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A Mother’s Tale


~Chapter Thirteen- Fallen Lies

The wheels pull up slowly, spraying gravel on the sidewalk as he climbs out of the car. Dragging his hand across the car door, he slams it close and glances at the apartment complex on Millbury. He waits around to see the tall English man step out of the entryway of the building quickly calling him over.

“How did it all work out with the apartment?” Roger asks, eyeing the man.

Orlando shifts his weight on his foot and looks down: “Almost done. So…why did you call us here?”

“I’m still waiting for the others, then I’ll tell you all.” Roger smoothly says, cracking his knuckles.

“Oohh…right… Is it true? About what I heard.” Orlando quietly states, his mocha eyes glaze over Roger’s silver Chrysler convertible.

Roger raises his eyebrows: “What are you talking about?”

“About you being done with this. That you’re leaving us alone with this and you plan to walk out.”

Roger snorts and leans back on his car, glaring at the young man: “Where did you hear this shit from? Personally you all did your part and it worked out. But if I chose to leave that’s my business, you’re of age and can defend yourself well without my help.”

Orlando clicks the roof of his mouth with his tongue and clears his throat: “Right…don’t you feel just a little guilty with what we’re all doing? I mean your poor wife…”

Roger cuts the man off and snarls: “Listen to me, I know what’s in the best interest of my family and I’m only doing what’s best to get her through this trail. She’s still leaving in her fantasy world and I need to get her out of it. I’m so fucking tired of hearing about Nick and his so called life. I have a little girl to care for, the last I need is to make her insane like her mother is.”

Orlando blinks eyeing the man in bewilderment: “How can you say that?! That woman loves you and you turn around and do this to her. And your little girl, what has she done? You put her up to it as well, she sees what you told her to see.”

“And what a good girl she is. Why don’t you stay quiet and just do what’s being asked for?” Roger coolly responds, brushing past the man as A.J and Damien walk up the pathway.

Frowning, Orlando looks over at them and shakes his head, “I’m this close to being through with this because of him.”

“Don’t listen to his ass.” A.J. grunts out, tugging on the brim of his dark baseball hat.

Damien shoves his hands in his pockets, seeing Brian finally appear crossing the street going over to them.

“Alex what was the plan you have set up for us…or more me than anything else.” Damien quips up, seeing Roger coming towards them.

“Tell ya later…gotta see what’s up with mister pain in the ass at the moment.” A.J. whispers, watching Roger greet the others at their arrival.

“Well boys, I gotta say this is the last I’ll see you. I’m heading out in a few days for my job but I just had to let you all know the police are smarter than we thought. Jasmine is going to questioned today and when she does…” He glances over the four men, his eyes resting on Damien.

“You’ll be the first to be mentioned.” He smiles, eyeing the man.

Damien gulps, looking at the stained oiled ground: “We did what you asked us to. If I’m found guilty at any point I’ll make sure your name is dragged in this.” He mumbles out.

“Oh I don’t think that’ll happen kid.” Roger pulls out a semi automatic, aiming it at him. The other men gasp and eye Damien as he steps back.

“It would be pretty screwed up to get rid of us after all the hell we did for you.” A.J. grunts, hiding the slight fear that arose at the sight of the pistol.

Roger laughs and packs his gun away in his holster on the side belt, “I would never hurt any of you. Relax boys. I came here to send my congratulations on a job well done with the incident. Especially you kid.” He taps Damien’s back roughly. “I gotta admit you can act good, you fooled the police and my wife. And that’s a hard thing considering what you’re doing is illegal.”

Brian gulps, keeping his light eyes trained on the father ranting on about their security system.

Roger turns his eyes on A.J. and smiles: “Ah Alex, what a nice man you are to hold this in for so long. I wanted to give you all your rewards here actually before I head off to get some food.” He could feel all four pairs of eyes on him as he heads to the trunk of his car, popping it open. Smiling, he pulls out a leather suitcase unlocking it to reveal a large portion of money neatly stacked and tied with a leather clip. The fifty dollar bills were placed on the top as Roger calls the men over.

Brian reaches the trunk first, his mouth dropping at the sight of the money: “Oh God…this is real…holy crap we get to take home the cash and walk away with it!”

“Oh not so fast boy.” Roger smirks, running his hands through the piles of money in the suitcase. “First you finish the apartment and then I’ll leave you with the rewards you all rightly deserve.”

