A Weekend with the Cromwells
The Value of A Man, Volume 2
Olivia Gaines
Published by Olivia Gaines, 2015.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
A WEEKEND WITH THE CROMWELLS
First edition. October 22, 2015.
Copyright © 2015 Olivia Gaines.
ISBN: 978-1536560985
Written by Olivia Gaines.
A Weekend with the Cromwells
Olivia Gaines
Davonshire House Publishing
PO Box 9716
Augusta, GA 30916
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely a coincidence.
© 2015 Olivia Gaines, Cheryl Aaron Corbin
Copy Editor: Teresa Blackwell
Cover: koou-graphics
ASIN:
ISBN-10:
ISBN-13:
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means whatsoever. For information address, Davonshire House Publishing, PO Box 9716, Augusta, GA 30916.
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 9 8
First Davonshire House October 2015
DEDICATION
For Ms. Mimi. I made certain there was nothing missing...
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To all the fans, friends and supporters of the dream as well as the Facebook community of writers who keep me focused, inspired and moving forward.
Write On!
“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Table of Contents
CHAPTER One
CHAPTER Two
CHAPTER Three
CHAPTER Four
CHAPTER Five
CHAPTER Six
CHAPTER Seven
CHAPTER Eight
CHAPTER Nine
CHAPTER Ten
A Note from the Author
About the Author
Also by Olivia Gaines
CHAPTER One
The Boogeyman
Leviticus Wilson sat in his jail cell staring at the wall. He had been this way since receiving word that Jack-Knife Jones was shanked by a rival gang member in the quad. Normally, it mattered little to him when an inmate met an untimely end, least of all Jack-Knife, but he had a special connection to the man. Not only did he personally initiate Jack-Knife into the Compton Arachnids, he took him under his wing and trained the soldier. The main issue with Jack-Knife was that everything the man touched jack-knifed on him and turned out for the worse for everyone involved.
A cool wind blew through the small window ushering in a gust of much needed fresh air to a very stale environment reeking of anger, angst and the need of a soft woman. In two days, he would go before the parole board and this time, he was certain he was getting out. I have to get out. I must get out.
The life of a gang member wasn’t long for this world, but somehow, Leviticus had managed to defy the odds. Never one to brag that he could be eligible for father of the year, he’d done the best he knew how with the tools he had been given. Three beautiful women had been at his side during his heyday in the Arachnids: Lucious Lucy Guia, Rosy Rozzie Karo and Cookie Brown. Each of his women had borne him children. Lucy gave him three fine boys. One he even heard went on to become a lawyer. Another was the top dog over in D Block and the third had been shot down on Sepulveda in the middle of the night. No matter; they were fine strapping boys.
Rozzie Karo hadn’t been able to carry a child to term or at least that’s what she told him. He had a special place in his heart for Rozzie. That woman had been places and knew people. People with means who could move large quantities of product from coast to coast, which help him grow his brand. In less than three years, he had more money than he knew what to do with and he was the man with a plan. No one defied his agenda. As leader of the Arachnids, Leviticus Wilson ruled Compton with an iron fist.
Also at his side was Cookie Brown. She reminded him of Jack-Knife Jones. That woman couldn’t hold water in a bucket with two silver handles molded to her hands. Any time he wanted rival gangs to be in the wrong place at the right time, all he had to do was slip some intel to Cookie and by sundown it was everywhere. The woman just didn’t know any better. But she was a loving mother and good to him. Cookie Brown gave him two beautiful girls, Kveisha and TataLavisha, who were twins. Never had he met two people more unlike than those girls. Kveisha was his through and through, but that TataLavisha, or Tae-Tay as she liked to be called, was nothing like him or Cookie. She was a quiet one, with eyes that took in everything around her. Secretly, out of all of his children, she was his favorite. It didn’t matter what the situation, she could adapt—adapt and survive.
Tae-Tay had a great head on her shoulders and was a thinker, whereas Kveisha would run her head through a wall and then yell to everyone that she had manufactured an opening. It broke his heart when Kveisha joined the Arachnids when she turned 16. She ran hard and deep and even managed to get her own crew. Leviticus cried when he heard she had hooked up with Jack-Knife and was living the same life her mother lived. At 20 years old, her future was bleak. A year later she was carrying Jack-Knife’s child, along with four other women in a six block radius. When Jack-Knife was sent up to prison, Leviticus saw it as a blessing and a curse. She was on the bus with the four other women who also brought their children to see their inmate lover. While she waited her turn to speak with her baby’s father, Kveisha would visit Leviticus.
“Let me see that handsome grandson of mine. Turn that boy around, Kveisha,” Leviticus asked her. “He is a fine boy, a little small. Now what is his name again?”
“His name is Douglas, Daddy. Douglas Brown,” she said with pride. “I gave him a normal name because he is special and he is going to go on to do special things. I can feel it.”
Leviticus could also feel in his heart that Kveisha was not going to go on to be anything more than what she was. The boy was only two when she was killed by rival gang members on a night that she went alone to the drug store to pick up some cough syrup for little Douglas. She bled out in a back alley three blocks from home with a severed carotid.
