Sprawled out on top of blankets on the floor of Uncle Don’s apartment, Troy kissed Sydney deeply. His hardness pressed against her. Light-headed from his kiss and from the liquor they’d been drinking, Sydney felt like she was dreaming. His arms were wrapped around her, his hands roamed her body. She wore only a cotton tank top and panties. His hands were up under her top, teasing her. A moan escaped her lips and then Troy was on his knees, his lips pressed against her stomach, her hips, and thighs. Slowly, he slipped her panties down her legs. Then he was on top of her, kissing her again. Sydney came alive.
She tugged at his shirt, her hands eager to touch his skin. He wiggled out of it, and she gripped his arms and his back desperately. He unbuckled his pants and pulled them down, his hand on his most powerful weapon. His heart thundered in his chest.
“Mmm,” he growled, spreading her legs apart, and pushed himself inside her wetness.
Sydney gasped, pleasure searing through every vein. His lips were on her throat, his tongue against her skin as he moved inside of her. Sydney felt so tight around his thickness, her moans excited him even more. She grinded back against him and with each stroke he dove deeper inside of her. The hardness of the floor against her back left her no escape from the power and intensity of his massive dick. He slid his hands underneath her, scooping her ass into his hands. Sydney held on for dear life, her breathing heavier now. She wrapped her legs around him tightly and matched his rhythm as best she could despite the power of his penis. Her legs began to quiver and her voice climbed several octaves. The orgasm rocked her, great waves rippling inside of her. The force of it sent Troy over the edge as well. He came in volcanic spasms that left him breathless.
They lay together afterward on the floor of Uncle Don’s vacant apartment, staring up at the ceiling, still winded from their lovemaking.
She broke the silence. “I don’t want to leave here. I wish we could stay just like this.”
He smiled. “What would we eat?” He looked at her skeptically. “Can you even cook?” He had a playful gleam in his eye as he imagined a naked Sydney cooking for him. The very thought made his dick start to grow hard again.
Sydney laughed. “I can cook. Aunt Pat taught me. She says a woman who can’t cook is like a man who doesn’t have a job.” Sydney shrugged. “My mother can cook just enough to get by, but Aunt Pat takes cooking seriously. She taught me well.”
He nodded. “Good to know.” He thought about them living together. “Uncle Don would let us have this place, too. If we wanted it.” He imagined it for a moment. “But we belong at Howard. This is not our world. This is somebody else’s. We’ll create our own.”
She propped herself up on one elbow and looked at him. “What’s our world gonna look like?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. She giggled at the sight of him like that. He looked childlike, innocent.
“We’re gonna make our own money,” he said. “We’ll have a lot of it.” He kept his eyes closed, but pulled her closer. “You’ll win your Pulitzer Prize. I’ll run a big corporation in my mama’s name.”
She smiled, pleased that his vision was so in line with her own. “Why did you decide to do the right thing instead of being drawn into your uncle’s business like Wes?” Every time they were together, Troy spoke of his determination to emulate his father. He wanted to play the role of the straight man. The one who never got his hands dirty. Or so he thought.
Troy stared at the ceiling in silence for a moment. The truth was he hadn’t figured out the answer to that question, either.
“My mother tried to shield us from the truth about my family’s businesses at first. She made us think Uncle Don was some kind of legit businessman. But then my dad lost a whole bunch of money in a bad investment. Uncle Don bailed him out and Wes started asking questions. He wanted to know how Uncle Don could afford to do that. Meanwhile, we had never seen the man go to work. His kids had cars at, like, fourteen years old. Money was pouring in. When Wes found out the truth, he put it right in my father’s face. Basically, taking drug money is the same as making drug money in my brother’s opinion. He feels like my father’s a hypocrite. And to him, Uncle Don is the man. He makes the money, gets the respect and all that.” Troy shrugged.
Sydney watched him. “What do you think?”
“I think my father tries his best to be a good man. And I think in his own way my uncle does, too. They go about it in different ways. For me, neither one of them is the bad guy.” He looked at her and gently moved a strand of her hair away from her pretty face. “I guess you could say I’m somewhere in the middle.”
