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“Where is Marcus?” I asked.
“I’m here, Mone.” He stepped inside the room and I stormed up to him.
“You piece of shit. I never asked you for anything while we were together. Not your time, money, or anything. Then I turned around and asked you for this because of how much it meant to me. You told me that I could trust in the agreement we’d made. It was your idea to put it in writing. Your idea for me to buy you out. What changed, Marcus? Huh?”
I pushed against his chest when he didn’t speak.
“Say something!” I shouted.
“I lost it in a bet.” He muttered.
“No, you didn’t. Couldn’t have. That would imply that you had no choice. You did. You chose to use it as collateral because you thought that you’d make out like a fat pig. When has that ever worked out well for you?”
A snicker came from the man that Beni had referred to as Denny. He straightened quickly, coughing to cover up his break in stance. I’d heard it.
“Even he knows!” I pointed at Denny and Marcus frowned down at me.
“What’s done is done.” He said. I could see the regret in his eyes, but I couldn’t believe it or anything he said. “I’ll help you buy him out.”
“Simone,” Beni called my name, reminding me that he was in the room. “He’s not capable of that promise.”
“Don’t I know it?” I scoffed. “Get out, Marcus.”
My attorney Yolanda walked in and paused when she saw the people in the room. “Did I get the time wrong?”
“No. Can you read over that contract for me on the bar, please?”
“Sure.” Hesitantly, she moved to it and began reading.
I glared at Marcus making him fidget. “The sight of you is making me sick. I can’t believe you, right now.”
“Me? Or what I’ve done?” He glanced down my shirt and knocked his chin upward.
“You. There’s nothing at all here for you anymore.”
“It’s solid. Marus signed over his portion of the company to Beniamino DeLuca effective immediately. It’s airtight. Unless he wants to sell, which states that you’ll need to make a counteroffer of at least three times the offer within three days or an agreed-upon price to take full control. Simone, I don’t see another way out of this or one that makes sense. Three times the amount isn’t something I’d advise based on the current value. It has potential, but… I wouldn’t advise that on a newer venture that hasn’t had time to mature.”
Anger soared inside me, clouding my judgment. Hitting him wasn’t enough. I knew one of these men had a gun on them. Shooting off his fingers so he couldn’t hold another fucking poker card seemed like a good idea. I knew that’s how we’d gotten here. It was his weakness. Another reason I wanted to dissolve all ties to him. Another promise he’d broken. Though we were married when I started the business, something told me to go with a different option.
“Get. Out.” I gritted.
Marcus gave me a curt nod and left the room. I sighed, refusing to turn around to look at the people in the room. I needed a minute.
“I’ll give you time to adjust, Simone. Hopefully, we can find a way to see eye to eye.” I hadn’t heard him progress to where I stood. He was standing so close that I could feel the heat coming from his body. “We can speak more about the club later.”
I nodded but refused to step forward, conceding to his aggressive behavior of trying to make me cower. I couldn’t speak because anger radiated loudly inside my head at the loss of even more control. Pain ratcheted from the left side of my body to the other in disbelief that Marcus had found yet another way to hurt me. Tears pinged the back of my eyes making them sting so badly that I had to squeeze them tight to lessen the intensity.
I refused to cry in front of Beni. He was my enemy, another man I couldn’t trust. I get that he’d won fair and square, but he knew his advantage over me. If he was smart, he’d be the one to buy me out and I knew he had the money. His attire spoke loudly of that. He had four paid men in this room. I’ll leave out the part where I knew the name DeLuca. They were the Italian mob around here that you were warned about when you were a child. Nothing had changed. They pushed drugs and crime for a living and Marcus had brought that hooligan activity inside my sanctuary.
I exhaled slowly blowing out as much of my stress as I could. Taking a deep breath, I thought about my affirmation for today.I was not made to give up.
No, I wasn’t.
I turned around and Beni stood a foot away from me. “We’ll make plans to sit down and chat.”
“We can. I’ll be back tonight to see things in action, though.” His eyes danced as they moved down my body and back up. “I want to see how you run things. The way you move. It’ll show me how well we’ll align.” He moved the wavy lock of hair that covered my right eye. Then he spoke so that only I could hear him. “You deserve so much better than him.” Beni didn’t stick around waiting for my response. He left and the men accompanying him followed.
Shocked at his words, my eyes lingered in the direction he’d left. He didn’t know what I did or didn’t deserve to have. Marcus was my ex and I hadn’t told anybody what I’d been through with him. I doubted that he’d aired his dirty laundry to someone he’d lost in poker to. He’d made an assumption that I wouldn’t confirm or deny.
