Boss Bitch (Bitch Series) (2 page)

“Don’t they live near Nico?”

“Yes, only about fifteen minutes away.”

“Then meet me at Nico’s place. I can discuss this with both of you at the same time.”

“I’m on my way.” Before I hung up with Quentin I saw Lorenzo beeping on the other line but I ignored his call. Part of me wanted to hear his voice because I knew he would say all the right things to make me feel better but that feeling would only last for a moment. Since beginning my affair with Lorenzo almost a year ago he had become my ultimate high and also represented how low things had become in my life. With all the chaos surrounding me right now Lorenzo would only be a distraction I didn’t need.

Between thinking about Lorenzo, replaying the conversation I had with Chantal and Justina, and wondering what the hell Quentin had to talk to us about, I seemed to arrive at Nico’s estate in a matter of a few minutes. When I turned onto Frick Drive, the first thing I noticed when I pulled up was there wasn’t a security guard posted in the front and the gate was open. I figured they were in the middle of a shift change and I continued on the long spiral heated stone driveway until I reached the colonial styled mansion. Nico and Quentin were standing out front when I arrived so I wasted no time walking towards them.

“I hope you all haven’t started without me because I’ll be pissed if you have.” I gave a slight smile, letting them know I wasn’t completely serious but a tad bit.

“No, we were discussing some other business until you got here. But I must say that was rather fast,” Quentin commented after eyeing his watch.

“You know I like to speed plus I was anxious to find out what you needed to tell us.” I paused and looked at Nico realizing I hadn’t spoken. “How are you?”

“I’ve seen much better days that’s for sure.”

“Besides everything that’s going on with our daughter is there something else bothering you?”

“Business is extremely shaky right now but we can talk about that later. I want to hear what Quentin has to tell us, but let’s go inside. It looks like it’s about to start pouring down,” Nico commented, looking up at the dark clouds that were forming in the sky.

“A little water has never hurt anybody,” I giggled, following Nico and Quentin inside. Entering Nico’s crib always felt like the first time to e and my initial thought was this place is too fuckin’ beautiful for him to be living here alone. Nico lived in the nation’s wealthiest zip code at least according to the Forbes list. Whether true or not, his 20,000 sq. ft. American masterpiece was the quintessential Alpine estate. We ended up in the banquet-sized dining room and before we even sat down Quentin cut right to it.

“Nico, remember when I told you I had a close associate investigating some leads into Aaliyah’s case?” Nico nodded his head. “Well he came back with some very interesting information.”

“Like what?” I quickly asked. Feeling some sort of hope an emotion that had been eluding me for some time.

“Since we know Aaliyah wasn’t the shooter, whoever was, got into that hotel room without damaging the door. I figured nobody let them in so they must’ve had a key. That means they had some inside help. I had him run a check on everybody that was working that night.”

“And what did he come up with?” Nico questioned, leaning forward on the black marble table.

“Three people piqued his interest but one person stood out in particular.”

“Why?”

“After checking her bank records and speaking to a few people that live in her building, she went from barely being able to pay her rent each month to having new furniture delivered to her apartment, wearing designer clothes, shoes, purses, and for the last four months sizeable deposits being made into her bank account.”

“Get the fuck outta here! Does she still work for the hotel?” I asked as my heart raced believing that finally we found a lead.

“She quit a little over a month ago. Not that she’s needed the job. I believe she was trying to play it safe not to raise suspicion. But now after all these months have passed she feels it’s no longer necessary to keep up the charade.”

“So what is she doing now?”

“My guy has been on her day and night for the last week. He wanted to see if she would meet up with whoever is involved with the shooting. But no such luck. All she’s been doing is shopping, partying and going out to eat with her friends. She’s living her life like she ain’t got a care in the world.”

“All while Aaliyah has been sittin’ in jail for months. Yeah, somebody’s paying that ass off real good for the service she provided and it ain’t no sugar daddy. If we find out who that is I guarantee it’ll point to our shooter.”

“Were you able to trace the account to see where the money is coming from?” Nico wanted to know and so did I.

“Whoever is making the deposits is using cash and there’s no way for us to trace. We’ve checked er cell phone records and if she’s in contact with the person they using bullshit or throwaway phones to talk.”

“So what are we gonna do? Aaliyah goes to trial in a few weeks and shit is critical right now! I would say let’s take this information to the cops but I know they’ll fuck this shit up.”

“You damn right! They have it out for Aaliyah. They believe she’s the perp and they ain’t tryna hear nothing else.”

“Yeah, thanks to Justina and after my conversation with her today she has no plans to change her story. I swear I wanted to fuck her and her mother up today.”