Sydney thought about that. The sun had begun to set, the fading light pouring in through the parted curtains in Uncle Don’s apartment. She snuggled in next to him and decided that she was willing to see what “the middle” was like with Troy. This feeling was one she never wanted to end.
His cell phone buzzed and he reached for it. Glancing at the screen, he was surprised to see a text from his uncle.
Text me when you’re ready to take Sydney home. I’ll send Butch to pick you up.
Troy’s eyebrows raised a little. Uncle Don was being awfully generous. He set his phone back down and pulled Sydney close again. It was a Saturday night and Sydney had no curfew. Now they didn’t have to rush for the last ferry departing for Staten Island at a decent hour.
Sydney gestured toward his phone. She had seen the way his expression had changed when he looked at it. “Everything alright?”
He nodded. “Everything is perfect.”
* * *
Pat read the text message again for the thousandth time. It was from Georgi.
Bring the box to my house. It’s an emergency.
The box. That box told a story so scandalous that the sisters had never really discussed it. That box represented many unvoiced truths that they had chosen to sweep under the rug in favor of a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil mentality. Despite that philosophy, Pat knew the moment she read that text message that Georgi’s dirty deeds had finally caught up with her.
Pat grabbed her car keys and headed out the door. She called over her shoulder to Destiny. “I’m going out real quick, Destiny. I’ll be right back.” The door swung shut behind her.
Destiny lay on the couch watching TV, completely unaware that the dinner party she and her cousin had gone to last night had resulted in a wild chain of events that would rock her family to its core.
* * *
It didn’t take long for Pat to realize that her sister was in trouble. Every time she called her, the call was sent to voice mail. The text had been brief and ominous. The reference to “the box” made her nervous. Georgi had never asked for it before.
One morning in 1991, Georgi had come running to her mother’s house with the kids in tow. Years before, their mother had moved to Staten Island at a senior living complex there. Pat applied for a job at a hospital nearby and followed her there soon after. Life in the “forgotten borough” was much quieter, slower, more family oriented. The community was more closely knit and Pat found friends there. She met a man, became pregnant, and suffered the heartbreak of abandonment when he left her after Destiny was born. Her mother had been by her side through all of it. Georgi, on the other hand, had been nowhere around until that morning.
Mama had gotten the children settled in her spare bedroom while Pat peppered her sister with questions. Where was Quincy? What had happened? Why had she left Brooklyn with only the clothes on her back? Georgi had leveled with her. She feared for her very life and wanted to come clean in case it all caught up with her somehow.
Quincy’s intuition had kicked in the night of the robbery. He spent a sleepless night thinking about all the diamonds and the jewels in his house. Something in his gut told him something wasn’t right. By the time the morning came, Quincy was nervous as hell. He gave Georgi a lockbox tucked inside a small suitcase. He didn’t tell her what was inside at first. Didn’t give her the key. He just instructed her to leave as if she were taking the kids to school, but instead head to Staten Island and stay at her mother’s until further notice. She was to contact no one and keep a low profile until he told her otherwise.
Georgi had never seen her husband so shaken. He wasn’t himself. That alone gave her reason to be nervous when she arrived at her mother’s apartment in Staten Island. Georgi and Pat sat up drinking and talking far into the night. The robbery was the top story on the local news. The manhunt was intense and it didn’t take long for the sisters to surmise that the contents of that box had to be what was stolen. Once word came that Quincy had been arrested, Georgi became even more paranoid. She rarely even went outside. So afraid of being recognized or spotted by Don or one of his cronies, she remained holed up in her mother’s apartment or at Pat’s. The sisters grew closer then. And their children forged a bond as they grew up so close in age.
Georgi survived at first by living off of the cash she had managed to grab from the safe before her exit. That money kept her afloat for the first year. She communicated with Quincy through his mother. Although the letters bore her name and address they were written by Georgi and packed with coded language. In their own version of Morse code, they talked about the progress of his case, about the kids, their living situation, her need for more money. Then Quincy was sentenced and all hope for his release was lost. It was time to move the diamonds.
