Tiffany and Dior: Love in Las Vegas Streets (7 page)

     He sat at the head of the long, black marble table with expensive jewels dangling from his neck. When he looked over at me his eyes filled with sincerity.

       A sharp thinker and always quick on his feet, he was a great family and businessman. He owned one of the hottest nightclubs in Las Vegas.  Black Diamonds nightclub wasn’t your average hole-in-the-wall spot. It was a low-key, upscale club where every hood celebrity, and the biggest trap queens and kings in the streets hung out. If you weren’t getting money you weren’t welcomed.

     This was the only place in the city where you could sip your liquor, smoke weed in peace, and wear your exclusive shit without any worries. Underneath the club in a separate part of the building was where his twenty-five-year-old son Landon ran his drug operation.

     Landon took over when Black retired years ago. Now he was the richest kingpin in the city at the age of twenty-five. Landon was more into the streets than Black. At sixteen years old, Landon supplied eighty percent of the purest coke to local drug dealers. He was the plug out in the streets of Las Vegas and everyone respected him. I only met him a few times because when he would come over Black made sure I stayed in my room.

       Las Vegas is a small world. I met Landon at my sixteenth birthday party. He was dropping off product to my mother. It wasn’t until he showed up at the house a few weeks ago that it clicked.     

      I remained quiet sitting at the dining room table. Black was very handsome and I admired his youthful skin and his salt-and-pepper ocean waves that lined up with his goatee and mustache. He had the deepest green eyes I had ever seen. To be forty-five years old he didn’t look a day over twenty-five. He didn’t eat pork or fast food. He worked out every day and took his vitamins. He didn’t smoke or drink liquor. Getting money was his natural high. 

       I was fully aware of the perks that would come with being his woman. To be honest, shit like this didn’t happen for girls like me in the hood. We were used to messing with them hustlers whose intentions were to fuck, and if the kitty was good he might buy you a MCM bag and a pair of red bottoms off the rip, but that’s it.

      Black provided me with a lavish lifestyle. It was sweetest hustle but Black was strict. He reminded me daily, that he didn’t like any of my friends. He never allowed me to go to any other club in the city except Black Diamonds. He bought all of my clothes and chose what I should wear whenever we were out in public. I wasn’t allowed to watch reality shows or go to concerts unless a celebrity showed up at his club. I couldn’t drive any of his cars. And after that time I came in too late, Black made sure he had a driver take me everywhere I went. I hated how Black made me feel like a prisoner.

      Just then, as I was busy in my thoughts, thinking about how much I hated my relationship,  Teresa came strolling out of the kitchen pushing her serving cart. Her black and white maid uniform was always neatly pressed and her hair was pulled back into a professional bun. Everything looked delicious on the cart as she set the table.

     In front of us were fresh pineapples, bananas, apples, grapes, strawberries, blueberries, mangos, watermelons, and oranges, which she cut into different shapes. It looked as if we were dining at Edible Arrangements once she’d finished with her display.

      Next to the fruit was crispy bacon, turkey sausage links, muffins, biscuits, bagels, cheesy eggs, grits, and pancakes. Fresh squeezed orange juice and hot tea sat in the middle of the table.

      I felt bad that Teresa had been in the kitchen since 4 a.m. preparing this feast for us three to partake in on Christmas morning. She deserved to wake up to her kids at the crack of dawn, opening Christmas gifts. She was supposed to spend the day relaxing, listening to music, and drinking coquito; not here inside of our five-bedroom, high-rise brick mansion cooking and cleaning. She deserved a day off, I thought. 

       Black being Muslim was never a problem but he was just so damn strict.  He didn’t celebrate any holidays; not even his own birthday. He didn’t care if it was a holiday on the calendar.  In Black’s world there were no days off. You had to work from sun up to sun down. Teresa had been working for Black since she came from Mexico, ten years ago.   

      She was a young immigrant when she left Mexico City. As the story goes, he found her raped and beaten up in one of the Mexican cartel’s whorehouses in Cabo. Her father Torres was a part of the Mexican cartel and decided to start stealing money for himself to build his own operation. It was the biggest mistake he could have ever made.   

    You see when you’re involved with the cartel nothing you do can get past them. They will shake hands with you, and with the other hand put a bullet into your chest. The Mexican cartel wasn’t to be played with, especially the Arturo brothers.

      Torres put his whole family in jeopardy because of his actions. When they were sleeping, the four brothers came to his mansion, seeking revenge. They not only planned on killing Torres, but they wanted to make him suffer a slow death.

     Torres sat in the middle of his massive living room, tied to the chair, watching his wife get raped by all four men. After they raped her, they beat on her. His heart cringed as he was forced to watch them chop her into pieces, with a butcher knife.

      Ten-year-old Teresa woke up from the commotion she heard coming from her living room. She thought her parents were drunk again, acting like fools. She sprinted down the stairs, and to her dismay, she saw her father tied up to a chair with his face badly beaten, and her mother chopped up into pieces. One of the men grabbed her, making her watch them butcher her father next.

        The torment didn’t end there. They took her to one of their whorehouses where they sold drugs, and hid her. When she tried to escape they would beat and rape her. That lasted the next ten years.  

      I guess you can say Black was heaven-sent. He was down in Mexico on business. He was in the prime of his drug career. He had just turned thirty-two years old and was soon to retire from the street game. But not completely. He had dirty money that needed to be cleaned and he loved to hustle. He had his empire, which he had built from the ground up. His father allured him to the game at a young age. His father taught him how to be rich forever. He went to college and got his education in business. In the streets he didn’t need a degree. His was the blueprint. He paved the way for so many upcoming hustlers in the game.

      He taught them how to flip their money and watch out for feds, because the feds were always watching. In order to get the type of resources he needed he had to step his game up.                    

