“You’re gonna give me everything you’ve got, one way or another. You owe me, motherfucker, you’re gonna pay up, one way or another. That’s the deal.”
Leon stormed to the doors. One of the bartenders shouted at him, and Leon flipped the guy the finger and told him to kiss his ass. He shoved through the exit.
Corey’s heart had crawled halfway up his throat. He swallowed.
The waitress appeared beside the table, cheeks flushed red. “Someone has to pay for that broken glass, sir.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Corey said. “And the beers, too, I guess.”
With a sigh of disgust, he slid out his credit card.
9
Driving home, Corey took a less direct route, repeatedly checking the rearview mirror to see whether he was being followed. He didn’t appear to be, but that gave him little comfort.
He didn’t know for sure how long Leon had been watching him, didn’t know the depth of Leon’s knowledge of him and his family. Leon had demonstrated that he knew where Simone worked. There was no telling what else he might know.
Home was a welcome sight, as always. Blood-orange evening sunshine shimmered on the gabled roof, and the newly planted hibiscus fronting the bay window was blooming, pink petals as bright as cotton candy. The Bermuda grass, tended by a landscaping service that visited weekly, was so lush, green, and finely edged that it might have been artificial turf.
He and Simone had worked hard, and sacrificed much, to achieve this house, their piece of the American Dream. He could not bear the thought of losing it all.
He parked in the garage next to Simone’s SUV and cut off the engine. He hit the remote control clipped to the sun visor, and the big sectional door rumbled shut.
One thing was certain: he couldn’t tell Simone what was going on. If he told her what had happened at the bar, she would insist on contacting the police. It was the logical, good citizen thing to do. He would be unable to explain to her satisfaction why calling the cops was out of the question, not without delving into the truth.
Listen here, babe, we can’t call the police and report that we saw Leon because Leon has some dirt on me. Yeah, some old, serious dirt-the kind of dirt that gets you sent to prison for a long time. .
She would pressure him for full disclosure. Once he shared those sordid details, everything for which he’d struggled so hard all these years would come crashing down: his marriage, his business, his reputation.
How had his life ever come to this? Hadn’t he paid his dues? Hadn’t he rendered his pound of flesh on the altar of the golden rule, hard work, service to others, and sacrifice?
But you’ve forgotten your roots, kiddo, it’s time to pay the devil his due. .
Hadn’t he done everything he was supposed to do to make peace with his past?
It all seemed so unfair that he wanted to punch the crap out of something. Leon’s smug face would have been a satisfying target.
He snatched the key out of the ignition and went inside.
“Daddy!” Jada cried when he entered the kitchen. She catapulted into his arms.
“Hi, Pumpkin.” He bent and kissed her forehead.
The touch of his daughter, the sweet, innocent smell of her, made his throat tight. He could not lose her; he would not. She meant more to him than any house, any business, any amount of money.
“How was your day?” Jada asked, gray eyes ever curious.
He merely smiled and ran his hand across her cornrows. “Hmm, something sure smells good. What’re you and Mom cooking?”
“Beef stronoff!” she said.
“Stroganoff,” Simone corrected. Dressed in a yellow tank top and black terry cloth shorts, she leaned against the granite counter near the cook top, nursing a glass of red wine. Fragrant meat sauce and egg noodles simmered in a pan. “This is a good pinot, baby. Want to try it?”
“In a minute, sure. Be right back.”
He went to the security system’s touch-screen command center mounted on the wall next to the interior garage door. With the tap of an icon on the graphical interface, he activated the sensors installed on the house’s ground-level perimeter; the system sounded a series of short beeps, indicating the newly armed status. If an intruder lifted a window or pried open a door, the alarm would sound, and the police would be notified within sixty seconds.
Feeling more at ease, he returned to the kitchen.
Simone gave him a puzzled look. “Why are you turning on the alarm? It’s sort of early for that.”
Typically, he waited until they were ready for bed to activate the system.
“I’m running some diagnostics,” he lied.
Doubt touched her features, but she said nothing further about it. She handed him a goblet of pinot noir. He thanked her, set the glass on the counter, and leaned in to give her a moist kiss. Her lips tasted of black cherries.
“Hmm, it’s a good wine,” he said.
She smiled, cinnamon-brown eyes full of bottomless love. He had looked into those beloved eyes of hers every day for ten years, and they had not lost their ability to captivate him; in fact, time had given them greater character, power, depth. It was because of those eyes that he believed he could be a good husband; because of them he believed he could be a good father to a child when he had never known his own father; because of them he aspired to be a man who was in all ways worthy of her love.
He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t.
He kissed her again. Her mouth opened wider to accept him, and she hung her arms around his neck. He slid his hands to her small waist, and lower still, to the sensuous flare of her hips. She pressed her pelvis against him, and he suddenly wanted her so urgently it was like a gnawing hunger in the pit of his stomach.
“Okay, guys,” Jada said, face red with embarrassment.
Corey stepped back. “Cut me some slack, Pumpkin, that was only a PG-rated kiss.”
As Jada rolled her eyes, Simone comically fanned herself with an oven mitt.
“Whew, honey, where did that come from?” she said.
“Glad to see my wife, that’s all.” He smiled. “I’m going to change into something more comfortable.”
“We’ll be ready to eat in five, ten minutes at the most,” she said.
Their master bedroom was on the first floor. In the large walk-in closet, he changed out of his work clothes and dressed in a T-shirt with a character from The Boondocks on the front, denim cargo shorts, and Nike slides.
At the back of the closet, hidden on a shelf behind a stack of shoeboxes, lay an aluminum case with a combination lock. He lifted it off the shelf and sat on a stool in the dressing area. Placing the case on his lap, he thumbed in the combination and raised the lid.
A Smith and Wesson.357 lay inside in thick, dimpled foam.
From a shoebox, he extracted a speed loader bristling with hollow-point ammunition, and a DeSantis in-the-waistband holster, for concealed carry.
Although he had installed a top-of-the-line security center in their home, electronic measures didn’t cover every possibility. As far as he was concerned, complete peace of mind could be achieved only with a firearm.
Simone knew about the gun, and he’d trained her in its proper use, but she didn’t like keeping it in the house because of Jada. As a compromise, he locked it away in a safe place.
He loaded the revolver, secured the holster snug against his waistband with a belt, and buried the gun inside. He pulled his T-shirt over his waist.
He checked his profile in the full-length mirror that hung inside the closet. Looked good. Felt even better.
He didn’t know what Leon might try to pull next, but if it involved crashing into their home, he was going to be in for a surprise.
“Honey!” Simone called.
Armed, he went to have dinner with his family.