Through his mother, Quincy got the key to the lockbox to Georgi. She opened it one afternoon with Pat by her side. The black pouch with the gems inside seemed so harmless in the palm of her hand. But the weight of what it had cost them was heavy—Quincy was in jail and Georgi was in hiding with two kids. She was afraid, but now she had moves to make.
She gave two of the stones to a man she and Quincy met years ago. His name was Paz. He was Brazilian and his name meant “peace.” Quincy had moved some stolen gems through Paz’s hands years ago behind Don’s back. Paz worked for a man who worked with Don. While the two big men did business, the two protégés exchanged information. Weeks later, Paz helped Quincy move a few emerald rings and two diamond necklaces. The deal had earned them both a pretty penny. In the weeks afterward, neither of their bosses got wind of it and their alliance was cemented. Now locked up and helpless, Quincy sent Georgi to meet with Paz and prayed that he could still trust him.
Paz could have given him up. Instead, he took the diamonds, valued at close to a million dollars, and gave Georgi seven hundred and fifty grand in cash. Paz would move the jewels on the black market and make nearly twice what he paid. But Georgi didn’t care. She was in a bind and there was no one else she trusted to help her. All of the jewelry from that heist was hot. In the wrong hands, those diamonds could put them all in jail. Paz did his thing and did it quietly. Georgi couldn’t have been happier when it was all over. Quincy, too, was pleased with the deal. It gave his wife enough money to set herself up with the kids in a comfortable and quiet life in Staten Island. Money to bury Quincy’s mother when she died two years later. Georgi hadn’t been able to attend the funeral. Still afraid that Don might be lurking somewhere, she grieved for her mother-in-law alone at home while the services took place. Quincy attended his mother’s funeral in shackles, flanked by two federal police officers. His children attended the service, accompanied by his sister, Shana. After the service was over, Quincy went back to jail and the kids went back home to their mother into obscurity. Until now.
Since then, Georgi had rarely come back to that box. Paz got locked up for theft in an unrelated case. His sentence of eight to ten years made it harder for Georgi to make moves. Quincy wanted her to be patient. He didn’t want to see his wife and kids placed in any type of jeopardy. He said to hold on for a while until he could figure out a way for her to move the jewels without Paz and minimize the risk of her freedom at the same time. Still loyal to Quincy, even after so much time had passed, Georgi tightened her purse strings. She hated it. No more trips to the salon, no mani-pedis. She began to feel like a caged lioness, anxious to get out of her cage and get back to being the life of the party. She longed to get dressed up and go out. But Quincy said it was time to save money.
In essence, it’s what tore them apart. Georgi woke up one day and realized that she had turned into a ghetto version of a soccer mom. Her kids were in school all day, while she perused the mall on a budget, watched corny daytime TV shows, or sat around the kitchen table getting fat with her mama and Pat. Georgi grew bored. In the absence of all the spending she’d become accustomed to, she began to feel less attractive. She became depressed. It began to feel like she was being forced to make a choice between the man she loved and the love she had for herself. While incarcerated, Quincy communicated with Georgi through his sister, Shana. She was the one who had to deliver the news that Georgi had moved on. She did ten years as a prisoner’s wife before calling it quits in the hopes of finding love again. Quincy didn’t take it too hard. He didn’t put up much of a fight. Instead, he told himself that Georgi deserved to be happy. He had several pictures of her taped to the wall of his jail cell. In every one of them, she was smiling. Seeing her smile had made him feel like he could conquer the world. Her joy was contagious when she was at her best. He wanted her to smile again, even if he couldn’t be the man to make it possible.
In the time he’d been away, Georgi had moved about half of what Quincy had given her. With the proceeds of those sales, she had bought her house, financed Sydney and Malik’s education, invested a portion in the financial market, kept Quincy’s commissary stocked, and financed quite a comfortable life for herself and for Quincy’s family as well.
