BEING IN THE car with a mafia boss was definitely on my list of things I never expected to happen to me during my lifetime. Yet, here I am riding in the backseat of a Rolls Royce with one only a few inches away from me. Even with the comfortable padded seating with personal heating controls, a high definition 16-inch television playing a current basketball game that plays through the surround sound speaker above us, and underneath that a small cabinet with whiskey and small glasses, I still felt uneasy being in the car.
Stone sits in the seat next to me with his right leg over his left. I find it so strange how well he cleans himself up. A person would never think the man in the expensive-looking suit with a white cotton turtle neck underneath that clung to him so nicely you could see the muscles forming underneath him was also running the underground criminal ring.
"So . . ." I prolonged the word as my eyes wandered around the spacious car for a quick moment, landing on Stone who was too busy taking a sip of whiskey from a glass to look at me. "where are you taking me? Should I be worried?"
He swallows the brown liquid down and I watch his large Adam's apple bobble up and down in his throat. "The only thing you should be worried about is if I change my mind and decide to leave you to the wolves." he stirred the ice cubes in his drink sending me a look and I rolled my eyes turning to face out the tinted window.
"You can't just come and snatch me up whenever you feel like it. I have things I have things to do too you know?"
"Like what?" His face scrunched up at me like that was the most nonbelievable thing he'd heard all day and I feel slightly offended.
"I have work. I dance. I have practice Tuesday — Fridays and sometimes Saturday depending on the weather. I can't just stop living my life because you wanna snatch me any time you want to do whatever."
Stone blinked his long lashes at me. "I'm not just snatching you away to do whatever," he repeated my words in an almost grotesque manner. "did or did you not say in your room that night that you would do whatever I asked if I vowed to keep your ass from getting killed because you said and I quote "I'm too young to die," he mocks me in a voice that sounds nothing like my own.
"I did say that but-"
"Alright then," he starts again cutting me off. "so to make sure you don't end up somewhere in a ditch because you wanna play with hard drives you're gonna work for me for a little while."
My left brow raised sharply at him. "Work for you? Doing what exactly? I'm no killer. I can't even kill a bug I have to ask Semaj or Tristian." Stone makes a face at me but doesn't answer me immediately, instead looks into his glass before taking a long swig downing the entire glass in a few sallows. "You'll see," he mumbles lowly.
"Are people even out to kill me? I mean knock on wood . . ." My eyes frantically search around the car finding the nearest piece of wood and tapping it with my knuckles. "but I've been walking around pretty safe these last couple of days."
"There are killers all around this city."
I scoffed, arms folding across my chest. "You would know right?" Stone turned to me then, a raised brow on his sharpened face. I mirrored the expression with one of my own because the fuck you mean? You know what the hell I'm talking about don't play with me. "You murdered those people on campus don't think I don't know that."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"I've seen it on the news. The cameras and reporters were everywhere on campus asking us about it. You're a killer!"
He looks at me with hard eyes, jaw clenching a bit which only makes his face all the more scarier. "They tried to kill me first," he said, voice so deep it felt like the entire car had vibrated.
The car suddenly comes to a stop before I can even respond. I immediately look out the window to see we're back at his house again — this big scary mansion. My eyes ran up the length of the building in front of me, my head tipping back as I had to nearly bend backward just to see the top of the damn thing. It looks different today, a bit more alive. The mansion stood there as if the surrounding nature had embraced it, that the flora flowed within it as much as around it. There are more cars than usual parked outside, people coming and going from the inside carrying bouquets, platters of food, and other things.
There's a tense moment of silence before Stone exhales a low sigh from beside me. "Let me get out first." he shuffles past me and I let him with ease. I could see him clench his jaw as he focused on people outside. I watch as the driver of the door begins to open the backseat door and Stone gets out.
I licked my dry lips wet.
