(NOTE: Contains explicit language and adult themes suitable for ages 16+)
© K.L. Hall and www.authorklhall.com, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to K.L. Hall and www.authorklhall.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Chapter One
Lourde
“What the fuck did you just say!” I yelled, walking back into the room.
I briefly cut my eyes at Neenah. There was sheer terror in her eyes. Thinking quickly on her feet, she stood to block me, but she wasn’t fast enough. I shoved her to the side and went straight for my father, grabbing him by the front of his hospital gown and drawing his face close to mine. My jaw was clenched together so tight that my teeth started to grind against one another.
“You fuckin’ heard me! What the fuck did you just say?” I said through gritted teeth.
I would’ve been a fool to expect him to be afraid of me, even though he had the disadvantage of lying in a hospital bed with bullet fragments still lodged inside his body. He wasn’t. Instead, he smirked, which only pissed me off more. With all the force in me, I slammed his body back onto the hard mattress and hovered over him. The blood coursing through my veins was filled with venom as I wrapped my hands around his throat, ready to take his very last breath.
Darkness crossed his eyes as he looked at me. “You could never be my son,” he hissed.
Hearing his words left me numb. One thing was for sure, and two things were for certain: Furious Belmonte didn’t give a fuck about family or me. He only cared about himself. He may as well have put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger. All my life, I’d been vying for his love and respect, trying to show him that I could be the man he was trying to mold me into when he didn’t even deem me worthy to be his son.
“Lourde! Stop!” Neenah yelled, tugging at my arm.
“Get the fuck off me! Just get the fuck out, Neenah!”
“No! Lourde, please just stop! Think about what you’re doing!”
With anger laced in my voice, I yelled, “I said get the fuck out!”
All of Neenah’s pleas and screams didn’t fall on deaf ears for long. Minutes later, hospital security burst into the room, and two guards tried their best to pry my hands from around Bell’s neck, but all I saw was red. My skin was boiling with rage, and I wasn’t going to be satisfied until he was dead.
“Stop before you kill him!” Neenah yelled. “You can’t kill our father, Lourde!”
My eyes darted over to her as I watched the words our fatherfall off her lips. It was the first time I’d heard those words and knew that they weren’t true. Furious Belmonte wasn’t my father. He wasn’t shit to me. In the blink of an eye, my world began spiraling out of control, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t know who the fuck I was. Neenah covered her tear-stained face when security finally got me away from him and tried pinning my arms behind my back to restrain me.
“You better hope you die is this mothafucka, or I swear to God I’ll kill you myself!” I yelled.
I quickly shoved both security guards off me and stormed out of the room, ready to set the entire fucking world on fire. As my feet paced down the hall toward the elevator, people darted out of my way as if I was Moses parting the Red Sea. As soon as my finger parted from the button, I felt a hand on my shoulder. My body did a sharp 360-degree turn, and my eyes landed on Neenah.
“Please, Lourde… don’t leave like this.”
She made another failed attempt to grab my arm, but I jerked it away.
“You and that mothafucka need to stay the fuck from around me!” I warned.
“Lourde, listen to me! This is all news to me too! I didn’t know anything about any of this until seconds before you walked in!”
I started to speak but huffed out an exasperated breath instead. “Fuck you, Neenah.”
“No matter what he says, you’re still my brother, and he’s still our family. Nothing has changed in my eyes.”
“Then maybe you need to open them mothafuckas! He’s not my father! Because of him, I don’t know who myfamily is!” I shot back.
The elevator dinged, and the steel gray doors slowly opened. Without uttering another word, I stepped in and let the silence draw an even bigger wedge between us as the doors closed. As far as I was concerned, my entire family had turned against me. I’d been living in a world constructed by my father’s lies, and with his secret revealed, I didn’t know who the fuck to trust. The moment I stepped out of the hospital, I vowed to only fuck with the one person in my life that had never sugarcoated shit to me, Loyalty. If it wasn’t about her, then I didn’t give a fuck. It was just going to be the two of us. No friends, no family, no nothing.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called her, just needing to hear her voice. The phone rang three times, and then I heard her voice recording. “Hey, this is Loyalty. Sorry I missed your call, but if you leave your name and number, I’ll be sure to call you back when I can.”There was a beep that followed, and then I left a message.
Lourde: 9:46 p.m.: Hey, call me back when you can. I’ve got some business to handle tonight, but I’ll be over to see you in the morning.
I locked my phone and headed home. The only thing I wanted to do was pack my shit and get the fuck out of Furious Belmonte’s house and life for good.
Neenah
I hadn’t seen that much hurt on my brother’s face since the night our father told us that our mother died in a car accident. The pain in my heart only amplified as I walked down the hall, and my eyes caught a glimpse of the news on the television.
