2. September “Ember” Morgan
“Girl, you have to show off that tattoo tonight. It’s fierce.” My best friend, Phaedra, squealed.
“It should be. It’s a representation of my name,” I replied.
My parents named me September in honor of not only my birth month but also my mother’s favorite month. I let Phaedra reseal the bandage over my tattoo before I tugged my blouse up again. My birthstone, the sapphire, was set in the rounded portion of the Libra sign, and morning glory petals were scattered around it.
“Are you wearing that dress you bought yesterday?”
“That’s the plan. It’ll show my tattoo off perfectly.”
“I’ve got an idea.”
“What’s that?”
“We should go by that biker bar tonight before we head to the clubs.”
My best friend was always with the shits. I looked at her like she told me she was an alien.
“What?”
“Girl, did you see the way that one nigga with the braids was looking at you?”
“Who, Priest?”
“Yeah. Isn’t he the leader? He’s fine as hell.”
I sucked my teeth. “Honey, the Immortal Descendents are fine as hell, but they’re all bad news.”
“Girl, he can be bad news with all that BDE.”
“All that STD.”
“Stop,” Phaedra replied and laughed.
“I’m serious. Every time I see Priest’s ass, he’s got different women hanging on him.”
“He’s the leader of the club. What do you expect? Look at how we got wet over him.”
“Speak for yourself,” I lied. Hell, I couldn’t wait for Phaedra’s ass to leave so I could go in the bathroom and rub one out or turn my vibrator on the highest level while I thought about Priest’s fine ass. It wouldn’t be the first time, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. A single bitch had to think about somebody when she was giving the pussy up to a plastic toy.
Phaedra sucked her teeth. “Girl, please. Your horny ass was wet too. Anyway, I’m just saying that just because bitches are hanging under him doesn’t mean he’s screwing them all.”
“And it doesn’t mean that he’s not,” I countered.
“Still can’t believe your ass is getting married. I mean, Daniel Usher is rich and fine as fuck, and I wish I had a wealthy man waiting in the wings for me, but damn, it just doesn’t seem real.”
“I know,” I replied sadly.
“It’s all good, boo. We’re gonna party our asses off until that time like the bad bitches we are.”
“Shiiid, bestie. I don’t know what you talkin’ ’bout. I’m still partying after I’m married.”
“Girl, please. That man ain’t gonna play ’bout you shaking your ass in the club when you’re his wife.”
“That’s what his horny ass gets for feenin after a twenty-two-year-old bad bitch,” I replied. I stared into the mirror and held up two different pairs of earrings. “Which ones should I wear with that dress tonight?”
“The diamond hoops,” Phaedra answered easily. “What are you gonna do about your job once you get married?”
“Shit, getting into my field. Now that I’ve officially graduated, I plan to make the transition this fall.”
“How is he gonna take that? I thought you said Daniel didn’t want you to work, and I know your daddy will be in his feelings about losing you because you’ve been working for him since high school.”
“Shit! That reminds me. He wanted me to update some records before the close of business today and make a couple of bank transfers.”
“Do you ever take a break?”
“No. I figure it’s the least that I can do,” I replied. I set the earrings on my dresser and turned to Phaedra. “Seriously, my daddy spoils the shit out of me. I don’t mind working for him in exchange for all that he does for me. But I have to hire someone to replace me soon.”
“Hire me,” Phaedra responded.
“Bitch, please. I’m not about to have you taking money off the top and bankrupting my daddy.”
She laughed as she followed me out of my bedroom and downstairs to my office, which was annexed to my father’s office.
“Girl, I need to go. I need to shower, eat, and get my beauty rest before we hit the clubs tonight. Bye, Miss Working Woman.”
“You should be doing the same,” I replied with my finger pointed at her.
“Bitch, please. Why? My baby daddy takes good care of me.”
“His ass needs to go legit before he doesn’t have shit to offer you or Nairobi.”
Phaedra waved a hand at me. “Girl, bye. We all weren’t born with a silver spoon in our mouths like you, and everybody don’t wanna be a grown man yet like your daddy.”
I stuck my tongue out at her and waved goodbye. It was no secret that my daddy was the biggest drug dealer in the state of Georgia. To his credit, though, he had started several legitimate businesses some years ago, but that drug money had my nigga in a chokehold.
I walked into my office and busied myself with the transactions that I promised my daddy I would handle before the day ended. When he returned to his office a few hours later, I was in there. I had forgotten all about getting ready for the club.
“Did you transfer those funds I asked you to?” my daddy asked when he set his phone and a folder on his desk.
“Yes,” I answered tightly.
“What’s wrong, baby girl? Why you got the dog on?” he asked when he saw the mug on my face.
“Daddy, I just spent the last couple of hours correcting some errors that Avangaline made on that Viva account.”
I had taken a break earlier because I needed to run out and grab something for dinner before I went to the club. I still wore my little pink beret as if I were about to leave the house.
My daddy slowly raised his eyes from his desk up to me. His mouth hung partially open, and a look of caution burned bright in his eyes.
