CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Quinten Bentley Sr.
Isat at the bar in Oleans throwing back a shot of Macallan 18. This was Marissa’s favorite restaurant, and I sat at the bar coming to terms with the fact that I had lost my way. After running my situation past two offshore consultants and my attorney, the verdict was the same. Yaseer’s lock on my account was airtight, and there wasn’t shit I could do about it. The nigga had me by the nuts, and he knew it.
Two calls from Lil Q came through and I watched my phone ring.
“Another round?”
“Hell yeah,” I nodded, opening my burner account on Instagram to watch Marissa’s latest story.
She was posted up between two purple Bentleys grinning like she just hit the lotto. The caption read: “Words from Quori: Mama Marissa got that new custom Bentley pussy!” The next story played, and it was a repost from Quori’s Instagram. They were in a suite at a Rays game looking chummy as shit. Yaseer and Quincy were watching the game intently in the background, and I swear I felt like my heart stopped.
“You look like you’re having a night from hell, so I made it a double,” the bartender informed me.
“Good looking.”
I clicked off Marissa’s story before the next one played because my heart couldn’t handle shit else.You ever thought about running away from this life? Going somewhere that these rules don’t apply? Where nobody knows you and you can just be free?Marissa’s question from the night we first met had been ringing in my head since she left Miami.
Sometimes I fantasize about what life would’ve been like if I would’ve walked away from all of this shit. Ran off with Vita and raised my children since she was my first love.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved Marissa with all of my heart. But the love wasn’t there for both of us initially. Close proximity and spite for this life were what initially brought us together. The love didn’t come until much later. We got pregnant with our daughter, forced into a shotgun wedding, and then she was born stillborn.
Sometimes I wondered if I was truly in love with Marissa since I didn’t stop cheating until three years ago when I turned forty-five. Even that wasn’t out of my love for Marissa and my desire to save my marriage. It was because I got this young bitch pregnant after not getting anybody pregnant after we had Lil Q. She took the money and got the abortion, and that made me decide to keep my dick in my marriage. Here I was denying my wife another child before she went through menopause just to get another woman pregnant.
Even if we didn’t have the traditional love, there was something there, or else I wouldn’t be sitting at Marissa’s favorite restaurant, indulging in spirits, wishing she was here. It was all my fault. I let her go. I could’ve fought harder for Marissa, but I was listening to my father, telling me to putpressure on her and she’d come back. Now here we were a year later, divorce pending, and my offshore assets frozen.
Another call from Lil Q came through my phone but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to his ass. He was at that game around that nigga having a good ass time too. If Quincy was there, I knew Lil Q wasn’t too far behind. Just when I was about to drop my phone back down on the bar, I received a notification that Lil Q left me a voicemail.
I almost ignored it, but neither of my boys have ever left me a voicemail. Clicking on the icon, I lifted the phone to my ear.
“I don’t know what you got going on, but if you don’t find my fucking brother, I swear to God!” he moaned before the voicemail ended.
Standing from the bar, I tossed four hundred dollar bills down on the counter. I called Lil Q’s phone back to back without receiving an answer, so I turned to calling Quincy. He picked up on the second ring.
“Dad,”his panicked voice sent me sprinting out of the restaurant.
“What’s wrong?”I inquired, knocking a waitress over on my way out, sending food flying all over.
“We need ten million dollars cash, bagged up and delivered within twenty-four hours if you want the lil nigga to be able to swing a bat again. After twenty-four hours I blow his elbow off. After forty-eight hours I’ll spill jit noodles.”
The call ended, and I stood frozen on the sidewalk in front of Oleans. I wanted to think that call was a joke, but something inside of me told me it was real. My calls to Marissa, Tech, and Quori went unanswered. I leaned over the curb and vomited all of the liquor that I had consumed. My mind was spiraling, and I composed myself to find my truck and call Damon.
“I need to get to Tampa now! Somebody snatched Quincy! Gather all of the liquid cash and as many men you can grab for this trip!” I ordered, hanging up on him.
The tires on my Range Rover didn’t stop rolling until I pulled up to the private airstrip. I paced a hole in the pavement until Damon showed up with a few of my men. It was war time behind mine.
Within forty-five minutes of my call to Damon we were in the air. It was nearing two in the morning when we pulled up outside of Marissa’s house. I swallowed my envy seeing two new cars in her driveway. One still wrapped in a lilac bow on it, but now was not the time for my feelings. The closer I got to the house, the more I realized I wasn’t imagining it. Marissa’s moans were coming from the upstairs window. The looks from my men told me that they realized the same thing. My jaw was tight, and I pulled my gun out, unable to tuck my feelings for a second longer.
Suddenly, thin red laser beams shot out, swirling until one landed on my chest and forehead, freezing our movements. At least the dreadful sounds stopped, and the light in the upstairs bedroom came on. I saw a head pop in the window, but couldn’t tell who it was.
The same big nigga that was driving Yaseer the day he shot me in the shoulder came from the side of the house, both of his guns locked on me.
“What the fuck you niggas want this time of night? Don’t you know this is the time of night that women love dick all in their guts?” Yaseer’s smug ass came to the door, gripping two Desert Eagles in nothing but his boxers.
He kicked the door shut behind him, and from the corner of my eye, I spotted two men exiting a car two houses down, rushing in our direction with guns trained on us. The front door opened, and Marissa stepped out in a sports bra and biker shorts, gripping the Glock she loved to tote around.
“I thought I told yo ass to stay upstairs,” Yaseer chastised her.
