Seeing as how Canyon ran an entire drug operation, he hated having to step foot inside a prison. He hated that he had to fill out an application and put his name on government documents to visit her, but he did because she was his wife. She went away at twenty-eight. They didn’t even have a chance to have kids. Canyon was a man with needs, so yes, he still had sex. He hadn’t gotten serious with anyone because he didn’t know from one day to the next where he stood with his wife. He was sorry that he put her in that position, but he couldn’t spend the next ten years saying sorry because she flipped the fuck out and took a woman’s life. He hired the best lawyers, and he tried to pay people off, but she still had to do time. There were witnesses, and she took the life of a promising twenty-four-year-old nursing student. Everyone looked at him like he was the scum of the earth after that, and maybe he was. He shouldn’t have cheated on his wife.
“I didn’t know you wanted me to come. It’s been a minute since I heard from you.”
“You know sometimes, I just need space. I have no idea when my thoughts and emotions are going to get the best of me. I have to live with the fact that I killed someone every day. That shit haunts me. On top of that, I have to wonder why I wasn’t good enough. What made my husband cheat on me?”
Canyon exhaled a deep frustrated breath. “Not today, Cheyenne. We aren’t doing this shit today. I have beenapologizing for the past six years. I fucked up! I cheated, and I shouldn’t have, but I cheated! Me! If we’re being real you didn’t have to run that girl off the road. You should have taken your anger out on me. You were always good enough! My cheating didn’t have shit to do with you. I was just a typical man that knew he could pretty much have any woman that he wanted, and I took advantage of that shit. That makes me a fucked-up person not you. But listen to this, I can’t go the next four years doing this song and dance. You’re either going to forgive me, and we’re going to move on from it, or I can send you divorce papers. You can come home and start a life with someone else because I can’t wait on you to come home only to be miserable every day of my life because you resent me. Even if we are divorced when you come home the day you step out of that prison, I will have a million dollars waiting on you along with a car.”
Cheyenne kissed her teeth. “Divorce papers? Why? Because I have bad days sometimes. I’m losing ten years of my life. I don’t have to like the shit or rush through the healing process. If I wanted you to kiss my ass every day for the rest of your life that’s what you should do.”
“And that’s where you got me fucked up at. I suggest you take some time to figure out what you want for real and let me know. I’m not pressed to move on and be in another relationship, but I will not intentionally stay single for you to come home and take your anger out on me every day. If you can’t forgive me then we need to be grown enough to move on. From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry. I regret what I did every day. And that’s the last time I’m apologizing.”
“You know what Canyon? Fuck you. Move on. Go be with the next bitch, so you can cheat on her and ruin her life.” Cheyenne ended the call, and Canyon emerged from the car.
He hated the day that he ever cheated on his wife, but he couldn’t take it back. Just like she couldn’t take back what shedid. They met twelve years ago. After dating for six months, they became a couple. After being together for three years, he proposed to her and after being engaged for a year, they married. They were married for two years before he got caught cheating for the second time. Cheyenne tried to physically fight him after going through his phone. She broke furniture, scratched him up, screamed, and cried. A few days later, she saw the woman at the gas station and tried to fight her. The woman clearly didn’t want any beef, and she got in her car and left the store only to be followed by Cheyenne and was eventually run off the road. Her car went down an embankment, and she died.
Cheyenne went home hysterical, and when she told Canyon what happened, he was ready to gas up the jet and fly her to another country. But witnesses had gotten her license plate number, and the police tracked her down at home before they could leave. Canyon hated himself many a day for putting Cheyenne in that position but at the end of the day, he didn’tmakeher run that girl off the road. He felt terrible that the young woman lost her life behind fucking with him. He would look like a real fuck boy to leave Cheyenne while she was down, but he refused to keep reliving a mistake that he made years ago. Two lives had ultimately been ruined because of his wayward dick. Canyon carried the guilt around every day.
Canyon entered his house and walked into the kitchen where his chef was placing a huge lobster over a plate of pasta with some kind of scrumptious smelling sauce. “Damn that smells good.” The aroma wafting off the food made his stomach growl.
Farrah smiled at him. “As always my timing is perfect.” She carried the plate over to his dining room table and went back to retrieve the bowl of soup that she had ready for him. “What would you like to drink?”
“Lemonade will be fine. Thank you.”
