Beginning of an Eclipse (SIN CITY HEAT SERIES PREQUEL) (9 page)

    
Darrell and Roni stepped onto the elevator. He grimaced when he faintly heard Jade still yelling out his name as the men rounded the corner with her.
    
“Darrell!!
Daaarrellll…!
”
    
As the elevator ascended to the third floor, there was a deafening silence inside of it. Darrell paced back and forth in the small space. Roni was quiet as she kept her eyes trained on the numbers above the doors. When they opened, the two of them walked to her office, still not speaking.
    
Darrell closed the door behind him then went over and threw himself in a chair. Roni leaned back on her desk and just watched him. She was more curious than anything. Darrell never talked about his past. She’d told him everything about hers, had even cried when she told him about the dark period in her life after Frank died. The only thing he’d mentioned is that he and Marcus grew up in an orphanage in Philadelphia and had no family. She knew she had to proceed delicately.
    
“So that’s someone you knew from back home?”
    
Darrell was slouched down in the chair. With his legs sprawled out in front of him, he stared straight ahead with a brooding expression on his face. When he heard Roni’s question, the sound that exploded from him was a cross between a scornful grunt and a mocking laugh.
    
“Home? Yeah. Okay.”

    
Neither said a word for a few moments. Then all of a sudden, Roni’s back straightened when the beam of Darrell’s suspicious gray eyes pinned her in place.

   
“What were you doing down there anyway?”
    
Roni opened then snapped her mouth closed. Her mind raced as she tried to think of a plausible excuse. She
could
say she’d been on her way to see him, but knew he would recognize that wasn’t the truth. She never went down to the performer's area because she wanted them to feel as if that was their personal space, a place where they could get ready for the show in peace and unwind afterwards.
    
Darrell sat up in the chair when her eyes nervously slid away from his. Now he
really
wanted to know. "Don't lie."
    
Her eyes flew back to his.
Dammit! He knew her entirely too well.
    
“Okay! I…well I was in the office talking to Bryan and I glanced at the monitor and saw Bill having a problem with some woman….”
    
“Which happens all the time,” Darrell interrupted. “So?”
    
“So...” Roni shrugged. “I don’t know. Something made me turn the volume up and I heard her say your name and….” When Darrell just continued to stare, she stood up and sent a pleading look his way. “Darrell, don’t be upset. I was just curious. I mean, you never talk about your past, I know absolutely nothing about it…”
    
“Because there’s nothing to tell, Roni.”
    
“Did you ever know your parents? Were they killed in an accident? Is that how you came to grow up in an orphanage?”
    
“Will you stop?!” Darrell jumped up and went over to stare out of the window. His shoulders were tense as he shoved his hands into his pocket. With his back to her he said in a harsh voice, “What do you wanna know? Do you want to know how my fifteen year old mother got knocked up by her thirty year old married lover who left when he found out she was pregnant? That the only reason why she had me was because she didn’t have enough money for an abortion?”
    
Roni walked over and stood behind him. “Darrell, I’m sure that’s not true…”
         
“She told me so herself. She gave birth to me a day after she turned sixteen. And when I was seven years old, she decided she’d sacrificed enough of her youth, so she dropped me off at an orphanage and never came back.” His voice was detached and unemotional as he told her how he and Marcus ran away at fifteen and how they scrounged, begged, and stole to survive until they came to Vegas. He turned around to face Roni and saw the tears running down her face.
    
“Baby, don’t cry for me. That was a long time ago - a lifetime ago. I have everything I need. I have a great life and I have you. Other than Marcus, I ain’t never had nobody in my corner before and knowing you got my back means a lot.” He framed her face with his hands and gently wiped the tears away with the slightly calloused pads of his thumb. “To me, trust is everything, Roni. Everything. You’re my woman and I trust you with all that’s in me. You and Marcus - and Bryan - you all are my family now. Anything else is gravy….” He smiled as he leaned down and kissed her lips before wrapping his arms around her.
    
Roni snuggled closer. “I love you, Darrell.”
    
Darrell’s reply was as natural to him as breathing. “I love you, too Roni.”

Two days later --- Philadelphia, PA

    
Jade came bustling into the large apartment she shared with Rakeem. She had been bitching for the last two days about the treatment they’d received in
Club Ecstasy
. Her little posse was right on her heels pumping her up.
    
“Girl, yeah, they don’t know who they messin’ with. That’s alright, J, just forget them. That muthafucka ain’t shit.”
    