A.J. rolls his eyes and mumbles something incoherent under his breath as he heads inside to the small apartment building as the others slowly drift in. Smiling, Roger closes the suitcase, grabbing the black leather handle to pull it out of the car. Slamming close the trunk, he sits on it: watching the four men disappear into the beige apartment complex building. A small tug of excitement tugged on his heart strings as he felt convinced that this was almost freedom: that this was what freedom could feel like all the time if Nick was never in his life. He busies himself with the thought of what he will do once he hands the men their due rewards and how well he’ll enjoy his break away from the drama that had dispelled him and his family for the past twenty-fives years.
~*~

His hands brush across the shiny mahogany book shelves just recently installed. “This is some nice furniture, how did you pull this off?” Damien asks to the English man who sits on a lazy boy chewing on a half eaten sandwich.

Orlando shrugs, wiping his mouth: “One of my friends owned me a favor and got me the hook up for this.”

“Well damn boy, who else you know that you got this tv?” A.J. opens a cardboard box pulling out picture frames to decorate the shelf.

Brian busies himself with connecting the small television set as A.J. whistles and eyes the others.

Going over to Damien, he sticks out his hands: “Gimme. And don’t tell me you forgot either.”

Rolling his light eyes, Damien pulls out a small pack of photos shoving it in A.J.’s hands with a grin.

“Wow…” A.J. opens the small pack to check out the pictures and smiles. “Heh…didn’t know Ari had a birthmark right on her…”

“What the hell? They’re not naked pictures of her.” Damien blinks, snatching the photos out of the laughing man’s hands.

“Dude relax. God you so uptight and to think you hit that and you still wake up like this. Maybe you to explore ways of being satisfied.” A.J. cheekily grins. “See me and my girl, I’m always happy. No need to get rifled up cause I have some good loving waiting for me.”

Brian chuckles, shaking his head as he rips opens a plastic cover to drape over a small dinner table.

Damien smirks and looks through the photos, “Heh…oops…guess that one slipped in the pack.” He shoves the obscene photo in his front jean pocket.

“You lucky your parents ditched that house for you to stay in alone with Ari or you would never get laid.” A.J. hoots enjoying the annoyed look coming across his friend’s face.

Damien rolls his eyes and starts placing photos of Arianna in the fancy picture frames. Orlando wipes his hands, dragging a box to the almost bare bedroom and begins throwing down Maxim magazines spreading out on the carpet along with empty soda can in a trash bin.

Brian and A.J. carry the bed sheets and pillows into the bedroom slowly beginning to set the room up.

“A.J. hold this wire while I untangle it. I gotta connect it to the back of the bed so the lamp on the night stand can work.” Brian coughs softly, handing the wire to the man.

A.J. shrugs and holds the end of the wire as Brian places the lamp on the night stand while A.J.’s eyes roam over the cover of one of the magazine’s scantily clad woman getting distracted. Brian tugs on the wire so he can take out the small knot but frowns as A.J. moves further away making the knot tighter than before.

“Alex stop moving.” Brian grunts out as Alex bends down to gaze at the photo cover. “Ahh noo don’t do that!” Brian races to the lamp as it begins to topple off the edge of the night stand.

Brian was a few feet away when he trips over an open cardboard box causing him to slide the rest of the way as the thin glass lamp was inches away from crashing on the carpet. He gasps and closes his eyes assuming the lamp was broken. When he opens them, he sees Damien shaking his head holding the lamp safely in his hands.

“Dumb ass. Try not to break anything in the process. We can’t afford that much.” Damien smirks, putting the lamp back on the nightstand, walk pass them both.

Brian turns to glare at A.J. who simply snickers flipping through the magazine excitedly. Orlando chuckles exiting the room and comes back with a dust towel wiping his hands.

“Guys, I can finally say we’re done here.” Orlando smiles: leaning on the threshold as the others hoot and cheer.

“About damn time. A little more male bonding and I was gonna throw myself out of the window.” A.J. remarks, stretching his arms overhead. “Well if we’re done, I’m gonna get my dough from Carter. Dude is loaded! Heh I knew making friends with the wealthy was gonna pay off.”

“Yeah…right.” Damien raises an eyebrow seeing his friend exit the apartment. Orlando grabs the keys to the apartment and heads out, waving to the others as Brian follows out.

Looking around Damien was about to open the front door to follow the others out of the apartment when something caught his eye. The item gleamed in sunlight pouring in from the window as he reaches the counter touching the platinum watch. “What the hell?” Frowning, he exits the apartment with the watch, reaching the others.

“Guys…hold up…why did you take my watch without asking my permission?” He grumbles, “I thought I lost it years ago when my parents gave it to me for my high school graduation.”

