9. Capri
CHAPTER 9
CAPRI
I awoke with a start when I heard my name being shouted. “Fuck,” I groaned while squinting my eyes from the bright light that my sister had let into the room by opening my black out curtains.
“Fuck is right,” Bianca stated in a gentle tone as she peered down at me. “Capri, I love you. You know I do. And I’m worried. I could never tell you how to grieve and if I was in your shoes, I’d probably be the same way. But you don’t leave the house.” She looked around my bedroom and shook her head pitifully. “You don’t go to work. You don’t answer your phone. This isn’t good for you.” Bianca picked up an empty tequila bottle. “Come on. Get up. I’m going to fix you breakfast, clean your room, and change the sheets on your bed.”
As I laid flat on my back, I eyed my sister and the concern on her face was the only reason I didn’t turn my back on her and pull the covers over my head. It had been four days since I dropped Lisa off at the ER, and I had been drinking myself into stupors ever since. Wincing from the pain in my throat and the churning in my stomach, I sat up. After taking a moment to compose myself, I stood and went to the bathroom. The urge to vomit was powerful as I stood at the sink and brushed my teeth. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d eaten, but I’d gone through a fifth of alcohol in twenty-four hours. If I cared about life, I would’ve admitted that the drinking was past out of hand. But I didn’t care.
A long hot shower made me feel a little better. My energy was pretty much depleted, and that was one of the reasons it took me so long in the bathroom. The other reason was because the hot water felt so damn good, and the final reason was because I didn’t want to face Bianca. She was ten years older than me and since our mother passed, she took her big sister role to heart. There was only so much grace Bianca was going to give me before she gently and lovingly dug in my ass. When I walked into my bedroom, it smelled great. Biance had vacuumed after sprinkling carpet fresh on the carpet. She’d also lit a candle and sprayed room spray. All of the empty snack packages, water bottles, and bottles of liquor had been removed from the room. The bed was made, and the trash had been emptied.
I could hear the washing machine going as well as Bianca moving around my kitchen. With a sigh, I walked into the living room and began picking up trash and cleaning the room. When I was done, I entered the kitchen to find Bianca scooping scrambled eggs from a pan and placing them onto a plate. She grabbed a few slices of bacon and two slices of toast before finally placing a handful of strawberries and blueberries onto the plate.
“Thank you,” I grumbled as she passed me the plate.
“We need to talk about Luxe rentals. Since you haven’t been returning his calls, Al reached out to me. The numbers have been off and so have the bank deposits. He thinks Benny is cheating you since he’s the one that handles the money.”
I chuckled lowly before pushing a piece of bacon into my mouth. Niggas. Give ‘em an inch, and they’d take a mile. Any time I did go to the office, Benny gave me sympathetic looks and swore that he had my back. He encouraged me to take as much time off as I needed, and he assured me that he’d hold down the fort. Never since he’d been working for me had he been bold enough to try me. Benny chose my most vulnerable time to pull some dumb shit and for that, I was gon’ have fun putting my foot all the way in his ass.
“I can take over until you feel like you’re ready to get back to work.”
“Thanks for the offer, but that’s my cue to get back to it. As much as I don’t want to have anything to do, getting out of the house more would probably be good for me. I’ll swing by there when I’m done with breakfast.”
I pretended not to notice Bianca staring at me with her lip pinched between her teeth. She already knew what it was, and she more than likely knew that nothing she said would stop me. I finished the food and gave my sister a kiss on the cheek. I appreciated her even when I didn’t say it. I left her at the house cleaning and doing laundry. I needed gas, so it took me almost thirty minutes to get to my car rental business. When I arrived, there was one customer inside, two of my regular employees, and Benny.
Benny was helping the customer while Samantha was booking a reservation over the phone, and Cole was making fresh coffee. “Cole, handle this customer. Benny let me see you in the office,” I stated gruffly and walked towards the office without waiting for anyone to reply. Inside the office, I sat down at my desk and logged into the computer. Checking my email, I looked over all of the documents that my accountant had sent me. Benny walked inside the office with a slimy grin on his face.
“What’s up Boss Man?”
My eyes darted over the numbers. There was more than $10,000 that couldn’t be accounted for.
“My accountant told me that the numbers are off. The bank deposits and the reservation logs aren’t adding up. Some of the deposit slips are also different from the daily ledgers. I have about $10,000 missing. You know anything about that?” I sat back in the chair and eyed Benny.
His brows lifted while a panicked look appeared in his eyes. “I, um, $10,00? That has to be wrong.”
“I don’t think it is. I think you’ve been taking my state of grief as an opportunity to rob me, and I know you have to know I don’t appreciate that shit.” My tone was eerily calm, but I was sure my eyes told another story.