“You got damn right he ain’t! Think his shit made outta gold or somethin!”
    
“Ooowee, but he is fine!” Another one chimed in. “Did ya’ll see his body when he took his clothes off?!” She slowly shook her head in wonder. “I’on know if I could handle all that!”
    
Jade’s nose went up in the air. She flipped her hair back and gave her friends a superior look. “Girl, please. I handled that dick like champ. Had him yellin’ my name and telling me that was
my
dick…”
    
“J, stop lyin’! Girl, ain’t no way you was able to take all that.”
    
“Especially as little as you say Rakeem’s dick is,” a third one snickered.
    
Jade laughed with them. “Girl, I know. It was hard, but I had been after him for a minute. I still remember the way he fucked me like it was yesterday….” She saw the smiles fall off her friends face.
Yeah, these bitches so jealous they don’t know what to do
,
she gloated.
    
“J….”
    
“Girl, he’s an arrogant bastard, but he damn sure can fuck.”
    
“Jade….”
    
“Sometimes, I gotta think about that night just to cum when I fuck Rakeem’s pencil dick ass….”
    
“Jade!”
    
“What, got dammit!” Jade’s neck twisted on her shoulders as she copped an attitude. These bitches were always try’na steal the spotlight from her!

    
Her friend pointed a trembling finger to a spot behind Jade. Jade loudly smacked her lips then turned around. When she saw what they’d been staring at, she wanted to scream. A furious Rakeem stood in the doorway of the bedroom glaring at her with murder in his eyes.
    
What the fuck was Rakeem doing here?! He was supposed to be on a run across town! How much had he heard...?
Oh sweet Jesus!
    
Jade knew what Rakeem was capable of when he got upset, and right now he was positively livid! Her mind went back to the night after she’d slept with Darrell. Rakeem had confronted her, asked if she’d fucked Darrell because his boys had followed them. She’d stuck to the liar’s code: deny, deny, deny. He’d knocked her around a bit, but it hadn’t been that bad because she’d sworn on her children’s lives she hadn’t slept with Darrell. That was her story and couldn’t nothin’ make her deviate from it.
    
But now, Rakeem had heard everything right from the horse’s mouth. It didn’t matter how long ago it happened. In Rakeem’s eyes, she had made a fool of him.
    
“B-baby, let me explain….”
    
“Shut up….” His tone was low and gruff. Without taking his eyes off of Jade he growled to her friends. “Get out.”
    
He hadn’t raised his voice, but then again, he didn’t need to.
 
They knew what time it was and barely looked at Jade in their haste to scramble to the door. Jade wanted to beg them not to leave, but she couldn’t have uttered a word if her life depended on it…in this case, it probably did.
    
When the door closed, Rakeem began unbuttoning his shirt then took it off and carefully laid it on the back of the chair. Cracking his knuckles, he walked towards Jade. The first slap rang out painfully loud.
    
“I thought you went to visit your sister for the weekend?”
    
“Daddy
please!
It ain’t what you think!” Jade inched away and held her hands up. The second punch to her jaw whipped her head around and propelled her into the wall.
    
“No? Seems to me, yo' ass not only lied about where you was this weekend….”
Slap!
“But you lied when you said you didn’t screw that muthafucka….”
Smack!!
“Been laughing at me and disrespectin’ me to your friends, too, huh…”
    
“Rakeem, I’m sorry…!” Jade wiped the blood trickling from her nose. “Baby, I’m
sorry…!
”
    
“Oh, you ain’t sorry
yet.
”
    
A second later, the hard punch to her stomach would’ve brought a grown man down. Jade was barely 5 feet and weighed 110 pounds. She clutched her midsection and doubled over in pain. Wheezing and trying to catch her breath, she sent up a silent prayer for mercy as she fell to her knees. When Rakeem grabbed her hair and jerked her head up, she saw his meaty fist barreling down towards her face and knew her prayer had gone unanswered.

Chapter 9

    
After the incident with Jade, Darrell’s feelings for Roni only got stronger.
 
He loved the hell out of Roni and trusted her implicitly….which is why an incident six months into their relationship made him feel as if he’d taken a hit which put him down for the count.
    
He, Marcus, and a couple of the other dancers had just come back from a grueling work-out session. The club had a state of the art gym and weight room specifically outfitted for the men. Their job was to look good. Therefore,
Club Ecstasy
provided them with the means to do so. The facility had the most advanced equipment and technology that money could buy. There was also a nutritionist on staff as well as several personal trainers and chefs.
    