Pat had never asked for a dime. She didn’t want it, didn’t believe in a life of robbing, stealing, and killing to get ahead. She liked her brother-in-law Quincy. Liked him a lot, in fact. She believed he was the only man who could truly handle Georgi. Quincy was a go-getter. There was no laziness in him. But the danger that went along with the life he lived always repelled Pat. It had repelled her mother, too. That was one of the reasons Georgi had stayed away all those years while she and Quincy were living the high life. Georgi’s family would rather live a calm and mediocre life than a flashy and opulent one plagued by fear and the threat of danger at every turn.
And now here Pat was parked outside her sister’s house with the box in her lap. She had no idea what awaited her on the other side of the door. But she had to find out. She prayed that Quincy’s sins hadn’t come back to bite Georgi where it hurt.
Knees trembling, she approached the house. She noted the drawn blinds, but otherwise the house looked normal. There was no noise, no outward sign of trouble. She rang the bell.
The man who opened the door looked vaguely familiar. He was handsome, kinda tall, brown-skinned with piercing eyes. He smiled at her.
“Come in, Pat. Georgi’s in the living room.” He gestured in that direction.
Pat took a nervous step forward, looking around. She saw no immediate signs of trouble as she stepped into the foyer and Don shut the door behind her, bolting the locks securely. Pat swallowed and walked toward the living room. She saw a man with a large scar standing near the sofa. Then she spotted a crumpled mass at his feet. Someone had been beaten bloody, unrecognizable. Pat froze. She couldn’t make out the man lying on the floor, his shirt drenched in his own blood, part of his face smashed into a bloody pulp. Her breath came in spasms and it slowly occurred to her that she could hear her sister sobbing. She spun around and saw her then. A large man stood looming beside her, a grimace on his face. Georgi had been badly beaten, too. Lumps on her head, sections of her hair yanked out, blood dripping from cuts on her face and on the side of her head. Her eyes were swollen and black. Her mouth hung open in an odd and gruesome way. She was crying, the sound so heart-wrenching that Pat began to cry instantly.
“Malik!” Georgi was trying to say. “It’s Malik!”
Pat gasped. Her head snapped back in the direction of the crumpled man on the floor. Her nephew? She wondered where Sydney was. Pat cried harder, her eyes darted toward all three of the men in the room. She prayed they didn’t plan to beat her, too.
“Is that Malik?” She was nearly breathless.
Don nodded. “Yeah. Unfortunately, he hurt himself trying to convince his mother to give me back something that belongs to me. Now I think Georgi is convinced that she should return it all to me. She said we should contact you and you would set things straight. Did you bring it with you?” He glanced at her empty hands. The man with the scar moved in a little closer to her.
Gripped with fright, Pat could barely stand. “I have it. It’s in my car.” Raised in the streets of Brooklyn, this wasn’t Pat’s first time in a situation like this. She knew that if she came in empty-handed, they would at least give her a chance to speak; a chance to convince her sister’s captors to let her go.
Don frowned a little. Wes glanced out the front window, parting the curtain slightly and peering out. He saw the blue Civic parked at the curb. He glared at Pat.
“Give me your keys.”
Pat quickly handed them over.
The man with the gun pointed his gun at Pat. She began to plead for her life.
“Be quiet,” Don said. His point had been made. He believed that the condition of her family members should serve as a sufficient warning of what he was capable of if Pat chose not to cooperate. He glared at her. “If he goes out there and this is a setup, I’m killing you, your sister, and then I’m gonna finish off your little nephew here. You understand?”
Pat nodded. Her whole body quaked.
Wes walked outside, while Georgi continued to wail. Malik lay lifelessly on the floor and Don stood idly by. Pat prayed silently. Even though she knew there was no ambush, no cops lying in wait, she couldn’t help wondering whether these men would kill them all once they got what they wanted. She didn’t know that Don had already emptied out Georgi’s bank account. He had forced her to write down her pin number, had gotten her bank cards, and siphoned the little money she had in her accounts. He had transferred the money into dummy accounts he set up for situations like this. Now it was time for the big payback.
