Page 14 of Back in Blood

I could hear the washing machine going as well as Bianca moving around my kitchen. With a sigh, I walked into the living room and began picking up trash and cleaning the room. When I was done, I entered the kitchen to find Bianca scooping scrambled eggs from a pan and placing them onto a plate. She grabbed a few slices of bacon and two slices of toast before finally placing a handful of strawberries and blueberries onto the plate.

“Thank you,” I grumbled as she passed me the plate.

“We need to talk about Luxe rentals. Since you haven’t been returning his calls, Al reached out to me. The numbers have been off and so have the bank deposits. He thinks Benny is cheating you since he’s the one that handles the money.”

I chuckled lowly before pushing a piece of bacon into my mouth. Niggas. Give ‘em an inch, and they’d take a mile. Any time I did go to the office, Benny gave me sympathetic looks andswore that he had my back. He encouraged me to take as much time off as I needed, and he assured me that he’d hold down the fort. Never since he’d been working for me had he been bold enough to try me. Benny chose my most vulnerable time to pull some dumb shit and for that, I was gon’ have fun putting my foot all the way in his ass.

“I can take over until you feel like you’re ready to get back to work.”

“Thanks for the offer, but that’s my cue to get back to it. As much as I don’t want to have anything to do, getting out of the house more would probably be good for me. I’ll swing by there when I’m done with breakfast.”

I pretended not to notice Bianca staring at me with her lip pinched between her teeth. She already knew what it was, and she more than likely knew that nothing she said would stop me. I finished the food and gave my sister a kiss on the cheek. I appreciated her even when I didn’t say it. I left her at the house cleaning and doing laundry. I needed gas, so it took me almost thirty minutes to get to my car rental business. When I arrived, there was one customer inside, two of my regular employees, and Benny.

Benny was helping the customer while Samantha was booking a reservation over the phone, and Cole was making fresh coffee. “Cole, handle this customer. Benny let me see you in the office,” I stated gruffly and walked towards the office without waiting for anyone to reply. Inside the office, I sat down at my desk and logged into the computer. Checking my email, I looked over all of the documents that my accountant had sent me. Benny walked inside the office with a slimy grin on his face.

“What’s up Boss Man?”

My eyes darted over the numbers. There was more than $10,000 that couldn’t be accounted for.

“My accountant told me that the numbers are off. The bank deposits and the reservation logs aren’t adding up. Some of the deposit slips are also different from the daily ledgers. I have about $10,000 missing. You know anything about that?” I sat back in the chair and eyed Benny.

His brows lifted while a panicked look appeared in his eyes. “I, um, $10,00? That has to be wrong.”

“I don’t think it is. I think you’ve been taking my state of grief as an opportunity to rob me, and I know you have to know I don’t appreciate that shit.” My tone was eerily calm, but I was sure my eyes told another story.

Benny loosened his tie with urgency. Funny it hadn’t been too tight all day but at that moment, he was anxious to get the tie from around his neck. “I’m not the only employee here, Capri. You pay me damn good. I’m not going to mess this job up by stealing.”

He was wasting his time trying to pin it on someone else. I only had one person handling the money and bank deposits for a reason. I had dropped the ball but thankfully, my accountant caught it. My accountant had been in business for twenty years. He was good at what he did, and I trusted that he wasn’t lying to me. And that was the reason I stood and rounded the desk while Benny was lying and copping pleas. His eyes widened as I raised my arm. My fist connected with Benny’s face, and he had to grip the edge of my desk to keep from falling.

His hold on the desk meant nothing because the second blow sent him tumbling back into the wall. I walked closer to him as he scrambled to move away from me. “Capri, please. I didn”

I hit him with an uppercut that sent saliva spewing from his mouth. The next blow buckled his knees, and the final blow knocked him out. He slid down the wall and laid out on the floor. Benny was sleeping like a baby. Only because we were at my place of business did I let him continue to lie there. I wanted todrag his ass outside and leave him there like the trash he was. After stepping over his body, I sat back down at my desk. The moment he woke up, he was going to have ten seconds to get out of my face before I hit him again. Despite me being livid about the missing money, I was almost glad that he crossed me.

Beating his ass had been a great release, and I felt a little better. I wasn’t sparing anybody. And it didn’t matter who it was. Anybody could get it. I hadn’t forgotten Sintonio either. I wanted him to get comfortable, and then I was going to strike. I wouldn’t rest until he was no longer breathing.

Four days. I’d gone four days without alcohol. Marijuana was in nonstop rotation, but I had refrained from alcohol. I also got on my shit and showed my face at all my places of business. Meetings were held, and I made it clear that the next person that got the bright idea to do some foul shit on my clock would end up worse off than Benny. Caprice was a constant on my mind, but I had to get back to life. Being in a home filled with her memories and belongings wasn’t fun either. That could have been another reason that I was drowning in my sorrow, but I wasn’t ready to get rid of her things. Instead, I just got up every day and went to work versus sitting in the house all day.

It was nine pm, and I’d been away from home since eight that morning. My four day break was over. I craved something to ease my mind, and weed wasn’t going to do the trick. The bar wasn’t too packed, but there were limited seats at the bar. I didn’t mind sitting beside anyone as long as they weren’t in the mood to be chatty. I’d never been that person that got drunk in bars and became super friendly. Never would be. I eased ontoan available bar stool and waited for the bartender to come over and take my order.

The scent that infiltrated my nose had me turning my head to the left. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t matter to me who was sitting beside me but that scent. The smell of vanilla was damn near nostalgic because even though vanilla was a very common scent, it made me think of someone. My orbs landed on those ginger tresses, and the beat of my heart quickened just a bit as I studied her side profile. Before I could look away, Lisa turned towards me, and she didn’t even blink. The pain in her eyes was undeniable. She gave me a subtle nod and looked away. My gaze drifted towards the glass on the bar which she lifted and placed to her mouth. As she tossed back the remnants of what was in the glass, the bartender came over to take my order.

“Let me get a double shot of Louis XIII.”

“Coming right up. Can I get you anything else, Miss?” He directed his attention towards Lisa.

“Yes. Another lemon drop please. Tequila instead of vodka.”

“You got it.”

I could ignore people with the best of them but being next to Lisa was awkward. It wasn’t because I’d kidnapped her. It wasn’t even because she reminded me of bitch ass Sintonio. The thought of him made me glance towards her hand, and her ring finger was bare. We shared the same pain and even though I didn’t want to, I couldn’t help but to feel empathy for her. The same way I didn’t want people saying dumb shit to me, I wasn’t going to say any dumb shit to her. It had been a month since she’d given birth to her son.

The bartender slid my drink towards me with a nod then did the same to Lisa. “Thank you,” she stated quietly as I sipped my drink.

Turning my head slightly, I furrowed my brows. I didn’t even really want to look her in the eyes, but I wanted her to be able tosee my interest in her comment. A nigga was confused as to why I was even avoiding her gaze.

“For letting me give birth with my family present. Thank you. We all got to hold him and say goodbye.”

I gave a curt nod. The hatred and bitterness that was brewing inside of me since losing Caprice hadn’t faded at all, but I couldn’t be so heartless that I made her do such a hard task alone. Or with my ass present. A man that kidnapped her. She was right about one thing. She didn’t pull the trigger that took my child away from me. No matter how closely affiliated she was with the nigga, she still wasn’t the one that committed the crime. The silence between us resumed. On the other side of her, a man eased over to her and tried to strike up a conversation.

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