“You ain’t got no business messing with that Viva account, September. You know that,” he declared through clenched teeth.
“I had to, Daddy. The numbers didn’t align, and something wasn’t right. And you know how I get when things don’t balance.”
“Which is why I asked you to leave that to me,” he replied.
“Did you order this shipment?”
I prayed he said that he wasn’t familiar with it when I set the fulfillment order on his desk.
“Mind ya business, little girl,” he warned.
“Daddy. Did. You. Order?—”
“You’re stepping over the line, September.”
“Answer me!” Rage was a tightly coiled snake lying in wait within me. It wanted to strike out and bite its prey with a venomous attack.
“You don’t speak to me in that tone, September Chrishelle Morgan!” my father exclaimed.
“Tell me, Daddy,” I hissed.
He glared at me and refused to look at the condemning file.
“Where did you get this?”
“I printed it off along with the inventory list you requested. It was a part of the same file.”
“Avangaline forgot to remove it,” he muttered.
“Is it true, Daddy?”
His eyes shuttered as he replied, “Stay in your lane, princess. You don’t question how I run my operation.”
“I handle all administrative aspects of it.”
“You think that entitles you to question what the fuck I do? How do you think your entitled ass has that BMW 740i parked in the garage? Or how about that AMEX Black card, spa days, lunches at Baldwins, and those expensive vacations to the tropics you and your friends take every spring and summer. Who’s paying for those, princess ?” he asked in a condescending tone and a glacial look in his eyes.
“Daddy, that shipment was not for guns or software parts. Those were people, women in that shipment container, Daddy.”
The way that he stared right through me and then looked away, I knew he was aware. It chilled me to the bone that my father could be so callous and menacing.
“Daddy, you can’t do that to them. They’re people, somebody’s daughter. Just like me. They’re someone’s mommy. Just like Mommy!” I shouted.
“Snooping in shit that didn’t have anything to do with her, that’s what got her killed. You’d better be careful about following in your mother’s footsteps, little girl.”
“Daddy!” The shrill gasp that leaped from my lungs didn’t sound like me at all. “Daddy, please tell me that you didn’t know,” I begged, sobbing.
I watched my once tall, handsome father transform before my eyes. His warm brown eyes were soulless, his mouth a hardened line, and his face a caricature of the handsome man he was before his stunning revelation.
“You were supposed to spend the weekend with Shan. I swear I had no idea you stayed home.”
My mouth dropped, and I gripped the edge of his desk to keep myself upright. His ass was not standing there about to say the shit that I thought he was going to say. I backed away from his desk. I was going to be sick. My world had turned upside down before my eyes. My father stepped from behind his desk.
“Don’t you fucking judge me. You accept that I sell drugs, trade guns, and all the other shit to keep your bank account healthy and keep us in this big ass house, but you want to judge me about some bitches who no one gave a shit about? They’re just collateral damage in a man’s war. They’re useless and have nothing to offer no one except for what’s between their legs. Same as your mother.”
“Don’t you speak about her like that,” I hissed.
“Why? Because you thought that she was a saint. That same judgmental look that’s in your eyes now is the same one that she had for me when she learned about my business. How fucking dare she judge me when she was whoring herself out to my business partner.”
“You’re lying!”
“Am I? I’m sure that you can easily contact Carlos. Ask him if he wasn’t fucking your mother every time I left town. Call him!” he shouted, shoving his cell phone at me.
Spit flew from his mouth. My father was enraged, and I was terrified. I had never been afraid of him. He didn’t appear to be the same man who had given me everything, protected me, and loved me unconditionally.
Until an hour ago, my father had been my world. He was a knight in shining armor who always ran to my rescue. The man who loomed over me was someone I wanted to hide from.
“If you showed?—”
A loud boom toward the front of the house, followed by shouting, interrupted me. I looked at my father, and his eyes had grown round and large with fear.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Get upstairs, now.” He grumbled, heading for his bookshelf where he kept his gun safe.
“Who is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“The guards. Where are they?” I rushed behind his desk and tapped the keys on his computer. I pulled up the monitors and saw two dead bodies at the front gate, Jeremy and Vance, and another one at the front door, Elijah. I had no idea what happened to Morris, the guard who patrolled the grounds.
“Get upstairs,” Daddy whispered while he keyed his code into the keypad.
“Daddy,” I whispered.
“Your ass had better do what the fuck I tell you to do before it’s too late,” he hissed.
“It’s too late for that.”
“What?”
My daddy turned around and stared at the man who stared at me. A man whose dark umber skin looked as if he had worked in the sun most of his life. Menacing, coal-black eyes raked carelessly and cruelly along my body over the rim of mirrored sunglasses as if he could see right through the cropped, sleeveless pink blouse that I wore and the skintight jeans that hugged my curves.
Deadly eyes slowly dragged down the zipper of my blouse as though he was tugging it down inch by inch with those large, veiny, tattooed hands. My hand instinctively flew to my zipper to make sure that it hadn’t come down by his sheer willpower. The muscles in his forearms flexed, and my gaze rose from his hands up to his biceps. He had full-sleeve tattoos on both arms. That shit was sexier than a muthafucka.
