Page 1 of A Million Boss Kisses

Quinten Bentley

“ D ad, I’m not going to the Maldives. I told Mom, but she told me to let you know before I left,” I told him on my trek down the driveway to my whip.

“Why the fuck not? I have something special planned for your mom, and I need you to be there. You don’t have shit to handle for the next two weeks, I made sure of that.

” He stated, stepping out of the rear passenger door of his truck.

I was hoping to drop the news on my mom and skate before he got home, but that didn’t go according to plan because my mom kept asking me to do this and that.

“I just can’t,” I shrugged.

“Oh yeah, let me ask you something. I was told that some pregnant girl has been in and out of your spot.”

My eyes instantly left him and found the dark night sky in the distance.

POW!

One of his fists collided with my jaw, and I stumbled back because I didn’t see it coming and wasn’t prepared.

“You a stupid motha fucka,” my dad mumbled, shoving me into the truck. “Speak motha fucka!” He demanded, slipping into the truck and placing his gun to the side of my head. “Now if yo mama saw that shit she gone be on my ass all night so you better get to talking, quick!”

“What you wanna know?” I stammered. Although I didn’t think my dad would kill me, when he clicked out, he was unpredictable.

“You wanna play stupid?” He inquired, nudging my head with the gun.

“The girl is pregnant by me,” I confessed.

“She ain’t having that fucking baby. Jack, take us to his crib,” he demanded, lowering his gun.

My dad shook his head, staring out the tinted window of the Suburban as his driver maneuvered through traffic.

Frustrated, my dad yanked his tie loose and ripped the cufflinks from his sleeves, the sharp clink of metal ricocheting off the window and smacking me in the eye.

I hissed in pain, wondering if he gave a damn that he almost blinded me.

“It’s Friday, we are supposed to be leaving the country for vacation tomorrow, and you fuckin’ up the plans because you don’t know how to wrap yo dick up!

You know the rules of this life. A baby means that one of your dumb ass cousins would be next in line.

Over my dead fucking body, or rather, your unborn’s dead body,” he spat.

My jaw clenched since I couldn’t knock his fucking head off.

I could still taste blood from the blow he landed earlier.

I reached up and felt my lip for blood, confirming that he busted my shit.

The car fell silent until we pulled into the garage of my building.

At that time I was living in a condo downtown, and Lavita practically lived with me.

I would’ve called Lavita and warned her to run far the fuck away from here, but my dad took my phone as soon as I informed him of the situation.

Mindlessly trailing my dad through my building until we arrived at my door, I finally gathered the nerve to say something since my father didn’t have the key to my door.

“I’m not doing that,” I shrugged, pulling my hands out of my pocket, preparing to defend myself if it came to it.

“You not doing what? Because we definitely about to get this lil bitch you barely know an abortion,”

“She not just some bitch I was fucking. I… I… love her. That’s why I waited so long to tell you about her and the baby.

She’s too far along to even have an abortion.

Maybe it’s best if Jamell or Jerrod take over, they are family.

Why is it so important that I…” I paused because the door swung open, and my eyes darted to Lavita.

“Oh my God, Quinten, are you okay?” Lavita darted over to me, grabbing my battered face.

“I’m good, bae. Go ‘head home and I’mma get up with you later,” I tried to brush her off.

“Hell naw,” my dad refuted, pulling Lavita back into the condo.

“Dad, get off of her!” I commanded.

When he turned to face me, I knew he was gone, and I was dealing with that other side. His hand wrapped around my neck and he pushed me up against the wall, pulling Lavita with him.

“Now whatever the fuck yo name is. We are about to figure out if you can get an abortion here or if you need to go somewhere else. How far along are you?” He pried, eyeing her belly.

Lavita was already twenty weeks pregnant and unable to conceal that.

Especially since she only had on her Nike bra and biker shorts, probably about to go meet her friends at the gym since they loved coming over here to work out.

“Da…” My dad tightened his grip on my neck, silencing my words before I could get them out and leaving me struggling for air.

That slight distraction gave Lavita the opportunity to kick my dad in the nuts.

OMPH!

He moaned on his way to the floor. She must’ve got him real good because he shifted from side to side yelling obscenities. He wasn’t used to a motha fucka standing up to him, so Lavita’s actions caught him completely off guard.

I rushed to Lavita’s side, leading her out of the condo, and pulling all of the money I had out of my pocket. “Vita, I don’t have time to argue. You gotta go back home and don’t come back down here. He meant what he said. He will do what he can to get rid of our baby.”