Cookie delivered the news that she had passed to Leviticus in prison. It was, understandably so, one of the darkest days of Leviticus’ life. As much as he wanted to mourn her, a prison was no place to be seen crying. His second darkest day came a few weeks ago when he found out that Jack-Knife had been, well, jacked and knifed in the laundry, and he too was dead. This was bad news for not only Douglas, but also for Tae-Tay. The gang leaders would want to take the child under their wings and protect the son of a soldier. It also meant they would want his only remaining daughter, Tae-Tay.
There was no doubting in his mind, his heart and his soul that he was a bad man. Tae-Tay had even called him the Boogeyman on several occasions when he came home drunk, high, or both. Feeling full of himself and euphoric on self-proclaimed power, he would raise his voice, his fist, or whatever else was in his hand. Leviticus’ biggest downfall came when he began to sample the products he sold, unaware of the other boogeymen he had let into his home while he slept it off. It only took one instance of a lieutenant in the Arachnids to try to take advantage of Cookie Brown while Leviticus lay passed out 10 feet away. One of the soldiers actually had the nerve to reach for one of her 13-year-old daughters. Wielding a knife and Grandma Brown’s cast iron chicken fryer, she went after the men, forcing them from her home.
While Cookie Brown loved to run and tell everything, she never told a soul that she was the one who called the police on Leviticus when he came home two nights later in the same state. This time he brought with him a different set of men, rougher looking than the ones she had run off before. Climbing out of a bedroom window, she fled in the middle of the night with her daughters. From the safety of her sister’s Ethel’s home, she called 911 to report drug activity at the residence off Dunwoody and Tutwiler Drives, her home that she would never return to again.
After his incarceration, she rode the bus to the prison for almost a year with Lucy, her boys, and Rozzie in a show of solidarity. When Leviticus was transferred from Chino to Lancaster, Rozzie moved away to Sacramento and Lucy became the main lady of a new lieutenant, which stopped her visits. The last time Cookie made the trek to the prison was to deliver the news in person that Kveisha had died.
I have to get out of here. They are coming for my grandson. They are coming for my Tae-Tay.
On a breezy afternoon in June, Leviticus was informed he had a visitor. It was Cookie. The tears began to pour down his cheeks and his feet moved as if they were filled with a dense metal when he made his way to the visitor’s area. It didn’t matter if anyone saw him crying today. His heart was heavy because he knew she was coming to bring him bad news.
“Hey, Fool!” she yelled into the phone when he picked up on the other end. “I heard you are coming up for parole.”
It brought a slight smile to his face. She was the only person who dared speak to him in such a manner. “I go before the board in a few days. How are Tae-Tay and the boy? Please tell me they are all right!”
Cookie’s bottle blond hair was lobbed high on her head. The gold tooth that sat in the front of her mouth shone brightly as she sucked on it with the tip of her tongue like a comedic pirate. “Oh, she’s more than all right. She got married to a nice man and he adopted Douglas. It was a classy wedding, too! She looked so pretty, like a younger version of yours truly.” She told him with a snap of her long acrylic fingered nails.
Leviticus’ chest was tight. “Tae-Tay got married? Man that is great news. I can’t wait to meet him.”
Cookie rolled her neck, “I would like to meet that joker, too. He proposed to her through the mail like some mail order wife service!”
“What?”
That was the only word Leviticus had to say. True to form, Cookie opened her big mouth and filled in all the blanks. She told him about Spyder. She told him about Big Nasty. Cookie told him about Quida and the girls who had come by to jump Tae-Tay into the gang. She even told him about George and how she was going to use it to fill those girls’ asses with buckshot. The one thing she could not tell him was where her daughter and grandson had moved.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” he asked.
“I don’t know ‘cause she didn’t tell me,” she replied.
“Well, how do you know how pretty she looked at the wedding?” He wanted to know.
“Because someone sent me a computer tablet and I did the Skype through the computer and watched the wedding from my living room,” she said.
It took a few minutes to explain what Skype was and how it worked. “You don’t say!” Leviticus exclaimed in amazement.
Leviticus paused for a minute, eyeing the woman who once loved him. “Cookie? Where did the tablet come from? Was it a California address or a Texas address?” He was trying to get to the bottom of where Tae-Tay could be.
“I tried that already. It came from Amazon shipping in Illinois,” she said with a neck roll. “Wherever she is, she is happy.” It seemed to be enough for now. “And speaking of happy, I am moving with Ethel to Palm Springs. I just wanted to stop by and let you know.” She blew him a kiss and stood up. “I am leaving a key for you at the house. The address is on the envelope of the last letter I sent. The place will be yours until you can get back on your feet. Rent is paid up for two months.” She winked at him and walked away. He watched all those hips sashay out of his life for forever. Yet, her answers weren’t holding up to scrutiny.
