Unconventional (The Manhattanites #4) (18 page)

The Twin Screw

Sierra Leone, West Coast of Africa

Three Months Ago

Nicknamed “Dash” when he was a toddler, due to his ability to bolt from a room without a spanking, Siaka Turay stood in the Tokeh Beach mansion he and his twin were born in twenty-two years before. With palm-fringed coastlines, and out-of-this-world Atlantic Ocean views, he could see why his father, Sir Banja, had never left. Inhaling the smell of drying crayfish, Dash knew this palace by the sea wasn’t what had kept him there, though.

Diamonds! Fancy, intense, pink-colored, princess or pear cut, flawless, and in every size imaginable had been his father’s reason for staying in Africa. But in recent weeks, Banja had taken ill and called Dash and his brother home one last time.

“This place hasn’t changed one bit,” he noted to his brother Dejon, who studied a gaudily framed oil painting on the wall. The portrait was of their late older sister, Kamara.

Against their mother’s wishes, Kamara had stayed behind with Banja. She’d worked for gender equality and to put an end to the sale of conflict gems until killed by police at the Koido Mine while organizing a pay strike.

“Apparently not. It’s bloody wicked.” Dejon’s British education caused him to speak with a slight Daniel Craig accent, pronouncing his words crisper than his native Sierra Leone. Dash had figured his voice must’ve sounded the same. Everything on them was a mirror image of one another. Well…except for one thing. “How old were we when we left here?”

“You don’t remember when Mum took us?” Appalled, he gave his brother a sidelong glance. Dejon’s skin coloring was the same as his, latte. At least, that’s how one girl they’d shared had described them.

“Such tall hot lattes you blokes are,” she’d purred provocatively in his ear right before he’d fucked her from the front while Dejon simultaneously had taken her from behind. They’d coined that position ‘The Twin Screw.’

He and Dejon’s latte look didn’t exactly fit in with the black natives of West Africa. Easy to spot in a group photo back in Notting Hill, they weren’t as fair-skinned as their British buds, either. Some blokes referred to them as biracial or mixed. Dash preferred the term ‘sexy beast!’

“Let me think how old we were…” Dejon’s almond-shaped eyes blinked. They were framed by lashes so thick their mother, Jilly Bissé, had joked she’d cut them off while they’d slept.

Jilly, who’d once starred on the TV show
British Blondes
before marrying Banja, had claimed her own lashes didn’t accentuate her Nordic features well enough for the camera to see their true magnificence.

“It was right before the Civil War ended.” His mother’s stories about where they’d come from slipped through his thoughts.

His grandfather had become prominent by starting an artesian diamond mining family. In the 1960s, he’d merged the business with Global Diamond Corporation (GDC). Banja, his son, and the twins’ father had finished his Oxford studies, married Jilly and moved to West Africa to be closer to his family while they started their own. After the birth of Kamara, he became chief executive officer at GDC. That was until recently, when he’d taken to his bed.

“Nine?” Dejon guessed.

“We’d just turned seven.”

“Right. We were nine when the…experiments had started.” Dejon frowned.

Unable to appoint a tutor to school the boys due to months of riots and half the city being vandalized, Dash never forgot how their mother had fled, taking them in the middle of the night to a rice farm in Freetown where they’d boarded her friend’s private jet to London.

“I still remember the pattern on the jim-jams we’d worn to bed.” Dash smiled at his brother. He didn’t want to talk about what he could see preoccupying Dejon’s mind.

“Mum didn’t let us get changed. She was a drama queen, even back then.” Dejon’s square jaw flexed. “It was a Harlem Globetrotters cartoon. I recall some things, you
arsehole
.”

The double doors opened. A short black woman, wearing a bright orange lapa skirt tied at her waist, said in Krio, “Sir Banja will see you now.”

Trying not to make his shock obvious, Dash took in his father’s appearance. He didn’t resemble the strong movie star, ‘Samuel L. Jackson leading man’ type he’d seen in photo albums while growing up. Propped up by bleached-white pillows, Banja looked…dead. “It’s us, Dad. We came.”

“My boys…” Banja’s heavy eyelids opened and he started to choke on his tears. His attempt to reach for Dash then Dejon failed as his arms dropped by his lap. “I didn’t think you’d make it…in time.”

He leaned on the left side of the full-size bed, Dejon sat at the right. Frail and cold, they each held Banja’s hands.

