Darien
“MAKE MIA SIGN the divorce papers,” I say to Luke Harper. He sips his glass of Coke and looks at me with hate in his eyes. He wears a custom-tailored suit with Gucci shoes. We shop at the same stores, but his stuff was bought with his dirty money. I got this dirtbag to agree to meet me at a high-end restaurant in New York City.
“Why should I?” His voice is colder than the ice that is clinking in my drink.
“Because the Feds are onto you and I can hire the best damn lawyer to help you.”
“I can do that for myself.”
“Not with frozen bank accounts, you can’t. You can’t hire a lawyer with your dirty money. They won’t touch your ass with a ten-foot pole.”
“Your wife doesn’t want you back,” he shoots. Is this fucker serious?
I laugh at his comment. As if I would go back to that manipulative bitch. I’d rather light my dick on fire than be with her, and if he were wise, he would leave her the fuck alone. She will bleed him dry, take every dime and snort it up her nose. The only reason she hasn’t done that to me is because I took her name off my accounts.
“I don’t want Mia back. You can have her. Just want her to sign the papers so we can stay out of each other’s lives,” I continue. “Don’t you find it strange that the woman you are fucking won’t get rid of her husband?”
“You are worth five hundred million. Why would she?”
The asshole has the nerve to cock his eyebrow at me. Mia and this motherfucker are on my shit list, and it’s not even lunchtime yet. If I don’t get Mia to sign the divorce papers, she can take half of my money, company, and property. Not gonna happen. My dumb ass didn’t make her sign a prenuptial agreement before we got married. Never doing that shit again.
I whip out my checkbook from my breast pocket, scribble a number down, and slide the check across the dark brown table.
“It’s yours.”
This is where I get him to do what I say. Money talks. Everyone has a number they can be bought for, and this dumbass isn’t any different.
He looks at the check for ten million and says, “Fucking nuts.” His thick Latin accent is not hard to miss.
“I will make that in a day. Get her to sign it, and I’ll throw in a lawyer too. The Feds are watching you.” I whisper it so the worker in a black uniform sitting next to me doesn’t hear me at the bar.
Logan is one of the best criminal lawyers in the state of New York. He wins almost every case, keeping rich murderers, thieves, you name it, out of the slammer. He could get the devil himself out of prison, that’s how good he is. The PI could only do so much, so I called the big dogs—Logan. Logan did some illegal shit so I could pull up more dirt on this motherfucker. Turns out our boy likes sex- and drug-trafficking.
I slide him the manila folder. “That might come in handy when the Feds freeze your accounts, so if I were you, I’d get my affairs in order.”
After my shitty meeting with Luke, I work through the day and have lunch with Lisa so we can work on my schedule for next week. After eight o’clock, I lock my office and pass the night cleaning crew as I exit the building. I grab take-out, from Zoes Kitchen on my way home. As I open the door to my penthouse, I stumble over a pair of black Converse. I hit the light switch, and my furniture and floor are covered in clear plastic. Different-colored paint cans are scattered on the floor by the breakfast nook. When Alana said she would paint my wall, she wasn’t fucking lying—not that I’m complaining.
She lies on the floor like an angel, wearing a dingy white shirt, a pair of faded white sweatpants and a scarf covering her head. She isn’t alone either. Her friend with the cute purple hair wears the same outfit, and she is lying on the plastic couch, sleeping like a newborn baby. Pizza boxes and Diet Coke cans clutter my coffee table. I shake Alana, and her eyelids flutter open. She flashes me her mega-white teeth.
“You’re home early.” She says it like it’s her home too, and my heart does a weird flutter that it has no business doing. With those beautiful blue and green eyes, can’t help but feel something for this woman. She keeps me on my toes and she’s got sass that puts prime Madonna to shame.
“Actually late, it is pushing nine,” I say.
“Oh, shit. Crystal and I got carried away with the paint.” She looks at her sleepy friend and the plastic on the couch squeaks as Crystal rolls over.
“It’s fine. What are you painting?” I look at the work on the wall, a picture of a man holding a woman like she is his lifeline. The woman has bloody tears flowing from her eyes into a black river. Always heard that every artist expresses themselves through their work—musicians, writers, and painters are no different. What’s the meaning of this sad painting?
“A man and a woman in love. I took it from a comic script that I am currently working on. If it’s too much, I c—”
I cut her off, clamping my index finger and thumb over her pouty lips, resisting the urge to shove my tongue down her throat.
“No. Do what you want,” I say. What the hell am I doing letting her decorate my place? I set the food in the breakfast nook.
She shakes Crystal and says, “Pregnant butt.”
Crystal opens her eyes and wipes the drool from her mouth. She looks radiant and pretty. Pregnancy suits her well. She pulls down her shirt over her small belly and walks over to the breakfast nook. “What’s in that white bag, McDreamy?”
