Vengeance (7 page)

Billy was average height, average build, and there was nothing special about him. He looked like the average black male that you would find in Anywhere, USA, but he was obedient. I rarely had to actually wear his ass out with a whip, but I would if the occasion called for it.

Diederik opened the door and saw Glaze sitting there in a cute dress and heels, much like myself. He grinned at her as Piece of Shit cowered in the corner in his pink panties. He would look normal again when they returned to the hotel. They would look like a happy couple strolling into the Ritz-Carlton, about to have a romantic evening in their room. They knew better than to fuck each other, or even touch each other, outside of my presence. One of them would be a tattletale and I would fuck both of them up and they recognized that.

I climbed out the back of the limo and looked at Diederik, wondering if he smelled the odor of sex emitting from the back. My other two guards were poised and ready to escort me into the artist entrance.

“You ready?” he asked.

“You ask me that every time and what do I always say?” I snickered. “The answer won’t ever change.”

He grinned. “You were born ready.”

I strolled toward the door. “Damn sure was.”

T
he
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
article was a lengthy one about how I had decided to relocate to Atlanta as my new home, purchasing a $19 million mansion on Paces Ferry Road. It had nine bedrooms, fifteen bathrooms, was built in 2008, and was a little shy of twenty-five thousand square feet. It was an easy selection for me. I simply told my executive assistant to go out and purchase the most expensive house on the entire market in the area. It was all for show. I could afford it and I would still be traveling a lot . . . after I finished what I had come to the city to do. I wanted the publicity to reflect that I had outdone everyone else so that the people I was there to retaliate against would see it and start circling like a kettle of vultures to obtain a meeting or some type of connection to me.

People in Atlanta really put that entire “six degrees of separation” theory to the ultimate test. They always wanted to mix and mingle with those they felt could contribute to their “brands.” Atlanta had become known as “the Black Hollywood,” with at least seventeen network shows filming there on the regular. More than half were those ratchet reality shows that showed sisters being willingly exploited as they bullied, badgered, and belittled each other . . . and themselves. They even had to agree in their contracts that they would not sue a fellow cast member for some ridiculous behavior, or they would be fired themselves. Most were portrayed as thirsty, desperate whores fighting over the same pieces of dick, on national TV. But I was not one to knock the hustle. If millions of people wanted to watch human train wrecks on television weekly, and the networks had willing participants, an even swap ain’t no swindle. Many had tried to connect with me off the bat, but I was not having it. I planned to entertain attention from only a few people, and none of them were on reality shows, but I was about to give them all serious reality checks. I had been invited to several events and parties those broads were hosting. As if? I was not stepping up their game by allowing them to ride the coattails of my legitimate brand based purely on bona fide talent instead of spreading my legs and bragging about it.

The home had ten-foot ceilings throughout, with a two-story foyer and cathedral ceiling, a pool house, outdoor fireplace, computer room, media room, library, exercise room, and the list went on and on. Excessive for one person, even one with a small entourage of employees, but again, it was all for show and it was a drop in the bucket to me. If money truly bought happiness, I should have been the happiest sister on the planet, but I was depressed, pissed, and ready to seek the vengeance that I had gone there to get. I donated tens of millions of dollars a year, so that was a good thing. I purged my closets every season and donated the clothes to women who needed them, mostly domestic abuse shelters or women reentering society after serving prison terms. Outside of drugs, domestic abuse was the main reason women ended up in such a predicament. If they did not flee and go to a shelter, they ended up snapping on men who had been beating their asses for years and they had to serve time behind it. At the very least, I was able to provide others with some happiness or basic human needs.

The only two things that actually mattered to me in the entire house were my bed—I loved comfort—and my piano that I had had shipped down from my penthouse in NYC. The place needed to be decorated and that was the beginning of the end of my misery. I called it Operation Renovate, Then Destroy.

“Nikki, what time is Mrs. Hudson supposed to be here?” I asked my assistant as I sat at the breakfast counter eating a bowl of fresh strawberries and blueberries with vanilla-flavored granola. “She’s still coming, right?”