The other guys had been ribbing Marcus about how much he’d benched. “You gettin’ a li’l soft ‘Dr. Hurt So Good’.” They were laughingly referring to Marcus by his stage name. “You were barely able to do three sets of fifteen reps…”
    
Marcus took the good natured teasing in stride. “Don’t nobody got time to live in the gym like you meatheads.”
    
“Oh, that’s right.” Ray, aka Chocolate Thunda, grabbed Marcus around the neck and put him in a headlock. “The doctor in training here is too busy burnin’ the midnight oil at the hospital and chasing those sexy ass nurses around.”
    
Darrell laughed as Marcus easily slipped out of the headlock and twisted Ray’s arm behind his back. “Yeah, ya’ll can think my man here is soft, but he’ll have you flat on your back crying uncle before you know it.”
    
Marcus let Ray go and playfully pushed him in the back before giving Darrell a high five. “Don’t tell ‘em nothin’, D. Let ‘em keep on. I can show ‘em better than I can tell ‘em.”
    
They all continued laughing and taking verbal shots at one another as they filed into the large lounge/dressing area. Once again, the club had spared no expense to make the space inviting and relaxing. In the main room, wall to wall plush carpet covered the floors, and comfortable sofas and loveseats were placed throughout the room. A humongous plasma TV took up half a wall, and the home theater system which was wired throughout the entire square footage of space cost more than most people made in six months. The television was on but the sound was muted as music played from the surround sound speakers.
    
Darrell headed over to the bar and opened the fridge. He grabbed a couple of bottles of Gatorade and water and threw them to the guys. They were talking about the upcoming tour that was scheduled to kick off in a couple of months when Roni’s assistant, Linda, walked in followed by a young man around twenty-one or twenty-two. Darrell knew right away, he was the newest dancer in the group. Roni had told him several guys had been interviewed and a decision was expected today.
    
Linda introduced the man, whose name was Nate, to each of them and informed the group that he would start practice with them in the morning. She had already showed him around the club, and left the dancer’s area for last. Darrell took a sip of his water as he watched Linda lead Nate towards the back, pointing out various areas and rooms.
    
“Seems like a nice enough kid.” At twenty-nine, Maximus, aka Daddy Long Strokes, was one of the oldest members of the group, but he was in just as good, or better, shape than any of them.
    
Darrell shrugged. “I guess he’s okay. Seems a little cocky to me.”

   
The others looked at him in astonishment. He met their looks with a questioning one of his own.
    
“Uh, yeah. He sort of reminds you of
somebody
, don't he?” Bruce, who went by the name of Pussy Thief, laughed.
    
“Ya’
think
muthafucka?!” Ray added.
    
“Know what? Forget all o’ ya’ll. A’ight?” Darrell tried to keep a straight face, but cracked up and ducked when someone threw an empty water bottle at him.
    
Linda walked back into the room and shook her head at the horseplay. “Okay guys, I’m going to leave Nate here and let you all get acquainted.”
    
After Linda left, someone turned the volume up on the television and changed the channel to ESPN so that they could watch highlights of last night’s game. While making small talk with Nate, they found out he was from Cali and had worked at a club much smaller than
Ecstasy
for about two years. It wasn’t long before Darrell tuned him out and focused on the game as Nate went on and on about how he’d been the featured dancer, and had practically been a shoo-in for this job.
    
Darrell shook his head and rolled his eyes at Marcus, who bit back a grin. Darrell’s look told all of them that he
knew
he hadn’t been as bad as
this
dude. He was concentrating so hard on the latest scores that it took him a minute before he realized how quiet it had become in the room. Bit by bit, Nate’s boastful words got Darrell’s attention.
    
Suddenly realizing who he was talking about, Darrell’s eyes turned dark and threatening. A raging inferno steadily simmered fierce and uncontrolled in his gut. The other men did not -
would
not
- move and barely dared to breathe. Their eyes were fixated on the thunderstorm gathering on Darrell’s face and felt the slightest move they made would set him off like a match lighting a powder keg.
    
Unaware of the impending danger he was putting himself in, Nate continued his bragging, unknowingly taunting a deadly beast who was just waiting to burst forward and kick his ass.
    
“D….” Marcus voice was low as he called him, but Darrell paid him no mind. His body was tense and he kept his eyes trained on Nate.
    
“I mean, I never in my life had an 'interview' like that, ya mean?” Nate smirked. “Bitch was wild as hell.”
    