Did she just call me McDreamy? Like McDreamy from Grey’s Anatomy? The fuck?
Her eyes light up as she opens the to-go box and digs into the chicken soup. There goes my dinner. “Thanks for dinner. Pregnancy makes me super hungry all the goddamn time.”
I ignore her. I have something else on my mind to eat rather than that cheap-ass food.
Alana loops her arms around my neck like I’m her favorite person in the world. If I don’t divorce Mia, there won’t be a future for us, and I might sound pussy-whipped when I say this, but this woman has got me wrapped around her fingers like a lapdog begging for treats.
Crystal takes the food and leaves.
“I can’t stand the smell of paint, so we’re checking in a hotel tonight,” I say.
“I’m on my period.” She pulls away, grabbing her shoes and sliding them on, lacing up the shoe strings.
“Did I fucking ask if you were on your period? Pack. A. Bag.” I go to my big-ass walk-in fir wood closet and grab suits and ties, placing them in a bag. She leans in the arched doorway. “Why are you still standing there, Alana?”
“We’re not having sex on my period. That’s gross, Darien.”
She still thinks I just want her for the ass? How cute is she? “Did I ask you to?”
Biting her lips, she says, “You’re not my boyfriend, Darien.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“We don’t have to hang out when I’m on my period.” She frowns.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I corner her until her back hits the wall, pressing my palms on the wall above her head. Her beautiful eyes widen as I purposely press my dick to her stomach, urging her on. Her cheeks turn the same shade as her hair.
“Nothing. I’m PMSing.”
I grab my bag and sling it over my shoulder as I follow her to the living room. “You don’t say. What gave it away?”
I’m an asshole. Doubt she will go to the hotel with me now.
“I’ll meet you in the lobby,” she says, before slamming the door.
At the lavish hotel, I unpack my bags and hang up my suits in the closet. The shower echoes throughout the room. I go to the bathroom and lean against the white marble counter and watch her scrub her body through the shower. Debating if I should jack off. The scent of lavender wafts through the bathroom. Removing my three-piece gray suit, I lay it over the door, and join her in the shower. Her breath hitches as her eyes rake over my hard dick. She’s awfully quiet. What the hell is eating at her?
The three brass showerheads spray warm water over my body, and I grab a white linen rag, squeeze soap on it and wash my back. She continues staring at my dick, and she blushes as she jumps out of the shower.
I turn the knob, shutting the water off, and step out, grabbing a thick cotton white towel, wrapping it around my waist. Alana watches me through the small mirror as I dry my hair and my body, tossing the towel on the white tiles. She pops a blue pill from a foil packet and pops it in her mouth, washing it down with a bottle of water.
“You’re taking birth control.” It comes out more of a statement than a question. She nods her head. A pair of Burberry black cotton boxers hangs loosely on her hips. My boxers. She must have taken a pair. She looks so fucking cute wearing them. She throws on some clothes.
“We can stop using condoms,” I say, pulling on a pair of black boxers on my waist.
“No, we can’t.” She brushes her straight, wet, frizzy hair.
“I’m clean.”
“I’m sure you are, health freak.”
“Are you?”
“Of course.”
“Then why we gotta use condoms?” I stand directly behind her, brushing my dick across her ass.
She shudders, bites her pouty bottom lip and says, “Don’t want any kids.” She goes to the bedroom and plugs an HDMI cord into the back of the flat screen television. A blue screen pops up with the PlayStation logo. “Let’s play a game,” she says, popping a disc in the console.
“Sure.” I pull out the leather chair from the dark brown desk and slouch in it, rolling on my black socks. She throws me a black controller, and I catch it in mid-air. “You ever played Injustice 2 before?”
I look at her sideways. Haven’t played video games since I was in high school. “No.”
She explains the basis of the fight game and what button is to punch and kick. I choose the Flash, and she chooses Harley Quinn—of course she chose her. My girlfriend has a weird-ass obsession with the villain.
Did I use the word “girlfriend”?
I am pussy-whipped.
“Whoever loses has to answer the other person’s questions.”
An hour and some change later, I hit the square button and kill her character. I throw my hands in the air and say, “Start singing like the fucking mockingbird.”
“Fine. What do you want to know?” She sighs heavily and folds her arms across her chest.
I rub my three-day stubble. “Why did you draw lovers on my wall?” She could have drawn anything, even some girly, flowery shit, but she chose to draw something meaningful.
Her cheeks turn red, and she says, “I like drawing couples.”
“From artist to artist”—I place my hands on her chest—“we create from the heart. I write and play music because I like the way that it makes me feel. Same with artists.” I usher her to sit on my lap. Now she’s facing me, her toned legs dangle on each side of me and her hard nipples press against my chest. She has on superhero pants and a white shirt with holes in it. I think she’s trying to look like a bum so I won’t touch her.