Cookie’s explanation wasn’t a good enough answer for the boogeyman. He wanted to see his daughter and grandson. He was going to find out where his Tae-Tay was so he could bring the boy up right. His grandson was a soldier that would carry on his name.
He didn’t care who his daughter had married. Douglas was his legacy. He was his prodigy and his progeny. He was going to be a soldier, even if the boy was the last thing Leviticus left to the world.
CHAPTER Two
Road Trip
A thumping in the other room pulled Thurston Cromwell the Fourth out of a deep sleep. He roused himself from the bed to follow the sound of the noise. It was coming from his son Douglas’ room. In an effort not to startle the child, he tapped lightly on his bedroom door before entering the child’s bedroom.
“Douglas, what are you doing?”
The boy, five years old and full of entirely too much personality, popped up his little head. “Oh, hey Daddy! I was just making sure I was up and dressed for our trip today. I was getting out my suitcase to get packed.” His eyes were exceptionally bright for six am.
“You don’t want to wait and let your Mother help you with that?”
“Naw, Daddy. She has enough to do. I can do this by myself, see?” The Spiderman suitcase was on the bed loaded with three pairs of underwear, two pairs of pajamas, three shirts, two ties, a suit, a pair of jeans, his cowboy boots, his dress shoes, a pair of sneaks and matching socks to go with every outfit. He had also packed his Spiderman costume.
“Son, why are you packing so much? We are only staying one night.”
Douglas gave him a strange look. “Daddy, I have to be ready!”
“Ready for what, Douglas?”
“Exactly!” he said with both hands held up, like this was a defining Eureka moment.
It made absolutely zero sense to Thurston, but it was impressive how everything fit into the carry-on sized case. He found himself smiling at the little bottle of canned energy he called his son. Some days it shocked him how much he loved the child since Douglas was not biologically his, but his son through marriage and adoption. Douglas took to him immediately after their initial meeting and instantly started calling him Daddy. He was a sharp kid who would be starting the first grade in the fall.
“As long as it makes sense to you, Douglas. Are you ready for some breakfast?” he asked.
The boy’s eyes were wide, “No, Sir. I had an apple a little while ago. I’m going to watch some toons while I wait for you guys. I need a bath, but Mommy won’t let me do it by myself.”
Thurston stood there dazed, “How old are you again, 12?”
This question, Douglas thought was the funniest thing ever, and he fell over on the bed, his little legs up in the air as he held his stomach laughing, “I am five Daddy!”
“Okay, I will leave you to it,” Thurston said as he walked away.
In the empty fourth bedroom, his wife Tae-Tay had put a 32 inch television, a child’s recliner, and a table for Douglas to complete arts and crafts projects. She did not like the idea of him having a television in his bedroom. Thurston wasn’t too keen on the idea either, but there was one in their bedroom simply because he had to stay on top of the news. As the Communications Director for the Republican National Party, his hands were always full. Especially since he had gotten married.
Tae-Tay had only officially been his wife for three weeks. It was difficult remembering what his life had been like before she accepted his proposal through the mail. Arriving with two suitcases, one for her and one for the child, she entered his life with a heart full of hope. Somehow, in 3 short weeks, she had transformed an empty brownstone into a place he looked forward to coming to end his evenings. It was also a pretty nice place to start his mornings. When he returned to their bedroom, his wife was no longer in the bed. The covers were slightly rumpled from where she had slept. Absentmindedly, his fingers ran across the indentation in
the pillow where her head had rested. The power of the love he felt for her scared him sometimes, but when she unabashedly returned the affection, his fears subsided.
The sound the shower starting drew his attention to the bathroom. The past week had been filled with moments of him Tae-Tay watching. My wife. Watching her was quickly becoming his favorite thing to do. Hesitantly, he rounded the corner and leaned against the doorjamb. Her female form, silhouetted inside the pillows of steam, was a beautiful sight. His stomach knotted as he thought of the pleasure she had brought him two nights prior with that little dynamo of a body of hers. Beautiful.
“Thurston?” she called to him as she opened the shower door, allowing puffs of steams to billow out. “Can you lend me a hand?”
He was jolted out of his stupor. “Sure, do you need me to wash your back?”
“My back?” Her eyebrows shot up. “Well, if you want to, but that wasn’t what I had in mind.”
“What are you thinking about this morning, Mrs. Cromwell?”
“Mrs. Cromwell is your mother. What I have in mind for you, Thurston, is the furthest thing from motherly,” she told him. She watched him pull his tee over his head and lock the bathroom door.
He chuckled as he lowered his boxers and stepped out of them. “I guess that would be a form of Oedipus Rex if that were to happen.”
Tae-Tay scrunched up her nose. “Is that like Hannibal Letcher or something?”
“That, I will explain later,” he told her as he took the sponge from her hand, pressing her body against the shower wall. His mouth planted small kisses on her jawline as he whispered in her ear, “You are really spoiling me.”
“Are you complaining, husband, or should I stop taking such good care of you?” she asked as her hands ran down his back.
“Please, whatever you do, don’t stop. I am loving it and loving you,” he told her as he stared deep in her eyes.
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