Benny loosened his tie with urgency. Funny it hadn’t been too tight all day but at that moment, he was anxious to get the tie from around his neck. “I’m not the only employee here, Capri. You pay me damn good. I’m not going to mess this job up by stealing.”
He was wasting his time trying to pin it on someone else. I only had one person handling the money and bank deposits for a reason. I had dropped the ball but thankfully, my accountant caught it. My accountant had been in business for twenty years. He was good at what he did, and I trusted that he wasn’t lying to me. And that was the reason I stood and rounded the desk while Benny was lying and copping pleas. His eyes widened as I raised my arm. My fist connected with Benny’s face, and he had to grip the edge of my desk to keep from falling.
His hold on the desk meant nothing because the second blow sent him tumbling back into the wall. I walked closer to him as he scrambled to move away from me. “Capri, please. I didn”
I hit him with an uppercut that sent saliva spewing from his mouth. The next blow buckled his knees, and the final blow knocked him out. He slid down the wall and laid out on the floor. Benny was sleeping like a baby. Only because we were at my place of business did I let him continue to lie there. I wanted to drag his ass outside and leave him there like the trash he was. After stepping over his body, I sat back down at my desk. The moment he woke up, he was going to have ten seconds to get out of my face before I hit him again. Despite me being livid about the missing money, I was almost glad that he crossed me.
Beating his ass had been a great release, and I felt a little better. I wasn’t sparing anybody. And it didn’t matter who it was. Anybody could get it. I hadn’t forgotten Sintonio either. I wanted him to get comfortable, and then I was going to strike. I wouldn’t rest until he was no longer breathing.
Four days. I’d gone four days without alcohol. Marijuana was in nonstop rotation, but I had refrained from alcohol. I also got on my shit and showed my face at all my places of business. Meetings were held, and I made it clear that the next person that got the bright idea to do some foul shit on my clock would end up worse off than Benny. Caprice was a constant on my mind, but I had to get back to life. Being in a home filled with her memories and belongings wasn’t fun either. That could have been another reason that I was drowning in my sorrow, but I wasn’t ready to get rid of her things. Instead, I just got up every day and went to work versus sitting in the house all day.
It was nine pm, and I’d been away from home since eight that morning. My four day break was over. I craved something to ease my mind, and weed wasn’t going to do the trick. The bar wasn’t too packed, but there were limited seats at the bar. I didn’t mind sitting beside anyone as long as they weren’t in the mood to be chatty. I’d never been that person that got drunk in bars and became super friendly. Never would be. I eased onto an available bar stool and waited for the bartender to come over and take my order.
The scent that infiltrated my nose had me turning my head to the left. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t matter to me who was sitting beside me but that scent. The smell of vanilla was damn near nostalgic because even though vanilla was a very common scent, it made me think of someone. My orbs landed on those ginger tresses, and the beat of my heart quickened just a bit as I studied her side profile. Before I could look away, Lisa turned towards me, and she didn’t even blink. The pain in her eyes was undeniable. She gave me a subtle nod and looked away. My gaze drifted towards the glass on the bar which she lifted and placed to her mouth. As she tossed back the remnants of what was in the glass, the bartender came over to take my order.
“Let me get a double shot of Louis XIII.”
“Coming right up. Can I get you anything else, Miss?” He directed his attention towards Lisa.
“Yes. Another lemon drop please. Tequila instead of vodka.”
“You got it.”
I could ignore people with the best of them but being next to Lisa was awkward. It wasn’t because I’d kidnapped her. It wasn’t even because she reminded me of bitch ass Sintonio. The thought of him made me glance towards her hand, and her ring finger was bare. We shared the same pain and even though I didn’t want to, I couldn’t help but to feel empathy for her. The same way I didn’t want people saying dumb shit to me, I wasn’t going to say any dumb shit to her. It had been a month since she’d given birth to her son.
The bartender slid my drink towards me with a nod then did the same to Lisa. “Thank you,” she stated quietly as I sipped my drink.
Turning my head slightly, I furrowed my brows. I didn’t even really want to look her in the eyes, but I wanted her to be able to see my interest in her comment. A nigga was confused as to why I was even avoiding her gaze.
“For letting me give birth with my family present. Thank you. We all got to hold him and say goodbye.”
I gave a curt nod. The hatred and bitterness that was brewing inside of me since losing Caprice hadn’t faded at all, but I couldn’t be so heartless that I made her do such a hard task alone. Or with my ass present. A man that kidnapped her. She was right about one thing. She didn’t pull the trigger that took my child away from me. No matter how closely affiliated she was with the nigga, she still wasn’t the one that committed the crime. The silence between us resumed. On the other side of her, a man eased over to her and tried to strike up a conversation.