“The way the couples look in the drawing is very sad. Shit. I’ve seen sad art before, but yours looks depressing.” I push her thick red hair behind her shoulders and kiss her collarbone. She lets out a sexy-ass moan.
“You ever heard of Orpheus and Eurydice?” she asks. I begin to lift up her shirt, and she hits my hand like I’m a child.
“Greek mythology shit?”
She nods. “They inspired the couple on the wall.” She pauses for a minute. “They remind me of us.”
“Alana. Their love story was tragic.”
“Exactly, we would be a tragedy, Darien.”
“How?” I want to hear this bullshit.
“When Orpheus went to save Eurydice from the underworld, Hades tried to warn him that she would still choose the darkness. Just like an idiot, Orpheus went anyways. He did all that work to save her, and he still ended up with a broken heart.” She exhales. “No matter what you do, Darien, I’m going to be that broken girl.”
Tears slip down her face, and I wipe them with the pad of my thumb. Hate what that fucker did to her. “We don’t have to be a tragic love story, Alana.”
I grab her hair gently, crushing my mouth to hers, claiming those pouty lips. She starts to pull away, but I hold on tighter. For fuck’s sake, she needs to know that I’m serious about us.
“You’re mine. Every inch of you is mine. Even your soul is mine. Better not catch you selling your soul to the devil, because I’ll beat his ass.”
She tries not to laugh. Instead she snorts.
“That’s the thing, I don’t want to be yours,” she says with a straight face.
“Too fucking bad, Red. So deal with it. The only thing that is gonna keep me from you is death.”
I remove her ugly shirt, cup her round tits, and slap them like I’m playing ping pong. Gently, I pull on her nipple, and she lets out a moan.
“I am scared to give you my heart,” she confesses.
“I won’t break it, Alana.”
“You sure about that?” She purses her lips.
Am I sure about it? With this Mia shit hanging over my head, I don’t know if I can completely be with her. But I’m gonna do my best, and when I get Mia to sign the papers, I’ll let Alana know everything. I take my hands from her small tits and rest them on her lower back.
“Never been so sure in my life.” I kiss her forehead.
“From artist to artist”—she smiles—“why didn’t you pursue music as a career?”
“Nope, that’s not how this works.” I grab the controller from the desk and hand it to her. “You want answers, you have to beat me.”
I am fucking late. Never been late to work in the last four years. Thanks to Red—I mean that in a good way. We stayed up to four in the morning playing video games, talking about our childhoods. She rewarded me with blowjobs after I kicked her ass in a few rounds of Injustice. Best night I’ve had in a long time.
On my way to the office, Lisa is on my heels with an iPad in her hand, firing off my to-do list. I’m fucking tired and need five cups of coffee. I remove my jacket and place it on the back of the leather chair.
“Gunner and John are ready to Skype now,” Lisa says.
I wiggle the mouse, click on the Skype icon and hit the green button. John and Gunner pop up on the flat monitor.
“I will sell American Banking to you and Gunner for eighty mil,” John says, adjusting his glasses on his nose. His skin is a hue of yellow and liver spots cover the top of his forehead.
“We will have our lawyers draft papers for you,” Gunner says, leaning back in his chair.
“It was nice doing business with you,” John says. I take a blunt from the desk and play with it between my fingers, debating if I should smoke it.
John hits the end button and Gunner is still on the chat line.
“We need to fucking celebrate,” I say. Fuck it. I tuck the joint behind my right ear for later.
Gunner looks up, and I hear Red say, “I spit in your coffee.”
Gunner looks back at the screen. “Don’t ever hire family members to work for you, they are a pain in the ass.”
“I heard that, asshole,” she says.
We agree to go bowling tonight, and we both end the call. I send Alana a message saying I won’t be at the hotel until late tonight. She responds saying she will have a girls’ night out with Ron and Crystal.
My office phone rings and I pick up. “D&D Bank Darien Casey speaking.”
“Mia is here to see you,” Lisa says.
What. The. Fuck.
I guess her drug-dealer boyfriend had a little chitchat with her.
The five-foot-four hell on heels barges into my office with her hands on her hips. I slam the phone down on the desk and the table shakes. Gonna fire the whole fucking security team if they don’t get their shit together. I have a list of guests who are allowed past the lobby—Alana and my dad. Two fucking people. How hard can their job be?
No, fuck that. I’m going to fire them as soon as I get little Mrs. Crackhead out of here.
“You fucking asshole. You thought you could use Luke to get me to sign the papers?”
“It’s a pleasure to see you, wife. Drugs and prostitution look good on you.”