“This is Sharon Herron with News Eleven, and we have a breaking news report. I’m live in the parking garage adjacent to the Newton Professional Suites where earlier today a pedestrian was struck in what appears to be a hit-and-run crash. The male pedestrian, sixty-five-year-old John Miller, was found by another pedestrian, who then called for medical assistance. He was then transported to Calvary Hospital and is currently in critical condition. If you have any information on this incident, please call Crime Stoppers.”
“Fuck,” I mumbled, frozen in my step.
With my right hand latched around my lips, I used the other to pull out my cell phone and call O’Shea. With my immediate family in shambles, he was the only one I felt that I could turn to in that moment.
“Hello?” he answered.
“Baby…” My voice shook.
“Neenah, what’s wrong?”
“I need you to—I need you to meet me at the hospital.”
“The hospital? Are you okay?”
“No. No I’m not okay,” I said, clutching my chest as if I was on the brink of having a panic attack.
“Baby, talk to me. Which hospital are you at?”
“Calvary.”
“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll call you when I’m there, okay? Stay by your phone, aight?”
“Yeah—yeah, okay.”
With all my emotions built up in my throat, I simply nodded as if he could see me and then ended the call. A wave of nausea overcame me, and I shot down the hall like there were lit firecrackers stuck to my ass. I found the nearest bathroom and flung my body over the toilet, spewing my guts out. I reached out to flush the toilet and simultaneously wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I didn’t know if it was the pregnancy or the fact that the man I’d hit was inside the same hospital as I was, dying. Just knowing that sent chills crawling up my spine. I stepped out to wash my hands and made the mistake of looking at my reflection. There was a hollowness in my chest every time I looked at myself in the mirror. On top of everything that had just transpired between Lourde and our father, I couldn’t stop replaying the accident in my head.
I whipped into the first vacant parking spot I saw and continued to cry. My body was still trembling when I opened the car door to see I’d parked over the line. I wiped my eyes, jumped back inside my car and put the car into reverse without so much as a second though. My tires screeched the moment I hit something.
“Fuck!” I yelled, staring out of my rearview mirror.
I shifted the car back into drive, pulling forward, then parked it to get out and look at the damage. The faint smell of motor oil danced past my nose as I walked around to the back of my car to see what I’d hit. I looked down and gasped, then slowly raised my arms over my head.
“Oh my God!”
There was an old white man lying on the ground, gasping for air. His eyes settled directly on mine, and I burst out in tears. Panic spread through my body like a wildfire. I backed away from him until my back touched the gray concrete pillar in the parking garage. I looked down at the oil stain on the ground and scanned through the rows of cars and trucks parked within the lines for any witnesses.
“H—help me,” he whispered, voice thick with emotion.
“Oh my God. What have I done?”
As much as I wanted to say anything else, all the words I’d ever spoken in my life were jumbled together inside my throat. I watched his chest expand rapidly as he took shallow breaths. I stood frozen, watching the man take his last few breaths. I should’ve called 9-1-1. I should’ve screamed for help. Instead, I jumped back into my car and sped off.
“I shouldn’t have fucking left,” I whispered as my chin quivered.
My guilt was pulling me in one direction, while my fear was pulling me in the other. I thought he’d died at the scene, but there was still a chance he would live, and I could right my wrongs. I dabbed my glossy eyes, exited the bathroom and then darted to the first nurse’s desk I saw.
“Excuse me. I have a quick question.”
“Yes, how can I help you?”
“I was wondering if there was a patient here by the name of John Miller.”
“Uh, give me one second while I look that up for you.” She paused for a few seconds while her nails clicked against her black keyboard. “Uh, yes… it looks like we have three patients by the name of John Miller here. It’s a pretty common name.”
“Um, he’s older, I think in his sixties. Does that narrow it down? He was brought in today for an um… a hit and run,” I mumbled.
“He’s in the intensive care unit, but visitation is limited to only family members. That’s all the information I can give you being that you aren’t related to him, correct?”
“Yes, I understand. Thank you so much.” I nodded.
I spun around on my heels and turned for the elevator to go down to the intensive care unit on the fourth floor. I was determined to find him and speak my peace. My fingertips glided against the plain white walls as I read every name slot outside of the doors on my left, then turned to my right and did the same thing. My heart almost sprang out of my chest when I saw it. His name was written just like the dozens of others I’d seen, but I felt different just knowing that my carelessness was the reason he was in there. I nervously swallowed down the lump in my throat as I swiped a bead of sweat from my forehead and opened the door.
