“Ouch! Bit--” She hissed grabbing her arm mean mugging me.
“They not Indians, Bria. Indians live in India… They Natives…” I rolled my eyes at her. “And yeah, you right, he don’t look like either.”
The man who had just sat at the table was darker than Crazy Larry and he wore his authority like a garment. It made the custom-made grey suit he sported pale in comparison. Unlike Mitch, who looked like a full-blooded Native, the baby brother looked to be of mixed heritage. Although he was very dark and could easily pass as an African American, his high cheek bones proclaimed his Seminole lineage.
For just a moment as he was undoing the button on his jacket so that he could sit, his gaze fell on me. I inhaled. The raw uncut strength that came from his eyes was breathtaking. Quickly I looked away pretending to straighten out the cloth on the table next to us. Brianna and I were dressed very similar to the waitresses here, not enough to rouse the suspicion of the employees, but enough to trick the eyes of the guest.
In reality, neither Bria nor I could afford to use the restroom in this establishment. We had come to kidnap a man. To be exact, my husband’s little brother Michael. My gaze went back to the corner table. I had not expected his little brother to be so…so…
“Dominating.” Brianna said as if she was in my head.
“What was that?” I asked her.
“He’s so dominating. I don’t think we have enough dope to put out that big body. Did Larry give you enough? We’re going to need an elephant tranquilizer.”
“We have enough, and we need to move fast before we draw the attention of the maître d’.” We quickly made our way to the server’s hall. I took the drugs that I had acquired for this purpose out my pocket. My hands shook as I emptied the whole pack into the pitcher of water. Using a spoon, I gave it a good stirring.
“Are you supposed to use the whole thing?” Bria asked from where she stood at the door keeping look out.
“I don’t know! I think—” I exhaled trying to calm my nerves. I couldn’t remember how much of the drugs Larry said to add. Goodness! I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I couldn’t believe I was getting ready to kidnap this man. Please Heavenly Father, forgive me, but they left me no other choice. They were trying to take my Rain from me and I couldn’t let that happen.
I couldn’t let her go to a home where there was no love. Mitch said he came up in a cold, loveless environment. His parents were mutli-billionaires and didn’t know the meaning of love. They had raised Mitch and his two brothers to be machines, as cold as them.
And now they were coming after my Rain, all because they found a little weed in my pee.
I tried to hand Bria the pitcher of water. “Here go, pour him some water.”
She looked at me as if I had gone lame. “You crazy as hell if you think I’m going anywhere near that man. He look like he will get up from that table and just…” She searched for the words. “Step on you. I don’t want to get stepped on, Earth!”
Her response flustered my already frayed nerves.
“Dammit, Bria! What did you even come for?” She gave me that better-you-than-me smile as she patted my shoulder.
“For moral support, my sista.” I rolled my eyes at her as I knocked her hand off my shoulder.
Dammit!
I took several deep breaths. Okay, I can do this. I can do this.
I had no other choice. They were trying to take my baby. So, in exchange I will take theirs. Mitch said his brother Melech, who was the head of that heartless clan, actually had a soft spot for their younger brother Michael. I would just use that soft spot to get Melech to sign over his rights to Rain.
I know, it sounds crazy.
Believe it or not, it was a crazy Jamaican who gave me the idea. My boss and landlord Larry. Or rather, Crazy Larry. After my last court date, when the judge told me I had one month and thirty days to say my last goodbyes to my daughter before I had to turn her over to the Blacks, I came home and cried and yelled out my frustration at the injustice of the whole situation to Larry.
I was not a bad mother. I loved my child and took care of her because she was all I had. I was losing her because I was poor and could not afford a good attorney that could go against the team of overpaid vipers that had come to represent the Blacks. I don’t know whose idea it was to drug test me, but once the results came back positive for weed, the Blacks’ attorneys made it seem like I was out on the street selling a$$ for rocks.
The judge didn’t even grant me visitation rights. He said he felt it would be better for the child to cut all ties to me and begin a new life with her father’s side of the family. After he adjourned the case, one of Black’s lawyers asked him if they were still on for lunch.
“This would have never happened in Jamaica. We would have extracted our own form of justice to deal with the boars.” Boars is what Larry called any government figure.
“What would you have done?” I asked him. At that point I was desperate. Rain was the only good thing in my life. Without her, I might as well be dead.
He’d looked at me through a sea of ganja smoke. “It’s simple, you take the younger boy for ransom.”
And so, the idea was born.
That night I tossed and turned in my bed thinking about it. I mean, what did I have to lose? I