My doors are then opened and I get out, my body immediately gravitates towards Stone behind the car. He starts walking towards the entrance of the house, the large double doors already opened for him. I follow behind him, clinging to my work jacket like it was a stress doll. We don't even make it through the foyer before we're greeted by a pleasant smile — or more so Stone was greeted. "Ben, how are you? I wasn't expecting you to come back so soon." The older woman dressed in black slacks and a black button was kind enough to send me a quick smile as well, but as she studied me a bit closer, I noticed a slight shift in her facial expression; maybe it was my work attire. I looked just like them.
"I'm fine Deena. Is my father dressed and ready?" Stone automatically replied like he was a telephone operator programmed to say that every so often.
Deena made a face, head shaking a bit. "Almost. He's still in his room and he's refusing to take his medication again." Stone exhales a low groan, a hand reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose. "This fucking guy," he mumbles into his hands.
The lady turned her attention to me again, giving me a once-over. "Is he with us?" she asked him.
Stone immediately shakes his head no. "No he's with me," he says and I send the lady a polite smile that she gladly mirrors with one of her own. "Not by choice of course," I add the last bit and I can feel him burning a hole into the side of my face but I ignore him and continue smiling at Deena.
"Thank you." is all he says to her before he starts moving again and I — not having much of a choice or say so in the matter carelessly follow behind.
I follow Stone around the house. There's an older man in a chief's outfit yelling at passing staff carrying platters of food outside, his voice loud with an English accent. He notices Stone and I passing by and sends a polite smile and nod. Stone doesn't mirror his enthusiasm and his mannerism is cold, but more so like he's been programmed to do it without his brain actually realizing he's being an asshole. I return the gesture to the man and he sends me a sly smile before turning back to the other cooks yelling.
The layout of this house is confusing and I felt myself growing dizzy the more we walked around. I'm also keeping an eye out for those three beasts that I know are around here somewhere, waiting to attack at any moment. I'm ready this time bitches.
We walk up elegant steps bordered by a detailed bespoke wrought-iron balustrade that only adds to the grand effect of the chandelier and molded ceiling in the foyer. I follow behind Stone who leads the way through this maze of a place. We walk down a long corridor until we reach the other wing of the house and make our way to the black double doors at the end of the hall. He opens the doors to a grand room, black and gold aesthetic all through the room. There's an older man on the large king-size bed dressed in a black tuxedo, arms crossed over his chest as the lady wearing the nurse scrubs in front of him looks annoyed.
"Take the damn medicine." Stone's voice caught both of their attention as we walked into the room.
"I don't need to take it. I'm feeling fine today." The older man replied to him. The nurse exhales a dragged-out sigh, a hand falling on her hip. "I'm gonna go use the restroom." was all she said, eyes rolling slightly as she made her way out of the room.
Stone lets out a groan as he walks over to the man. "Why are you being difficult?"
The older man shrugged his shoulders at him. "I'm not being difficult. I'm fine. I feel fine. Stop worrying Benavanté." he reassures, and I raise a brow at what he calls Stone. I had heard the woman earlier call him something else too but I thought I misheard.
Benavanté. Ben-Ah-Von-Tae.
I repeat the name in my head like a sound. I don't why it never occurred to me that Stone could've been a nickname this whole time and not his actual name. I'm just glad his parents were smart enough to not name their child after a type of building block.
The man who I'm pretty sure is Benavanté's — oh my bad, Stone's father looks over at me over at me. He has kind eyes, salt and pepper hair, a wrinkled forehead, and that wisdom that all old people seem to get after a certain age. Unlike his son, there's something other than a hardened stare on his face, soft tight lip pulled up into a smile. "And who do we have here?"
"Nobody."
"I'm Kylo."
We both turned to each other, a narrow-eyed look in both of our eyes. The older man let out a soft chuckle at us, his laughter coming to an abrupt halt as he began to cough into his hands. Stone lets out a low groan as he walks over to the man's nightstand and hands him the glass of water on it. "See this is what I'm talking about." The man sips of the drink clearly finding the water that filled his glass distasteful, but he continues to drink anyway. Stone watches with folded arms as his dad downs the rest of the drink.