     He knew the Mexican cartel was the only thing standing in the way of him getting a higher position. He was done fucking with the connects out in Miami and Columbia. He was ready to sign over a deal with the devil so that he could get his hands on the next shipment.

      Everyone knew if you could afford international drugs, you were classified as the next richest kingpin in the city. Lately, he had been hearing good things about the Mexicans. They had the purest coke and purest form of MDMA.

    He was confident that by the end of the month he would become a million richer. They laughed at him for wanting to make a deal like that. In their eyes he was just a pretty boy from the states. Did he really think he would be able to sell that much weight and make a million in four such short weeks?

       They had seen so many hustlers come and go. They grew tired of hustlers coming to buy their drugs hoping it would buy their freedom but it didn’t. They would end up dead or in jail before they could even see one million dollars.

       Black was unlike the average hustler. He was a sharp thinker, and he was determined to prove them wrong.  He made a deal that if he made a million dollars in one month, they would have to supply him five years’ worth of their best product and he would have to give him the young Mexican woman, who spent a decade trapped in a dungeon underneath them. He didn’t know her but when he saw the hurt and pain in her eyes, his heart went out to her.

     Black was a sincere type of man. He believed that he always had to save someone. He was very compassionate when it came down to women.

     To them she was a worthless whore who belonged to them to pay off her father’s debt. They ripped away her family and took advantage of her womanhood. What more could they do?  Black’s mind was made up. He wanted the drugs and he was going to save the young woman.

        They shook hands and in less than a few weeks Black was back as promised. After he got what was owed they still had not release her.  He ended up killing one of the leaders in Arturo’s cartel. Black let Hector Arturo know that if he didn’t let Teresa go he would go on a killing spree. But that was six bodies later. Arturo had no choice but to let Teresa go. He granted Teresa her freedom and supplied Black with his five-year drug plan.

        Coming to America Teresa barely spoke English. Black’s gave Teresa an apartment and a job as his maid. All she had to do was cook and clean his house. Because he saved her life she would always remain loyal to him. She developed a motherly bond with him. It showed in how well she cleaned his house and cooked his food.

   
Reality had set in and I felt sorry for her, I thought to myself as I stared at her while she continued to set the table.  I knew she wanted to be home with her two toddler twin girls instead of here with us. Without any complaint, she came to work faithfully and did as she was told until her shift ended.

    “Good morning Demetrius,” I spoke first.

    “Good morning, Tiffany,” he said as he continued to read from the newspaper, not looking up once to acknowledge my presence.

       I reached under the table, plucking Mason  on his knee to get his attention. I was happy he loved his new device, but I warned him to keep it in his room and not bring it downstairs.

              “Ouch!”

“Put that game away and say good morning,” I murmured.

              “Good morning, Uncle Black,” he uttered reluctantly. 

“Mason, tell your sister Tiffany how we’re supposed to speak every time we greet each other,” he said in a sarcastic tone as he darted his eyes over at me. Black put his newspaper down, giving us his undivided attention.

“As-salamu alaikum.” Mason looked over at me then at Black.

       I sat there speechless. I was born and raised a Christian and there was no doubt in my mind that my lord and savior was real, but when it came down to Black he wanted control over everything. He wanted me to take my shahada and pretend like Jesus wasn’t God in my heart. I would never convert to being Muslim without understanding what I was practicing and I damn sure wasn’t going to do it for a man. I was eager to learn about his religion so that we could bond better until he did something I couldn’t forgive him for.

    My mind flashed back to a few years ago.

“You will praise Allah, in my presence,” Black said to me in a harsh tone before snatching the necklace from around my neck. I had a gold cross hanging from it, which he despised. 

     Tears trickled from my eyelids. I had never taken that chain off. My mother gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday. Instead of having a traditional sweet sixteen, I got baptized. I took the lord into my heart and the chain symbolized protection from my enemies and anything that would harm me. Momma said as long as I wore the chain, I would always be safe.

     She didn’t lie; I had been through so much shit in my life but somehow, this chain saved me every time. When Black snatched it off of my neck I no longer felt safe. It seemed like the trouble didn’t start until I no longer had that chain hanging from my neck.

   “Peace be upon you.” I stared back into Black’s dark green eyes as I rubbed my chainless
neck. I knew those words would bite me in the ass later but I refused to be something I was not.

       Black always wore black button down shirts, dress pants, and shoes. Black never rocked jeans, or sweats pants. He never wore a fitted cap or sported a hoody. He didn’t even wear basketball shorts. You would never catch Black walking around with his shirt off or in boxers.

      To be forty-five he was sexy as fuck with a full set of teeth, and his salt-and-pepper hair made him look like Rick Fox. He had a long, thick pole between his legs. His green eyes made you melt whenever he looked at you. Black ate healthy and he worked out. He didn’t drink or smoke so his appearance still looked youthful. I often wondered how a man so beautiful could be so cold-hearted.

    “Here you go, senorita. Would you like anything else?” Teresa said to me, breaking me out of my daze.

      A sense of nervousness crept over my body when Teresa sat the food on top of the long black, ivory, and gold marble dining room table. Suddenly, I had no appetite for food. I could feel him staring at me and it was making me nervous.

    “Mason, where did you get that device from?” Black asked suspiciously.

    Before he could even utter another word, I spoke for him. “Umm, I bought it a few weeks ago. I am surprised you haven’t noticed it. That seems like the only thing to keep him occupied,” I lied, hoping that Mason didn’t say anything. Nothing got past Black’s eyes. He watched closely to everything we did.

    Secretly, I had gone out yesterday and bought Mason  a present. Ever since he was a baby we had been celebrating Christmas. I couldn’t let Black’s religious beliefs get in the way of mine.