Page 9 of A Million Boss Kisses

CHAPTER FOUR

Quinten Bentley Sr.

T he low whirring of my father’s motorized wheelchair sounded off in the hallway.

I saw his truck roll into the driveway and knew he would make his way into my office shortly afterwards.

Filling both of the empty glasses with Cognac, I threw back my first glass alone and poured another while waiting for him to come into view.

“I’m sure glad you have the drinks ready,” he grumbled the moment his face came into my view.

My father, Troy Bentley, was the longest serving leader of the Bentley family’s empire.

His name struck fear among all of the families in Miami before he retired.

The type of feelings he was able to stir within me was difficult to articulate.

It wasn’t fear, it used to be, but now it was more like a deep-rooted caution, born from years of surviving his wrath.

My father had been a very firm and cold man since as far back as I could remember.

His discipline included beatings that left marks on more than my skin.

They also damaged the way I walked into every room.

According to Troy Bentley, softness bred weakness, and in his world, weakness got you snuffed from your position.

Unchecked loyalty was demanded from me as his son.

And I learned quickly that he wasn’t afraid to make me bleed.

Yet, I still tried my best to lead some semblance of my own life.

Vita was that slice of life I carved out for myself until he beat that out of me, just like he did with my love for baseball, anime, and drawing.

The way my dad assaulted me when he confronted me about Vita wasn’t the first time.

In fact, that was light because he tried his best to hide the worst of himself from my mother.

But leaving me in that torture room was some next level shit.

I just wasn’t willing to let him hurt Vita, because I knew he would if he had found her.

“Where ma at? What brought you to this side of town unannounced?”

“It’s Thursday, you know your mother goes to the casino with them geezers from the neighborhood,” he muttered before lifting the napkin to his mouth to cover his cough. “Your fuck ass uncle and his sons on the way over here.”

I looked up at the monitor displaying the driveway and saw my Uncle Montell step out of his Denali with one of those stank ass cigars he loved, dangling from his lips.

He leaned against the driver’s door, puffing on it while staring off into the distance.

A second truck pulled in behind him, and a few moments later, my cousins Jerrod and Jamell got out.

I tapped a few keys on my computer, and the audio from the driveway came through the speakers, overtaking the low hiss from my father’s oxygen machine.

“Where is Karmello?” Uncle Montell asked them, referring to Jamell’s eldest son.

“He is right there, relax,” Jamell nodded towards the street where his son was pulling up in the same G-Wagon I gifted him for his birthday two years ago.

Karmello was twenty-three, and up until recently, I had spent a lot of time with him.

He was my boys’ only cousin, so they spent a lot of time together when they were jits, and naturally, that bond still remained strong as they grew older.

I never wanted my boys to be distant or in competition with their cousins, the way my father and uncle always seemed to put me against mine as jits.

It was all about a race to power for them.

All the family shit they preached was fake as fuck.

We’d look out for each other, but deep down inside, we really couldn’t stand each other.

Now that family was on my mind, I realized quality time with anyone had been scarce lately.

I’d been trying to wrap my head around the fact that Marissa actually filed for divorce and moved to Tampa with my boys.

My plan to keep the business within my household fell apart when Tech showed his ass at the family reunion.

On top of all that shit, my uncle and father were beefing about the lies from the past. If my family had knowledge of my first son before taking over, I wouldn’t have even been eligible for this position.

“Troy ain’t never been shit for real. We would be in control if he wasn’t hiding some of the worst types of secrets. How the fuck you avoid responsibility for all of them kids until they grown as fuck?” Jerrod talked shit as Karmello approached them.

“You think it was a coincidence that the nigga was in charge of planning the family reunion last year and magically had the event on mama’s death anniversary when he knows we go to the Bahamas every year to be with her family.

You can’t tell me that bum ass nigga didn’t do that shit on purpose.

He was hoping to usher his older son in peacefully while we were gone. A nigga ain’t stupid,” Jamell spat.

“Fuck that sick bitch, last time I seen him, he had oxygen around the clock. That emphysema gone have his ass in a grave before he knows it, and then we will see how well Quinten can handle shit without his father’s hand up his ass like he a fucking puppet.