“I still don’t understand how Justina could lie on Aaliyah like that. They were best friends. They practically grew up together. You know how many times she has spent the night at this house with her. I mean damn. I treated that girl like she was my own daughter and for her to turn on Aaliyah . . .  I’ll never understand.”

“Nico, its called jealousy and it makes people do some fucked up shit. Justina has always been jealous of Aaliyah but that Amir situation just sent her over the edge. The one thing she felt she had that Aaliyah didn’t was Amir. When she found out they had feelings for each other all bets were off. Somehow in her twisted mind she thought if she blamed the shooting on Aaliyah she could get rid of the competition for good and Amir would be all hers.”

“You telling me that she’s ruining our daughter’s life for some boyfriend shit? These young kids today, I just don’t understand.” Nico shook his head in disbelief.

“Listen,” Quentin spoke up wanting our full attention. “I think it’s time we confront this woman. I think we can all agree the cops won’t be any benefit to us right now. Technically this woman is an accessory to murder. She’s not going to willingly admit to anything because she could be facing a shit load of time behind bars. But we just need to let her know we’re not interested in turning her in. All we want is a name and we’ll handle it from there and leave her out of it.”

“Sounds like a plan. Where does she live?” I waited for Quentin to give us the address and I put it in my phone. “You all ready to go now?”

“Hold up. My guy is keeping tabs on her and right now she’s not home. He’s going to call me as soon as she’s on her way back to her apartment. We want to catch her when she’s alone. As soon as he calls me, I’ll call the two of you so be on alert.”

“Let’s do this. I’m headed to Manhattan right now. I got the address, I’ll be sitting right in front of her apartment building until you tell me we can go in,” I said, grabbing my car keys off the table. I was anxious to confront the woman and couldn’t et across the bridge fast enough.

“I’m with you, let’s go,” Nico chimed in. “Precious, you can leave your car here and ride with me.”

“That’ll work.”

“I should be calling you within the next hour or so with an update. Then I’ll head into the city and meet up with you at the apartment.”

“We’ll be waiting for your call, but Quentin, the moment you hear anything hit us up. I want to be aware of everything that’s going on. I wish you would’ve came to us sooner with this information.”

“Nico, I didn’t want to get you all’s hopes up if this turned out to be a dead end. I wanted my investigator to get some sort of concrete proof that this woman was somehow involved before bringing it to you and Precious and that took time.”

“I get that but I could’ve had some of my security men following her too. Or checking on some things your man might’ve missed.” Nico paused in the middle of the all white marble foyer locking eyes with Quentin before he continued to vent, “I know you mean well but this is my daughter and this is her life we’re talking about. She’s been sitting in a jail cell for months and if somebody can get her the fuck out then we need as many people on it as possible. I got plenty of security men that need some shit to do,” Nico popped as he opened the front door, stepping to the

“Speaking of security, I noticed you didn’t have any at the front gate when I was pulling in.”

“You sure about that?” Nico asked with a quizzical stare. “So how did you get in then?”

“The gates were open?”

“Get the fuck outta here! You telling me these muthafuckas bullshitting on the job . . . slack ass niggas.”

“I thought maybe they were between shifts.”

“Nah, two men supposed to be posted up at the gate at all times,” Nico barked looking down at his watch and then getting on his cell phone. “Hold up, let me see what these clowns are doing before we leave.”

“Precious, I’ll be in touch shortly. Let me go handle a couple things before I meet you all in the city,” Quentin said, before heading to his car. But right as he turned to leave it was as if a hail of bullets replaced the rain falling from the sky.

It seemed everything went blank in less than thirty seconds. Within a few moments I saw two

Suburban trucks pull up with men wearing black skimask spraying shit up. Normally in these situations time would seem to stand still as the chaos erupts around you because you’re in shock but shit was moving extra fast like I was pressing the expedite button. It was like boom the sounds of machine guns were filling the air, then boom Nico grabbed a gun from the back of his slacks and some of his security men came running out the house blasting off and then boom I was out cold.

The next thing I remember was my chest feeling weighted down and I was having difficulty breathing. Then I felt this excruciating pain on the back of my head, as my eyes tried to open. But my eyelids were heavy and kept shutting back close as I was fighting to open them up. The rain was coming down on me and between the thunder and lightning I heard a faint voice speaking but all I could understand was they were calling out my name. As I struggled to gain some sort of balance I kept thinking I must’ve been shot, that’s why my chest felt like a ton of bricks was weighing down on it.