"I'm going to go change and when I get back you better have taken your medication." I watch how stern Stone is with his dad and I couldn't help but raise a brow at the dynamic. If I were to talk to my mom like that I wouldn't even have had enough time to finish the sentence before I would be upside down on my head. It's interesting to see that he's bossy to everyone including his own family.
He makes his way past me and out of the room and I'm so confused, my face scrunching up at him but he doesn't seem to notice as he exits the room leaving me alone with his dad. I scoffed at him, head shaking to myself as I turned back to his dad on his bed, who was wiping his mouth of the residue from the drink on his lips. He notices my stare on him, eyes softening a bit before a small smile stretches over his face.
"Sometimes I wonder who's the parent me or him," he lets out a soft chuckle as he fixed the suit that clung to him. "my boy, if you don't mind can you hand that dish over there." his accent only seem to get thicker as he spoke to me, an arm extending out the black dresser across the room with a bowl on it.
I'm caught off guard by the request at first but then he smiles at me softly and I mirror with one of my own before making my way over to the dresser. I try not to stare too hard at the watch collection that I'm sure cost more than any amount of money I'll ever touch in my lifetime and the pistol sitting quietly beside it. Even the old heads scrapped around this mottherfucker, I gotta get the hell out of here.
"My caretaker insists on making me drink this water she's infused with some type of liquid IV and it tastes like onion water." he continues and I pick up the bowl, a fine piece of china with a beautiful design around it. I noticed the applesauce inside and raised a brow.
"Applesauce?" I repeated my thoughts aloud, turning to the man to see him shaking his head playfully.
"I love applesauce," he replied, a slight shrug in his shoulders. His accent is such a playful tune as if he were the star of his own movie. I couldn't do anything other than simply listen and smile at his almost childish expression. "it's the only thing they'll get the disgusting taste of medicine off my tongue."
"Oh," I turned back around eyeing the medicine on the dresser not too far from me. "I don't like taking medicine either. They need new flavors." I tell him.
"Oui, exactement," I hear him say from behind me as I crush up his pills and put them in the applesauce giving it a quick stir. I don't speak French and I don't know what the hell he saying right now but I keep him taking long enough that he doesn't seem to notice I'm taking quite a while to simply bring a bowl over to him. He rambles on about how the pills are too hard to swallow and always bitter on his tongue, and that cough syrups only come in grape or cherry.
When I hand him the bowl he accepts it willingly as he continues with his complaining. "I just want a medicine that doesn't make me want to throw it up. Is that so hard to ask for?" he takes a spoonful of applesauce and shoves it in his mouth shaking his head. "Death to all the grape medicine creators out there." I laugh at how passionate he was about this topic. He's so invested he's nearly finished the bowl of applause within a couple of minutes and he doesn't even realize it until his spoons clink against the almost empty glass bowl.
He takes one last spoonful, a bushy brow raising at me as he swallows. "You're smiling . . . why are you smiling?"
"You like the applesauce?" I asked.
"I do," his head tilts at me slightly, that playful look dropping from his face immediately. "I put your medicine in there," I tell him sheepishly when I realize this is the father of a mafia boss and I probably shouldn't be tampering with his medication but I don't know what comes over me when it comes to helping someone out. I blame my Cancer Moon and Gemini rising. I also blame my mom. I adopted her caring nature without noticing and it's become a problem for me till this day.
I don't know how I expected the man to react but when he cracks into a fit of laughter I'm a little stunned. His voice is deep and raspy, an old-timey whistle that reminds me of a vintage movie. "Sneaky boy," he waves a finger at me. "I didn't even notice."
I let out a low sigh of relief that he wasn't upset. "My mom used to do it to me all the time when I was younger. Medicine is disgusting but you have to take it if you want to get better."
"You are right," he replied with a sigh setting the bowl down.
The doors of the room open again and in comes Stone this time cladded in a different suit than before. He stood there like an aristocratic figure of power. The cutting lines of a suit fitted him nicely and benefited him greatly. It's crisp as a new banknote and dyed to a uniform shade of obsidian black. Above white collar lines, it was as if his face had been fashioned from those inky dots. Stiff and never changing.
