Page 35 of A Million Boss Kisses

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Quinten Bentley Sr

W aking up in the bed next to Claudia wasn’t what I was used to.

I was used to Marissa waking up and cooking breakfast for the entire house while we were still asleep.

When I would go into the kitchen, Quincy and Quinten would be sitting at the table, talking shit or ignoring us with their heads buried in their phones.

Since I got back to Miami after getting into it with Marissa in Tampa, I was laid up at her crib because none of my family would be able to find me here.

I met Claudia a few months back when I went into her tattoo studio for a consult about getting a tattoo on the back of my head.

We flirted, but she shut me down when she saw I was still wearing my wedding ring.

I went back without my wedding ring after learning about Marissa and that nigga she was fucking with.

Claudia did my tattoo, and I fucked her that night.

I didn’t hit her again until I was on my flight back to Miami after getting into it with Marissa.

I planned to fuck her and leave her the fuck alone, but she was a soft place to land while I got my thoughts together.

I was living proof that you never know what you had until it is gone.

All Claudia woke a nigga up to was loud ass music, by rappers I couldn’t tell you the names of if there was a gun to my head, and clouds of weed smoke.

Climbing out of bed, I went into the bathroom to shit and shower before joining Claudia in the living room.

“You want some cereal?” She offered from her position at the dining room table with a bowl and spoon in front of her.

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Your phone has been ringing all morning.”

“Shit, what time is it?”

“Eleven.”

“Damn, why didn’t you wake me up? I told you I go to church with my folks on Sundays.”

“You were sleeping so peacefully,” she smiled.

I lifted my phone and saw that my mother had called me ten times. “I’mma hit you later. I gotta slide.”

“Okay. Can you have somebody drop some more weed off for me?” Claudia begged.

“Yeah,” I lied on my way out the door.

I wasn’t sending her shit. She couldn’t even wake a nigga up.

On the drive home, I mentally prepared a speech to give to my dad.

Everything was spiraling out of control, and as much as I loved this shit, I was tired.

At forty-eight years old, I was ready to step out of the fucking way.

If Uncle Montell decided to be spiteful and cut us out, so the fuck what.

We had enough money put up to pivot and sustain.

The fact of the matter was Lil Q wasn’t ready, and I’d be damned if my father sank his claws into him like he did me.

I was comfortable handing shit off to my eldest son Tech because he didn’t take no shit, not even from me.

I was positive that the same would go for my father.

When I got home, my father’s truck was already parked in the driveway. Rob was still behind the wheel when I approached it. He rolled the window down with a blank expression on his face. “He’s already inside.”

“How long y’all been here?”

“Maybe five minutes,” he responded after checking the time.

I started for the house and the door swung open like he was waiting for me.

“You think it’s okay to disappear off the face of the earth for an entire week?

” He snarled, sending himself into a coughing fit.

I silently entered the house and closed the door behind me.

“I’ve been running around handling shit in my condition while trying to hold those fucking vultures off! ”

“Look, I got a lot of shit going on. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Why? Because you lost that whore?”

I gently massaged my temple on my trek into the kitchen because this motha fucka was already making my head hurt.

After grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator, I led the way to my office.

My dad followed my every move in his chair, making it hard for me to fight my urge to flip his ass out of it.

“It’s noon, I ain’t ate all day and you about to give me a headache. ”

“Well, where the hell you been? What you been sleep all day? And when did you get that stupid ass shit on the back of your head?” He interrogated.

“Let’s just cut to what you came over here for. I ain’t in the mood for all this today.”

“Alright, I can tell you’re tired. You look like shit,” he spat, pulling his chair right next to where I sat behind my desk.

“Me and your mother came up with a compromise that can work for everybody, and Montell is cool with it. We can split the responsibility evenly down the middle. Lil Q and Karmello can run shit together. You need to do whatever you need to do to get Lil Q to come home. Fuck whatever he got going on in Tampa with Marissa. In the meantime, I need you to do whatever you do to pull money from our offshore accounts. I agreed to buy your uncle out on some shit because he all bitter about his kids being cheated out of power.”

“How much you need?” I inquired, ready to get him the fuck up out of my face.

“A million.”

“Alright, one day you gotta learn how to do this on your own,” I expressed, pulling my MacBook open.

