Victoria

Having dinner with family feels great for a change. My only family meals in the past few years have been when my father takes me out for a fancy meal around the holidays or whenever he wants to discuss my career path. Now that I’ve done everything just the way he wanted, it still doesn’t seem to be enough to get me into his inner circle. Grandpa, on the other hand, seems more than willing to turn the business over to me. But then there is still the condition that we must gain control of The Syndicate or it’s no deal. Dad is not someone who changes his mind, so I’m not sure how this will possibly work out for us. Fuck my life.

“I’m sorry, but I need to go rest,” Grandma tells us immediately following a nice meal. “You can just leave the dishes. Emma will be back shortly,” she adds, referring to the housekeeper. Grandpa immediately rises to help her to the bedroom.

“I’m sorry she’s so sick,” Devon whispers as a hush falls over the room. “But I’m glad you are getting to spend some time with her.”

“Me too. I hadn’t heard from them since Christmas. I had no idea anything was wrong,” I reply, a little frustrated that they hadn’t called me. “I suppose they would’ve eventually told me.”

“I told Val that she needed to call you,” Grandpa says as he comes back into the room. “But she didn’t want to be a burden. She knows you’re busy.”

“I would’ve been crushed if she would’ve died and I hadn’t even known that she was sick.” I glare at him as he takes the chair next to me. “You two are the only family I have left.”

“I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” He clears his throat and rubs his hand along my shoulders. “That’s why I want to make sure you end up with everything.”

“Unfortunately, if it hinges on Dad changing his mind, I don’t think any of it will work out,” I tell him with anger rising in my throat. “He made it clear the other day that he has made his choice and it wasn’t in my favor. That’s why we’re here. We thought maybe we could cut a deal with you outside of The Syndicate.”

Grandpa rakes his hands over his face before sitting back and letting out a deep breath. “The only way I kept complete ownership of this place was by signing a one-hundred-year deal with The Syndicate. The only escape clause is if the place is ever shut down by the Colombian National Police or the DAS. That’s why my only choice is to turn the place over to them if that half-brother of yours takes over.”

“What about the DEA? Aren’t they pretty well-established down here?” I ask, having heard Dad talk about them as if they were more of a threat.

Grandpa laughs out loud and slaps his hand to the table. “They send a cowboy down here every once in awhile who tries to shake things up, but they don’t have any real power. All we do is supply them with free booze and prostitutes. That usually keeps them distracted.”

“Yeah, those are the stories I’ve heard,” Devon says with a smirk. “There were several forced retirements just a couple of years ago.”

“Yeah, they don’t bother us. But I will definitely throw them a bone if I decide to burn the place down.” He narrows his eyes, looking back and forth between the two of us. “I’ll turn the whole thing over to them lock, stock, and barrel in exchange for complete amnesty. Then I’ll spend my final years in a penthouse suite on South Beach.”

“Well, I’m not going to let you take this place down,” I counter, slamming my fist to the table. “I’ll go to the annual meeting and plant a bomb under the conference room table if I have to,” I tell him, knowing that simply taking out Eduardo won’t be enough. There is so much loyalty within the ranks that unless everyone was completely convinced that it was an accident, they would never allow me to take over Dad’s position.

“There are a few ways to change your father’s mind,” Grandpa says in a low voice. “I used one of them on my partner back in ninety-three when he wouldn’t sell out to me at a fair price. He was playing Victor and me off each other, looking for the highest price, but I wasn’t having any of it.”

“What did you do?” both Devon and I ask simultaneously.

“I poisoned him and wouldn’t give him the antidote until he signed the papers,” he says with a stone cold look on his face. “Unfortunately, the antidote didn’t work the way the chemist told me it would, so he died shortly after that.”

“So you killed your partner?” I ask, surprised by the outcome of his story.

“No. Like I said, the antidote didn’t work, so the chemist killed him and he paid the price for it. He just got out of prison a few years ago.” A look of regret suddenly crosses Grandpa’s face. He probably just regrets telling me the story.

“So did he come after you when he got out?” Devon asks, giving him an inquisitive look.

