you don’t see that this is the most profitable thing you’ve ever fallen into.”

  “Seriously, three hundred,
though?” Natalee argued.

  “Why not? Let’s see what they say. If they respond negatively, we drop the price. That’s how business works.”

  “You are fucking incredible,” she shook her head in disbelief.

  “No, you are incredible, my dear,” Judah stepped into the kitchen. “Bags are all unloaded in the laundry room.”

  “Thanks, baby,” Natalee kissed him.

  “So, what’s the news?”

  Natalee sighed, “We only have thirty-six days’ worth of leaves left, and we need forty-nine, not including what we need for us.”

  “Raise the price,” Judah pressed his finger into one of the leaves on the window sill and it still oozed slightly. He cringed at the liquid on his finger and rubbed it between his forefinger and thumb until they were dry, but still the slightest amount of sticky.

  “That’s what I said,” Liz nodded.

  “Supply and demand,” Judah nodded knowingly.

  “That’s what I said!” Liz repeated.

  “Yeah, but she wants to raise the price to three hundred!”

  “A day?”

  “Yes, a day. One branch and one leaf for three hundred dollars.”

  Judah was quiet for a moment, “Might as well try it. What’s the worst that can happen? You don’t sell a chunk of a bush that was given to you by your elusive best friend from Russia?”

  Natalee chuckled, “Well, when you put it that way.”

  “So, three hundred?” Liz piped up.

  “I fuckin’ guess,” Natalee threw her hands in the air.

  “Yes! How many do we have available?”

  Natalee shrugged and looked to Judah for some help.

  He studied her face for a moment, “Well, how many days do the leaves take to dry out?”

  “I don’t know,” Natalee huffed.

  “So, keep like four or five days for us and we’ll go from there.”

  “Okay, so, fifteen for us, twenty-one for them?”

  Natalee thought about it for a moment, then nodded in agreement. “Fifteen for us, twenty-one for them,” she repeated.

  “Okay, I’ll be in touch,” Liz headed for the door.

  “Let me know!”

  “We’re gonna be freakin’ millionaires!” Liz squealed as she slammed the door behind her.