“I’m not interested. Thank you.” Though her tone was dry, it held a hint of pleasantry that I knew was fake.
“What is there not to be interested in? I haven’t said anything aside from how are you doing? A nigga can’t be nice to you?”
“I’m not interested in conversation.” Lisa’s voice was strained.
I picked my glass up and sipped more of my beverage.
“That’s what’s wrong with you black bitches. A nigga can’t even speak to y’all’s uppity asses without you turning your nose up.”
I eased off my stool and felt Lisa’s gaze on me as I walked towards the disrespectful drunk that was yapping like an aggravating ass chihuahua.
“The lady said she wasn’t interested, right?” I asked as my head angled to the left.
The man looked me up and down and sucked his teeth before walking off. He knew who to try and who to play with I assumed because he got out of dodge quick as hell.
“Thank you again,” Lisa sighed as I sat back down.
I didn’t respond. I just drained the alcohol from my glass and waved the bartender over, so I could order another one. Lisa did the same.
“You driving?” I asked her curiously.
“Yeap.” A lazy grin spread across her face as if she was proud of the answer.
“You might want to slow down.”
Lisa chuckled. “I’m good. Trust me. Whatever happens, happens.”
There, I could see it. I didn’t want to, but I did. All the grim and dark comments that I made that made other people feel some kind of way, but I meant them all from the bottom of my soul. I knew how they felt because while I could one hundred percent feel where she was coming from, it made me uncomfortable to hear Lisa be so passive about her wellbeing.
“If you order another drink, I’m not letting you drive away from here,” I asserted, and she smirked.
“You gonna kidnap me again?”
“I might.” The answer was quick and had some bite to it. The way she sighed and then chuckled made my dick hard. Fuck.
I wondered if trauma bonding with a person led to good sex. I hadn’t had sex since Kenya, and that hadn’t been worth the time it took the put the condom on. I did get to release, however, so that was better than nothing.
“You came to the house today while I was gone and got the rest of your shit?” I heard an angry tone over the chatter and music in the bar.
“Please get away from me.” Though she used the word please, Lisa’s tone was anything other than polite.
“Nah. You’ve pulled a lot of fuck shit over these past few months. You wouldn’t let me be there for the birth of my son, and now you just move out of the house. You haven’t said shit to me.”
“There’s nothing to say!”
This was Sintonio. The rage that flowed through me damn near made me black out. I didn’t even remember getting up off the bar stool. Before I could even think about what I was doing, I had hit him so hard that he fell onto the table behind him knocking over drinks and food. I didn’t give a damn about the patrons whose meal I’d interrupted as I leaned down and hit Sintonio in the face over and over again.
“Capri, please stop,” I heard Lisa shouting from behind me.
Stopping wasn’t an option. I grabbed Sintonio by his shirt and dragged the nigga through the bar like he was a bag of trash. At the door, a big burly security guard was in my way, and I tossed an icy glare his way while still holding onto Sintonio’s shirt. The man was taller than me and had me by a good one hundred pounds, but I gave zero fucks. When he saw my hateful glare, he raised his hands in surrender. “I don’t care what you do after you get him outside. Just know that sometimes the police ride through here and patrol.”
I got Sintonio outside of the bar ignoring the small crowd that followed me.
“Get yo’ ass up,” I panted.
Sintonio jumped up off the ground with a look of panic and slight confusion on his face. The moment he was on his feet, I hit him again hard enough to make him hit the ground. “Beating yo’ ass isn’t going to be any fun,” I sneered as I kicked him.
I hit Sintonio four more times before I felt Lisa’s soft hand on my forearm. “People are recording. I’m sure someone has called the police. Please just leave. He’s not worth it.” The compassion in her eyes kept me from shrugging her off me. I didn’t give a damn about the police. As long as they weren’t coming to toe tag his dead ass body, I couldn’t care less about being arrested for beating his ass.
Sintonio clumsily scrambled to his feet. “Oh, you fucking somebody else all ready?” he spat through blood tinged lips.
I walked closer to him and damn near growled. “Nah, bitch. You killed my daughter.”
Sintonio’s eyes grew so big, I was surprised that they didn’t pop out of his head. He tripped over his own feet getting away from me. “I paid your tab. I think you should go.”
The fact that Lisa appeared more worried about me than the man she’d been engaged to said a lot. I didn’t have an issue paying my own tab, but I knew the fight that had taken place was going to be the talk of social media for days to come. The video might even make it into the hands of law enforcement, but I really didn’t care. I wasn’t going back inside of the bar, however. Continuing to ignore all of the eyes on me, I walked to my car and left.