She used her free hand to slap me upside my head again while I was admiring her curves. Thick in all the right places.
“Fuck nigga, don’t put your dirty ass hands on my lips, what the fuck is wrong with you? Do you even wash your hands after you piss? Because you clearly don’t do your research before talking shit. Check Quincy’s stats before you ever mention him again!”
She was chaos in a curvy frame, and I should’ve let security throw her ass out. But I was too busy studying the way her pretty lips moved, mesmerized by the way she stood toe-to-toe with me like I wasn’t even worth the dirt on the soles of her mint green Rene Caovilla heels. No one had ever talked to me like that, and I couldn’t form a single word because I was too caught up envisioning those juicy glossed lips wrapped around my dick.
Yeah, I liked her.A slight smirk tugged at my lips. She wasn’t afraid to pop her shit, and whatever she was going on about really had her ready to throw hands with a nigga. Everything about her screamed she didn’t need a nigga for shit, but you had to come with everything. Her simple dress paired with the two thousand dollar shoes let me know she had her own bag. My daughter just begged me to buy her the same shoes; they both had good taste. Mouthy mama just didn’t know she could get anything she wanted up out of me.
“Don’t touch her!” I yelled.
She was so turnt she didn’t even notice the danger she was in. My personal security and the event security were closing inon her again. This was a woman who had to be accustomed to a certain level of protection, which left her feeling untouchable.
Shaking my aching hand, I tried to be diplomatic about this shit. “Talk to me, beautiful. What’s wrong? What can I do to make you feel better?”
“UGHHHH! Condescending ass hole!” She huffed, storming off, brushing the long flowy tresses out of her face.
“Follow her out and get her tag and car info so I can find her later. Fuck! Why did my parents have to see my future wife act like that?” I groaned because I knew I couldn’t go after her in the middle of this event.
“Everything is fine,” I announced, hoping to quell the crowd that was staring at me.
I’m sure they all had various hypotheses about what just went down and shit, their guesses were just as good as mine because I had no idea.
CHAPTER FOUR
Quinten Bentley Sr.
The low whirring of my father’s motorized wheelchair sounded off in the hallway. I saw his truck roll into the driveway and knew he would make his way into my office shortly afterwards. Filling both of the empty glasses with Cognac, I threw back my first glass alone and poured another while waiting for him to come into view.
“I’m sure glad you have the drinks ready,” he grumbled the moment his face came into my view.
My father, Troy Bentley, was the longest serving leader of the Bentley family’s empire. His name struck fear among all of the families in Miami before he retired. The type of feelings he was able to stir within me was difficult to articulate. It wasn’t fear, it used to be, but now it was more like a deep-rooted caution, born from years of surviving his wrath. My father had been a very firm and cold man since as far back as I could remember. His discipline included beatings that left marks on more than my skin. They also damaged the way I walked into every room.
According to Troy Bentley, softness bred weakness, and in his world, weakness got you snuffed from your position.Unchecked loyalty was demanded from me as his son. And I learned quickly that he wasn’t afraid to make me bleed. Yet, I still tried my best to lead some semblance of my own life. Vita was that slice of life I carved out for myself until he beat that out of me, just like he did with my love for baseball, anime, and drawing.
The way my dad assaulted me when he confronted me about Vita wasn’t the first time. In fact, that was light because he tried his best to hide the worst of himself from my mother. But leaving me in that torture room was some next level shit. I just wasn’t willing to let him hurt Vita, because I knew he would if he had found her.
“Where ma at? What brought you to this side of town unannounced?”
“It’s Thursday, you know your mother goes to the casino with them geezers from the neighborhood,” he muttered before lifting the napkin to his mouth to cover his cough. “Your fuck ass uncle and his sons on the way over here.”
I looked up at the monitor displaying the driveway and saw my Uncle Montell step out of his Denali with one of those stank ass cigars he loved, dangling from his lips. He leaned against the driver’s door, puffing on it while staring off into the distance. A second truck pulled in behind him, and a few moments later, my cousins Jerrod and Jamell got out. I tapped a few keys on my computer, and the audio from the driveway came through the speakers, overtaking the low hiss from my father’s oxygen machine.
“Where is Karmello?” Uncle Montell asked them, referring to Jamell’s eldest son.
“He is right there, relax,” Jamell nodded towards the street where his son was pulling up in the same G-Wagon I gifted him for his birthday two years ago.
Karmello was twenty-three, and up until recently, I had spent a lot of time with him. He was my boys’ only cousin, so they spent a lot of time together when they were jits, and naturally, that bond still remained strong as they grew older. I never wanted my boys to be distant or in competition with their cousins, the way my father and uncle always seemed to put me against mine as jits. It was all about a race to power for them. All the family shit they preached was fake as fuck. We’d look out for each other, but deep down inside, we really couldn’t stand each other.
Now that family was on my mind, I realized quality time with anyone had been scarce lately. I’d been trying to wrap my head around the fact that Marissa actually filed for divorce and moved to Tampa with my boys. My plan to keep the business within my household fell apart when Tech showed his ass at the family reunion. On top of all that shit, my uncle and father were beefing about the lies from the past. If my family had knowledge of my first son before taking over, I wouldn’t have even been eligible for this position.
“Troy ain’t never been shit for real. We would be in control if he wasn’t hiding some of the worst types of secrets. How the fuck you avoid responsibility for all of them kids until they grown as fuck?” Jerrod talked shit as Karmello approached them.
“You think it was a coincidence that the nigga was in charge of planning the family reunion last year and magically had the event on mama’s death anniversary when he knows we go to the Bahamas every year to be with her family. You can’t tell me that bum ass nigga didn’t do that shit on purpose. He was hoping to usher his older son in peacefully while we were gone. A nigga ain’t stupid,” Jamell spat.
“Fuck that sick bitch, last time I seen him, he had oxygen around the clock. That emphysema gone have his ass in a grave before he knows it, and then we will see how well Quintencan handle shit without his father’s hand up his ass like he a fucking puppet. Don’t say shit else out here, Quinten probably got cameras recording and shit,” Uncle Montell commanded.
“I told you not to introduce those kids so fast. We needed to have some things in place to ensure that these three dick heads don’t try to get too deep into our business. You opened the door wide open for this shit. You see what happens when you try to think without me? I’m still the brains of this shit,” he badgered, gently tapping his temple before a coughing fit silenced him.
They all silently hugged Karmello and approached the door. Nothing that they said surprised me. I can even admit that their assumptions were correct. This was chess, not checkers, and I was trying my best to avoid any familial bloodshed. I left my office to let them into the home. We exchanged greetings at the door, and I went into the kitchen to grab a few additional glasses while they headed to my office. The door swung open again, and my head shot in that direction.