This was it. Banja was dying.

“Your twins are here to be with you.” Dash started with small talk about their flight from London Heathrow, then about their lives in Europe. Dejon, the romantic, dated some girl long-distance. His brother called her Kiki and mentioned she lived in Manhattan. Dash, the independent, kept many women, but nothing serious. He hadn’t found the right one yet.

“I live in Notting Hill and run Mum’s jewelry store.” Located in Portobella Road Market, Jilly’s Jewels specialized in antique and estate pieces. Never returning to acting, their mother had retired as a British TV icon, sticking with what the Turays did best—gems, but notably only conflict-free ones, of course.

“Silly Jilly,” Banja huffed. Then he drifted off, almost as if unconscious. Maybe it was the mention of his estranged wife that caused his body to nearly quit. Jilly had that effect on people.

“Daddy, I left the university early. I spin music and travel.” Vying for his attention, Dejon pulled out a disc from his pocket. “I brought you trance tunes to listen to. It’s from my recent Berlin show—”

Banja didn’t hear him.

In an agonized expression, Dejon’s brows drew together. The sensitive one of the two, he couldn’t get Banja to listen. Overwhelmed, he stared at Dash, pleading to wake him up. He leaned toward the end of the bed, asking, “Is he…?”

“Give Dad a minute.” Dash soothed his brother’s fear, realizing Banja would come to. He hoped, anyway, at least for Dejon’s sake.

A mess, Dejon hadn’t talked much on the flight over, but Dash felt his brother’s sadness. In times like these, it was hard not to drown in Dejon’s emotions. They were too real for Dash, almost his own.

The bond he shared with his twin in many ways felt extrasensory. Hours could pass without talking but always saying so much. Convinced they were telepathy-prone, Jilly had enrolled them at The Telepathic Institute at the start of puberty. Intended to be low frequency and safe, The Hanzfeld Experiments on thought transference, while they’d slept, were actually cruel and abusive. German scientists under pressure to prove their findings, for more funding, had positioned the Turay Twins as their prime cash cow. They’d gone to any lengths necessary to succeed.

The nocturnal extrasensory perception studies had only a negative impact on them. They’d given Dash a heightened threshold for pain, and intensified Dejon’s empathy for others. This often led Dejon to have anxiety when in a dark room or while in bed.

Nothing conclusive came from the tests, other than Jilly’s remorse. She had no idea what they’d gone through. Years later, at the age of thirteen, Jilly had put Dejon and him in separate bedrooms. They’d needed more space. It was only then that his brother admitted he couldn’t sleep without Dash at his side.

“You okay?” Dejon searched his face for an answer. Saying goodbye was happening a lot faster than he’d anticipated.

“I’m fine.” After all these years, seeing Banja right then, Dash didn’t know what he’d feel, if anything at all. Unable to be as empathetic as Dejon was toward their father, he did feel regret—not for Banja, but his sister. She’d be alive if they’d come to London. But the past was behind him, as it should stay.

Suddenly awake, Banja grunted, seeming uncomfortable in his own body. “Time. I don’t have. I must tell…”

“Dad, you’re trying to say something. We’ll stay for as long as you need us.” Dash pushed the anger he had toward his father to the back of his mind, giving Dejon an encouraging smile.

Before he went back to England, Dash had promised his mother he’d find a way to forgive Banja for putting the diamonds ahead of his family. He had to.

“Boys. One thing you must do…before I go.”

“Anything,” Dash replied as Dejon dried his eyes, telling Banja not to talk as if he lay dying.

“Cath’s Certification Process…is a scam.”

“What?” He couldn’t believe his ears. His father had dedicated his career to getting the United Diamond Congress (UDC) off the ground. This certification program insured that all stones coming from their homeland were mined fairly.

“Recently…UDC approved three Sierra Leone gems to sell. They are…blood diamonds.” Banja motioned for Dejon to take a folder from the nearby nightstand, while Dash poured him a glass of water from a pitcher on the dresser. Refusing the drink, he continued, “This outlines what stones they are…who bought them…where to find them…how and when to bring them back.” Barely able to get out the last word, Banja’s energy seemed to be fading fast.

“Daddy! What do you mean when you say, ‘Bring them back’?” Dejon’s brown eyes whitened.

“Steal.” Banja rubbed his chest as if it hurt him to say what he required of them. “Return the stones to the families…who lost loved ones…to mine them, son.”