Nikki was typing away on her MacBook Air, responding to e-mails and requests for interviews and appearances. I had several publicists, but Nikki had a direct line, nearly around-the-clock access to me, so all of them had to go through her to see if I was even interested. Plus, Nikki kept my calendar, so she was the only one who truly knew my availability, even more so than myself.

“Earth to Nikki!”

She finally paused and said, “Huh? I’m sorry.”

“Is the interior designer still coming today?”

“Oh, yeah. She’ll be here about eleven. That’s a good time, right?”

I giggled. “You tell me. All I know is that alerts pop up on my cell phone two hours before and then ten minutes before I’m supposed to be someplace or do something. You do a good job at making me look timely.”

“Well, it’s a quarter to nine, so you’ll be seeing one in about fifteen minutes telling you that she’s coming at eleven.”

We both chuckled.

Nikki was a fantastic assistant. She’d been with me for four years and I wouldn’t trade her for anything in the world. She always switched her hairstyles out to express herself. She was shorter than me, which I liked, light-skinned, thick, and always smiled. She had graduated from Spelman in 2004 with a degree in music, so she was excited that I had moved to Atlanta. In the entire time of her employment, we had never traveled there once because I had never been back since 1987.

That was a year that I wanted to forget forever. Well, most of it, up until that night in October where I almost died and was actually resurrected in the downtown Greyhound station. Hannah had saved me from other people, and from myself. I was determined to die, one way or another, but she breathed oxygen back into my lungs.

I clamped my eyes shut when I thought about what had happened at my high school homecoming. Those bitches and bastards had actually tried to kill me. It may not have been their exact intention, but it was the most probable outcome. If Hannah hadn’t cared enough to save me from bleeding to death, it would have been over. What I had craved and yearned for all the years prior, death, was right there in front of my face. I could almost reach out and touch it, smell it, embrace it.

“Wicket?” Nikki snapped me out of my thoughts. “Did you need anything else from me right now?”

“No, I’m about to work out for an hour.” I climbed down off the barstool at the breakfast bar. “I have to keep these tits and this ass tight for the stage.”

Nikki grinned. “And you keep them tight, too.”

I walked off to throw on a sports bra and pair of sweat pants so I could get in a good sweat before Bianca Hudson, formerly Bianca Lee, showed up at eleven. She thought she was coming to acquire the decorating contract of her lifetime and I was going to give it to her . . . right before I took out the knife that she had embedded in my back decades earlier and fucked the conniving, heartless bitch up with it.

“It is such an honor to meet you, Miss Wicket. Should I call you Miss Wicket or do you prefer just Wicket, or do you prefer your real name, Miss—”

“Wicket is fine.” I reached out and shook the hand fake-ass Bianca had extended to me. “Please, come in and make yourself comfortable. Nikki, get us a couple of glasses of fresh lemonade. You like lemonade, Mrs. Hudson?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, please call me Bianca. I want you to think of me as a long-lost, dear friend.”

It took everything within me not to spit in her damn face when she spoke those words. Little did she know that we had been friends at one point—
best friends
.

She was putting on airs and was dressed in the latest designer fashion, likely designed by that other bitch: Cherie. Later on in the day, before she left, I planned to fall into the laid trap and have a fit over the dress and ask where I could get one. That was what they wanted; for me to ask about the dress. Bianca would have a chance to introduce Cherie into the mix so she could try to get a lot of my money in her bank account as well. Still the same old slick trifling hoes from high school.

“Why don’t we start in the great room?” I suggested. “It’s a big space, but I have some thoughts about it.”

“That would be lovely. I’d love to hear what you envision.”

As we walked into the great room, I started my description. She was feeling it. I really didn’t need her ass to design
shit
for me. I was an excellent interior designer myself and owned houses and penthouses around the world that I had decorated alone.