“Precious, are you okay?” I heard the voice call out again but this time I recognized it, it was Nico. I tried to mumble something but it didn’t come out as clearly as I hoped. I tried to relax my mind and body and I finally managed to keep my eyes open for longer than a second and I was horrified by what I saw. Quentin, my father was the heavy load I felt on my chest. His body was on top of mine and he wasn’t moving. I could see the blood pouring down around us mixed with rain.

“Precious, stay calm. The paramedics will be here any minute. Are you hurt . . . were you shot?”

“I think I’m okay. What about Quentin?’

“He’s not responding but I can feel a slight pulse.” To my relief I could hear the ambulance getting closer. There was still a chance to save Quentin and I was praying they were able to do that. Nico held my hand as my eyes began to close again. My head was throbbing and the pain was excruciating. Before I could say another word it was lights out for me.

I kept rereading
the last letter Amir had wrote me. I was looking for clues that he was ready to abandon me like he did a couple of days ago but there were none. The letter was upbeat, sweet and full of hope, something he took away from me in a matter of one conversation.

“What you reading?” my cellmate asked me as she was getting her stuff together.

“Oh nothing,” I said balling up the letter and tossing it on the floor. “I know you’re excited to be getting the hell out of here,” I smiled, wanting to get Amir off my mind if only for a few minutes.

“You know it, girly! I’m so over this dump. I can’t wait to get back on these streets where I belong and make that money.”

“Well I hope you have a plan.”

“Of course! I already got shit lined up. My people got me setup lovely,” she bragged.

“Good for you! I want things to work out ‘cause I def don’t want to see you back up in here.”

“Hell nah! I did my time and learned what not to do to avoid stepping foot back up in this joint.”

“Yeah, you lucky.”

“You gon’ be lucky too. Just wait and see.”

“I hope you right, Peaches, ‘cause shit is looking all sorts of shaky for me.”

“I know, Ma, but when things seem to be at their worse that’s when you have to be at your strongest.”

“So true and trust me I’m working on it.”

“Plus, I need you to get out so you can help me run this empire I’m building,” Peaches beamed. “Empire? Girl, you only twenty-one, what type of empire you building?”

“The same kind your daddy got and I ain’t talking ‘bout music.” We both laughed for a sec before curiosity got the best of me.

“You must have a serious connect if you ready to build an empire.”

“You have no idea. But like I said I want you right next to me as a partner.”

“You want me as your partner?” I pointed to myself in disbelief.

“Why you acting so surprised? Yes, I want you,” she pointed back. “What’s so hard to believe about that?”

“For one, I don’t think I’ll be getting out anytime soon, and even if I did, I think we’re both a little young to be trying to build an empire in that particular line of work.”

“You’re underestimating your capabilities. I saw how you turned into a beast trying to protect me and I’ll never forget that shit.”

I knew exactly what situation Peaches was talking about and that shit seemed like it happened yesterday. My mind thought back to when it all went down. Peaches had been my cellmate from the start but she never said shit to me. At first I thought she couldn’t talk. After I had been there for a couple of weeks she started saying a few words to me but not much. I figured she was shy. She kept to herself, would read, she would eat by herself and didn’t bother nobody. I was cool with a couple of the inmates, nothing major but everybody knew who I was because my case was so high profile so nobody really fucked with me but the same couldn’t be said for Peaches. This one little click of chicks had it in for her bad. They started off doing stupid silly shit, like tripping her so she would drop her tray of food. Or hanging up the phone when she was on a call but then shit started escalating. One day when she was in the shower they tried to jump her and that shit didn’t sit right with me and I wouldn’t allow it. I was able to let the other bullshit slide but when you’re locked up and you see a tiny girl that don’t bother nobody about to get her ass beat down it does something to you.

“Why are you guys doing this!” I heard a voice scream out as I was getting dressed. It was coming from the shower area I just left. Then I heard a gang of girls laughing and joking, a few seconds later I heard that same voice crying out pleading for them to stop. I looked around and all the women kept doing their own thing as if they didn’t hear the girl pleading for help. I went back to the shower to see what was going on and it was four girls surrounding one girl who was on the shower floor using her hands trying to cover her face and body as they kept kicking her. As I stepped closer I realized it was my cellmate. She looked like a wounded puppy surrounded by wolves. I had to do something.

“That’s enough,” I called out. At first nobody acknowledged me. I wasn’t sure if they were purposely trying to ignore me or because of all the commotion they simply didn’t hear me so this time I walked closer and spoke even louder. “I said that’s enough!” This time they all stopped and turned to see who was interrupting them.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’re turn around and get the fuck outta here ‘cause this ain’t none of your business,” the leader of the pack warned me. At that moment I knew I could do one or two things; walk away and let the innocent girl be beat and possibly raped or I could just start swinging. I had been locked up long enough to know there was no negotiating with words. Inmates saw that as a sign of weakness. So without saying another word, I just walked up to the woman that threatened me and punched her in the mouth with all the strength I had. She hit the floor so fast and hard the other three girls were in shock.

