Sexy Little Liar (26 page)

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Authors: Noire

BOOK: Sexy Little Liar
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CHAPTER 26
B
arron's shit was all fucked up. Nothing was going down the way it was supposed to. First he got a call from Judge Halley's secretary. She said her boss needed to speak to Barron and Jeff on a three-way call immediately.
“That kid,” Judge Halley said quietly. “The kid you hit is going to be a problem.”
“Why is that?” Jeff asked.
“Because his grape-picking father just reneged on the deal, that's why!”
“But he took the money!” Barron said. “He took two hundred fuckin' grand!”
“Oh yeah? You got a receipt? His side of the story is that you
offered
him two hundred grand to go away and keep his mouth closed. He said he turned it down.”
Barron couldn't believe this shit! His throat got clogged with fear as he shook his head, trying to understand where the judge was coming from. “He's a liar! He's a lying muthafucka! But two days ago you told me not to worry, that this thing was gonna blow over. You said the chief of police was gonna bury it!”
“He tried,” the judge said. “But after those narcotics officers got caught beating a suspect on camera, and with the big investigation on the ticket-fixing scam, the public has their eyes on every damn thing and the media has been merciless. Sorry, Barron, but you're on your own. The chief said he tried his best to bury this thing, but Internal Affairs just dug it right back up.”
Barron was desperate. If this shit got out on the news he could kiss his law license and his whole fuckin' life good-bye!
“C'mon, Judge,” he begged. “There's gotta be something you can do! Is there any way at all to fix this? Any way at all?”
Judge Halley cleared his throat.
“Maybe. But it's gonna cost you.”
 
A few days later Barron pulled into his reserved parking spot outside of Dominion Oil's headquarters. Chest-high gold-crusted nameplates reading,
VICEROY
DOMINION
,
SUPERIOR
DOMINION,
and
BARRON
DOMINION
identified the top-three parking spots in their pecking order of importance. Right now Barron's spot was last. His uncle Suge's truck was parked in the second spot, the one right next to Viceroy's, but once Barron took over for his father all that shit was gonna change.
He walked inside the sleek building with mirrored glass. A big oil painting of Viceroy loomed large on the far wall. Barron headed toward the elevators and nodded at the receptionist and the security staff. He'd known these people from the time he was just a tyke, but they all respected him as a man and called him
sir
whenever they spoke.
He used his key to call for the private elevator that would take him directly into the hub of business on the building's fifteenth floor. When the doors opened, he rode upstairs with a determined expression on his face. He tapped his foot impatiently. The board was waiting for his written request for a vote delay, and as soon as he took care of this other business he would deliver it to them by hand. The elevator stopped and the doors slid open soundlessly. He exited and stepped into a very large and busy room that held the cubicles for DO's most important staff members.
“Mr. Barron!” the receptionist at the desk called out to him. “The papers you need to sign are in Mr. Superior's office, sir. He has them waiting for you.”
Since there were three Dominion men running the company, most of the employees addressed them as Mr. Viceroy, Mr. Superior, and Mr. Barron. That shit was gonna change too, Barron thought. With his father off the rolls, the only Dominion man who mattered would be him, and that's what everybody was gonna have to call him too. Mr. Dominion.
Barron headed for his uncle's corner office and pushed through the double doors without knocking. Suge was standing next to his desk and talking on the phone. He looked like big-time money dressed in his snakeskin boots and three-piece suit, but no matter what the fuck this dude wore he would always be a two-bit hustler in Barron's eyes.
“Let me call you back.” Suge's voice was deep as he fixed Barron coldly in his sights and spoke into the phone. He hung up, then walked over and stood behind his huge desk.
“What it do, Bump?” he asked. His voice was even and casual, although Barron thought he saw something crafty shift into the older man's eyes.
“It do what it never did before,” Barron barked, then waved his hand impatiently. “You need a signature on those requisition orders, right? Well hand them over.”
Suge placed one thick finger on top of a small pile of papers on the center of the desk. Grilling Barron, he pushed the stack in his direction.
“Here you go,” Suge said and shot his nephew a warning look. “And Bump, do us all a favor. Make sure you sign
all
of 'em, okay?”
Barron frowned and picked up the stack. After skimming the top sheet, he sat the papers back down on Suge's desk and pulled his father's Conway Stewart fountain pen out of his suit pocket. The room was silent as Barron quickly read and signed the first three pages of paper, but as soon as his eyes ran over the last sheet he cursed under his breath and then started laughing.