“I
envision
this as my little-black-dress room. I want to put a black, large square rug in the middle of the floor, about twenty feet square and a huge, circular sofa that seats at least twelve that’s also completely black. I was thinking a nice, round crystal table in the middle with a light that has decorated edges that shine a pattern on the ceiling when the main lights are off. Something real sexy and intriguing.”

“So how does the little-black-dress concept come in?”

“It’s simple. You know how we can take a black dress and change the accessories and make it look completely new? Well, I want to be able to change out the objects on the coffee table and the pillows whenever the mood hits me. I might use yellow in the spring, or sea-foam green. Turquoise or peach in the summer. Red or purple in the fall. You get my drift?”

“That’s hot.” Bianca looked like I had shown her up. That’s because I had. “You’re about to make me feel useless already.”

“It’s merely a concept.” I shrugged. “I’m open to your thoughts. Everyone sees different things in different spaces. You’re the expert, so I’ll defer to you.”

That made her feel like the shit. She started strutting around like a peacock after that, from room to room as she sipped her lemonade and Nikki took notes to transcribe and share with us both later. I decided not to show her up anymore and pretended like all of her ideas were awesome. Some of them were actually pretty damn good. I could see why she was regarded as one of the top interior designers in Atlanta. Several had put in bids, but I did not even look at the others. She was the one that I wanted to trap in my web, and her greedy ass was about to breakdance right into my slaughterhouse.

Bianca and I were sitting on the veranda drinking two glasses of Moscato when Nikki appeared, as I was about to ask about her dress.

“I’m so excited about working with you,” Bianca said with a huge grin. “You’re such a sweetheart.”

I faked a smile and looked at Nikki, who was waiting patiently to say something. “Yes, Nikki.”

“You don’t have your cell phone with you so I wanted to remind you that you have a Skype call scheduled with your father at three.”

“Thanks.” Now, that actually made me happy and my smile became real. “I’m always on time for Daddy.”

Bianca looked like she had seen the rapture when Nikki mentioned my father. “It must’ve been great, growing up with Richard Sterling as your father.”

“He’s a man like every other man,” I replied, upset that she would even regard him like she knew him like that.

“Yes, but one of the richest men in the world. It had to be an amazing childhood.”

“He adopted me when I was six,” I lied, deducting an entire decade from the truth. “But yes, it was an amazing childhood. Not because of his wealth; because of his heart. He’s a very loving man, especially toward me.”

I decided not to ask her about the dress. I wanted her grubby ass to grovel for business for her friend. I was sick of staring into her hazel eyes that were clearly fake. Her eyes were brown, the color of walnuts, like her skin. She was wearing colored contacts to make herself more appealing. There was nothing wrong with her natural eye color. I had stared into them enough as a child.

I had a quick flashback of Bianca and me walking down the street to school in the tenth grade, laughing about what had happened on a sitcom the night before. We were both smiling at each other and lightly tapping each other on the arms during conversation. Then I realized she was there, in real time, in my presence, smiling again, but I remembered what evil she was capable of: BITCH!

“You should get going. Please be in touch with Nikki when you have a formal presentation together and she’ll fit you into my schedule.” I went from being overly gracious to strictly professional in the blink of an eye. “She’ll see you to your car, and thanks again for coming by.”

Bianca shook my hand and started to hesitantly walk away. She paused and turned around. “Um, by the way, I have a friend who is an excellent designer and stylist. You may have heard of her. Cherie Thompson?”

“No, can’t say that I have.” I sighed and started acting irritated.

“She’s great. Top-notch. In fact”—Bianca spun around like she was ripping up a runway, so I could peep the same dress that I had been looking at all damn day—“she designed this little number exclusively for me. She does practically all my clothes.”

“It’s simplistic but rather nice,” I said, trying to downplay it. “Leave her card with Nikki and I’ll consider giving her line a look-see.”

Bianca cleared her throat. “Maybe we can have lunch one day later this week, at your convenience.”

I rolled my eyes, making sure she would see the gesture. She had a lot of fucking nerve to think that she could commandeer my time like that. I was the celebrity, not her. Stupid whore!