“Why, when I got you?”

I didn’t justify that with a response. Instead, I logged into the offshore bank portal to make the transfer and get him out of my face while I thought of another plan.

When I talked to Quincy and Lil Q two weeks ago, I had ulterior motives.

I wanted to see if their mother had that nigga around them and thankfully she hadn’t.

During that conversation, I learned that Lil Q was actually thriving up there.

He spent the last year at a public school that he didn’t get kicked out of and he made the Dean’s list twice.

I wasn’t dragging him back here for this shit.

My body was moving on autopilot making the transfer until I attempted to initiate the wire transfer and received an error message.

Transaction rejected due to administrative lock.

I logged completely out and made a second attempt only to receive the same error message.

Pulling the landline on my desk closer to me, I lifted the cordless phone and initiated a call to my liaison, Jabari.

He answered on the second ring, and I went through the steps to verify my identity before diving into my issue.

“I keep receiving an administrative lock on the wire transfer,” I complained, irritation lacing my voice.

“Please give me one moment to take a look,” Jabari replied.

The phone fell silent and Jabari’s computer keys clicking on the opposite end of the phone was rapid then suddenly stopped.

“I see. The transaction was blocked manually. Looks like the authorization was overridden by the acting administrator of the holding company.”

I leaned back in my chair, taking an aggravated breath while my heart pounded.

“What administrator? I didn’t sign off on any new changes to this account since it was set up.”

“You were never listed as an administrator. Just the primary beneficiary. It’s a full transaction freeze that I’m not allowed to override. “You’ll need to speak with Louis Heavy. I can patch you through to his office.”

“Alright, but give me his number first.” I sat up in my chair, pulling a pen and steno pad in front of me to jot down the name and number before he transferred me.

“I had to step out of a meeting to answer this call, so I’m going to keep it brief. Until that divorce is final, you won’t move shit out of any of your offshore accounts.”

“Who the fuck is this?” I fumed, gripping the phone so tight I could feel the plastic crack in my grasp.

“The nigga that’s trying to marry your wife, and I want a spring wedding so she can incorporate all of the light and romantic shades of purple.

Lilac seems to be her favorite of them all.

I don’t have time to fuck around if I’m going to make that happen.

Give her whatever the fuck she asked for so the divorce can be done.

Until then, you can see how she felt when a motha fucka was trying to put financial pressure on her to cave.

I’m the money man that Vincent loves to boast about.

I guess we are connected in more ways than one. ” The smug motha fucka ranted.

I could feel the casual arrogance in his tone as he laughed and left me with the dial tone. Launching the phone at the wall, it shattered upon impact, sending pieces of plastic and wire in all directions.

“What the fuck happened?” My dad wheezed.

“That motha fucka that Marissa is dealing with got our accounts frozen.”

“What?” He wheezed, pausing to take a few slow deep breaths. I hopped out of the chair, pacing the floor while placing a call to Vincent on my iPhone.

“Wassup?” He answered the phone with a bunch of commotion in the background.

“Do you know who Yaseer Haynes is?”

“Yeah, that’s the money man who got all of our shit right in the Caymans. Why? Somebody fucking with him? He’s under my protection. The nigga work my money like magic. I can’t have nobody fucking with that,” he explained.

“I was just asking. I’ll hit you later. I gotta go.”

I hung up before he could say shit else. With my hands on top of my head, I paced the floor. My father could read the panic on my face and instantly went in on me.

“You gotta be one of the stupidest motha fuckas walking earth! How did the majority of our money get tied up to the point that we can’t access it, but the nigga your wife is fucking can?

I swear to God if your mother would forgive me for dumping you in a river, I would,” he snarled and whizzed across my office like a bat out of hell.

“AGHHHHH!” I groaned when he ran over my right foot on his way out. Hopping back, I grabbed the wall to catch my balance because he went straight over my toes. Before I could pull my shoes off to examine my foot, glass shattering sounded in the hallway.

I limped towards the door and caught the tail end of his dramatics. His wheelchair clipped the corner of the wall, knocking over the second vase at the end of the hallway. It fell in slow motion, shattering once it hit the ground, sending the faux lavender flowers and glass in all directions.

“You better fix this shit! In the meantime, send the money from one of your accounts since this is your fuck up!” He rasped, rolling out of my sight.