A.J. shrugs: “Dude what are you talking about? Roger got that watch from his wife. She was hiding it out, planning on giving it her little boy.” He smirks, twirling his car keys around his hand.

“No, dammit this is mines, trust me I know my stuff. How the hell did psycho mom get my shit?” Damien eyes his friends, wondering if they might know some kind of answer.

“Listen Roger gave it to us. Ask him. If she stole it from you then you got evidence on Mrs. Carter lack of sanity.” Orlando calmly states, leaning back against the cream walls outside.

Damien nods and heads out with the rest of the men as more questions begin to fill his head.
~*~

She yawns, watching the blue plastic ball roll past her feet. Smiling she sees Eliez run past her to get the ball and tosses it to Bethany who easily grabs the ball.

“I always told her when its time to be a mom, she’ll be ready.” Janelly smirks, rummaging through her handbag to pull out her lipstick and mirror.

“Well I’m glad you offered to stay out of work today to spend it with me. I just needed someone to talk today and I thought of you.”

“Aw Jas no problem hon. I’m here for you whenever you need a shoulder to lean on. Speaking of which, how is your husband?” Janelly puckers her own lips smearing the nice gloss over her pouty lips.

“Oh he’s well for the most part. He still misses Nick terribly, always mentioning him in his sleep and I know he doesn’t like talking about it to people but I know he’s highly upset over the whole thing as well.” Jasmine gulps, feeling a lump in her throat rising.

Janelly frowns, clearing her throat: “Sweetie you don’t have to talk about it anymore if you don’t want to. I know it hurts and it’ll hurt for a long while.”

“I know…” Jasmine chokes out, roughly wiping the tears forming in her eyes, her vision already getting hazy from it.

“Oh honey…shhh…” Janelly embraces the woman in her arm, trying to calm her down. “You don’t have to deal with this alone. You can always talk to me or anyone you know. It makes the pain more bearable.” She whispers out, pulling away from her.

Jasmine gulps, looking away as she wipes the tears off her eyes. Bethany glancing over at the two women: frowns bending down to pick up the blue plastic ball in her hands. She herself heard very little of what happened and knew that Mrs. Carter had an eldest son. However Janelly never filled her in exactly what happened to the young man or what he looked like since Jasmine was secretive with the man’s appearance. The only think she knew was the man was the image of his father and carried the same shining eyes and hair from his mother.

Recently Bethany was talking with Makenzie when she noted something was bothering her new buddy. Makenzie had refused to talk about it since she herself needed more evidence before she can confirm anything.

Bethany wasn’t much for gossip and could care less about other people’s lives if it wasn’t effecting her, but the fact that Makenzie was stressed out about something had her curious. She recalled recently meeting Makenzie back at the party A.J. threw. Orlando had introduced to her and she instantly connected with the sweet blonde haired woman. In fact Orlando seemed to know a lot of people for not living around Oakland. It didn’t bother her: she couldn’t blame the man for being so infamous among his crowd of peers. He seemed too smooth for words and she was pleased that he wanted to spend his time getting to know her. She feels a small tug on her hand, bringing her out of her thoughts. Gazing down, she smiles at Eliez who beams and bounces the blue ball around her.

“Hey sweetie, you go over there and I’ll roll it to you ok?”

Eliez nods and scampers a few feet away from her, ready to catch the ball. Smiling, Bethany rolls the ball on the floor roughly as Eliez giggles running to the ball. Bethany smiles softly watching Eliez race off to the grass near the river and comes back frowning, her head dropped down to look at the ground.

Bethany kneels down, taking the little child’s hand in hers: “Hey Eli wanna tell me what’s wrong?”

“He was being mean today. I didn’t do anything to him.” Eliez frowns, plopping on the grassy side, her little bare legs wiggle around as she tugs on her strings from her red shorts.

Frowning, Bethany looks around eager to spot the man that could have insulted a sweet child for no reason. “What did that man say to you? I’ll go after him and make sure he’s nice from now on.”

Eliez tilts her head and smiles sadly whispering out: “You can’t see him. Only mommy, me and daddy see him.”

Bethany blinks and eyes her: “You mean…there wasn’t someone that said something bad to you just now?”

“Yeah there was, but you can’t find him. He’s away. I know him.” Eliez chews on a strand of honeysuckle hair.

“Oh don’t worry little one…I’ll find him for hurting you.” Bethany stands up, picking Eliez up in her arms: storming off near the river to try to find the guy that did this to the child.
~**~


**~To Be Continued…~**