The Hard Way (Box Set) Read online

  Taking Blondie’s advice to heart, Shaquandra looked around the cabin, determined to at least fix herself up a bit. After some exploration, she discovered a pull-down vanity, and to her surprise, she looked absolutely… perfect!

  Her eyes were perfectly aligned, her brows perfectly arched. Her lips were perfectly dewy and supple, while her skin was perfectly flawless. Her hands perfectly soft, her nails perfectly manicured.

  The only issue she had was with her hair, which was perfectly done up in rollers -- big, silver-dollar-sized rollers.

  “What the hell?”

  Before she could even move to pluck the damn things out of her hair, the limo door was flung open and a red-haired female stuck that red head inside.

  “Ack!” Jessica squawked as the strange woman smiled at her. That smile was familiar, but who the hell was she?

  Jessica backpedaled in her seat, falling from it to the floor as the grinning woman grinned harder.

  “Of course you’re jumpy,” she crooned as if speaking to a wild animal. “You just survived a plane crash!”

  “Uh, Jennifer?”

  “Yes! Yes, Jessica, yes!”

  Well, Jessica reasoned, she had that same overly perky attitude. Strange, but it did appear to be her long-lost, very white, baby half-sister.

  “You look lovely, and they --” she gestured to the waiting media, “are waiting.”

  Sucking in a deep breath for courage, Jessica stepped out of the limo and into a sea of perfect faces, each one flashing a fake, smarmy smile and resembling a Stepford Wife.

  “Jessica! Over here!” they shouted. “Jessica! A word!”

  Swallowing deeply and wishing she had some Latino courage in a bottle at hand, Jessica stepped out into the limelight.

  She was only given a brief glimpse of the building, managing to take in its tall imposing façade, before she was rushed right through into a massive lobby, her heels clicking as she struggled to keep up with her now red-haired half sister. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw a wall of perfect reporters held at bay by two tall, unfazed security officers.

  Well, she thought, back at home, they would have run over the security, rushed the front doors, and all but assaulted her with their microphones, photographers, paparazzi, and other assorted media filth.

  Strange. They were behaving just like this was a soap opera, kind of like reality, but candy coated and sanitized.

  “This elevator will take us to the offices,” the now redheaded Jennifer cooed as she pulled Jessica toward a bank of crystal elevators lining the far wall.

  A huge portrait hung above them, seemingly hovering over the bank of three elevators. “Holy Hanna!” Jessica gasped.

  “That’s Daddy.” Jenny clapped her hands, staring almost reverently up at the lifelike portrait. “Isn’t he handsome?”

  “That’s one way to describe it,” Jessica allowed, staring at the stern, imposing man. He looked like a Baptist preacher dropped in the middle of a drunken whorehouse orgy on Easter Sunday, where his wife and daughter were the main attraction.

  His eyes were a flat, depthless brown, condescending eyes that were faintly accusing and looked nothing like her.

  “Handsome and brave,” Jen gushed. “You know, he never married our mother?” Jessica blinked as suddenly the air was filled with the whining sounds of violins and piano.

  She looked around to see if anyone else noticed, but then a beauty light, of all things, shone down on her white, illegitimate, and apparently half sister. It made her huge blue eyes seem even larger and cast a liquid sheen over them. She turned away from Jessica, only to turn rather dramatically again, arms clasped to her bosom as she began to speak rather quickly, but with too much feeling. “He spent his whole life searching for you, Jessica. He spent a fortune in Dramamine and seasick pills, but he never gave up his dream of sailing down the Tigris and finding you.”

  Just as abruptly, the music ended and the bouncy redhead was back. “We have to get you upstairs to sign these important documents.”

  “Um.” Jessica was growing more confused by the minute. “What documents?”

  “I don’t really know.” Jennifer sighed. “But I know that they are important and vital and you need to sign them so the plot can advance.”

  “What?”

  “You need to sign them so that the company will continue running the way it is. You see…” The same whining music started up again. Damn, Jessica thought. “Father left the whole company to you.”