“Ay, what the fuck is this?” he blurted as he eyed his uncle and grinned. “You're kidding me, right? Yo, you must be fuckin' joking if you think I'ma sign some bullshit like this!”
“Nah.” Suge shook his head and said quietly, “I ain't joking man. I ain't
even
fuckin' joking. Yeah, I'ma need you to go 'head and sign that, and I'ma need you to give up them files you got on Mink and Dy-Nasty too. The originals
and
the copies.”
“Nigga you better come the fuck up off that purple
syz-zurp
!” Barron's lips curled down with mad disrespect. He snatched the paper off the desk and tossed that shit to the floor and stomped on it. “Why would I give up my files and sign some shit like this? C'mon, now. You play too much, dude. You play way too fuckin' much.”
Suge came from behind his desk. He walked up on Barron with a stone-cold killer look on his grill, and then he turned around and walked toward his office door.
“Oh, you gonna sign it,” he said, closing the door and flipping the lock. He flipped the overhead lights off too, and the natural light from his floor-to-ceiling windows was the only thing flooding in. “Believe that, son. You gonna sign it.”
Suge picked up a remote control from his desk and pushed a button, and at the far wall, a movie screen slid down from the ceiling. He pushed another button and an overhead projector hummed and then cast a light beam on the white screen. He pushed a third button and a video of a young white girl appeared on the screen. She was standing in front of Viceroy's community center for underprivileged kids in Houston, and she held a squirming brown-skinned toddler in her arms.
“Dear Channel Seven News. My name is Ellen,” she said softly, “and I have a ‘Keeping Them Honest' complaint for you. I used to come to the Dominion Diamonds center to get free lunch, tutoring, and free health care.” She walked over to the door and yanked on the handle a few times, and when it didn't open she scrunched up her face angrily. “And now when I come here to get milk and diapers for my son don't nobody wanna let me in! Channel Seven,
Viceroy Dominion
got me pregnant and now his family has shut me out and they won't even talk to me! I'm sending you this video so you can keep Viceroy Dominion and his entire family honest!”
The screen went blank and Barron bust out laughing real loud. He laughed his ass off, and pointed at his uncle. “Is that the best you can do, you slimy bastard? You tryna smear my father's good name in the gutter just so you can get your hands on his money? They call that shit
extortion
, homeboy! You can go to jail for that. But it's all good, because you ain't never been shit anyway!”
“Is that right?”
“Hell yeah, it is! Daddy mighta trusted ya ass, but I
never
did! Ever since that time I caught my girl sucking ya dick—”
“Nope!” Suge protested. “Uh-uh. Take that back, dawg. She didn't suck my dick, homey. She was
about
to suck it, but she never even got one lick in.”
Barron exploded. “It don't matter, man! You still ain't shit! You ready to toss grime on your own brother in the name of
money
, man. Ga'head! Send that shit to Channel Seven! Who gives a fuck? Who's gonna believe you anyway? My father kept his hands clean his whole fuckin' life. Everybody knows he's solid. His rep can stand up to this. Besides.” Barron swept his arm around the office. “He had dumb-fuck goonies like you to get down in the dirt for him, remember? That's the only reason you pulling in a paycheck as it is, nigga! Did you forget that?”
Suge shook his head quietly. “Nah, man. I ain't forget.”
He pressed another button on the remote and the young white teenager popped up on the screen again. Her blue eyes were now red rimmed and her face was streaked with tears. She was still holding her little chocolate baby, but this time she was holding something else in her hands. It was a sheet of paper, and when the camera zoomed in on it the words,
Exclusively DNA
came clearly into view.
“Channel Seven ‘Keeping Them Honest'? This is Ellen again.” She brushed her long blond hair back and sniffed. “I just want to say I'm sorry and to tell you I made a big mistake. I thought Viceroy Dominion was my baby's daddy, but I was wrong. He's not. I got my son's paternity results in the mail today, and Viceroy Dominion didn't get me pregnant after all. He's not my son's father.” Her voice snagged in her throat and a wave of tears spilled from her china blue eyes. “He's my son's
grandfather
!” She pointed her finger and stared angrily into the camera and blurted out, “
Barron
Dominion is my baby's daddy! Please, Channel Seven ‘Keeping Them Honest'! I'm only seventeen and DNA doesn't lie! Can you make Barron Dominion take care of his son and pay me my child support? Can you help me?