“No. He knew that he was lucky to still be alive.” His dark, steely eyes dart back and forth a few times, obviously thinking back to the events of that day. “Ricin poisoning is a terrible way to die,” he adds dryly. “He hung on for two days, but then he was a tough son of a bitch. After that incident, I hired a true biochemist to work with a variety of neurotoxins. We’ve come up with a couple of reliable ones that will work well for tough negotiations.”

“Most contracts aren’t valid if they’re signed under duress,” I inform him. “Otherwise, everyone would be doing things like that.”

Both men turn to me as if I’ve just landed from another planet and stepped out of my spaceship. “You’re hilarious!” Devon bursts out laughing.

“Yeah, it’s not like anyone is going to take one of these deals to court,” Grandpa adds with a hearty laugh. “You’re so cute. One minute, you’re talking about killing everyone in the room and the next, you’re worried about signing a contract under duress.”

“I was just joking,” I reply, rolling my eyes. Every once in awhile, something pops out of my mouth before my brain has a chance to filter it. I was forced to learn thousands of facts in law school that don’t apply to the world that my family operates in. That’s why I’ve been relegated to real estate transactions, where we have to actually play by the rules most of the time. “I have no problem with poisoning my father. He’s been slowly poisoning me for years. Mentally, at least.”

“He did the same to your mother and I’ve never forgiven him for that. That’s why this all has to play out in your favor and not his.” Grandpa gets up from the table and goes to a cabinet, pulling out the gold-colored box. “Join me for another cigar?” he asks Devon.

“Don’t I get one?” I ask, not wanting to be left out of the remainder of the conversation.

“Of course.” Grandpa smiles, handing one of them to me. “I’ve just never seen a woman smoke a cigar before.”

“I don’t see any reason I shouldn’t be a first,” I reply, removing the wrapper and holding out my hand for the cigar cutter.

“Val doesn’t let anyone smoke in the house,” he replies, nodding toward the door. “These are a blend of Colombian, Dominican, and Puerto Rican tobacco,” he informs me as he lights mine before lighting his own. “I like them better than anything else I’ve tried.”

“They are very smooth,” I agree as I blow a big cloud of smoke into the air. Sitting out on the porch and having a cigar with my grandfather seems like a rite of passage. Our conversation immediately turns more personal since Devon stayed back in the kitchen, giving us some space to talk about things that wouldn’t interest him. Much of it revolves around my mother and what went down between her and my father. I always knew that it was some type of an arranged marriage, but I never realized that it was at my father’s request. I had always assumed that he had been forced into the marriage since he had strayed when given a chance. Learning that he was the one who insisted upon her coming back to the states leaves me even more frustrated and confused than ever.

“I obviously wouldn’t have given your father an exclusive contract if he hadn’t been married to my daughter,” Grandpa concedes. “Especially not a lifetime deal. But in hindsight, it has worked out for both of us, but your mother paid the ultimate price. I’ll take that to my grave.”

“Well, at least you got me out of the deal,” I tell him, reaching out to rub the top of his arm. “How else would someone as feisty as me have come into this world?” I smile and take another puff of the cigar. “I could get used to these.” I flick the ash into the ashtray that sits between us and sit back, enjoying the silence and the company of my grandfather. “It’s beautiful out here.”

“Your grandmother loves it, but with her sick, it’s getting awfully quiet for me,” he confides. “I can only spend so much time talking to Emma and the other hired hands. I’ve wanted to move to Miami for years, but I knew Val would hate it there.”

“I can just imagine you rolling down Atlantic Way in a Bentley,” I tease. “You would have all the sugar babies stalking you.”

Grandpa chuckles and gives me a wink before taking another drag of his cigar. “Val and I have had a good life together, but without any family around, things are just too quiet.”

“Well, if things work out, I’ll come back and help you take care of Grandma,” I assure him. Since they are the only two people on the planet whom I count as real family, I would really like to spend some quality time with them. “I promise I’ll liven things up quite a bit.”

He simply nods his head and returns a smile. It’s obvious that he wishes he were passing this on to his son, but I’ll do my best to be a suitable substitute. In fact, when it comes to negotiating with my father, I want to be the one who does it. I know he doubts me because of the fact that I’m his daughter and not a son, but nothing pisses me off more than being treated differently because of being female. I’ll show him a thing or two and he will rue the day that he betrayed me. Rue the day . . . I’ve always loved that phrase. It’s about the only thing I picked up from reading Shakespeare in high school.