  “Again with the beauty light,” Jessica grumbled under her breath as she watched Jennifer do that melodrama thing again.

  “He was so sure of your existence, that he left everything to his baby Jessica. So you have to sign the papers, ensure the company runs, keep it out of the hands of the evil Brad Cantkillum, and save the migrant bean farmers! Okay?”

  Jessica stared for one long moment, as everyone seemed to lean forward, waiting for her response.

  “This is worse than the most cheesy of soap operas,” she finally said after again looking at all the too-perfect people surrounding her.

  Then it dawned on her. Soap opera! Her wish! The cigar smoking personal paternal god-fairy thingies were real. They had granted her wish. She was now in -- what was the name of this stupid town again?

  “Prefect City,” she giggled as she turned and damn near pulled Jennifer to the elevators, “here I come!”

  * * *

  The bank of elevators opened straight into a huge boardroom.

  “Nice,” she purred, all but dancing into the room, despite her gaudy spiked heels. She began touching the huge leather chairs and the huge mahogany tables. “Fine Corinthian leather,” she intoned, running fingers over the dark brown chairs.

  “Yes,” a deep, feminine voice said from behind her.

  She turned just as there was a huge bumm, bum, bummm bass hit, and saw…

  Another miniature Jennifer. But this one had black hair and eyes.

  “Jamie!” Jennifer gasped, hand clutched to her chest as she spun around to face the other woman.

  “So, you found her,” this Jamie person growled as she began to stalk around Jessica, eyes taking in the tattered robe and the slinky heels. “Doesn’t look like much.”

  Jennifer gasped, and Jessica just rolled her eyes.

  So this was her arch enemy. Kind of scrawny, she decided, watching the petite brunette walk around her like a big cat sizing up her next meal.

  “Am I supposed to start the prerequisite cat fight now?”

  Jamie glared at her. “You are just supposed to sign those papers like a good little girl and then disappear.”

  “Little girl? Honey, you don’t know who you’re talking to. I am --”

  “One of the most exquisite creatures that I have ever encountered,” another voice, a male voice, chimed in.

  This man was tall, pale, blond, and had eyes that reminded Jessica of a wolf. A hungry wolf.

  “Is this your sister, Jamie? The one everyone has been searching for?” He stepped deeper into the room, his eyes on Jessica as he too played a round of walk around the black woman. But unlike with Jamie, his eyes spent a great deal of time resting on her ass and hips.

  “Yes,” Jennifer gushed, breaking the tension building in the room. “And she needs to get cleaned up before the stockholders get here. Then she can sign the papers ensuring that our makeup company remains the best in the country.”

  “I’ll take her up.” Jamie’s sudden outburst was odd and kind of creepy, considering it seemed like the woman had hated her on sight. But Jessica decided it was all part of the soap opera experience, and it was best to go with the flow. It wasn’t like she didn’t know how these things worked out. She’d watched so many soaps since she’d been laid off that she could have written one of the things in her sleep.

  Jennifer clapped in agreement, spouting some nonsense about getting to know one another, and they were off again, this time speeding to the top floor by use of a special key in the elevator. />
  Once there, Jessica ignored her midget of a youngest sister and her leering boyfriend and made straight for the bathroom.

  “There’s always some kind of orgy-sized shower in these things,” she explained as she gleefully thought of taking off the grubby robe and getting into some clean designer originals. Did Versace do wardrobe for some of the soaps? Maybe she would luck out and get Bob Mackie!

  “Don’t wait for me!” she giggled, as she looked the space over. “I just want to soak my bones, scrub off the grime, and feel like a new person all over again.”

  “Oh, you’ll feel like a new person.”

  At the malice in Jamie’s voice, Jessica turned, only to have something hard hit her in the back of her head.

  Her headache returned with a vengeance just before the light, as she knew it, ceased to be. Her last thought as unconsciousness claimed her was, will someone stop playing that stupid nineteen-twenties villain music?