Please
?”
The screen went white and there was nothing but stark silence in the big, plush office. Barron felt a wave of rage rushing up from his feet, through his chest, and straight into his brain. But that's where it stopped. Because even though he had never met this scrawny white girl in his life, and he damn sure had never fucked her, Viceroy and Selah didn't raise no fool. It was all about appearance and perception. Between the hit-and-run accident involving a child, being accused of paying hush money to the kid's father, and the half-dozen pictures circulating on the Internet that showed him in a skirt with his painted lips all over some nigga's dick, he might already be fucked. Whether this chick was lying or not, if a tape like this got leaked to the media, let alone to the board, his shit would most
definitely
be fucked.
Without a word, Suge picked the piece of paper up from the floor and placed it back on his desk. Using just one finger, he slid it toward Barron again.
“Sign the paper, son. I love you, Lil Bump, but I will straight fuck you up. Now sign the goddamn paper.”
Squinting in the semi-darkness, Barron bent over and reread the last line on the full-page document that his uncle had drawn up for him to sign.
And in inclusion, I hereby request that the board's vote not be delayed, but held on the original date as scheduled. Lastly I swear and affirm that all parties to the Dominion Family Trust have been properly investigated and deemed qualified to receive their proper annual disbursements.
Taking a deep breath and using his father's favorite fountain pen, Barron bit the bullet and signed that shit.
CHAPTER 27
“
M
ink.”
I was having a dope-ass dream about the money I was gonna get and I was grinning all in my pillow. We had shut Barron's ass down, and I was locked in a big room with stacks and stacks of green piled damn near to the ceiling.
“Mink, wake up.”
The dough was banded in stacks of hundred-dollar bills and wrapped in clear plastic. I grabbed a big shopping bag and started tossing brick after brick into the bag. And when that one was full, I grabbed another shopping bag and filled it up, and then another shopping bag, and then another one and another one and another one . . .
“C'mon now, Mink. I'ma need you to wake up, boo.”
Bunni was patting the side of my face real gentle-like, and for once she wasn't yelling and screaming and waking me up bad.
“Mink.”
Move, dammit!
I wanted to tell her. Couldn't she see all my shopping bags? All my damn money? I started dragging the bags over to the door. There were so, so many of them but I had mad energy and I was nowhere near tired. When I got them all lined up at the door I grabbed two bags in each hand. I wrapped the twine handles around my wrists and twisted the doorknob and pulled. But it didn't open. I pulled again and again and again. It was locked. I knew I coulda banged on the door or kicked that bad boy with my feet, but I was scared. What if somebody came to open it and tried to take some of my money?
“Mink!” A sharp pain shot through my earlobe. My eyes flew open and I looked dead at Bunni. That bitch had
pinched
me!
“Mink, please wake up,” she said softly. “Peaches is on the phone. He needs to talk to you.”
I sat up in the bed and rubbed my ear. Traces of my money dream and how good I had been feeling swirled in my head. I licked my lips and took the phone that Bunni was pushing toward me. Any other time she would be wildin' and bouncing off the damn walls this early in the morning, and for a quick second I wondered why her eyes looked so sad.
“Hello?” I blinked a few times tryna make myself focus.
“Madame Mink?”
It was Peaches.
“Uh-huh.”
“I think you need to come home now, baby.”
“Wh-wh-what?” I frowned and my eyes searched Bunni's. She sat down on the edge of my bed and put her hand on my arm. “Why, wassup?” I swallowed hard. “Don't tell me that fool Punchie is still trippin. And oh lordy. Please don't tell me nothing about Gutta! I thought you said that fool was over me and on to the next bitch?”
“It's your mama,” Peaches said quietly. “The nursing home called me. They think she had a stroke. The ambulance just took her to the hospital. I'm on my way up there, Mink, but it's looking kinda bad and they think you need to be there too.” His voice broke. “I'm sorry, sweetie, but they don't think she's gonna make it.”
“I'm coming,” I whispered as I pushed Bunni out the way and swung my legs over the bed. Tears rushed to my eyes as I ran over to the closet to get my gear. “Please. Tell mama to hold on 'til I get there, Peaches. Please. I'm coming.”

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