“Bitch, are you crazy!” One of the girls finally said so I grabbed her by her hair and punched her in the mouth too and then I slammed her head down on the shower floor. Then the last two girls standing decided it was do or die so they knocked me down and jumped on top of me. By this time my adrenaline was pumping to the next level. I wasn’t even scared I had no fear. I was swinging my fist and kicking my legs. They was getting a few punches in but I felt no pain. Then the other two girls I had laid down got back their composure and came at me too. I guess with all this going down Peaches grew a backbone and decided to become my hero. She came back swinging, and I mean literally. She got a hold of a broom and started cracking backs with it. Those hoes started scrambling like cockroaches.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said wiping the blood from the side of my mouth.

“Why did you help me?”

“Because that shit they was doing to you was fucked up.”

“I can’t believe you stood up for me like that. You got a lot of heart. I’ll never forget what you done for me and one day I’ll return the favor. That’s a promise.” From that day on Peaches and me became super cool.

“Just because I protected you doesn’t mean I’m equipped to be your partner in building an empire.”

“I told you then and I’m telling you now . . .  you got heart. That’s the most important thing you need to be a great partner. Plus this shit run through your blood, you were built for this.”

“You sound so confident in me.”

“Because I am. I’ve watched how you moved since you’ve been here. You might come from privilege but you’re a fighter and you stand up for what you believe in. I respect you, Aaliyah. And when you get out I’ll be waiting for you.”

“You might be waiting for a long time like twenty-five to life.”

“I don’t think so but no matter how long it takes, I’ll be here. We’re family now and family takes care of each other.”

“Aaliyah, your attorney is here to see you,” I heard the guard call out interrupting my conversation with Peaches.

“Go ‘head, I’ll be in touch,” Peaches said, giving me a hug before I left. “Remember when things seem to be at their worse you have to get stronger.” I smiled at Peaches and left. She was right, during these last few months we had become like family and I was going to miss her. But there was no time for me to think about that. I had a murder charge to fight and there was no doubt in my mind my attorney was here to discuss just that.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Anderson. I can’t say that I’m surprised to see you again so soon, especially since my trial starts in a few short weeks. I’ve been writing things down like you suggested but I still haven’t come up with anything new.”

“Have a seat, Aaliyah.”

“I know I’m not being exactly helpful but I really don’t need the somber face.”

“There’s no easy way for me to tell you this so I’m just going to say it.”

“What’s going on?” I kept standing up waiting for my attorney to answer me.

“Sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit down. I want you to tell me what’s going on.”

“Your mother is in the hospital with a minor concussion and she’ll be fine but your grandfather is in critical condition.” My legs buckled up underneath me and I was forced to sit down in my chair or I would’ve fallen down.

“What happened?”

“He was shot. From what Nico told me, they were ambushed. Your grandfather was protecting your mother and took a bullet.”

“Is he gonna make it?”

“I don’t know. It’s serious.”

“Do they know who did it?”

“I don’t believe so. I know with all you’re going through, this is the last thing you were expecting but I need you to stay focused on the case.”

“How can I do that with my mother in the hospital and my grandfather in critical condition. When did this happen?”

“Yesterday afternoon. I found out last night.”

“Why is my life so fucked up,” I said, shaking my head. “If my grandfather doesn’t make it, I don’t know what I’ll do. All my life, he’s the only person that has stood by my side and never judges me, no matter how many times I’ve screwed up. I can’t lose him.” I had been wearing such a tough exterior while being locked up but with this news I couldn’t hold in my pain. I cried and I couldn’t stop crying. When Amir turned his back on me, knowing I had my grandfather made it bearable but now, I wasn’t sure what I would do.

“Aaliyah, your grandfather wouldn’t want you to give up. I’ve known him for many years and he’s a great man. If you have any chance of getting out of jail, you have to pull it together. If you can’t do it for yourself then do it for your grandfather.”

 I heard what Mr. Anderson was saying but my mind was someplace else. For just a moment I wanted to go back to a time where I was happy and life seemed beautiful and I didn’t have a care in the world. I was six-years-old and the sun was bright and the sky was clear. My grandfather was pushing me on the swing and I kept yelling that I wanted to go higher and higher. I was giggling and laughing. I never appreciated that moment of pure happiness until right now. I would give anything to have it back but I couldn’t because there was no turning back time.