She offered up nothing, because there was no winning in this particular case.
“There’s God.” Lennox pointed to the detailed classical ceiling. “Then there’s the Devil.” He widened both hands and looked around the room as if the devil himself would step from the shadows and introduce himself.
“You can’t serve both, and that’s what the fuck confuses people.” Lennox snapped, giving her a pointed look.
“Humans tend to contradict themselves with this but not me. I know who I was forced to serve, and he has shown himself to me in different ways. At times, I’m out of control of my body because he works through me,” he affirmed.
La’Nova licked her dry lips then gasped when Lennox pressed his hand between her breasts. He pushed her back onto the bed, and the mattress swallowed her like a grave that had been waiting with its mouth open, ready to receive her. For a split second she thought she could control it. She trained herself since the moment she returned to Vegas to breathe through the chaos.
La’Nova wanted to keep her face neutral like at a poker table full of sharks. But when she looked up into Lennox’s eyes, her discipline shattered. His dark orbs didn’t feel like eyes; they felt like pits. Black wells with no reflection or mercy. There was no humanity flickering behind Lennox eyes.
Her lungs forgot how to work, and the room shifted. By the second La’Nova found it hard to breathe through the thick dark tension in the room that pressed against her ribs. The shadows in the corners of the room stretched long and crooked. They were everywhere. She couldn’t even dodge their presence by looking up at the ceiling because she could still see their silhouettes.
Her heart pounded against her chest like it was trying to escape her body before the rest of her could be claimed. An uncanny sensation crawled over her skin. It started at her shoulders and slithered down her spine, icy and electric at the same time. Her fingertips tingled and stomach dropped like she was falling into something that had no bottom.
“I’m going to have a nice little talk with you before my plans for the night comes to the light.” He glowered at her.
Time seemed to stand still as he slowly unbuttoned the buttons to his suit jacket. He took a seat and turned in her direction. Lennox reveled at the sight of La’Nova. She looked petrified, he finally cracked through her stoned expression.
She tried to fight back by gathering her thoughts the way she taught herself. Tried to remember the shock that the cold shower gave her as an anchor into calmness. It felt like her spirit was rejecting the dark energy inside the space she was locked in with vile predators.
“Most people want closure, I’m here to give that to you since you won’t get to see the sunlight again.”
His admission almost knocked the breath out of La’Nova’s body. Mentally, she tried to coax herself into going out fighting with every breath left in her.
“I loved my brother.” Lennox rolled his jaw then clenched it tightly.
“Loved him a little too much, and I thought he loved me more than our father had let on.” He cracked his neck from side to side methodically.
“What Di’Lucas hid from Dontrell was that he sacrificed his soul and made me do it with him… I thought my father made me sacrifice to walk in his shoes. So, I fought through the demons that haunted me in my sleep while Di’Lucas slept peacefully at night.” Lennox chuckled bitterly.
“Dontrell was too pure in his eyes, and that’s the way he kept him, even after he stepped down as Don.” Lennox shook his head, still in disbelief.
He still remembered the day vividly when he sat at the table excited to hear himself announced as the new Don. Only to be knocked down as capo without explanation.
“This world ain’t built on good and evil like parent’s tell their children.” He gestured vaguely to the room, surrounding them.
“I learned that it’s built on hunger. Control. There are evils so quiet that they look like luxury, smell like money, it feels so protected, that no one dares to call them what they are.”
Lennox talked in what sounded like a riddle. His eyes looked vacant like he took the back seat and let whatever dark spirit speak through him. La’Nova’s heart palpitated as she hung on to each word he spoke.
He calmly nudged her legs apart, his callous fingertips tip toed up her dried leg, stopping right at the meat of her inner thigh.
“Power is knowing the world will look away while you take what you want. Every man standing in this room has the kind of power that they made sacrifices for. Doesn’t matter to them if it’s a kid that they loved while their wives carried it. If it’s a family member that they never imagined living without. Each man in this mutha fucka sacrificed something and so did I, along with my father.” His voice boomed louder.
The only sound that could be heard was the small crackle of the candles surrounding the bed.
“You’re in a room full of power, La’Nova. Power over love, over morals, and sanity….” His words trailed as he gathered his next set of words.
“So why the fuck did Dontrell think it was okay not to make any sacrifices?” He asked himself, not bothering to look over at La’Nova.
His hands still stroked up her legs, causing the tiny hairs all over her body to stand.
“I tried to force his hand, get him to sacrifice Luca since he loved that retarded nigga so bad. Lucille stopped it, and I filled him to the brim with drugs, hoping he didn’t make it.” Lennox chuckled sadistically.
“That’s right, Annie. I pumped that lil nigga with so many drugs after I stabbed him with my mini axe…Y’all war wounds are one in the same.” He smiled triumphally.
Realization settled over La’Nova like a weighted blanket. She had no time to digest his admissions because his rough fingers slid to the top of her mound. Lennox wasted no time sliding her thick southern lips apart then swirling circles around her clit.