Shit. Now I know why you didn’t want Mum to come with us. She’d be off her trolley.

“No,” Dejon voiced loudly. “We’re not doing that.”

Unexpectedly, Banja gripped Dash’s hand, urging him to silence his overly emotional twin. It reminded him of Banja’s absence during their childhood. Many times, Dash had found himself in a fatherly role. Born only seven minutes before Dejon, he often felt years ahead of him.

“For me, son, do this.” Banja blinked as tears puddled his eyes.

“Yes, sir.” Glaring at Dejon to agree, Dash answered for him.
Come on, Dad is nearly gone.

Lips pursed, Dejon sat quiet, without a reply.

“Dejon?” Their father apparently didn’t anticipate refusal. “That’s an
…order.”

“An
order
?” His twin’s tone turned sarcastic. On any other day, Dash could understand not taking a request from a man they hadn’t seen in over a decade. But right then, Dejon needed to be agreeable, doing as their father asked. This was Banja’s dying wish.

“No choice, son.” Coughing, Banja’s skin lightened from onyx to ash. The more Dejon didn’t agree, the faster their father seemed to kiss death in the face.

“We’ll get the stones back, Father. Dejon, tell Dad.”

Mouthing “no” in Dash’s direction, Dejon still wasn’t having it.

“Swear on Kamara…you’ll do this.” Banja spoke clearly. This wasn’t crazy talk, rather the real deal. Dash couldn’t believe they were being asked to pledge on their late sister’s name. “Promise…if not to me, then Kamara and the lives she saved…that you’ll act in her honor.”

“I don’t steal.” A flicker of anger shone as a bead of sweat on Dejon’s forehead. “And shame on you for bringing up our sister. Kamara was noble, but I will not fight with some mob, picking up wherever you two left off. Nor will I disgrace her legacy and fail trying.”

When Dash had grown older, he’d asked his mother why Kamara and Banja had fought the rebels. She’d replied, “Young women are forced to spend time with bad men they don’t love. Children’s limbs are broken off as if they were nothing more than plastic dolls and forced to work the mines. That’s why they’re called blood diamonds.” Her response had followed a fit of tears. Dash had never forgotten his mother’s words. He’d realized people bled for the vanity of jewelry.

Reminding himself of this, he wondered if what his father asked them to do was really considered stealing. The stones belonged to their town. To think of the luxury retailers around the world, selling blood diamonds to consumers, who then gifted them as gestures of love and happily ever after, all coming from these killers enraged him.

That’s it.
Yanking Dejon’s arm, Dash got them on their feet. Out of their father’s earshot, he pushed him over to the corner of the room by the bookshelves. “Fuck, Dejon, what is wrong with you? Don’t be an
arse
. Just do this for all the people who’ve suffered.”

“We cannot go up against these warlords.”

“Sure we can.”

“If you want me to say we will, fine, to make Daddy happy. But we’re
not
actually going to steal these stones.”

“Dude, yes.”

“Balls up, this is fucked up. Are you out of your thick skull? What part of ‘no’ do you not understand? The N or the O? No!”

Same in size, both tall and broad, Dash never held back showing dominance. Open-palmed, he whacked Dejon on the back of the head for speaking to him sarcastically.

“Bugger off!” Fearing he’d be struck again, Dejon flinched, trying to block him.

“Agree to carry out Father’s last request.” He didn’t understand Dejon’s resistance. His brother would normally give the shirt off his back for anyone in need. Didn’t Dejon have any empathy for their native people in the mines? “You’ve changed, dude.”

Over the years, he’d shared everything in life with Dejon—similar passion for rugby, a Kensington circle of close friends and often the same woman. Notably white girls with honey-colored hair, creamy skin, a tight pussy and an even tighter ass. How could Dejon not see eye-to-eye with him now?

“No, I haven’t. If anything, I’ve grown up.”

“This is because of that totty, Kiki Izatt, isn’t it? You’ve fallen arse over tit! It’s getting more serious, isn’t it?”

Ever since his brother had started dating her, he’d seemed different. Dash hadn’t met Kiki yet but felt certain his brother’s attitude came from Dejon thinking only about his American.

“Last week, while in New York, I asked Kiki to marry me. She said yes. I’m moving to the US to be closer to her, before we hitch.”

“Bloody hell! How could you keep this from me?” Dash thought they’d shared everything. His assumptions on this New Yorker were right. “I need to meet her.”