Page 43 of Rich Forever: Zo & Remy

Remy

“Can we get our money now, Mr. Douglas?” A tiny voice echoed somewhere above me. The tone sounded like they knew they had done something wrong, but couldn’t quite understand the severity of it.

My head felt thick and heavy, almost like I had been sleeping for years. I blinked a couple of times, trying to focus my eyes, but the room stayed blurry. When they didn’t focus, I went to wipe them and winced when a pain shot up my arm. My hands were tied behind my back, and the rope around my wrists cut through my skin harshly, burning it.

I shivered in the cold, damp basement air. The smell of mildew and chemicals filled the room. After a deep breath, I wished I hadn’t.

I was dazed and confused until I heard the unmistakable slurring of Mr. Black’s voice on the other side of the door.

“Thank you, girls, go back to the carnival and get something nice.” His voice bounced off the cement walls.

I didn’t scream, didn’t call for help. I just sat there in silence, trying to come up with a game plan. This life had taughtme that reactions should be slow and controlled. Panic was a disadvantage.

But why was I here? What the hell could he possibly want with me? I was wondering if he and my father had an issue, or if he was some enemy of the JMF? But I knew that soon enough, he would make his way into the room to give me the answers to those questions. For five long minutes, I could hear the water from a loose pipe nearby hitting the cement every other second. The rhythmic tap-tap-tap creeping up my spine was driving me insane.

I heard footsteps getting closer, stopping right outside the door. I held my breath and waited. The door finally creaked open, and Douglas Black limped in, a crooked smile on his face. Keeping his gun resting in his lap, he dragged a chair over and sat down in front of me.

“My baby…” he struggled to say and reached out to me to swipe the hair that had fallen in my face. Instantly, I started hyperventilating; my body reacted to those words in a way that I knew wasn’t normal. The only man to ever call me that was Karlos Weston. My eyes scanned his face, the scars, the once-grafted skin. It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be. But my body’s response had already confirmed the worst.

I cringed at his touch; I had always hated it when he touched me. When my body reacted like that the first time that he walked into my office, I felt horrible. I thought I was judging this man based on his appearance when, the whole time, my intuition was giving me a warning I ignored.

“You’re…” My words trailed off. Like if I refused to say them out loud, it wouldn’t be true.

“Not dead? No wife. I’m barely hanging in there, but I’m alive,” He chuckled, touching my hair in the way that only a lover would.

“Karlos, something is seriously wrong with you.” I shook my head, unwilling to believe what I was hearing.

“I missed you, wife, it’s been too long,” He chuckled as he picked the gun up and stroked my cheek with it. “POW!” He screamed and laughed loudly after pretending it went off.

I didn’t flinch, and I know he hated that I didn’t. I just sat there watching him through the tresses of my hair. Karlos may have looked like the monster he wanted to be, but he didn’t put fear in me. He had always loved control; he wanted to see tears, for me to beg, and make me feel small. But instead, what he got now was what he had always gotten, disgust.

“I’m not your wife, Karlos. I never was.” I snapped. He grabbed my chin so hard that my jaw stung.

“You are my wife. You know it’s almost our ten-year anniversary, right?” He kissed my forehead as he walked over to the corner and got a bottle of wine and a single champagne flute, like he had been preparing for a celebration. Then he came back over to me and poured a drink.

“Cheers, Mrs. Weston,” He laughed wildly as he sat back and glared at me. I held his stare. In his eyes, I could see ten years of emotion. Hate, obsession, but most of all… I saw love. After all this time, Karlos was still in love with me.

“What do you want, Karlos?” I asked.

“To take my wife back home where she belongs. You know the rules, Remy Weston. We’re in the Mafia, you can’t run from your husband, divorce isn’t allowed.”

“You faked that signature.” I reminded him. I was confused by his omitting the fact that I never married his delusional ass in the beginning.

“No, sweetheart, I just pulled it from one of your documents,” He scoffed, putting the flute to his lips again and taking a sip of the wine like that made it more acceptable. I had never wanted a glass to explode as badly as I did in that moment.

“I did that for us, baby. I wanted to make sure you were okay, Remy. I knew my family hated me; I knew niggas in the streets and on my team wanted me dead. I wanted to leave you the wealthiest woman in the south when I died. All of my properties were signed over to you, business, stocks and bonds, trust, and keys. Everything you needed was in the safe. But you never went to get them.” He pushed back from his chair and stood as quickly as he could.

He began pacing across the floor, his limp more pronounced now as his anger grew.

“You know I expected death to come knocking at my door. But I didn’t expect you to be the one to give them the code to enter.” He chuckled as he whipped his head toward me and then walked back over to me slowly. He kneeled down in front of me and grabbed my chin, this time, surprisingly gentle. I tried to shake free from his hold, but he wouldn’t let me go.

"Maybe instead of giving my enemies our address, you should've just asked one of my family members. They hated me enough to actually make sure I was dead," he laughed from his gut. "They probably would've done it for free. But the muhfuckas you hired just dumped me on the side of the road. A truck driver picked me up soon after."

My breathing hitched.

“So, you knew?” I asked.

“Didn’t take long to put two and two together when you declined to visit me in the morgue. Had you come, you’d have found I was still alive.”