by Shelly Ellis
He missed them. He missed them so much it hurt, but he knew he was here to protect them. He was here to finally make all of this come to an end.
He adjusted his leather jacket and knocked on the door. When it swung open, he painted on a broad smile. “Hey, what’s up?” he said to the hulking bodyguard who eyed him warily.
“What’s up?” the guard murmured, gesturing for him to step inside.
Ricky took off his jacket and removed his phone. He faced the foyer wall and spread his legs, accepting the pat-down.
“Who dat?” he heard Dolla Dolla boom from the living room. He sounded irritated.
For the first time since arriving, Ricky’s pulse quickened. A bead of sweat formed on his brow. He had to put on a performance—a good one.
“It’s me—Ricky,” Ricky called back, forcing levity into his voice.
The bodyguard gave him a nod and Ricky turned away from the wall. He strolled into the sunken living room where Dolla Dolla sat on the leather sofa. He had a glass in one hand and a cigar in the other. A plume of smoke snaked from his dark mouth like a serpent’s tongue. Even sitting, he seemed more massive than his bodyguard.
Seeing him in person again, Ricky felt no fear or anxiety, only pure hatred. Ricky wanted vengeance. He wanted Dolla Dolla to pay for what he’d done to Simone’s little sister and her mother, for all the other women he’d killed. If it meant putting on a front and Ricky lying through his teeth, so be it.
“I heard you been lookin’ for me,” Ricky joked.
“Yeah, I’ve been lookin’ for your ass! Where the fuck you been?” Dolla Dolla snarled. “I been callin’ and textin’ your ass for weeks! You know I don’t like havin’ to chase a nigga down.”
Ricky waited a beat. He had come prepared with a lie, but he had to make it believable.
“Yeah, I was out of town. I couldn’t tell anybody because I’d be in violation of my release.” He shrugged and lowered himself into one of the armchairs facing the sofa. “You know how it is.”
“Out of town doin’ what though?” Dolla Dolla persisted. “It’s too much shit goin’ on for niggas to be just disappearin’! You rush outta here one night like your damn feet are on fire, you ghost me for days, and then don’t show up for weeks even when I tell you to bring your ass here. Where the fuck you been?”
Dolla Dolla was suspicious of him, of everyone around him. Ricky wasn’t surprised. The man was working overtime to silence all of his “enemies,” but he still suspected more of them were out there. Fortunately for Ricky, his suspicions were right; he did still have people in his inner circle conspiring against him. Unfortunately, Dolla Dolla didn’t realize one of those people was sitting right across from him.
“I was in Miami,” Ricky said. “I was helping a friend set up his strip club down there.”
Dolla Dolla’s scowl didn’t soften. “A strip club? This is the first time I’m hearin’ about this shit. What strip club?”
“I told you I couldn’t tell anybody or I’d be thrown back in jail if the cops found out.”
“Nigga, do it look like I be talking to cops? What the fuck would I have to say to them?”
“Dolla, come on! I was just trying to make some money. I was down there helpin’ him set up operations, auditioning girls . . . you know how it is. It was an easy twenty stacks.” He casually waved his hand. “Sorry I disappeared like that, but I needed the cash. I told you that months ago. I still got bills to pay . . . my car note . . . my rent. That don’t stop now that Club Majesty and my restaurant are gone.”
Dolla Dolla began to roll his cigar between his thumb and forefinger, studying Ricky as he did it. “So why you ain’t tell me where you went? Why didn’t you say you were back in town?”
“Because I knew I’d be comin’ straight here. I knew you’d be lookin’ for me.” Ricky leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He gazed into Dolla Dolla’s heavy-lidded eyes. “Look, you ain’t gotta worry about me. It’s me—Pretty Ricky! I’m your nigga! Remember? I’ve had your back since I was fourteen years old. I got you.”
Dolla Dolla studied him for a few seconds longer. Finally, he lowered his cigar back into the ashtray on his coffee table. His glower disappeared and his face relaxed.