After several long, tense moments, Wes returned with the box that had been sitting in full view on Pat’s front seat. He wondered if this woman knew the value of what was inside. If she did, she had taken an incredible risk leaving it there. He entered the apartment frowning. He handed the box to Don, suspicion gnawing at him. Then Wes moved toward Georgi and she recoiled in fright.
“Is all of it in there?”
Georgi didn’t answer.
“I asked you a question.” Wes loomed over her.
Georgi nodded her head. “Everything I have is in there.”
Her words were barely understandable, her speech jumbled, her jaw slack. Wes stared down at her.
Don watched the exchange. He set the box down on the table and sat down on the sofa.
“Where’s the key?”
Georgi looked up at him, her eyes pleading. She held her hands up in surrender, quite a feat since every muscle in her body ached. She tried to get up from the floor, but the agony was too intense. Finally, Wes pulled her up on her feet. A searing pain tore through her, causing her to cry out. Still, she forced herself to move toward the fireplace. A heart-shaped box sat between family photos of the Taylor family on vacation in happier times. Pictures of Sydney and Malik at school. She retrieved the key from the heart-shaped box nestled there amid photos of a life that box had financed.
With a trembling hand, she gave it to Wes. He tossed her aside, sending her falling onto her chaise, her broken ribs sore and aching.
Wes handed the key to his uncle and Don anxiously opened the box and examined its contents. He recognized a few things immediately. Two Rolex President Series watches, three diamond rings, a pair of diamond and emerald earrings. He held up a small black velvet pouch and poured out sparkling diamonds into his palm. He looked at Georgi.
“There were ten of these.”
She stared back at him without responding.
He shook his head. “Where’s all the cash that Quincy had? Two hundred thousand in cash.” He shuffled the small bundle of hundred-dollar bills at the bottom of the box and looked at her, unsatisfied. “So, I handed your husband close to two million dollars in jewelry and two hundred thousand in cash. And you’re giving me back … this?” He held up the box. “There’s about a thousand dollars here, Georgi. Some of the diamonds are missing. I know what was in that box when I gave it to Quincy.”
Georgi was glad that her mouth wasn’t functioning properly. She might have told Don that he knew the contents of the box so well because he had been the one to fill it up after pumping two bullets into an innocent man’s head. Now she feared that he might do the same to her, to Malik, and to her poor sister, who had always been innocent in the whole thing.
Don nodded, as if digesting the fact that he had taken a loss at Quincy’s hand. Still, he was happy to have recouped some of his losses. He returned the contents to the box, locked it, and stuck the key in his jacket’s inside pocket. He turned his attention to Pat.
“You got the rest of my money?”
She shook her head vigorously. “No! I never touched your money. I never wanted what was inside that box.” She looked at her sister, hoping that all the years of their mama’s lectures were ringing in her ears now. “I value my life. I would never put it in jeopardy over some drugs, guns, money … none of that shit is worth my life.” Tears rolled down her pretty brown face. “Please … you got your stuff. That’s all she has. My nephew is laying there … please just let us get him to a hospital.”
Don stared back at her, unmoved. He didn’t say anything for a while. Finally, he took two steps toward Pat. He looked her in the eyes. “What happened to your sister and your nephew? What you gonna tell them when the ambulance gets here?”
Pat shook her head. “Somebody robbed them.”
He smiled. “What did they take?”
She played along. “Nothing really. She didn’t have much.”
Don liked that answer. He smiled, then turned to his nephew and his boy Black and gestured toward the door. He picked up the box and walked over to Georgi. He squatted down so that they were eye level.
“Tell your husband that he still owes me. When he gets out, I’ll be looking for him.” He winked at her. “It was nice seeing you again. I hope your boy feels better.”
He stood up and turned, walking out with the box tucked under his arm. The two goons backed out after him, their guns trained on the victims in their wake just in case one of them tried to be a hero. Finally, they were gone.
Pat dialed 911 with trembling fingers.
* * *
Sydney was a bit tipsy now. She and Troy had polished off what was left of a bottle of Grey Goose from Uncle Don’s cabinet. Their time together today had been the sweetest thing. Fresh out of the shower now, she began to get dressed. Troy stepped into the room and smiled.