"Did you take the medicine?" His eyes skip over me and go straight to his dad. The older man waves him off with a ringed hand. "Yeah, your friend here tricked me into doing it," he admitted and Stone's perfectly threaded brows raised at him. His eyes motioned over to me and I pursed my lips, eyes darting elsewhere around the room as I bounced on my toes, whistling a soft tune to seem distracted but it didn't work and Stone made a face at me.
"Oh don't look at him like that didn't you want to take the medicine," his dad continues with a laugh escaping him. "the boy tricked me, put it in my food and he got me rambling on a tangent I didn't even notice. He's a smart one and way nicer than that nurse you hired who just sits on her phone playing Candy Crush all morning."
Stone looks at me again however his usual hard stare isn't as hard and for a moment, only a small fraction of time he didn't look at me with any type of malice behind his dark eyes. He's about to say something but then another voice sounds off and catches everyone's attention instead.
"Everything's all set." A voice came and not even a second later an unknown face came into the room. The man is tall, with brown skin decorated with facial tattoos and one of his neck that even the black suit he wore couldn't cover. He looks around the room for a moment until he spots me, a questioning look coming over his face.
"Kylo Johnson?" He says my name like he's said it before and I'm completely caught off guard by it. I make a face, brows furrowing together and my stance shifting. Nuh uh, how do you know me?
But before I can even open my mouth to ask the men the question Stone speaks first. "Yes, Maurice. Take my father down to the car I'll be down in a second." The man — Maurice looks between me and Stone, the confused expression on his face still there. He's very expressive compared to his counterpart. I watched with a raised brow as the two began to whisper between one another like two school girls.
"Nah, why the hell is he in your house,"
"It's a long story I'll tell you later, just get my father to the car,"
"You don't tell me nothing no more, fake!"
"Man just get him downstairs,"
Stone turns to me and nods his head towards the door. "Come with me," he said to me and I cling to my work jacket a little harder as I step in his direction. I walk past the taller one whose lips tug into a sly smile as he gives me an acknowledging head nod that I hesitantly mirror. I follow Stone out of the room and we walk down the creepy corridor in silence. I tried to calm my nerves, to let go of the apprehension I felt and this monumental sense of pressure I'd put upon myself the moment I'd agreed to this little deal.
He finally halts his steps at a door at the end of the hall. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key and it takes him a second to unlock it. My mind immediately begins to wonder about what's behind the door. Drugs, bodies, a sex dungeon? All of those could've been a possibility with him.
The door opens and Stone flicks on the light to something I didn't expect. It's an office, or at least that's what it looks like it's supposed to be. The office isn't warm and inviting in the slightest. The only thing I can make out is the large, mahogany desk sitting in the center of the room that's covered in boxes and folders filled with miscellaneous things. The two sleek leather chairs placed in front of the desk are covered in folders and papers it made my eyes hurt just staring at it for too long. There were large bookshelves lined along the wall behind the desk, and they were filled to the brim with a colorful assortment of books, most of them falling off the shelf and onto the floor in stacks. I think my eyes are still playing tricks on me from the messy chair and desk.
The only nice thing about this office was the view from the large window that showcases the back of the house and the large yard behind it. I could see the three beasts down there playing with a ball. Exactly where they should be — crazy bitches.
"Before you judge me, I just want to let it be known this office hasn't been used since I used to sneak up here and take naps when I was like twelve," Stone defends himself. "This is my dad's old office."
I looked at him. "I think having a messy office is the last of things I can judge you about when you've unalived someone," I say to him turning to the mess in front of us. "How does an office even get like this? You didn't even try to be organized in the slightest."
He shrugged his shoulders at me before he started to walk around the room and I'm surprised he knows his way around. "It's storage now and I'm sure some of the workers used to store their belongings in here as well." He turns around to me, a wicked smirk stretching on his lips as he stares at me. "You'll find out for me, won't you?"