“Yeah, I know you got me,” Dolla Dolla muttered. “Shit’s just been crazy around here. And you ain’t the only one cash-strapped. I’ve been payin’ lawyers out the ass since I got these charges.” He cocked his head. “You know, I got a line on some easy cash, if you’re interested.”
Ricky nodded eagerly. “I’m always ready for some easy cash. You know that. What you got?”
Dolla Dolla gradually smiled. “I got a dude. He wants to start his own business too . . . an operation around here. He wants me to be his partner because I know how to do it, but it’s too hot for me right now. The cops are watchin’ me. I know they are. If I’m gonna do this, I gotta keep it on the low—and I’ll need your help. You can get good money from it. No doubt.”
“I’m down. What you need me to do?”
Dolla Dolla took a sip from his glass. “You keep in touch with the girls from Club Majesty?”
Ricky nodded. “Yeah, a few. Why? You thinkin’ about opening another club?”
“Nah, I ain’t doing that shit again.” Dolla Dolla sucked his teeth and waved off the idea with a flick of his fat hand. “I’d have to find a new space. Get a liquor license, and the city would never approve that shit. I was thinking of a different type of operation this time. It’d be a way for the girls to make a little cash on the side and we could all collect a percentage. You used to have some bad bitches at Club Majesty. They used to make good money, too. I bet some of them are hurtin’ right now. They probably wouldn’t say no to makin’ a couple stacks for two or three hours of work, if you get what I mean.”
Ricky’s stomach plummeted. So Dolla Dolla was getting back into the sex trade. He was going to start pimping out girls again. He had already mowed down his first crop and now he wanted to grow another. And for some reason, Dolla Dolla believed Ricky would offer up the young women who had worked for him, who had trusted him for five years at Club Majesty, even though he was aware that Ricky knew what had happened to all the previous girls.
He thinks I’m as fucked up as he is, Ricky thought. Jokes on you, you fat motherfucka!
He could make up an excuse not to participate in Dolla Dolla’s new “enterprise,” but this offered the chance that Ricky had been waiting for—a chance to finally meet one of Dolla Dolla’s contacts.
Ricky pretended to contemplate Dolla Dolla’s question, pursing his lips. “I can think of a couple girls who might be up for it. They might know a few more. I gotta talk to them though.”
“You do that.” Dolla Dolla took another drink from his glass. “Let me know if they’re down. I’ll let my partner know. We’ll set somethin’ up.”
Ricky eased back in his chair. “So do I get to meet this partner?”
Dolla Dolla eyed him again. “Why do you need to meet him?”
“Well, I’m very protective of my girls, Dolla. I mean I trust you,” Ricky rushed to say, “but I don’t know this dude. How do I know if he’s gonna treat ’em right?”
“He’ll treat them fine. You ain’t gotta worry about it. Just be happy you gettin’ a cut of the money and leave it at that. You feel me?”
“Still,” Ricky persisted, “I’d feel better if I was there when the girls met him. I bet they’re more likely to trust him if I give him the okay. I know how they are.”
Ricky watched as irritation rippled across Dolla Dolla’s dark face, but the kingpin sucked his teeth again. “Shit then! Damn! You can meet him. But these bitches better look they best when they come up in here. I mean it! Don’t have them lookin’ busted and raggedy, Ricky! Don’t fuck up my reputation.”
Ricky laughed and shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Dolla. I got it covered. Don’t worry.”
“You better, nigga,” Dolla Dolla grumbled. “You be
tter!”
Chapter 15
Derrick
“Hey! Am I interrupting anything?” Morgan asked.
Derrick looked up from his laptop and found her gazing at him from his office doorway. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her sawdust-stained overalls and cocked her head.
“Can we talk?” she asked.
He closed the lid of his laptop. “Uh, yeah, we can talk. I was about to shut down for the day anyway. Come in. Have a seat.”
