Natural Born Liar: The Misadventures of Mink LaRue (14 page)

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Authors: NOIRE

BOOK: Natural Born Liar: The Misadventures of Mink LaRue
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CHAPTER 23
 
B
unni went with Pilar, Fallon, and Carla downstairs to the snack bar, and I was sitting in the hospital waiting room watching TV with some of the little kids.
“The results are in,”
Maury said as a hush fell over the crowded studio. The jump-off sitting on the stage laughed and looked like she just knew what the fuck she knew.
“Please, please, please, please!”
a young dude sitting across from her with cute cornrows in his hair whispered as he stared down Maury’s throat like he was praying the right words would pop outta Maury’s mouth. Another guy wearing a fitted and some baggy jeans sat next to him and he was getting tested too. A picture of a sleeping baby girl came on the screen, and mug shots of both of the could-be daddies was posted up on either side of her.
“In the case of two-month-old baby Taiquanapaula ... Taiquan, you are ... but wait!”
Maury faked us, going for the stall.
“Taiquan, if you are the father of this precious little girl, are you planning to take care of her?”
“Hell yeah!”
he lied.
“I’ma man-up and handle minez!”
Maury turned to the trifling-ass baby mama who sat there in a halter with a muffin top spilling over her belt.
“If he is your baby’s father, do you still want to be with him?”
Dummy hunched her shoulders.
“Okay, in the case of two-month-old baby Taiquanapaula ... Taiquan, you are
NOT
the father!”
Dude jumped outta his chair and leaped off the stage. He started happy dancing all in the aisles and dapping dudes in the crowd like crazy.
“I TOLD you! I TOLD you! That baby don’t look nothing like me! That baby got chubby cheeks and my face is real skinny! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! I TOLD you!”
“But wait, we have a second test,”
Maury said as he calmed the crowd down.
“We have a second test!”
This time, Baby-Mama-Jump-off squinched her eyes closed and crossed her fingers as she waited for the second bomb to drop.
Maury turned to the other dude, who was now looking scared as fuck, and continued.
“In the case of baby Taiquanapaula. . . Paul ... you are NOT the father!”
Mami fell dead outta her chair. She rolled over on her stomach and started kicking her feet and banging her head and fists on the floor.
Paul jumped off the stage too. Him and Taiquan started doing the Kid ’n Play foot dance as the crowd chanted,
“Do that shit! Do that shit! Yeah! Do that shit! Do that shit!”
“Them boys got lucky, didn’t they?”
I looked up and saw a tall hunk of black dude who had come into the room. He looked like a gangsta cowboy. He had on a spotless white Stetson, some starched black jeans, and a real sharp white shirt with black lanyard trim.
“Yeah, they did,” I laughed. “Baby-mama-drama all day long.”
“You got any kids?”
I gave him the look. “Do baby boogers go with my dress?”
He laughed and sat down next to me. His skin was real smooth, and his mustache was jet-black and sharply trimmed.
He was a fine-ass old head. I took him to be about thirty-five, and not only was he tall as hell, he was built real yummy and he looked like he could rope a bull.
He nodded at me. “How you doing today?”
I side-eyed him. “I’m good.”
“You looking good too, little lady. Are you sure none of these are your kids?”
Before I could answer, one of the little boys from Houston ran over and jumped up in his lap.
“Hey Uncle Suge!”
“Aw, hell, Terrence!” He tossed the little boy up and started tickling him. “You one of
our
kids!”
Terrence wiggled out of his lap and came over to me.
“I’m hungry, Mink. Are we gonna leave soon?”
“Yep, it won’t be much longer, babe. As soon as everybody gets back we’re gonna go get something to eat.”
“Mink?” Ol’ boy gave me a look. “You’re
Mink
?” He pulled off his shades and checked me out real good. “The long-lost daughter from New York?” He grinned and held out his hand. “Well I’ll be damned. Nice to meet you. I’m Suge.” He looked sexier than a mutha as he grilled me up and down. “Your ... um ... uncle.”
“Mink LaRue,” I said, busting the hungry look in his eye. “And yeah, Mister.” I smirked, just a teasin’ and a flirtin’ with his ass. “I have heard some
stuff
about you!”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re Viceroy’s crazy-ass brother who just loves to gamble and chase tail!”
He laughed, showing off a nice set of even white teeth. “Is that the kinda shit they be telling people about me?”
“Uh-huh!” I said, nodding my head.
His sexy eyes skimmed across my thighs.
“Well I guess I’m guilty ’cause they sure as hell ain’t lying!”
He crossed his leg at the knee and I stared at the spiky-looking things sticking out all over his boots and the emblem of a Texas longhorn that ran up the front.
“Wild Alligator,” he said, nodding at his feet. “They snap hard and stroke deep, just like me. You like ’em?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I mean, you ain’t gonna catch no brotha runnin’ around New York in those, that’s for sure. They’re nice, though. They look expensive.”
He chuckled. “Baby doll, everything good in the whole wide world costs money, and men like me don’t mind spending it.” He put his arm around the back of my chair and I caught a whiff of his cologne.
Goddamn.
Clive Christian No. 1 for Men. And he wasn’t slumming with the cheap perfume spray that you could get for under a grand, neither. Nah, Unc was rolling in that Pure Splash, baby! Twenty-one hundred smacks a bottle!
“Damn.” He shook his head and chuckled again as he appreciated me with his eyes. “You probably about the prettiest thang I’ve seen all week and you could end up being my niece. Ain’t that some shit? You’re a beautiful girl, Mink LaRue. Real fine. Welcome to Texas, baby doll. I’m glad you’re here, but I hope like hell we ain’t related.”
CHAPTER 24
 