Devon

I decide to give Victoria and her grandfather a chance to connect, so I hang back to check in with Tiny. He’s at the club, so he puts me on speaker and I’m able to catch up with all the events of the day. Things are pretty quiet since it’s a Saturday, so the call is pretty much just a bullshit session. After ten minutes of going around in circles, Tiny picks up the phone and takes it off speaker. I can tell by the change in his tone that he’s going to give me some more hell about leaving him behind.

“I’m still pissed,” he huffs as he walks away from the other guys. I can tell by the way he’s breathing that he still isn’t one hundred percent. “You shouldn’t be someplace like that without protection.”

“Believe me, I’ve got more protection than I could possibly afford. He actually has sniper towers almost every mile coming up his driveway. Like Antonio said, if someone comes up his driveway uninvited, they’d better be driving an M1 tank,” I say, wanting him to understand the level of security here. “In fact, I’m learning a few things from him about security. He’s a lot more concerned about it than I’ve ever been, but then he’s been attacked a few more times. His son was killed a few years back.”

“I’ve been thinking about security a lot the past few days too,” Tiny replies, seeming to be breathing a bit easier. “I’m glad to see you’re beefing up this place. We need to feel safe in here.”

“Yeah, you can thank Victoria for that. She insisted that I spend the extra money for level-ten.” I think back to the Irish kid who was gunned down in my club. “The other night got a little too real, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, and my ears are still ringing from that fucking car bomb too!” he adds. “When is the new SUV going to get here?”

“On Wednesday or Thursday at the latest,” I confirm. “Just take a different limo each time you go somewhere. Change up your times and try to take different routes.”

“I’ve just been using Uber,” he admits with a laugh. “Nobody would guess that it’s us in a charcoal-colored minivan,” he adds, continuing his belly laugh.

“You’re right. That’s a clever way to go incognito,” I agree as Victoria comes in from the porch and takes a seat next to me. “Well, I’ve got to run. I’ll let you know when we’re headed back. We’ll probably hang out for a couple of days since her grandmother is pretty sick.” She simply stares at me in silence until I hang up the phone.

“I can’t sit around here. I want to get this confrontation with Dad out of the way,” she says as soon as I set down my phone. “I want to leave tomorrow and finish it. Then I can come back down here while the dust settles back home.”

“Okay.” I nod my head, knowing that there is nothing I can say to change her mind. “So you want to head back on tomorrow’s ticket?”

“I do. I’ll just go nuts if I have to sit around and wait until Friday to deal with Dad.” She taps her nails nervously on the table top. “Grandpa has a good nerve toxin that I want to try.”

“I thought maybe I could do the dirty work,” I offer. “That way if something goes wrong, it’s my ass and not yours.”

“We’re Bonnie and Clyde, baby.” She smiles, running her fingernails down the side of my cheek. “We’ll either end up with everything or nothing. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll be going down together in a blaze of glory, Thelma and Louise style.”

“You sound like a movie trailer. But yeah, if we don’t go for it, then we’re guaranteed to end up with nothing,” I reply, having come to the same conclusion over the past couple of days. “You just tell me what I can do to help.”

“Right now, I could use some lovin’,” she replies with a flicker of lust in her eyes. “It’s been a long day and I’m feeling a little tense.” She stands up and holds out her hand.

Without another word, I take her hand and follow her up the enormous staircase. At the top of the staircase, she stops in front of a collage of family pictures. The first picture that catches my eye is a picture of a little girl and little boy out on the porch. “Is that you?” I ask, wondering who the boy would be.

“No, that’s Mom and Tony,” she says with a faint smile. “I think she was eight years old in that picture.”

“This one is you.” I point to another picture of a little girl flanked by two adults. “Wow, your Mom looks just like you in this picture. “Your dad looks really young too. Has he ever smiled?”

“I think Mom was probably my age in that picture, because I was five.” She pauses to reminisce for a few seconds. “That was when we used to spend a lot of time down here. And no, Dad never smiles except for that condescending grin of his. That’s the only one I ever see, at least.”