Derrick watched as she stepped into his office and shut the door behind her. His ex, Morgan, sat down in one of the chairs facing his desk and looked down at her hands, which were clasped in her lap. She refused to meet his gaze.
He guessed from her facial expression and body language that she wasn’t interested in discussing them making up and finally putting everything he’d said and done that painful night more than a month ago behind them. She wasn’t going to do it today or tomorrow or the day after that. He grudgingly realized that now. Morgan probably wanted to finalize when she would pick up the last of her things. He knew how this worked. He’d made similar arrangements with Melissa when she moved out.
I’m an old pro at it by now, he thought sarcastically.
“So,” she whispered.
“So,” he echoed.
“I don’t know how to say this,” she began. “It’s hard to find the right words.”
“Sometimes it’s better to just . . . you know . . . say whatever you have to say.”
Just pull off the Band-Aid, he thought resignedly. Do it quick.
“I wanted . . . I wanted to put in my notice.” She finally looked up from her hands. “I wanted to tell you that I’m leaving.”
“You’re leaving? You mean the Institute? So you’re quitting?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
“Oh, come on! Baby, why would you—”
“Don’t call me baby,” she said tightly. Her gaze hardened. “Don’t you ever call me baby again. Understand?”
“Okay, I’m sorry.” He held up his hands and loudly exhaled. “I didn’t mean to call you that. It’s just a . . . a force of habit. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
She didn’t respond.
“Is that the reason why you’re quitting? Because of us? Because of me?”
She glared at him. “It’s not always about you, Derrick.”
In less than five minutes, he had already tripped over two verbal landmines and pissed her off.
Man, this is not going well.
“I never said it was always about me. I just said—”
“You never said it, but you never had to. Your needs and your wants and your emotions are always what’s most important to you. Everything else could be damned—including me.”
Derrick closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He guessed he deserved this. She had forgiven him once and taken him back and he had broken her heart all over again. But still, the way she was characterizing things didn’t seem fair. He had tried. He had been willing to become a better man, a better partner this this time around. Did one night negate all of that?
But he wasn’t going to argue with her. He’d done enough arguing. This time, he would listen and keep his mouth shut.
“You’re selfish,” she continued. “I thought you were ready to try to make this work, but I know now that you’re not ready and I’m not gonna wait around anymore to see if you’ll ever be.”
He opened his eyes again. “Well,” he began calmly, fighting down his frustration, “if what happened with us isn’t the reason why you’re quitting, then what’s the reason?”
Her face softened. She unlocked her hands. “I just don’t feel like I’m making a difference here. I’m not accomplishing anything.”
“Of course, you’re making a difference! The kids love you. You’re one of our highest-rated instructors.”
“So I win a popularity contest. So what?” She shrugged. “So a few boys think it’s fun that I can show them how to build a shelf, or they get to make jokes while they stare at my ass all day. That doesn’t mean I’m helping them, Derrick. It doesn’t mean I’m accomplishing anything for them in the long term.”
He pursed his lips. “Is this about Cole? Is that what all this soul searching and questioning is about?”
He had noticed that she still hadn’t gone to visit the boy, even though he’d told her that Cole had asked for her. When Derrick had asked her why she refused to go to the jail, she’d been elusive. She said she would go eventually, but he wondered if that was true. He wondered if she was avoiding seeing Cole because of what he’d suspected all along: She couldn’t stand to see the boy in handcuffs and his dull gray jumpsuit. She couldn’t stand to see a boy who held so much promise now behind bars.
“Bae . . . I mean, Morgan,” he said, quickly correcting himself. “I’ll be real with you. There’s nothing else you could’ve done to save Cole from his situation. You tried your best. I tried my best. We couldn’t—”
“No, we didn’t.” She shook her head. “We didn’t try our best. We didn’t do all we could. We said we would work to get him out of there. We said we would do everything in our power to help him and his mom relocate so that he could get away from that guy, and we didn’t.”
