“I appreciate that.” My eyes roamed the length of her frame. Her body was right and tight for sure.
“I see you in here quite a bit. Yet, you always leave alone. Maybe we can fix that tonight.”
I was used to bold women. That comment may have shocked anyone else, but she was actually a little soft with it. I’d had other women tell me exactly what they would do to me if we did leave together.
“I always leave alone because I go home to my shorty,” I told her with a small smirk. “I’m sure you understand that.”
Shorty’s brows hiked a bit, and I could tell she didn’t know if she was impressed or offended. “Sure,’ she stated slowly like she wasn’t sure at all.
I chuckled as she walked off, and I went back to the bar. With the way she looked, I was sure she wasn’t used to rejection. I could tell her full lips weren’t natural because they had a rubbery look to them like they hurt, and I hated that shit. Despite all the makeup caked on her face, I could tell she had very light skin. Her nose was sharp, and she had straight stark white teeth. Her D cups sat up perfectly, and that ass was sitting right. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she could have her way with most men. However, I wasn’t most men.
I opened my eyes as Tasha entered the bedroom dressed in denim jeans, a fitted black tee, and black sneakers. Her work outfits were always simple. Tasha’s uncle had five daughters, and he realized just how expensive it was for women to keep themselves up. He dead ass invested in a beauty supply store and an all-black nail salon. Women spent a fortune on hair, nails, and makeup, and he wanted in on the industry. Dude was a straight up millionaire. A pocket watcher might see Tasha working behind the counter at the store and assume she was broke, but her uncle paid her a nice ass salary. His oldest daughter ran the beauty supply store, and his youngest daughter ran the nail shop. He was working with another one of his daughters to open a spa.
Tasha saw that I was awake, and she smiled at me. “I almost woke you up to get a quickie before I left.”
Sucking my teeth I narrowed my eyes at her. “You be on straight bullshit. You could have done that for sure. You ain’t talking ‘bout nothing.” My dick was brick, and the idea of her bouncing on it before she left for work sounded amazing.
With a laugh, she turned toward the mirror and inspected herself. “I’m for real, but I hit the snooze button one too many times. We know that even your quickies aren’t quick,” she winked at me which I saw in the mirror.
“You ain’t gotta gas me shorty,” I stood up and stretched.
Hungrily, Tasha eyed me through the glass and licked her lips. “Damn. He is standing at attention though.”
“Fuck outta here,” I chuckled walking toward the bathroom. “Let my joint go down in peace.”
After asking Tasha to move in with me, I began to get cold feet just a bit, but sharing a home with a woman hadn’t been bad at all. She worked, and she had a social life. It wasn’t like she was always at home or always in my space. We meshed well together. When Tasha was done in the bedroom, she walked into the bathroom and kissed my cheek as I brushed my teeth.
“I get off at five. I’ll see you whenever you get in.”
“Good shit,” I gave a curt nod.
When I was done in the bathroom, I heard a buzzing sound coming from inside the nightstand. I had placed the burner phone inside. As I predicted, going to places that Pauly’s son frequented and giving women free samples of heroin had been genius. In less than thirty minutes, Dominick was approaching me and asking me to cop some. I gave him a decent amount and the number to the burner phone. As pure and uncut as the heroin was, he called hours later wanting more. That nigga was a certified dog food shooter for real. I didn’t want to keep going back and forth, so I added a little rat poison to the next batch. It was kind of cruel, but I didn’t become a hit man by being a law-abiding citizen who possessed a conscience.
Sliding the drawer out, I grabbed the phone and flipped it open. I saw one word:Done.
Staring at the message, I sighed. It had been ten hours since I gave Dominick the doctored heroin. I wondered how long he’dbeen dead and how long it took someone to find him. He lived in a nice area. He drove a nice car. He was the son of a mob affiliate, and he had died shooting heroin into his veins. That was proof that addiction didn’t discriminate. For some reason, Dominick’s death was bothering me. A minute later, I was still holding the phone staring at the screen. Fuck. Maybe it was because his father had been the one to order the hit.
That made me think of my own father. I had to go meet his ass at his office in two hours. We saw one another maybe three times a month. When I was younger, I thought my father was addicted to making money and while that was true, he didn’t spend as much time working as I thought he did. He had been in the drug game for so long that he didn’t have to touch any of the product. He had people in place that ran his empire like a well-oiled machine. The businesses that he did run was something he started to launder his drug money through. Even with the legal businesses, my father spent more time chasing pussy and enjoying the fruits of his labor than he did actually working.
His most lucrative legal business was the construction company. His uncle did carpentry for years, and my father let him build a crew, and he funded it. In the ten years they’d been in business, Moore Homes had built more than two thousand new homes in developing residential neighborhoods. His company didn’t just build homes in North Carolina. There were plenty of times, the crew would work out of town Monday through Friday afternoon, come home for the weekend, and go back out early Monday morning.
Back in the day, I’d seen my father mow his lawn and do small tasks around the house but the wealthier he became, he didn’t spend his time on anything that he could pay someone else to do. From landscapers to his own personal mobile car detailers, house cleaners, and a personal chef, my father barelylifted a finger to do anything. The man rarely ever drove, so he didn’t even open his own car doors half the time.
He kept trying to teach me the business because he was hinting at retiring. I didn’t mind taking the company over, but he would have to be retired for sure. My father and I couldn’t be in the same spaces every day. I’d heard people say we often butted heads because we were so much alike. I had to disagree. In my opinion, we were different, and that was why we bumped heads.
I absolutely appreciated all the things my father had done for me, but doing things that I didn’t ask him to do and then throwing it back in my face or holding it over my head wasn’t going to fly. My father was so used to yes men and leeches that anytime I held my ground, he labeled it as disrespectful and ungrateful. In many cases we had to agree to disagree.
After getting dressed, I jogged down the stairs and grabbed the breakfast sandwich from the kitchen that I knew Tasha had made because the moment I opened my eyes, I smelled bacon. I ate it in record speed, washed it down with a bottle of water, and made my way out the door. I had no idea how long Pauly had known that his son was dead, but I was going to the restaurant. The deed was done, and I needed the rest of my bread. Slowly, I was going to add the money to my business bank account. Being that there were people that paid for their homes being cleaned in cash, me making weekly deposits wasn’t suspicious. I didn’t even mind the IRS form that the tellers had to complete if I deposited over $10,000 at a time. The business was legit, and I paid taxes on it. With the money that I funneled into the account for completing hits, on paper, I was a legal millionaire. Since Pauly had paid me so well, I was going to chill and not take any more jobs for at least four months. My mom and aunt ran the cleaning company, so I vacationed more than I worked, and that was alright with me.
The restaurant was open like it was any other day. The moment I stepped inside, the hostess greeted me with a smile. Shorty was pretty as hell with sun kissed skin. A lot of Italians were racist as fuck, but she had to get treated pretty well to work there and be so happy about it.
“Table for one?”
“Nah. I need to speak to Pauly if he’s here.”
“He’s not. What’s your name?”
“Pearce Langston.”