B
arron walked out of the hospital room with his mother wrapped in his arms and his brothers Jock and Dane by his side. The image of their father as a tough, invincible hard-hitter was the only one they’d ever known, and seeing him in such a weakened condition was an emotional blow to all of them.
“Take Mama back to the conference room,” Barron directed his youngest brother. “We’re leaving in ten minutes so make sure everybody starts heading back to the limos. ”
Barron walked down the hall feeling the weight of the Dominion name on his shoulders. Viceroy looked much worse than he did the last time he saw him, and his doctors seemed to be stuck in a cycle of let’s wait and see.
He was heading toward the visitors’ waiting room when he saw something that fucked him up and turned him on at the same time. Mink was sitting in a chair with her shapely legs crossed and her firm breasts staring right at him. Her waist was so tiny and her hips looked so damn lush and round that for a moment Barron wished his face could be the seat of her chair.
She had a big grin on her mug as she carried on a conversation with the skirt-chasing nigga who sat beside her with his eyes glued to her amazing chest.
Suge. His slick, scaly ass had his arm wrapped around Mink’s chair, and his lying lips were steadily moving as he leaned toward Mink and laid his old-ass rap down in her ear.
Grimy muthafuckas!
Barron cursed as he watched their little encounter play out. Mink uncrossed her sexy legs, then threw her head back and laughed and crossed them back again. Barron didn’t need to hear what they were saying to figure out that his father’s younger brother was scoping for some pussy. He took three long steps and busted through the door, and both of them looked up in surprise.
“W’sup, Suge. You slummin’ through today? What? You came to see if Daddy was dead yet?”
“Hey what’s up, B?” Suge rose up from his chair to give his nephew some dap.
“Nah, don’t get up,” Barron told him. “You look real comfortable sitting there, man. You ain’t gotta move for me. I just thought you mighta came around here to check on your big brother, you dig? You know, the guy who brings in all the money in this family and slides you that sweet lil paycheck every week. The man who’s laying down the hall with shrapnel in his head? Yeah, that dude. Your
brother.
”
Ignoring Barron, Suge leaned toward Mink with a grin on his face. “It was real nice talking to you, baby doll.” He touched her hand, then his eyes got smoky and the I-wanna-fuck-you look crept up in them. “I’ma holla at you again, okay? Real soon. I promise.”
He stood up and walked over to his nephew. Barron was just as tall as his uncle, but he wasn’t quite as thick and solid.
“You all right, Lil Bump?” Suge asked, and slapped him hard on the shoulder. “If you ever need somebody to talk to or ... you know ... somebody to teach you how to handle these ... uh”—he glanced hungrily at Mink’s legs and grinned again—“type of thangs ... you just holla at your old uncle Suge, ya hear?”
He was walking out the door when he turned and said over his shoulder, “By the way, nephew. How’s that sweet little Carla doing?”
Barron felt his jaw tighten and ice glinted from his eyes.
Suge chuckled. “Uh-huh. I thought so. You be sure to tell her old Uncle Suge sends her a whole lotta love.”
 