“So you’re blaming yourself? You’re blaming us?”
She didn’t respond, making him loudly sigh.
“Morgan, Cole had to finish out his sentence here at the Institute either way. He couldn’t just pick up stakes and leave. And if he was having problems again, he should’ve told us. Instead, he chose to sneak out of the school and handle it himself. And look where that got him!”
“I get what you’re saying, but I still feel like I’ve let him down. And I can’t watch another boy go down that path. I can’t do it.”
“But not all of them will! I could’ve ended up just like Cole, but I came here when I was twelve and this place changed me from the inside out. For plenty of boys, it’ll change them, too.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” She looked away from him again. “Call me selfish. Call me a coward. I don’t care. But I can’t do this shit anymore, Dee.”
Derrick was gripped with panic. Not only was he losing her romantically, but if she left the Institute, she would disappear from his life completely. He didn’t know if he could handle that.
“I understand that you’re upset. I get it! But maybe you should think about this a little longer. You don’t want to—”
“I’ve made my decision,” she said, cutting him off and rising to her feet. “I’m telling you that I’m done.”
“So you’re just gonna up and leave? Just like that? You told me how hard it was to find a job after you left that cooperative,” he argued, trying not to sound desperate. “How are you going to find another job in less than a month?”
“I’m moving back to Atlanta. One of my girls said I can stay with her until I get back on my feet. I’ll try to find a job down there.”
His shoulders sank.
So she was leaving him, leaving the Institute, and moving six hundred miles away. This was getting dismal.
“I don’t want to leave you high and dry, so I suggest you post a job ad for my replacement now,” Morgan said. “I’ll give you about a month to find someone else.”
He watched helplessly as she walked to his office door, opened it, and stepped back into the hall, not giving him a chance to say anything else.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Derrick stepped out the front door of the Institute. Once again, he was headed home to his lonely apartment. Tonight, he would likely eat dinner and drink a beer on the sofa, staring up at his flat-screen television, contemplating his life and his mistakes. That seemed to be his routine now. It was his own fault, a fate he’d condemned himself to. Though Morgan had assured him that he’d find someone new, that the loneliness would end eventually, he didn’t know if it would. He didn’t want anyone else. He didn’t want to fall in love with another woman. He wanted Morgan, bu
t he didn’t know how he could convince her of that—not after everything that had happened. And it seemed that she was willing to travel hundreds of miles just to get away from him.
He dug into his back pocket to get his car keys and rounded the corner to head to the Institute’s parking lot, but paused when he noticed a black SUV illegally parked along the curb. A skinny young man in a sweat-stained tank top and sagging jeans was leaning against the side of the SUV. A toothpick hung limply from his mouth. At his side stood two large men in white T-shirts. The fabric of their shirts seemed to strain to contain their bulging biceps and pecs.
When Derrick saw the trio, a chill ran over him. The chill didn’t disappear even when the shortest one smiled at him.
“Wassup, man?” the young man said, pushing himself away from the SUV’s hood, rolling the toothpick between his fingers. He strolled toward Derrick. “Your name Derrick Miller, right? You the head of this place?”
Derrick stared down at the young man and then glanced warily at his silent companions. They were both glowering at him. “Yeah. Can I help you?”
“Nah, you can’t help me.” The young man shook his head. His smile widened. “But I can help you, bruh. You just gotta do me a favor right quick.”
“A favor?” Derrick frowned. “I don’t do favors for people I don’t know. Who are you?”
“Who I am don’t matter.” The young man flicked his toothpick onto the sidewalk. “The dude I work for is somebody you need to be careful of pissin’ off though. You don’t want to do that. Believe me!”
“And just who do you work for?” Derrick asked, though a small part of him already knew the answer to his question.
The young man inclined his head. “If Cole’s been yappin’ to you as much as we hear he’s been doin’, I bet you already know who I work for.”