“I’m sure it was. Now, why don’t you let me see your phone, and this will all be over.” I was trying to remain cool. My daughter was sleeping in the backseat, and the last thing I wanted was for her to wake up to her parents arguing.
“No, it’s business. You’re not in the family business anymore, so there is no need for you to see it. Now, I think it’s time to change the subject, before I’m the one who gets mad.” He reached down and turned on the radio.
Well, if he wasn’t going to give me his phone on his own accord, then I was going to have to take matters into my own hands. I reached for his holster where his phone was hooked, but before my hand got within six inches of his phone, his hand came out of nowhere and he slapped me in the face.
I’d been hit harder, but this wasn’t a love tap, either, and my head went flying up against my window. I instinctively raised both hands to stop the next two blows.
“Why are you always pushing me?” he shouted, both hands back on the wheel. “I told you it was a business call, but you always have to push me, don’t you, London?”
I was massaging my cheek and lip where the first blow had landed. “Why’d you hit me? I didn’t deserve that.” Although I tried, I couldn’t hold back the tears.
“Yes, you did. You need to learn your place and stop questioning me. You are not your mother, London, and I am not your father. I am not going to put up with your shit. How many times do I have to tell you that? Next time I’m not going to be so nice.”
Orlando
6
I entered the two-bedroom condo I kept in Port Washington, out on Long Island, and tossed my coat over the back of a chair. This place was my sanctuary, my home away from home that no one in my family knew about. It was fully furnished from top to bottom with every gadget a man could desire: a water bed, a fully stocked bar and fridge, and a hot tub on the balcony, which overlooked Hempstead Harbor. I came here once or twice a week, when I needed to unwind and indulge in the only vice that truly gave me pleasure.
“Maria,” I called out before plopping my six-foot-one frame down on the sofa. I picked up the remote control to turn on the TV.
I knew she had already arrived when I spotted the open bottle of wine on the kitchen table. If I knew Maria, she was probably in my bedroom, preparing everything for tonight’s little party. I’d been dealing with Maria and her brother Remy for a little more than two years now because of their discreet business practices and the high quality of their merchandise. Very rarely had I been disappointed, and on the rare occasion that I was, Remy quickly made it up to me with something even better.
“Hola, Orlando,” Maria replied from the direction of the bedroom.
I turned toward the voice, and there stood Maria Lopez, a drop-dead gorgeous Dominican beauty with a long, flowing weave, a perfectly made-up face, and a surgically enhanced figure that would have put any Playboy model to shame. She was wearing a tight-fitting gold dress that cut off just below her perfectly round hips, and a pair of six-inch gold heels that accented her supermodel legs. I swear she looked like some kind of hyped-up mythological goddess who was put on this earth for one reason and one reason only—fucking.