The Versace League (19 page)

She stood up, grabbed her towel from the holder, and dried off the lower half of her body before she stepped out and dried off the remainder of her body. She grabbed the loose fitting sweat pants and pulled them on and then the comfy t-shirt and put it on. She walked over to the mirror to fix her hair when she heard a car door shut on the outside of her home. She walked over to the tiny window that was located in her bathroom and tried to peep out, but the garage blocked her view. Shrugging her shoulders she went back over to the mirror when she heard a strange sound coming from downstairs.

Jessica grabbed her cell phone from the counter and left out of the bathroom that led into her bedroom. She heard the front door open and she lightly stepped out of the room when she was punched in the face. The hit was hard and deafening and it caused her to slightly black out before she fell to the carpeted floor.

“Where the fuck is your husband bitch? Where is Yamin?” he forcefully asked and when she shook her head, he delivered a kick to her face that this time definitely knocked her completely out.

***

Blood dripped from Jessica’s forehead onto the beautifully kept throw rug that lined her bathroom floor. Her heart throbbed against her chest, which meant that she wasn’t dead. Her breaths were ragged and uncontrolled, her body sluggishly coming to. Slowly her eyelids fluttered open, although her vision wasn’t quite clear. She brought her hand up to the wound on her head and that’s when she heard him.

            “Tsk, Tsk, Tsk Jessica-is it Jessica Brouard now?  I can’t believe he left you at home all alone, once again. Does he not value you?” he asked with laughter. “You stayed out a little longer than I expected you to.”

His voice was tainted with grogginess and his breath was permeated with liquor. The voice was familiar, but Jessica couldn’t pinpoint exactly where she’d recognized it. Blinking excessively, she tried to focus on the darkness that stood before her, but failed. She was so out of it.

            “Are you ready to tell me where Yamin is?” he asked her, now so close she could feel the hotness of his breath against her skin.

            “Yamin?” she called out.

            “Exactly. Where is he so that I can kill his ass?” he asked with a smirk.

            Fragments of the assailant suddenly became visible as vomit crept from the pits of Jessica’s stomach. Small little beads of sweat formed in the tiniest crevices of her body. The memory of them bombarding her the moment she stepped out of her bedroom hit her. She remembered a total of three guys, with only two having guns.

            “Where the fuck is your husband bitch? Where the fuck is Yamin?” the leader yelled at her the moment he’d entered her bedroom.

            “Yamin? Who is Yamin?” she asked feigning ignorance. She looked around trying to remember how she ended up in the bathroom, but nothing came to her, then she remembered the kick to her gorgeous face that had knocked her out cold. Jessica looked around the meticulously decorated his and her bathroom, the spa-like shower that she’d had installed specifically for her, along with the Jacuzzi tub, and fancy toilet that she just had to have. She remembered the soothing bath she had when she came home and-the pills that were in the kitchen waiting for her. The pills were the very reason she had come home.

           
Click! Clack!

            The frightening sounds of the gun cocking and the barrel being shoved down her throat snapped her back to the matter at hand. She damn near choked on her shattered teeth and clotted blood as she stared into the face of the man that was now kneeling in front of her. His eyes practically slits as he spoke through gritted teeth. Frustration for the beauty before him was clearly evident.

            “I don’t think you fuckin’ understand what is going on here. You have five seconds to tell me where the fuck Yamin is or I will blow your fuckin’ brains out! You got that?! I’m tired of you fucking with me!” he yelled, every word carefully spoken through his thick accent.

            Jessica nodded her head up and down, she was ready to speak, and let them know that even if she knew where Yamin was, she wasn’t about to tell them. She didn’t know why they were there or what they were there for, but she knew that she wouldn’t lead them to her husband. If they wanted him then they would have to find him.

            The gun slid out of her mouth more smoothly than it had entered. The leader stood to his feet and waited for the info he’d come for. In his mind, he’d won. His boss would be proud of him. He put his pistol up and then reached behind his ear and grabbed the cigarette that was sitting there and then pulled some matches from his pocket.  

            “I’m listening,” he told her.

It was then that she knew where she had recognized his voice.

Silence consumed them all. Like sandpaper to concrete a match was struck and fiery life was given to the cancerous tobacco. Smoke rings filled the room and a musky smell followed shortly after. Jessica felt faint as a sly smile dangled from her swollen lips. She thought carefully before she answered, “I sent him to fuck your mama. You bitch!” she spat, sending chunks of her blood to the floor. She now knew why they were there. Why he was there.

POW!

An eerie feeling tiptoed up Jessica’s spine and her body froze with fear. Fear that she had hidden moments earlier because she knew all too well how this would play out. She knew exactly who she was dealing with and she hated that she didn’t tell Yamin the truth before. As she lay on the floor bleeding from the bullet in her stomach, she hated that she hadn’t practiced what she had preached. She was so onto Yamin about lying to her and here she was in a deadly situation because she hadn’t been quite the scholar herself.

            “Take her to him. I will wait here for Yamin,” the leader said. He took a tug of the cigarette and then put his pistol back up once again. He watched as his partners went for Jessica and he took out his cell phone to send his boss a message. His job wouldn’t be complete until he had further driven a hole into The League.

ONLY THE BEGINNING

Jessica faintly opened her eyes and tried to depict
where she was at the moment. She had been going in and out of consciousness all morning due to the excruciating pain that poured from the wound in her belly. Every time she had a conscious moment, she silently prayed for the life of her unborn child. She hoped that God would spare the innocent life she had carried even if she hadn’t always been so innocent in her time.

“Uhh,” she groaned when her body bounced from the seat. She had then realized that she was in a moving vehicle and the feeling alone caused her to want to vomit. She wondered if that was a good sign or not. Had the fact that she was still sick to her stomach meant that there was still life left in her child?