Her eyes widened, but she didn’t stop moving, just hopped on the elevator, and accepted the cash.

There was so much left unsaid between us, but all I could do was plant a kiss on her lips and step back so the elevator could close.

I stood there, eyes locked on the descending numbers flickering red above the stainless steel.

When they finally reached the first floor, I exhaled deeply and leaned my head back, looking up at the ceiling.

Before I could tilt my head back down, my father’s arm looped around my neck from behind.

His grip was tight and unrelenting. I thrashed around as my feet were lifted off the floor, snatching away any leverage I could gain.

My fingers clawed at his forearm. The soft ding of the elevator was the last thing I heard before everything around me went black.

My eyes slowly fluttered open in the dark, cold room.

I was drained and weak. After day seven, I stopped counting how long I was in this room, bound to the cold metal chair.

I knew exactly where I was, but I couldn’t believe that I was here.

My father used this location to torture enemies, and now I was sitting in the torture seat wondering how far he would go.

The single entry point to this room was a steel-reinforced door, the kind of shit you’d find guarding a bank vault.

There was no handle on the interior of the room, and the outside of the door utilized a retinal scanner.

My father was the type of man who made this room damn near bombproof just in case he held someone captive who had people so deranged behind him that they would blow up his entire warehouse, the motha fucka inside would still rot in that bitch.

I felt delirious as shit. Lack of food and water left my mouth feeling like I swallowed a bag of cotton balls, and my lips were dry and cracked.

My wrists and ankles felt raw from the cuffs that bound me to the chair.

My head was pounding. Probably because yesterday I was too weak to fight back, and when I fell to the ground, the assault didn’t stop; in fact, my father egged it on since I didn’t give him what he wanted.

Honestly, I wish they would put me out of my misery at this point.

However, that would be too much like right.

My mother would never forgive my father if he took it that far.

A mechanical hiss interrupted my daunting thoughts, and the steel came open with a loud thud.

The lights flickered on causing me to squint as the throbbing headache intensified.

I could only see out of my left eye because my right eye was swollen shut.

Jack sauntered in with my dad on FaceTime like he’d done every day since he locked me in here.

I could only assume he continued with the plans and took my mom to the Maldives the day after he found out I got Lavita pregnant.

“Alright lil nigga. You ready to give me that bitch information?” My father pressed in a monotone like this was some trivial shit and I wasn’t bloody, malnourished, and above all else, his only child.

I fought through the pain to crack a smile. I’m positive my teeth looked just as horrible as I felt. I could taste the grime and sour breath, so I knew a yellowish film coated my teeth, and plaque had taken up permanent residence.

“You think this shit a game, Quinten?”

His eyes were cold, like he’d already decided I wasn’t his son until I gave him what he wanted.

There was no pity. No pause. Just a hunger for an answer to Lavita’s whereabouts.

A carnal desire to end whatever piece of him still lived inside her, even if that meant killing his own unborn grandson.

The love I had for Vita was stronger than the fear I had of my father or his men.

The girl unlocked something in me that only she could.

Vita loved me for me and not because of who I was or what I had.

Hell, she still didn’t grasp the reality of what I got her into when I included her in my world, even if I kept her separate from my real life.

I was able to live vicariously through Vita.

If I wasn’t the son of Troy Bentley, the next in line to sit on the throne of the Bentley empire, I’d be in college on a baseball scholarship studying sports medicine and free to openly prepare for the birth of my first child.

Instead, I was cuffed to a chair in a torture room while my father stared down on me from the screen of an iPhone.

“You can’t do shit to me for real. Mom would kill you and smile in her mugshot.

I know you already stressed about how you going to hide my fucked up face.

” I laughed. I’m sure he thought I was talking because I was breaking, but it was the exact opposite.

I’d rather sit here and die before I allow him to stop my child from entering this world and living his life whatever way he sees fit.

This situation made me realize that it was better that Vita stayed the fuck away from me and raised our child without me for real.

“Beat his ass and don’t even feed that mother fucker today!” He spat, then hung up the phone.

Jack took a deep breath then slipped the phone into his pocket. I relaxed my body and thought about the life my child would live as a relentless stream of jabs rained down on me. He could only keep me in here for so long before my mom needed to lay eyes on me.

I was correct too. We went through that routine for the rest of my parents’ vacation, and when they came back, my father had to take me to a private doctor and hired a nurse to be at my crib around the clock to nurse me back to health before my mom laid eyes on me.

I didn’t even give a fuck, as long as he didn’t press me about Vita’s whereabouts again, his secret would be safe with me.