Sexy Little Liar (7 page)

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Authors: Noire

BOOK: Sexy Little Liar
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“Where's the fuckin' safe, bitch?”
“Under the bed,” I squeaked and wiped a dribble of blood off my chin. “I'm getting it, Punchie,
damn
! I'm getting it!”
I scooted forward on my knees and crawled halfway under the bed, wishing like hell my ass had a loaded gat stashed under there. I woulda cocked that shit and fired right through the raggedy foldout cot and blasted Punchie's monkey-ass straight to hell!
But instead, I pulled out the small safe that Gutta had left with me before he got knocked. Now that it was almost empty it wasn't all that heavy, and it had a round dial on the front that I fumbled with in the darkness.
“I can't fuckin' see,” I complained as blood trickled from the gash he'd opened up in my hairline and dripped into my eye.
I heard him move toward the doorway where the light switch was, and flip it up and down a couple of times.
“Yo wuttup with the goddamn lights?” he demanded when they didn't come on.
“They cut off. We ain't paid the bill yet.”
“Trifling bitches!” Punchie cursed in the darkness. “You mean y'all three bitches got two stank pussies and one hairy asshole farting up in here and can't nobody turn enough tricks to keep the lights on?” I heard him snort with contempt. “Skank-ass gorillas! Last week you and Bunni was cruising around in a limo flossin' like you was fly. And this week your shit is cut off and you walking around in the dark! Stupid bitches!”
Punchie stuck his gun down in his pants and pulled out his cell phone. He clicked on a flashlight app and then crouched down beside me and pointed the beam at the safe's silver dial. “Spin that shit,” he demanded as he pulled his gat out again and pressed the tip right under my ear. I glanced up and saw the outline of his face in the cell phone's back glow. Sweat dripped from his chin and craziness darkened his eyes. “You got ten seconds, bitch, or I'ma start poppin'. Get it open.”
My hands was sweating like a mutha as I turned the dial nervously. Numbers had never been my thing, and right now I was so damn shook I could barely remember my own name.
Twenty-one to the right, thirteen to the left, and eighty-seven back to the right, I spun.
Nah, hold up, I corrected myself. It was twelve, thirty-one, seventy-eight. I jiggled the handle.
That shit didn't work either.
“Biiitch . . .”
Punchie growled.
Thirteen, seventy—eight, twenty—one!
I heard a click and the shit popped open!
I reached inside the safe and closed my hand around the small stack of crisp bills. I knew better than to let Punchie peep the last of my stash, so I skimmed two grand off the top and held it up in the air for him to see.
“Here, goddammit!” I shouted. “Two racks! This all I got left! Y'all niggas done already beat me outta a gwap! So take it, niggah! Take it and get the fuck outta here, Punchie!”
At first I thought I had shut his ass down with my little two grand in cash, but there was an evil glint glistening in Punchie's eyes as he pointed his flashlight, crooked his neck, and tried to swing his eyeballs all up inside Gutta's safe.
“Yo, what else you got up in there, girl?”
“None a' ya damn bizz!” I snapped and tried to slam the door real fast, but Punchie's greedy hands were much quicker than mine. He reached out and swatted the safe and tipped it over, sending the last little bit of my cash scattering out on the floor.
For a split second we both froze.
And then we dove. Me first, and then Punchie's big ass landed right on my back.
“Get the fuck offa me!” I screamed and covered the scattered bills with my sweaty, half-naked body. “This is
Gutta's
shit!” I shrieked and flattened myself out like a pancake as Punchie tried to slide his hands between me and the floor and snatch up as many bills as he could. “This all I got!” I fought hard as hell tryna protect the last of my dough. “Get the fuck outta here, nigga! Y'all already stole me!”
Truly, I didn't have no wins over big Punchie Collins. That nigga stood up and grabbed me by my ankle, then dragged my ass across the room caveman style.