“My sweet Jessica. You’re awake,” he said to her.

She grabbed at her stomach and then tightly shut her eyes. She hated that she didn’t tell Yamin the truth about him when she saw his right hand man Roscoe at the Ashley’s burial. She knew that if Roscoe had been around that he hadn’t too far behind him. She knew that Roscoe hadn’t been there to pay his respects and knew that whenever he was around trouble was sure to follow.

“Jean, where are you taking me? My baby. I need to go to a hospital,” she said faintly.

Jean laughed. He could care less about the child she carried and hoped that she would miscarry sooner rather than later. Killing her unborn had been part of his instructions when he’d sent his workers after Jessica. He didn’t want her carrying another man’s child in her by time he had taken her back home. If the bullet in her stomach wasn’t enough to get rid of the child, he would personally reach up there and snatch it out of her. Jessica was supposed carry his child not Yamin’s and that thought alone angered him. He huffed and snatched a cigar from the Benz’s ashtray and lit it up as the driver made a swift right turn.

Jessica groaned again. Her head fell backwards and she was sent into a daze that caused her to remember her and Jean’s history.

“Pretty, pretty girl you are,” Jean said to Jessica as he admired her glowing dark skin. They were in line at a Starbucks coffee where he had met with a few of his American clients for a business deal. On his way out, he saw something that he just couldn’t pass up. Jessica was young just the way he liked them and not only was she young, she was as beautiful as his mother. She had a natural beauty and it turned him on completely.

“Hello,” Jessica laughed. She looked up at the older guy standing next to her and blushed. He smelled wonderful and he looked even better. His suit was Versace, his cologne Armani, and his jewelry made of some of the whitest diamonds she had ever seen. Not to mention to be an older man, he was quite handsome. His salt and pepper beard was neatly trimmed, his stature was nice behind his gray suit, and he had nice clean teeth. Jessica looked at him and then shyly turned away. 

“My name is Jean Peck, and you are?” Jean held out his hand for Jessica to shake. She looked at him and placed her hand into his. It was a handshake that had started the brink of their relationship.

He had found out that Jessica was attending school to become a lawyer and although she was eighteen years younger than he was, the two of them hit it off pretty well. They dated for all of six months before he swept her off of her feet and in the end promised her the world if she had married him. Jessica had never felt so honored, or privileged and she agreed, but only after she had finished school. Finishing school and becoming a lawyer had been her number one priority.

Jean was perfectly okay with that. Her longing desire to be something in life was one of the things that he had come to admire about Jessica. She didn’t want him for his money because she had wanted to make her own. He would honor her wishes and wait for her to finish school because she was not one that he wanted to let go.  While waiting for her to finish school, he purchased a small but nice condo in downtown Dallas and the two of them continued to date. Jean had never been so in love in his life. Jessica had done more of the sweeping him off of his feet than he had done with her. He was head over heels for her and couldn’t wait to get her back home and show her off.

As the years went on and Jessica finally graduated from Law school and Jean was able to detect that things had changed and not for the better.

“What is wrong with you? You’ve been walking around here quiet and bitchy?” Jean asked Jessica one night as they prepared for bed. It was a couple of weeks before the two of them would be relocating their lives to Jean’s home of Haiti. The closer and closer it got for them to leave, the more on edge Jessica had become.

“Jean, I don’t want to uproot my life to go to Haiti. I don’t wanna go there. I have a chance to work for a prestigious firm here in Dallas and that’s what I want to do,” Jessica stated as she pulled the covers back.

“You don’t have a choice but to go. I’ve stood by for three years waiting on you to finish law school and now it’s time for you to honor my wishes. You can practice law in my home.”

“I’m not going Jean. I know all about your drug and sex ring. I know that you have a sex slavery ring going and I know that you force mothers and little kids to push dope for you. I don’t want anything to do with that,” Jessica said disgustedly. She’d found out all about what Jean had done for a living when one of his colleagues was arrested for smuggling drugs into the US. He had tried to hide the news of his arrest from Jessica, but she ended up reading about it in her office one morning where she had interned. The colleague was doing some snitching and Jean’s name had come up. She was repulsed when she learned that he was using women and children to manufacturer his drugs and using innocent little boys to bring it into the U.S. He was getting rich off of the poor and she didn’t want to be affiliated with anyone of that nature.

“I guess you’re gonna sit here and tell me that you’re an angel. No, not the girl that murdered her mother in a house fire and allowed her brother to take the blame for it,” Jean huffed.

Jessica was taken aback. She placed her hand over her chest and let out a ragged breath. She couldn’t believe that he had known that about her. It had been her number one reason for finishing law school. She knew her brother had been innocent and she wanted to use her knowledge of the law to free him. She knew he had been innocent because she had been guilty. She grew tired of the abuse her mother had handed down to her and she could no longer take it. She had burned her mother alive and she allowed her brother to take the fall. For years she felt bad about allowing her brother Marcus to take the blame for her, but she knew in time she would make it right. She would free him from prison and he would go on and live a normal life. Killing her mother had been a secret that she adamantly planned to take to her grave.

How does Jean know? Jessica wondered as she stared into her lover’s eyes.

Jean laughed stoically. “Did you think it was a secret? Did you think I didn’t do my research on you? It is my job to know everything and trust me I know everything.”

Jessica didn’t have a choice. She didn’t want to lose her career that she had worked so hard for and most importantly she didn’t want her brother finding out that she was at fault for him being imprisoned for so long. For the remainder of the night Jessica was quiet. She knew that it was nothing she could do to get herself out of the situation she was in. In a couple of weeks she would be forced into Haiti and in a few months she would be married to an evil, evil man. She lay in bed and prayed that one day she would wake up from the nightmare that was just beginning.