  Chapter Three

  “Jessica, darling?”

  A soft, masculine voice calling her name pulled her from the darkness. That and something cold and wet, that she prayed was water, splashing into her face.

  “What…? Fuck!”

  She lurched up into a sitting position, her hands going to her face to wipe whatever it was out of her eyes.

  “Come, come, Jessica. It’s only a little water.”

  That voice again!

  She turned her head, scanning the room while still blinking rapidly, to see a tall, overweight, dark-complexioned man standing over her.

  “There you are,” he said. His accent, she now noticed, was distinctively Italian. He reached one large hand out to caress her wet cheek. “Beautiful.”

  “Beautiful… my… ass!”

  Jessica was not amused. Water in her face, some cheap Godfather knockoff was rasping at her… and she still hadn’t had her shower!

  “Yes, that is quite attractive too,” he mused, walking across the small room to a sideboard where a bottle of wine, complete with an assortment of cheeses, sat in wait. “I seem to find almost every part of you quite attractive.”

  “Where am I?”

  Jessica gave the room a quick once-over and saw that she was in some sort of bedroom. And she was still wearing that damn robe and the heels.

  “You are with me.” He paused in taking a bite of what looked to be aged cheddar to give her a short bow. “I am Don Carlieonie, master of this house, the one chosen to end --” Bumm bum bummm, went the unseen band and Jessica’s hands went to her ears. This music crap was beginning to give her a headache. “The vendetta my family has against yours!”

  Fast violin music began to play and Jessica looked at the tall, overweight man as if he were the one with a cracked skull. “My family? Vendetta?”

  Suddenly, the music dulled into the soft strains of a haunting violin as Don Carlieonie began to speak.

  “There is a vendetta against your father that has dragged on for decades.”

  “My father the dead priest?” Her face was screwed up in confusion even as she rolled her eyes at the man.

  “No, your father the Egyptian prince!”

  “Egyptian prince. Riiiiiight.”

  “He allowed the honorable daughter of the Carlieonie house to be assassinated on his land. Sure, it was our enemies that followed her there, but the prince failed to protect her. She was the only daughter of the house, and with her died the Carlieonie blood.”

  “But,” Jessica felt the need to point out, “you are a Carlieonie. Some blood, or at least some seed, had to be spilt on some fertile ground.” She arched her eyebrow challengingly.

  He stared, dumbfounded for the moment, but quickly recovered.

  “Be that as it may, your father had to pay the price. All of his daughters were assassinated save for one, the one he so loved he sent her away from his Egyptian shores.”

  “Um, why didn’t he just hire some bodyguards or something?”

  “Because he didn’t!”

  “Or he could have sent a sincere letter of apology and caught the assassins.”

  “That is not the point!”

  “Or he could have at least moved his daughters when they started dropping dead! I mean, there is always the FBI, the CIA, and any other government agency that would have killed to have information about the whereabouts of Italians with vendettas.”

  “But he didn’t!”

  Hmm. It seemed to Jess that maybe logic just wasn’t going to work here. “Or he could have --”

  “You are the remaining daughter!”

  That gave her pause. “I am the remaining daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “But my pappy was a minister! At least that’s what they told me!”

  “Your father was an Egyptian prince. You are his daughter, his only remaining daughter. I ought to know! It is my people that blew your plane out of the sky!”

  Bumm bum bummmmmm!

  “Do you hear that?” she felt compelled to ask. Really, she thought. Was she the only one who could hear around here?

  “All I hear is the pounding of my heart, Jessica.”

  “Say what?”

  “I find that I no longer wish to kill you, Jessica. In fact…”

  At his dramatic pause, Jessica knew what was coming. She clapped her hands over her ears just in time to muffle the loud bass orchestra hit that filled the air.

  “…I am in love with you!”

  “What?”

  Two female voices screamed out suddenly, Jessica’s in shock and another, near the entrance to the room, in angered disbelief. Jessica turned to see…

  “Carmen!”

  “Fabio!”