“Punchie,
nooo
!” I shrieked into the floor as he stomped back over toward the bed and headed for the scattered greenbacks on the floor. “Asshole I'm tellin' you that's
Gutta's
money! That nigga's coming home in a minute, and when I tell him you stole on him he's gonna
fuck you up
!”
“Nah.” That fool laughed, and I could hear him scooping up my last few hundred-dollar bills off the floor. “Gutta's gonna fuck
you
up, Mink. Neither one of y'all don't deserve this stash no fuckin' way. Gutta shoulda known not to trust a sexy little liar like you, and you shoulda known not to fuck over a G like me.” He flicked off the light coming from his phone and once again the room was pitch black. “Yeah, fuck Gutta,” Punchie said and cracked up laughing. “That nigga been in the joint lickin' balls for a whole year. He bring his ass out here making any noise and I'ma make him lick minez.”
“Punchie.” I sat up in the darkness and begged in a soft voice. “Please don't do me like this.” Closing my eyes, I leaned against the wall and pulled my knees up to my chest. I pressed my fingers to my temple, and even though I wasn't bleeding no more my head was still bangin' like a mutha.
“Look, that's my last bit of money, Punchie. My
last
. And if I don't have at least a lil sumthin' waiting for Gutta that fool is gonna kill me. For real. I'll tear you off something better than money, okay? Fuck it. I'll give you something you really,
really
want. Something you been wanting for a long, long time. Just gimme my fuckin' money back, Punchie. Gimme my money back and I'll let you eat my pussy out, okay? Okay? OKAY?”
Punchie didn't even answer. And when I opened my eyes and saw the white curtain flapping in the window, I knew why.
That nigga had dipped. And he'd taken every dime of my money with him.
I sat there trembling and defeated. I had been caught up in some pretty fucked-up misadventures in my life, but this shit right here was about to bake the cake. I wished like
hell
I could put my life on rewind. If I coulda, I woulda took back every dime I had thrown away on senseless bullshit since me and Bunni had brought our happy asses back home from Texas. If I coulda, I woulda hit all those hot nightclubs and fancy designer stores, and gave back all the stupid clothes, fancy jewelry, expensive liquor, and designer drugs that I had blown my once-in-a-lifetime hundred-thousand-dollar inheritance on!
Hell yeah! If only I coulda, I most definitely woulda!
 
Once again my ass was damn near broke.
Gutta was gonna be back on the streets real soon, and I had sat up racking my brain all night wondering exactly how that maniac was gonna serve me. I had thought about hiding out at my conniving grandmother's house, or with one of my crazy aunts who lived in the projects, but I didn't trust none of them trifling LaRues to look out for me. Shit, they had never liked me anyway, and all Gutta had to do was toss a twenty-dollar bill up in the air and every last one of them woulda squealed on my ass before the money could hit the ground. And that went for Granny's scandalous ass too.
Fear was gnawing at me all down in my bones, and it kept me frozen like a cockroach caught under a bright light. I didn't know if Gutta was gonna shoot me, slit my throat, or choke me out until I took my last breath, but I knew he was gonna do me. I knew that shit for sure.
I had already written out my obituary and picked out my funeral gear. It was a powder blue sequined mini-dress with fluffy blue feathers around the plunging, low-cut neckline. It was short enough to show off my banging banana legs, and I had a sweet page-boy-style Glama-Glo deluxe wig with powder blue and silver-streaked bangs that went perfectly with it. I was sitting with my feet propped up on the coffee table while Peaches polished my toenails in the exact same shade of blue, when my cell phone buzzed and a number with an 817 area code popped up on my screen.
“Dane!” I hollered as soon as I answered the phone. “What's good in your hood, big brother?”
In a flash, Bunni was all up in my face jumping up and down. “He wanna talk to me, right? Uh-huh, his fine Domino ass is tryna holla, ain't he?”
“Hell no he ain't!” I said, laughing as I pressed the phone to my chest so Dane wouldn't hear me. “If he wanted to holla at your stank ass he woulda called
you
and not
me
!”