“Uh, Nate…” Ray tried to head off the blow-up. However, he swallowed his words when Darrell’s eyes shot to him in warning before swinging back to Nate.
    
“Let him talk.” If the other man had been familiar with Darrell, he would’ve recognized the look in his eyes and gotten a clue. Instead, he shoveled up another scoop of dirt and continued to dig his grave.
    
“Does everyone have interviews like that? Of course I was prepared to dance and take everything off…” He grabbed his dick and nodded. “To say they were impressed is an understatement. After everybody left out of the office, though….
whew!
It was on.”
  
“What happened after everybody left….” Darrell’s lips barely moved.
   
“I turned her ass out is what happened. I never been with a older woman like that before. Don’t get me wrong, she was fine as hell, nice and tight. I took hold of that long, pretty hair and rode her like a cowboy breaking in a bronco at a rodeo….”
    
Darrell’s chest heaved up and down and his hands curled into concrete fists. Any minute now, he felt as if his head was going to explode.
    
“And then after I finished, made her get down on her knees to lick this dick clean…”
    
Marcus quickly stood up to get Darrell, but he was a second too late. Darrel lurched out of his chair and flew towards Nate faster than Superman’s speeding bullet. He hit Nate so hard the other men were expecting Nate’s chin to fall off. Quick as lightning, he pulled Nate up and smashed him square in the face, causing blood to gush and spray from his nose.
    
“Darrell!”
    
Bruce grabbed Darrell’s arm as he cocked it back to introduce it to Nate’s teeth. Darrell let go of Nate for a quick second to push Bruce back, sending him flying over a table. He turned back just
 
in time to move to his left
 
so that the jab Nate aimed at him only skimmed the side of his head.
    
“Muthafuck….!”
    
Even more enraged, Darrell punched Nate in the stomach. When Nate leaned forward, grabbing his midsection, Darrell brought his knee up and slammed it into Nate’s face. By that time, two of the other guys finally managed to grab Darrell, but even then, it was a struggle to subdue him.
    
“Marcus! Come getcha boy!”
    
Marcus had stopped to help Bruce up, who was sporting a cut above his eye. Bruce waved him away and urgently pointed to Darrell, indicating Marcus needed to get him.
    
“Darrell! Man, that’s enough…!” He stood in front of Darrell and pushed him back as Darrell struggled to move forward and get free to kick Nate's ass some more.
    
“Get them the fuck off me, Marcus! He’s a fuckin’ dead man! Get ‘em off me!”
    
All Darrell could hear in his head was what Nate had said about Roni, what he’d done to her and made her do. In his mind’s eye, he saw Roni down on her knees sucking this muthafucka’s dick. The image helped to propel him a couple steps forward before all four men managed to throw him to the floor.
    
After a few minutes, out of breath, Darrell stopped struggling. Marcus went over to check on Nate. “Keep D here until I get this guy outta here!” He helped Nate to his feet and pulled him from the room.

    
Hearing the door slam, Darrell resumed his struggling. “Alright! Let me up…!”
    
“D, you need to calm down, man! You almost killed that dude!”
    
“Max, I said I’m good!”
    
Max hesitated, then nodded to the others. “Let him up.” The men carefully released Darrell one by one, but kept a wary eye on him. “Darrell…”
    
“I don’t wanna hear it, Max…” He jerked his arm away from Ray. Clenching and unclenching his fists, he paced back and forth, periodically glowering towards the door Marcus had hustled Nate out of.
    
“It’s over, man! Chill!”
    
“Max, I said I don’t wanna hear dat shit…” He continued to angrily stalk around the room like a caged animal as Nate's words repeated themselves over and over again in his mind.
    
‘
I fucked the shit out of her….I had her beggin’ for it… she got down on her knees and licked this dick clean…’
    
Darrell was furious, but even worse, his heart felt as if it had been ripped from his chest. Growling in anger, he picked up one of the barstools and threw it at the plasma television. Sparks shot from the screen and clouds of smoke billowed up in puffy, gray swirls.
    
“Man, what the fuck…?!” The other men looked at him in utter disbelief.
    
Ignoring them, Darrell stalked out of the room with quick, angry strides. Bypassing the elevator, he slammed through the exit door and took the stairs two at a time until he got to the third floor. He didn’t even notice the looks people gave him as he passed by. His shirt was ripped, and Nate's blood was splattered on his clothing.

    
The only thing he was focused on was getting to Roni’s office and asking her
why
.