  The woman was tall, svelte, and dark-haired. She stalked into the room in a ridiculous peasant blouse and skirt, matched up with a huge red flower in her hair and a pair of stiletto shoes fit for a tango. Talk about your stereotypes! At least she was cursed with sucky footwear as well, Jessica thought.

  “Carmen!” The don looked pale.

  “Fabio!”

  “Jessica!” he cried out, looking at her beseechingly.

  “Jessica!” the woman, apparently Carmen, sneered, narrowing her eyes.

  “Fabio?” Jessica asked, shuddering at another cliché.

  “Carmen!” Fabio was now sweating, and that did not do nice things to his white suit.

  “Okay.” Jessica’s voice broke the tension. “Now that we’re all introduced and stuff, why don’t you show me the front door? I need to go back and see a woman about signing some papers.”

  “You cannot go!” Fabio shouted, clutching at his heart as if it were breaking. Then he glanced over at the storm cloud that made up Carmen’s face and gulped. “I mean, you just got here. You need to have a meal. Hospitality dictates it.”

  “Yes,” Carmen purred. “Stay, Jessica. Even a condemned man gets one last meal.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Jessica chuckled a bit, glaring at the two strange people in the room with her. After a moment her laughter died a sick death. “The whole assassination, blow up my plane thing. I’m sorry, but you have the wrong girl.”

  “No, you are… the one we sought.” The don backed away and walked over toward Carmen. “My wife and I insist that you stay until the rest of the family gathers.”

  “Wait!” Jessica was now getting quite perturbed. “You were hitting on me while your wife was standing right at the door? Man, if you aren’t a ho, I don’t know what one is! I should call you Big Trickin’ or Big Papa at least! What’re you trying to do? Keep your pimp hand string and all of that? Shit, man, late for you!”

  She dropped her legs over the side of the bed, and with dignity stood up, water still soaking into her robe, and made for the front door. It was time to blow this joint and get back to the part where she became fabulously rich and waited for tall, dark, and Rockish.

  But the click of a high-powered semi-automatic weapon brought her to a halt. She recognized the sound from her many hours of soap opera viewing. It would probabl
y be a nine millimeter Glock.

  She turned slowly, and stomped her feet as she let out a curt curse.

  It was a damn gun! This place was so predictable.

  “This nine millimeter Glock says that you stay,” Carmen added, grinning nastily from bright red painted lips.

  “Red is a whore color!” she hissed, trying to save a little face.

  “And they match your shoes,” Carmen countered.

  Oh yeah. She had forgotten about those. A point for Stereotype Carmen.

  Damn, she thought. How do the brainless writers make this shit look so easy? She’d only been in Prefect City for a few hours and already she was beginning to long for her couch.

  Chapter Four

  The etiquette for eating a meal chained to one’s chair while wearing a dirty damp robe and gaudy whore shoes was not covered in Miss Manners. So Jessica sat and pouted while Carmen glowered and Fabio just looked sweaty and nervous.

  “The family will be gathered soon,” Carmen stated as she speared a bite of lettuce, but never brought it to her lips. She just kind of moved it around on her plate.

  “This is good.” Fabio sighed into his wineglass, but never took a sip.

  “You are not eating,” Carmen snapped at Jessica, drawing her eyes away from her husband. “It is disrespectful to my house.”

  “Well, whoop dee fuckin’ do!” Jessica snarled. “I’m sure it’s disrespectful to my house for you to kidnap a member of it -- namely me!”

  “Kidnap?” Carmen snorted. “There is no kidnapping here. A member of your house all but gave you to us all gift wrapped in a bow.”

  “The fuck you say!” Jessica was indeed shocked to hear that, but then after a moment’s thought, decided that it went along with a soap opera plot.

  “Fuck is such a nasty word. Wouldn’t you say so, Fabio?” Carmen asked, turning her head to stare at her husband.

  “Depends on who’s doing the fucking,” he muttered, then smiled at his wife. “Nasty bit of business, Carmen. By the way, where are the children?”