Her dull black hair stops at her shoulders and her black eyes cut me like daggers. She is thin—too fucking thin. All that coke is making her thin as Olive from Popeye. She could use a burger or three. I gloat at the fact that she is pissed off and that I got her attention.
“Don’t patronize me. You locked me out of my condo, now you pull this BS.” She starts pacing back and forth. “I’m not signing those papers! You need to give me some cash. I have no home to go to, and I can’t stay with Luke for long. The Feds are calling him in for questioning.” She stabs her bony finger at my chest. I don’t condone hitting a woman, but I’m two seconds from losing my shit if she doesn’t back the fuck up.
“I don’t give two shits about you or your drug-dealing boyfriend.” People stare at us through the glass windows. Thank fuck the glass is soundproof.
“Please, Darien. I can’t walk away from this marriage with nothing.” She plays with the ends of her hair.
“Tell your lawyer to get with my lawyer and we can work something out.”
“Thank you. I knew you still had a heart.” She sighs.
Only for Alana.
She turns on her heels and leaves the office, and I walk to the middle of the work area where the workers are looking through the glass doors.
“Got enough of the shit show? Get your asses back to work before I fire each and every last one of you.” I stomp back to my office, slam the glass door and sag into my chair. Had enough of Mia’s shit. Don’t want to be bitter and angry towards her. But, goddammit, she makes me want to wring her neck.
We weren’t always at each other’s throats. We were in a long-distance relationship when we first started dating. She lived in New York City to pursue modeling, and I lived here in Newark. I met her at Starbucks on Mansion Ave. I was having a shitty day, lost a deal with a bank that I was trying to buy out for a while. She came up to me with the prettiest smile and said, “You’re too cute to look angry. Who pissed on your day?”
She slid in the seat across from me, removing her hat, placing it on the brown table. With her black hair falling to her shoulders, I thought she was a fucking angel.
The first year of our relationship was hard because she had to travel a lot. Two years after our marriage, she started smoking weed, which wasn’t a problem with me because I smoked weed. Then she started hanging with other models and started snorting heavy shit. Before I knew it, my wife was slipping through my fingers. I used to search the bad side of New York City to find her in crack houses, so high she didn’t know where she was and how she got there. Mia started cheating on me once I cut her off from my money. Wasn’t going to let her bleed me dry. Then I told her she had a choice—me or drugs. She chose drugs so, over time, we drifted apart and began to live our own lives. Couldn’t save our marriage.
I check my email on my computer and print out the legal paperwork for American Banking.
“Trish is pregnant again,” Logan says, peeling the paper from his beer bottle. Logan has been with Trish on and off since college. Pins clatter together; the bowling alley is quiet on a Tuesday night. I take out a joint from behind my ear, pop it in my mouth, and light it like I own the place. Technically, I do—got a few shares in this place.
“Congratulations,” I say. He shakes his head and frowns.
“I don’t want another fucking kid.”
“How does Trish feel about that?”
“She is excited, hoping it’s another girl. I asked her to get an abortion, but that earned me a slap across the face.” He takes a swig of his beer. Trish and Logan have a boy and a girl together.
“I’m gonna break up with her. Haven’t been happy in a long time. Thank fuck I didn’t marry her.”
Gunner comes back, and it’s my turn. Putting the joint out in the ashtray, I get up from the table, grab my brown ball from the machine and roll it down the aisle. I hit a strike. My red and black shoes squeak against the polished wooden floors as I sit back at the table.
“Cheating bastard,” Gunner yells. I flip him the bird. It’s Logan’s turn, so he stands up from the table, grabs his red ball from the machine and rolls it down the aisle. The waitress sets my two hot dogs in front of me. I eat the fuck out of them; I am hungry.
Gunner leans back in the chair, placing both hands on the back of his head. The fucker needs to cut his auburn hair. “You’re fucking my sister?”
Cocking my eyebrow at him, I say, “Yeah.”
Why lie? He is gonna find out sooner or later, especially after I went caveman on her and told her that she’s mine. His jaw ticks and he balls his fist, banging it on the table. Like I fucking care? I’ll fuck him up. He might be two times my size, but that won’t stop me from kicking his ass all the way to the other side of the planet.
“That explains why she is walking around the office singing and happy like she is starring in a damn Disney movie. You planning to make her your girl?”
“What the fuck you think, Gunner? What kind of bullshit question is that?”
“Had to ask. Did she tell you what I did to her ex-husband?”
I shake my head.
“I gave him stitches.”
“You’re fucking threatening me?” I say, through gritted teeth.
“No, but if I have to pick between you and my sister, I will choose Alana. Just fucking warning you,” he says. The screen on the monitor says game over. Logan comes back to the table.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here; I want to see some ass,” Logan says.