I was kinda happy to be getting a call from Texas. Dane was the second-oldest boy in the Dominion family, and me and him was real cool. He was one of them laid-back college boys and he could rap his ass off, and me and Bunni had spent many nights getting lifted off his trees and tips off his liq. Dane's style was usually smooth with just a thin layer of street grime on it, but right now his easygoing voice sounded kinda pressed out coming through my telephone line.
“I'm good, baby. Chillin'. But Pops ain't doing so hot,” Dane said. “He got real sick again right after you left town. It's been pretty touch and go with him ever since then, but the hospital called this morning and said he just took a big turn for the worst and he definitely won't be running the company anymore. Hell, he can't even communicate with us no more. The whole family is about to hop on the jet and get down to Houston, and I just thought you should know.”
“Oh my goodness,” I said forcing a rush of fake sympathy into my voice. I didn't give a damn about Viceroy Dominion! That rich old man scared the shit outta me with his one-eye self. Viceroy had been drifting in and out of a coma for months now, and when I had visited him in the hospital with my play-mother Selah, I felt like that old hustler had put his one good eye on me and seen right through my pretty smile and straight into the heart of my devious grind.
“I'm real sorry to hear that,” I told Dane. “How's your mo—” I clamped my teeth down on my stupid tongue. “I mean, how's Mama Selah doing? Is she holding up okay? I been meaning to call her and stuff . . .”
“Mama's hanging in there. You know how she is. Always trying to make things work out for the best. But I'm telling you, Mink. You might wanna think about coming back down here real quick. The shit is about to hit the fan, baby. Barron is tryna make some real grimy power moves. He's about to call a board meeting so he can take over Dominion Oil. And you know what that means.”
“Uh-uh, Dane.” I shook my head. I didn't understand none of that oil board stuff and I didn't want to. If it didn't involve some money greasing up my pockets then it didn't have shit to do with me, and I didn't wanna have shit to do with it neither. “You know I love me some Uncle Suge,” I told Dane, “and you's a real chill nigga too. But I can't come back down there right now. It ain't nothin' personal, but Texas just ain't my bag.”
Shit, Texas was way too damn hot, and for a New York City slicksta like me Dallas was way too slow. What I really wanted to tell Dane's ass was that the only way those Dominions was getting me back down there is if they were willing to drop another hundred grand in my bank account so I could pay Gutta off and save my damn life.
“Oh, so Texas ain't your bag?” Dane asked with a chuckle. “Not even if it means you'll get Sable's share of our multimillion-dollar trust fund?”
Cha-ching!
My eyeballs had mad dollar signs stamped on them as they rolled around like little pinballs in my head.
“You mean that trust fund thing is back on the table?” I blurted out. “That's the three-hunnerd-grand hustle, right? I thought y'all said we had to wait until your father was dead and buried before we could get our hands on some of that?”
“Pops has to be dead or declared permanently incapacitated, and that's why Barron is calling for a meeting. Pops is sliding and sliding fast. If his doctors say he can't understand what's going on around him, or he can't think straight enough to handle his own affairs, then our trust fund gets activated and Barron steps in and takes over the company.”
“Barron?”
I twisted my lips. I couldn't stand his ass! “Why does he always get to make all the damn decisions?”
“Because,” Dane said simply. “He's the oldest. He knows the oil bizz better than everybody else besides my father, and he's gonna do everything in his power to make sure we don't lose a dime of what Pops worked so hard to build.”
“Well ain't no need in me coming, then,” I told him in a huff. “Because there ain't no way in hell your brother is gonna give up a dime when it comes down to me.”
“He doesn't have to give it up, Mink. You're already entitled to it. You passed a DNA test, remember? That trust fund belongs to every last one of us, and that includes you. But the way Bump is trippin' we all might get fucked. We might not see a dime of that money if he gets in there and convinces the board to let him change the trust's terms. Barron has all of Pop's old friends in his pocket, and believe me, he's gonna try to short us. Me and Uncle Suge got a few things on the burner, though. We're tryna to stack us a heavy team so we can vote against Barron and make sure he doesn't fuck us outta our money.”

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