Canyon sat down and began to devour his lobster bisque soup. Farrah’s eagerness to serve him wasn’t just due to the nice weekly salary he paid her for cooking for him almost daily. It was due to the fact that she was smitten with Canyon. From the day he hired her a year ago up until now, she had eyes for him but if it was one thing Canyon had done over the years it was develop self-control. Having sex with someone that he saw on a very regular basis, that knew where he lived, and that was of a great benefit to him would be a bad move.
Canyon ate out once in a while, but he wasn’t a fan of strangers preparing his food. Not since the time he found a long blonde hair in his sub. Cheyenne cooked sometimes, but it wasn’t her strong suit. She knew how he felt about eating out, so she was the one that introduced the idea of them having a chef, and he had been hooked ever since. Back then, she had hired an older woman, but that woman had since retired. Canyon tried to make it without a chef after Cheyenne went to prison, but he found himself eating way too much take-out and frozen food.
Canyon pulled out the paper that Jay had given him and stared at the number as he ate. After a few moments, he texted the number from a burner phone and requested that they meet up later.
“How was your day?” Farrah interrupted the silence in the room.
“It was good. Thanks for asking. The food is good as always.” He finished off the soup and moved onto the main course.
Farrah cleared her throat as she washed the remaining dishes. “I know this may seem kind of forward, but I was invited to a dinner where I will literally be the only single person there. I don’t want to look super pathetic and not have a date, so I guess I’m asking if you’ll accompany me. Only the two of us will know that I was desperate enough to have to ask you to take me,” she chuckled to try and take the seriousness away from the situation.Farrah knew he was married, but she also doubted he wasn’t having sex. She had never seen a woman in the house, but she didn’t have to see him fucking to know he was doing it.
“I’m flattered that you asked me. I just can’t mix business with pleasure. I don’t want things to get awkward between us because I am still married, and you do work for me.”
He saw the disappointment on her face, and he was glad that his burner phone rang and offered a distraction. If Diric was calling his burner phone, it had to be important.
“What’s good?” Canyon twirled some pasta around his fork.
“I found out where that bitch ass nigga Xander lives.”
That piqued Canyon’s interest. Xander copped heroin from Canyon, and it was one rare time that Xander had to meet with Diric instead of Canyon, and he chose that day to play games. Canyon asked Diric to do him that favor last minute, and he didn’t fault Diric for not counting the money. Xander had been copping from him for two years, and his face was good with Canyon. He wasn’t sure what had transpired in Xander’s life to make him have such a lapse in judgment, but it would cost him dearly. Not only did he short Canyon $1,500 but $2,000 of the money was counterfeit. He had purchased $22,000 worth of heroin, so he was praying that Canyon didn’t realize that a small portion of the money was fake, but he did. So, in total, he owed Canyon $3,500.
It wasn’t the amount as much as it was the principle. Of course, he had been laying low for the past month, but Diric had his ass, and it was about to be lights out. “Bring him to me tomorrow. You know the spot.”
“Got it.”
While Canyon was on the phone, Farrah used that opportunity to slip out of the house. She was embarrassed, but Canyon had forgotten about her asking him out just that fast. He had bigger shit to worry about.
CHAPTER 4
“Thank you,”Raven smiled at the woman that delivered the Instacart groceries for her recovery house. She carried the bags to the kitchen, so that the cook could prepare the last meals for the day.
The women that stayed in Raven’s recovery house paid a pretty penny to be there, and she made sure to provide five-star hotel type service. Her housekeepers were very thorough. The women that recovered from cosmetic surgery bled and leaked all kinds of bodily fluids. Some of them threw up; it could get nasty in there fast, so Raven had two housekeeping staff for the day and two for the night. Laundry was done often, rooms were kept immaculate, and three meals a day were served to the women. They didn’t have to do anything but just be there. Of course, they could bring in their own snacks, but Raven provided those as well. There was always a nurse in the house, and massage therapists came daily to give the women lymphatic massages. For an extra fee, Raven even had people that would come in and give IV drips for general hydration and assistance with healing.
In her office, Raven prepared to shut her computer down and leave for the day. She had to give herself a pat on the back for remaining in boss bitch mode and handling her business eventhough she wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry or fuck some shit up. Xander had her all the way messed up, but her bag came first. She spent too many long hours putting in work and suffering from lack of sleep to get her recovery house under way to let her business slack because of a no-good ass man. Picture that. But now, she was done with work for the day, and Xander’s ass had to see her.