Superior “Suge” Dominion had always been a down-ass nigga. He’d been the go-to guy in the Dominion clan since he was seventeen years old, and in the early days of Dominion Oil, while his older brother Viceroy had been busy cutting deals on the corporate ladder, Suge had been cutting ass in the trenches as his right-hand man.
At six feet five and packing a good two-fifty in pure muscle, Suge was real good at crackin’ heads and throwing his weight around. Whether it was stranglin’ niggas or pumping heat, all Viceroy had to do was say the word and Suge would put a cat down in the dirt real quick, no questions asked.
The Dominion brothers had grown up poor as shit in the slums of Houston. They were twelve years apart because Suge had been one of those late-in-life babies. Fearless in the streets and wild with the ladies, he quickly became a ruthless, street-hustling problem, and since their father was in and out of prison and their mother was too old and too worn out to keep after him, Viceroy had taken him under his wing and son’d him.
Making millions had always been on Viceroy’s agenda, but amassing a fortune without going grimy was damn-near impossible. And that’s where Suge had come in. When Viceroy needed to keep his image clean in the corporate world, he entrusted his baby brother to get down-right brutal with his competition and anybody else who came between him and his dough.
Suge’s official title at Dominion Oil was some bullshit like “executive assistant,” and while he didn’t actually clock a nine-to-five for the three hundred and fifty grand his brother paid him every year, he was worth ten times that amount because he put in
work.
Suge was the only living person Viceroy completely trusted, and he became his big brother’s loyal homeboy, his handyman, and his quicker-cleaner-upper. The Dominion boys had a love thang going on between them. Viceroy dad-died Suge from his heart, and he had no problem telling people that if he woke up one morning and didn’t have but one wrinkled dollar left to his name, his little brother would still be good for fifty cents.
And right now, all the money in the world couldn’t replace Viceroy, and Suge had a hard time believing his brother was down the hall laying on what could have been his death-bed.
With one last glance at Mink, Suge gave his oldest nephew a cold nod, then took his time walking out of the waiting room. With Viceroy down, Lil Bump was feeling himself, but if he jumped out like that again he was liable to get his gangsta tested.
Suge was halfway down the hall and he could still feel Barron’s eyes heating up his back like the young’un wanted to do something. He was tempted to go back in that waiting room and toss him up in the air, but he knew what his nephew’s problem was. Back when Barron was a junior in college he had brought a big-titty white girl home with him for a weekend barbeque.
Suge’s horse had won real big on the track that morning and he’d been drinking and celebrating at the Dominion Estate all day. He had jumped in the pool for a little swim, then passed out drunk in an easy chair in the pool house. When he woke up, he was surprised to find Barron’s young white honey standing next to him in her wet bathing suit and staring down at his dick. They’d been flirting with each other all day, and half-sleep and still half-drunk, Suge had reached for her hand and put it in his lap.
The girl pounced on him, and Suge had had her down on her knees about to jam his big dick down her throat when Barron walked into the pool house naked calling her name and holding his wet swim trunks in his hand.
A drunk tongue can be a deal killer, and Suge’s tongue was full of liquor as he looked at his naked nephew’s rock-hard dick, then looked down at the pulsating beast the white girl was gripping in both her fists and laughed, “Damn, boy! That shit ain’t grew none since you was two!”
Suge had meant it as a joke, but Barron had gotten swole and wanted to fight him.
“Oh this your girl, Lil Bump?” Suge hollered as he weaved and ducked the garbage can full of beer bottles that his nephew was hurling at him. “You got
feelings
for this bitch? Then what you bring her sweet ass around me for then?”
Barron had never talked about what went down again, but he had never forgiven Suge either. The water had been cold between them for years, and even though Suge had apologized to keep shit smooth in the family, what he’d done had fucked with Barron’s pride, and it stood to reason the boy was gonna go for his one day and try to get some back.
Suge entered his brother’s hospital room and stood quietly by his bedside. Viceroy was a big, strong man, and Suge knew if there was any way he could have gotten up outta that bed and stood on his own feet, he would have.
But even if he didn’t, Suge was gonna keep doing what he did, regardless. He’d stay down for Selah and the kids, and he’d be there for Barron too, whether his nephew wanted him to or not. But Suge was smart enough to know what kind of dirty love he could expect from Lil Bump in return. When Viceroy was gone he knew Barron was gonna take his legs out and cut him off from the company. He’d kick Suge off the payroll and strip him outta his paid position, but there was one thing that young pup couldn’t touch, and that was Suge’s vote and his stockholder shares in Dominion Oil.
Viceroy had made sure his baby brother would always eat cake. Suge’s vote could be worth millions, and for the past twenty years, whichever way Viceroy’s vote had swung, his baby brother’s vote had followed, no questions asked.
But Barron couldn’t get that kind of loyalty outta Suge, and if Viceroy wasn’t around to run Dominion Oil, then Suge would be a rich nigga and a free agent, and just like every other shareholder on the board of directors, his vote would be up for grabs by the highest bidder on the block.

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