The upturn of thick, full lips surrounded by a thick, beautiful beard and mustache and the way his tongue flitted out to lick them before they turned up into a sneer had me throbbing at my core. And there was something about that big, curly afro that made me want to touch it despite the danger surrounding him.
“Priest.” My father and I whispered at the same time.
Shame filled me when I saw the disgust in my father’s eyes. He had seen the way Priest undressed me with his eyes. It was a good thing that he hadn’t seen the way I’d wet my panties over how Priest looked at me. If Phaedra thought I was wet before, she hadn’t seen shit yet.
Unfortunately, my father hadn’t gotten his safe unlocked yet.
“Step the fuck away from that safe, Morgan, or that’s your ass.”
“Priest, surely we can talk about this like civilized men.”
“Ain’t shit civilized ’bout you or me, nigga.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t talk like businessmen, Priest.”
“You fucked up, Morgan,” Priest stated, stalking further into the room.
“I understand that you’re upset,” my daddy replied.
Priest walked behind my father’s desk and took a seat in my father’s chair as though he owned it. He was merely inches away from me. His scuffed, dirty black boots touched the toes of my thirteen-hundred-dollar Manolo Blahniks. He still hadn’t looked at my father, but it didn’t matter because there were three other men crowded in the doorway who dared my father to make a move.
I could hear other feet walking around upstairs, and I knew there was a gang of them prowling through our home, touching our things, violating any sense of security we had. A shudder ran through me, and Priest leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
“What’s wrong, beautiful? Are you cold? I can damn sure light a fire in that ass?—”
“Priest!” my father bit out in a warning tone.
When those coal-black eyes turned his way, the fire seeped out of Daddy, and he cleared his throat.
“Please, let’s discuss this.”
“I gave you three muthafuckin days to set my shit straight, and you failed. Not only did you fail, but you didn’t bother to show up at the meeting.”
“Something came up,” my father lied.
“I told you that I’d be here if you didn’t show up. I’m here to collect, nigga.”
I was livid. My father claimed not to know who was in our house, but it sounded like he was expecting them.
I knew of the Immortal Descendants. Other than earlier at the tattoo shop, I had seen them around town on several occasions. I had even seen Priest at our home a few times, but I was usually leaving when he was coming or vice versa. I had always been attracted to him. I knew it was the aura of danger that surrounded him that compelled me to pay attention to him, and that struck a chord within me.
Yet, seeing them in my home in their savage element shook the core of my foundation and forced me to face the inherent danger that surrounded me and always shrouded my father.
It was easy to look the other way when your father was involved in illegal operations and wasn’t doing them right in your face. As long as he played the game, I was willing to also. But when a dangerous element of society stood in your home, it wasn’t as easy to ignore the criminal ties and activities one’s parents participated in.
My father sat down in the chair on the other side of the bookshelf.
“Priest, my guys lost track of the shipment. We’re still searching for it as we speak. There’s no need to overreact. I assure you that I will get your shipment back to you within thirty days.”
I heard three guns cock. Priest chuckled, shook his head, and then lowered it. His index fingers made an inverted V in the middle of his forehead while his thumbs massaged the space right underneath his eyebrows.
“You’ve got me fucked up, Morgan,” he declared in a low voice.
The edge in his voice sent a whisper of a thrill through me.
“Priest, I can get you the five hundred grand right now.”
“I want my guns, not your fuckin’ money, but we can bargain,” he announced before he sat upright in the chair and kicked his feet up on the desk.
“I’m listening,” Daddy replied.
“I see something that’s worth a hell of a lot more. I’ll collect.”
I looked between him and Daddy and noticed they both stared at me. When understanding dawned, it hit me like a brick in my chest.
“No! You can’t do that. I’m not a piece of property!” I shouted.
“Sweetheart, it’s just for thirty days.”
“Daddy, you can’t do this! Besides, I’m already?—”
“September, this is not up for discussion. Two men are speaking right now, and you will quiet down while we handle business. Besides, Daniel will understand.”
I turned to look at Priest, who wore a sinister look in his eyes. It scared the hell out of me, and I wasn’t sure who was the monster, him or my father. It was one thing to flirt with danger from a distance, but it was another thing to actually be in a criminal’s crosshairs.
As I made a move to step from behind the desk, Priest stood so swiftly and grabbed my wrist to pull me closer. The hard edges of his body pressed into mine. My eyes dipped closed briefly, and I inhaled the scent of his leather cut combined with the earthy smell of weed and a fresh, minty fragrance.
“I’m gonna have so much fun breaking you, princess.”
“Thirty days, Priest. I swear I’ll have your guns back by then,” my father promised from behind me.
Tears pricked my eyes, and I opened my mouth to say “Daddy,” but nothing came out.
The glint in Priest’s eyes, paired with his words, “If she lasts that long,” sent a bolt of fear through me.