“Do you think he put us in separate bedrooms for a reason?” I whisper as I look through two different doors, seeing luggage in both rooms.

“Yeah, Grandpa’s a little old-fashioned when it comes to that stuff, but I’m twenty-seven and independent minded.” She leans into me and bites at my lip, giving me a little growl.

“That you are,” I agree as I back her through the doorway of the room containing her luggage. “I feel like a teenager sneaking around in my parents’ house. It’s been a long time since I had to be quiet.” I turn to the bed, expecting to find an old, squeaky spring mattress. But to my surprise, it passes my bounce test without a single squeak.

“You’re hilarious,” she says with a look of shock. “You should’ve done a few hip thrusts while you were on there to really test things out.”

“No, I’ll just do them for real.” I reach out and guide her toward the bed and onto her back. I immediately reach beneath her dress and slip her panties down her outstretched legs. I then unbutton my shorts and drop them to the floor, quickly stepping out of them. Without the slightest hesitation, I join her, kissing her neck and sliding my hand back up between her thighs.

“We should probably shut off the light since there isn’t even a lock on the door,” she gasps, completely caught off-guard by my aggressiveness. “I never told Grandpa that we were going to bed, so I would hate to have him . . . oh, God, that feels good.”

I continue to massage her clit until my fingers move freely between her lips. I leave the bed momentarily to hit the light switch before returning to the bed. Grabbing the hem of her dress, I move beneath it in search of an after-dinner treat. I kiss my way up the inside of her legs until I reach the sweet spot. She gives out a soft moan as my tongue moves between her swollen lips. She tastes divine, and I’ve been waiting for this moment all day. Watching her legs move beneath that little red dress had me frustrated by the time we landed, and it only got worse as the skies grew dark.

“Oh, God . . . that feels so amazing,” she whispers softly as I circle her clit with my tongue and continue to move a bit farther down her slit each time. She gasps as I force my tongue as deeply as possible within her, moving it back and forth. “Fuck, that’s amazing!” I smile against her soft skin as she tries to grasp at my hair, only to find that her dress is in the way. I push back against her legs, sending her feet straight into the air, and continue to ravish her with my lips and tongue. “Oh, fuck . . . oh, fuck,” she begins to cry, a bit louder this time. A brief thought of Antonio flashes though my mind, but it disappears just as quickly.

At first, Victoria seems frustrated by the constraints of still being in her dress, but she gradually begins to relax, and by the time I begin making love to her, she seems to be enjoying it. “It’s been a long time since I got laid in my dress,” she whispers as I ease into her. “This kind of makes up for not being able to go to my senior prom.”

I let her comment go for the moment. My dick is rock hard and I’ve been working up to this for the past fifteen minutes. Nothing is going to stop me now. I reach back for her ankles and spread her legs wide as I deliver long, deep strokes that will make her forget the hurts of the past. In the moment, I realize that not only do I want to fix the past for her, but I also want to fix the present, and most of all, the future. I want to make things right for her. I want her to feel appreciated and to realize her full potential. She is the most kickass woman I’ve ever met. In fact, I never dreamed I would meet anyone like her. She’s my perfect counterpart. My other half. I’ve never believed in the astrological signs, but in this case, we truly are the Gemini twins.

I arch my back, lifting my head, and begin kissing her passionately while continuing to fuck her with all the intensity and passion I can muster. She immediately responds, wrapping her arms around my neck and forcing her tongue past my lips. I adjust my hips just slightly and begin concentrating on her G-spot. “Yeah, right there,” she moans loudly. I slow my pace, now really feeling the little bumps against the top of my head. Her pussy actually tightens up, gripping me in a way that instantly feels like heaven. “Oh, God, that’s amazing.” She begins panting, and I can feel her body trembling beneath me.

“You are amazing,” I reply, completely overwhelmed with the feelings that are now coursing through my entire body. I’ve had lots of good sex in my life, but this is on a whole different level. It’s like everything else was simply practice leading up to being in the championship game. Everything is becoming apparent to me. I’ve not only met my match personality-wise, but I’ve met my match in life. I’m beginning to understand what it means to meet your other half, to find the one who completes you. Someone you not only enjoy being with, but who actually fills that gaping hole inside your heart. I only hope I can do the same for her.