Don’t say shit else out here, Quinten probably got cameras recording and shit,” Uncle Montell commanded.

“I told you not to introduce those kids so fast. We needed to have some things in place to ensure that these three dick heads don’t try to get too deep into our business.

You opened the door wide open for this shit.

You see what happens when you try to think without me?

I’m still the brains of this shit,” he badgered, gently tapping his temple before a coughing fit silenced him.

They all silently hugged Karmello and approached the door.

Nothing that they said surprised me. I can even admit that their assumptions were correct.

This was chess, not checkers, and I was trying my best to avoid any familial bloodshed.

I left my office to let them into the home.

We exchanged greetings at the door, and I went into the kitchen to grab a few additional glasses while they headed to my office.

The door swung open again, and my head shot in that direction.

Marissa in my doorway was such an unfamiliar sighting that I had to blink twice to make sure her ass was real. Her heels clacked as she sashayed her ass in my direction. She was wearing a mint green dress that clashed with her dark skin and made me take a second to admire my beautiful wife.

“Baby, I…”

“Don’t fuckin’ baby me nigga! Where the fuck did you pull up that prenup you sent to your lawyer? I know I didn’t sign that bullshit!” Marissa argued.

I quickly sat the glasses down on the counter, remembering that we had additional ears that couldn’t hear wherever this conversation took us. “Marissa, there are other people here,” I warned her, marching over in her direction.

“Let’s go into the bedroom and talk.”

“Oh no! The more company, the better. Let’s have a whole family meeting, shall we?”

The men came back down the hallway to witness the commotion, and I quickly grabbed hold of my wife’s arm.

“Don’t fucking touch me! You lost that privilege!

” Marissa screeched, swatting my hands away.

Her eyes wandered to the men in my family before she let it rip.

“Y’all know that Quinten isn’t taking care of his kids, right?

Oh, and I’m not talking about the kids that we all just found out about last year, I’m talking about Lil Q and Quincy too.

I guess this nigga thinks because my uncle has money, he don’t have to take care of his kids.

He couldn’t even be bothered to pay the rent on Quincy’s apartment!

Then I got scouts coming around to speak to Quincy and yo ass ain’t nowhere to be found,” Marissa looked back in my direction and mushed my head after that last line.

“Not to mention, some nigga was talking shit about Quincy on the internet and I just had to check his ass! Like my kids don’t have a fucking daddy. Like, I’m not married to a boss. Sign off on the fucking…”

I yoked her ass up before she could finish her rant. Placing my hand over Marissa’s mouth, I roughly manhandled her until we were upstairs in our bedroom. She put up a fight, and even bit my finger until she drew blood, but I couldn’t have her confessing shit else in front of those vultures.

“Marissa, I fucked up. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. You just need to give me a chance to make this shit right. I fucked up… a lot and…”

“And what!?” She murmured through the cusp of my hands.

Unable to break free, she reverted to bouncing up and down in the bear hug I had her in. I carried her back to the doorway since we clearly weren’t about to come to any sort of agreement.

“Aye, we gone have to reconvene this meeting at a later time. Y’all popped up over here unannounced, and clearly, I got a lot of shit going on. I’ll hit everybody tomorrow!” I shouted out the doorway.

“Hit us or we’ll be back nigga,” Jamell shouted back.

A few minutes later, the front door opened and closed. I heard four different cars start and leave, then I finally released the grip I had on Marissa.

“If you don’t want the first thing I do when I leave here to be to drive to their houses and tell them everything you didn’t want them to hear, you better start making some fucking concessions.”

“Why you doing this, Marissa? This tough act been going on for long enough, don’t you think?”

“It’s not an act. I really am going through with the divorce, hence why I’m livid that a prenup materialized out of thin fucking air!”

“What do you mean? That shit is legit.”

“There is no way that I ever signed a prenup. We never discussed it.”

“Yes we did. Come on, from the first fuck to pregnancy was pretty fucking fast. Do you not remember always expressing how you were a Marucci and the last thing you wanted was to trap me with a baby for money?”