His room was dark, and there was only the sound of a beeping heart monitor mixed with my own heartbeat ringing in my ears. He was lying on his back with his eyes closed and tubes streaming out of his nose. My muscles froze, prohibiting me to move from the doorway. All I could do was watch as the machines pumped his chest up and down. He wasn’t even breathing on his own. My body sunk back against the pale walls while my eyes scanned the whiteboard with his name and information on it. “Right your wrongs, Nee. Do it,”I thought to myself. I peeled my back off the wall and walked over to his bedside. The smell of over-bleached bedsheets struck my nose as I reached out to grab his lukewarm hand.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
Tears slipped off the bridge of my nose onto my hand. I’d never felt so much guilt in my life, and I didn’t know what to do. I just kept praying that he didn’t die. If he lived, I would spend the rest of my life making it up to him. I opened my mouth to speak when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I quickly pulled my hand away from his and looked at the screen. O’Shea had arrived. Instead of answering, I stepped away from the bed and turned to leave. Before I could get to the door, a nurse walked in.
“Excuse me, but this patient is only allowed visitors that are from his immediate family.”
I nodded. “I’m—I’m sorry. I think I have the wrong room,” I told her, while quickly wiping my face and darting past her.
As my feet shuffled down the hallway, there was a page over the intercom. Two doctors and a few nurses rushed past me and went into his room. I quickly spun around and followed them, praying that my worst nightmare hadn’t come true. Sounds of his heart monitor flatlining sealed my thoughts, and I heard the words I prayed I wouldn’t. “Time of death 10:11 p.m.”
Without even having a second to let the words register in my mind, my phone buzzed again. I clutched my phone in my hand and answered it.
“H—hello?”
“Baby, I’m downstairs in the main lobby. Where are you?”
“Stay where you are. I’m—I’m coming to you,” I told him.
Once my eyes locked on O’Shea’s, they immediately pooled with tears. I crashed my body into his and wrapped my arms around him, soaking his shirt with my guilt.
“I’m so glad you’re here.”
“What’s wrong, baby? What happened?”
I stood in his presence rocking back and forth like the basket case I was and let out a few inaudible words mixed with tears, trying my best to explain to him just how my world had gotten turned upside down in the matter of a few hours. A sigh escaped his lips, and he grabbed my tense shoulders.
“Baby, stop crying, and just tell me what happened one word at a time.”
“Some—somebody shot at Daddy. He’s upstairs… they can’t operate because they’re afraid his cancer might spread.”
His facial expression softened, and he hugged me tighter. “Damn, baby. What are the doctors saying? Is he going to be okay? Were they able to get any of the bullets out?”
“He’s stable… you know how Daddy is. It’s going to take more than a few bullets to take him down.”
“Yeah, he’s definitely a fighter. I’m sure he’ll pull through. If anybody can do it, Bell can. Is that it though? Can we go see him? Is your brother up there?”
The simple mention of Lourde’s name made me cry all over again. “No—he’s gone… him and Daddy got into it. He tried to kill him, and security had to pull them apart.”
“Kill him? What the fuck for?”
I flashed my glossy eyes up at him. “Lourde’s adopted, baby.”
O’shea’s eyes widened to the point where I thought they were going to bug out of his head. “He’s what!”
“And Daddy said he’s giving the company to me, well, to us I guess.”
“He said all of that today?”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“Did you get it in writing?”
My forehead creased. “What?”
“I’m just saying… this is big, Neenah. I mean, real big. You know it yourself that your dad has been wishy-washy on this company shit. One minute it’s yours, the next it’s his. I just want to make sure that if these are his last wishes that we have everything in writing.”
“Are you kidding me right now?”
“What?”
My voice whipped back at him. “I just told you that my fuckin’ family is falling apart at the seams, and you’re talking to me about business shit? Really, Shea? At a time like this?”
He sighed. “I didn’t mean to come off insensitive… I just—I just want to make sure that we’re protected in the end; just you and me.”
“And what about Lourde, huh? How do you think he feels about all of this?”
“I’m not gon’ lie and say that this shit ain’t fucked up, but he’s a grown ass man, and he’s not my concern, but you are.”
I bit my lip, torn between wanting to push his ass away or pull him closer to me. A part of me knew he was right. Whenever my father did die, O’Shea would be the only man I had to lean on since Lourde wanted nothing to do with me.
“You’re right… I just didn’t know you wanted to take over my father’s business so bad.”
“I mean, of course I want to help you run it. I’m not trying to take anything from you, baby. I just want to make sure that you and I are good as we move into the next chapter of our lives. We’re going to be husband and wife soon, and then you already know that I want to have a whole starting five with you. So why wouldn’t I want to make sure our future is secure? That’s all I’m saying,” he said, while grazing his hand against the front of my stomach.
I quickly grabbed his hand and moved it away. He still didn’t know that I was pregnant, and I had no intention on telling him, ever. The only baby he would know about would be the one that I was happy about carrying whenever I got pregnant again. Guilt spiraled from the depths of my stomach as I inhaled a deep breath.
My voice cracked. “That’s not all…”
“What? What else?”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “There’s something else I need to tell you…”
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