I scoffed. "There's no way you expect me to clean all this? This isn't even humanly possible. Don't you already have people who clean for you? Get them to do it, why me?"
"I do have people for this and they started it a while ago and you should've seen it before they started, it was way worse. I'm being nice to you right now by letting you finish."
"This is insane."
"Aye, you asked for this remember?"
"I asked to not be killed!" I said to him, tossing my jacket down in a space free of clutter so I won't lose it in this dumpster he calls an office. "You're making me your maid when you already have like fifty others. You can't just pick me up whenever you want and drop me at your house and leave me here alone like some captive. I am not your prisoner you do not own me!"
"Who said I wanted to own you?" He responds bluntly. I thought he was joking for a second, but as soon as I saw the look on his face, I knew it couldn't have been a joke.
"Really? Have you not seen the way you act? The way you speak to me, to other people? Isn't being a controlling dictator like your whole job?"
"You don't know me."
"And you don't know me either but I'm I sure have a better grasp on your character than you do mine!" I don't realize my voice has risen a few octaves until a voice clears its throat from under the frame of the double doors of the room.
There stood the woman from earlier — Deena who I'm sure I recognized from when I first walked in this place. In her hand, she held a serving tray with two glasses of lemonade. Her eyes are locked on me, an almost wide expression on her eyes for a moment before she blinked it away.
I quickly broke away from him, my arms crossing over my chest as I stepped a few paces away from him.
"My apologies, I hope I'm not interrupting anything." she comes over to us, her eyes immediately going to Stone who still has his stare hardening on me. "Your father is waiting for you outside," she said to him.
He turns to her after a moment and nods his head. I let out a scoff at the scene. "So you really just dragged me away from work to do more work for free?"
"Who says I wasn't going to pay you?"
I raised a brow at him and then looked down at my pockets, reaching inside and pulling out the empty fabric inside. "I don't see no check in my pockets," I replied smartly.
Stone looks at me with a hard expression creeping over his already cold face. His dark eyes lock on my brown ones, thick boxy brows furrowed down creasing the middle of his forehead a bit, and his top lip curls as he lets out a breath. It's only then I'm brought back to reality that this is a man who kills people I'm arguing with and suddenly the idea doesn't seem so fun anymore. Our height difference isn't by much but even then his broad shoulders and deathly scowl made everything in the room including myself seem smaller than they already are. I don't back down though and I stand my ground, swallowing the lump in my throat and raising my chin at him. I probably looked like a chihuahua in his eyes but I didn't care.
"Just clean this place up, alright?" Oddly enough Stone's voice is calm and soft, unlike his facial expression. He makes his way out of the room with Deena exiting first.
"Where are you even going?" I asked just as he was about to leave.
"A funeral." He answers stiffly, the door closing shut behind him.
Oh.
Not I was arguing with someone about to go to a funeral.
I'm sorry but he is pissing me off with this capturer shit he has going on, also I don't give a fuck I'll argue with a cat if I had to. I exhale a defeated sigh as I make my way to the bookshelf. It seems the least unorganized out of everything else in here. The large dark bookshelf behind the desk. There's a sea of books on the floor that I can only assume had fallen some time ago due to the dust that collected the covers. I pick one up blowing off the dust with a huff of air and fan away the particles that crowded the air and that's when I realized something.
That motherfucker still has never paid me for this shit.
I grab my belongings and head the hell out of here and give the son an earful but my phone suddenly goes off in my bag. I reach inside and see a notification on my screen.
$7,000 DEPOSITED INTO YOUR ACCOUNT
"How the . . ." I found myself saying aloud, my eyes wandering around the room to see if there were any mics or cameras placed around but there were none. I looked down at the amount of money freshly in my bank account one last time before placing my phone back in my pocket.
"Alright imma need some DW40 and a forty piece tool
Box." I intertwined my hand and cracked my knuckles.
••••
EXCUSE ANY MISTAKE OR ERRORS