“You’re sexy.”
She felt a little exposed as he stared at her. But she liked it. She wiggled into her jeans.
“So are you.”
He had one arm tucked behind his back. He brought it around now, revealing a long box in his hand. She froze, her eyes wide.
“What is this?”
He smiled. “It’s your Christmas gift. I can’t wait anymore. I saw it and I thought about you. I want to see it on you.” He handed it to her, realizing that he was oddly nervous. He had never been more eager to please anyone. Sydney had his heart.
She opened the box. A beautiful diamond necklace glistened in the light. She drew in her breath, truly aghast. She had never seen such an exquisite piece of jewelry. She shook her head. “This is too much!”
He laughed. “It’s not enough.” He stepped forward and kissed her. “You must not know how I feel about you.”
She held on to him, shaken by the magnitude of his gift. “Wow,” she said. “Troy, I don’t know what to say.” She shook her head again. “Thank you.”
He took it from her and hooked it around her neck, clasping it securely in the back. “You’re welcome.”
Sydney looked in the mirror and watched the diamonds sparkle and dance against the light. Her own gift for Troy—a Rocawear varsity jacket—paled terribly in comparison. “I didn’t think … I got you something simple,” she explained.
He turned her face toward him. “It’s not a competition. You don’t have to give me anything. Just let me do my thing. This is how I show my affection. I don’t expect nothing in return.”
Sydney stared at him, feeling an odd sense that this relationship with Troy was too good to be true. She looked at her reflection again. Her fingertips gingerly touched the necklace and she smiled. “It’s gorgeous, Troy.”
He smiled. “You like it?”
She nodded. “I love it.”
His cell phone vibrated. He glanced at it. “Butch is downstairs. Let’s go.”
Sydney finished getting dressed, gathering her things. Her cell phone battery had died and she silently chastised herself for not bringing her charger. It was near midnight and she wondered whether her mother would worry about her. She was, after all, just supposed to be out for a day of “shopping” with Troy. She shrugged off her guilt, though. Since Butch was bringing her home, she’d get there far quicker than if she had to take public transportation.
She found Troy in the living room, having an angry whispered conversation on his cell phone.
“Why can’t you tell me over the phone?” he demanded. “Explain what that means.”
Uncle Don was on the other end, telling Troy that he was not to get into Butch’s car. “You can’t go to Staten Island right now. I need you here.”
“For what?” Troy asked again. “Did something happen?”
Don worried that Sydney might be standing beside his nephew while they spoke. “I need to talk to you face-to-face, Troy. I’m telling you to send Sydney home with Butch. He’s downstairs waiting. After she leaves, I’ll come get you and bring you uptown. I’ll tell you everything when I get there. Just trust me.”
Trust him. Those were words that resonated with Troy. He did trust his uncle. He had been looking forward to riding back to Staten Island with his girlfriend, though. Now apparently another family emergency required his attention more. “Okay.”
Troy hung up the phone. He turned and found Sydney standing behind him. “I have some kind of family emergency. My uncle won’t go into it over the phone. He said I should send you back with Butch—”
“It’s okay.” Sydney saw the apologetic expression on Troy’s face and shook her head. “You go see about your family. I’ve hogged enough of your time for one day.” She kissed him, touching his face tenderly. Afterward, she looked at him, drinking in his handsome features. “I love you.” Her eyes twinkled with joy. “And I love this necklace.” She touched it again.
He kissed her. “I love you, too.” He walked her downstairs, greeted Butch curbside, and thanked him for bringing Sydney home.
“Get her there safely.”
Butch smiled. “You know I will.”
Sydney gave Troy a long kiss good night. The wind blew fiercely, a cold New York winter swirling around them. They didn’t feel a thing. Wrapped in each other’s arms, they were in their own world.
Reluctantly, he held the car door open and Sydney climbed into the back of the Bentley.
“Take care,” he said. He shut the door, not realizing that the door was shutting on their love as well.
They were both certain they would see each other again. Oblivious to the fact that their warring families had clashed in a way that would tear them apart.