The Family Business 3 (The Family Business #3)(59)

“I would not call them second-class citizens, but I do think a respectable woman should be covered up.”

I looked down at the baggy sweat pants and oversized T-shirt he’d given me after X had torn my other clothes. “So you’d rather see a woman in something like this than the outfit I was wearing when you brought me here?”

“Yes,” he answered. “If you were my woman, I would never want another man to see the outline of your body. That would be for my eyes only.” He stopped, turning away from me. I was stuck on the way he’d phrased his answer: My woman.

“You mean I couldn’t even wear a bathing suit to the beach? Are you serious?”

“Yes. If you are my woman, then you are mine, and not to be gawked at by any man on the street.”

My woman. There it was again. It sent a strange jolt through me to hear him say it, but I still didn’t agree with his philosophy on the clothing issue.

“What I wear should be my choice,” I argued, “and if you loved me, then you should want me to have those choices.” I held his gaze waiting for his response, while knowing it wouldn’t be what I wanted to hear.

When he spoke, his voice was soft and not as confident as it had been. “Do you think you could worship the Quran?” His question took my breath away, because I realized what he was asking.

“I read it, and yes, there are parts of it that speak to me, but I just don’t know. . . .” Just saying it was painful, realizing we were on two separate paths that would likely never meet.

I think my answer bothered him, too, because he abruptly changed the subject. “Let me go and get the chessboard for that game.”

As soon as the door closed, I let all the air out of my body. What the hell was going on? Whatever this feeling was, I knew it wasn’t something that was supposed to happen. I shook my head, as if I could release all my confused thoughts that way. What if I was experiencing Stockholm syndrome, where you identify with your captors after a while? Oh, Lord, I thought, Paris would never let me live that shit down.

“You ready?” he asked when he returned with the chess set.

“You play?”

He pulled up a small table and set the board in front of me.

“So, how’s this going to work?” I asked, staring down at the handcuffs.

“Guess I will be the one making all the moves,” he informed me as he set up the pieces.

“I also assume that I will be the white pieces?” I said with a laugh. “I mean, with you being a Black Muslim and all, you probably don’t want to have anything to do with white.”

“It’s not that deep.” He smiled, showing the most beautiful straight teeth as he placed the black pieces in front of me.





“Check mate!” I said proudly about an hour later. We were evenly matched and the game had been close, but I wasn’t about to lose, even to him.

“Wow. I’m impressed. But promise you won’t tell my men. None of them can come close to beating me, and—”

“It would be so embarrassing if you were shown up by a female?” I said, flirting openly now. “I get it. Your secret is safe with me.”

He looked like he was ready to play along, but then one of his men opened the door and he straightened up, all serious again.

“Brother X wants to see you,” the man said. “Should I wait in here with her while you are gone?”

“No. She will be fine. In fact, unless she has to go to the restroom, I would like her undisturbed.”

“Yes, sir.” He ducked back out the door.

Elijah exited the room, leaving me alone to wonder what the hell was going on between the two of us.





Vegas





40


We stood out like a couple of purple giraffes in the zoo as I parked the car in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, home to the largest Russian community outside of Russia. Dotted along the avenue were cafes, coffee shops, pastry shops, and stores selling authentic goods that made the locals feel like they had never stepped foot outside of the old country.

“Leave your piece in the car,” I told Orlando, placing Bonnie and Clyde in the glove box.

I reached for the door, and he placed a hand on my arm to stop me. “You sure about this?” he questioned, no doubt wanting to turn the car around and drive back home. One glance outside the car at the hulking Russians watching us from the corner and I understood his concern, but we had bigger issues than them.

“Bro, you have to trust me. I know what I’m doing,” I said in my best big-brother voice. “You walk in there strapped and you’re as good as dead.”

“I just don’t know.” He still hadn’t moved his hand off my arm. “I mean, Pop always dealt with—”

“Look, Pop did things one way, and he dealt with all these cats his age who did things a certain way, but we’re a new generation. That means our way of doing things is going to be different, and the cats we deal with are gonna be our contemporaries. You feel me? Sometimes you have to be willing to change things up.”

“If you say so.” A look of solidarity passed between us as we got out of the car and walked past the group of men staring at us.

I led Orlando a few doors down into the Baklava Bakery. Olga, the woman who had probably held court behind that counter for the past forty years, stared hard as we entered. An older Russian man who looked to be hiding a shotgun, with a scowl that said he was not afraid to use it, stood up from his rear corner seat, blocking the entrance to the back room and making sure we now saw the shotgun. He didn’t hide his displeasure at seeing us. Neither did the customers who filled the small tables situated around the room.