Real Wifeys: Get Money Read online

  SUCCESS IS THE BEST REVENGE, AND LUSCIOUS WILL DO ANYTHING TO SETTLE THE SCORE. . . .

  n the new novel from the author of Real Wifeys: On the Grind, rapper Make$’s wifey, Harriet “Luscious” Jordan, finds herself out in the cold financially after Make$ is imprisoned for his role in the brutal rape of Luscious’ friend and his business partner, Kaeyla “Goldie” Dennis, a misguided young woman who once ran a strip club out of her apartment. But Luscious is a first-rate hustler and soon becomes a successful party promoter. There is really only one thing on Luscious’ mind: destroying Goldie. Luscious has never forgiven Goldie for sleeping with Make$ behind her back before the rape, and she’ll stop at nothing to exact revenge. Yet how far can Luscious go in her blazing quest for payback without destroying herself, too?

  Real Wifeys: Get Money is the second installment in a fierce and gritty new trilogy from one of the most daring voices in street lit.

  PRAISE FOR

  REAL WIFEYS: ON THE GRIND

  “A gritty new urban series with a down-and-dirty intensity that’s heartbreaking.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Unforgettable, shocking, and filled with sassiness. Bravo!”

  —Cydney Rax, author of Brothers & Wives

  “A never-a-dull-moment, real-life ride. Strap on your seat belt. Meesha Mink goes sexy and deep!”

  —Pynk, bestselling author of Sixty-Nine

  MEESHA MINK is the bestselling and award-winning author of more than twenty books written under three names, including coauthoring the explosive Hoodwives series (Desperate Hoodwives, Shameless Hoodwives, and The Hood Life). She was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, and lives in South Carolina.

  For more information, please visit www.meeshamink.com.

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  Praise for

  Real Wifeys: On the Grind

  “Marking her solo debut with this new series launch, Mink . . . gives Kaeyla a snappy and profane voice laced with sarcasm. She’s a charismatic woman, both vulnerable and tough. Female readers will love her, but men may want to check their own woman’s purse for Taser wires. Load your shelves with multiple copies.”

  —Library Journal

  “A gritty new urban series with a down-and-dirty intensity that’s heartbreaking.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The story line has an interesting flow that demonstrates Meesha’s natural literary flair as she captivates the reader within the realms of her spellbinding plots.”

  —Urban Reviews

  “Main character Goldie from Real Wifeys: On the Grind is unforgettable, shocking, and filled with sassiness. But there’s something to be learned from the notorious wifey. Bravo!”

  —Cydney Rax, author of Brothers & Wives

  “A never-a-dull-moment, real-life ride. Strap on your seat belt. Meesha Mink goes sexy and deep!”

  —Pynk, bestselling author of Sixty-Nine

  “Real Wifeys: On the Grind is a five-star page-turner that you will not want to put down. A must read, must recommend, and must review.”

  —Coast 2 Coast Readers

  Praise for

  Desperate Hoodwives

  “A can’t-miss new series.”

  —Essence

  “Let’s just say this sassy, sexy, streetwise story could kick some butt over on Wisteria Lane.” (Listed as Required Reading)

  —New York Post

  “The authors hold back little in this cautionary tale dripping with sex, vice, and yearning.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A wonderfully written story with colorful characters that will keep you flipping the pages—I loved it.”

  —K’wan, Essence bestselling author

  “Move over Wisteria Lane. Drama and scandal have permanently moved to Bentley Manor. Desperate Hoodwives is a wonderfully written novel that is sassy, smart, and unadulterated!”

  —Danielle Santiago, Essence bestselling author

  “A sexy tale that will keep you gasping as you turn the pages . . .”

  —Miasha, Essence bestselling author

  Praise for

  Shameless Hoodwives

  “Shameless Hoodwives by Meesha Mink and De’Nesha Diamond is listed as one of the magazine’s TOP 10 Summer Sizzlers!”

  —Essence

  “Diamond and Mink deliver a compelling hood tale that is a true page-turner.”

  —RAWSISTAZ

  “This is the ghetto Wisteria Lane, called Bentley Manor, and anything can and will happen here.”

  —Coast 2 Coast Readers

  “Invigorating plots magnify the intensity of each scene that creates a breathless anticipation as you delve further and further into the sordid lives of the people that occupy this notorious neighborhood.

  —Urban Reviews

  Praise for

  The Hood Life

  “A great page-turner! It’s easy to get lost in this novel. The story is so vivid . . . it will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole ride of this book about four men in their story of struggle in Urban America.”

  —Savvy Book Club

  “A scandalous tale of four men who found themselves always at the wrong end of the track. They ultimately got what they deserved. This book was definitely a page-turner.”

  —Q.U.E.E.N.S. Book Club of Mississippi

  Also by Meesha Mink

  The Real Wifeys Series

  Real Wifeys: On the Grind

  The Bentley Manor Series

  The Hood Life

  Shameless Hoodwives

  Desperate Hoodwives

  Touchstone

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Niobia Bryant

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

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  Designed by Akasha Archer

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Mink, Meesha.

  Real wifeys: get money: an urban tale / Meesha Mink.—1st Touchstone trade

  paperback ed.

  p. cm.

  1. African American women—Fiction. 2. Inner cities—Fiction. 3. Newark (N.J.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3552.R8945R37 2012

  813’.54—dc23 2011029109

  ISBN 978-1-4516-4082-3

  ISBN 978-1-4516-4083-0 (ebook)

  For all the little ghetto girls who have dreams. Be it writing, singing, dancing, excelling at academics or athletics.

  Remember to . . . Believe. Achieve. R
eceive.

  Wifey: (n.) a girlfriend, usually live-in, who does all the work of a wife without being legally married.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part 1: Ready

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part 2: Aim

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part 3: Fire

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Loyalty is everything to me.

  I’m that chick. The one who is the good friend. The good listener. The one to have a friend’s back. The type of woman to hold secrets. The one to fight for a friend. To drive the getaway car. To help hide the gun, the body, and provide an alibi. That’s me.

  But see, that ride-or-die mess doesn’t get you anywhere but shocked as hell when you find out your friend ain’t checking or repping for you the same way. That she ain’t shit and will never be shit. That the whole time her phony-as-a-three-dollar-bill ass been hiding the knife that she would plunge in your back. In my back. I still couldn’t believe that shit.

  I made money for her.

  I helped her get her grind together.

  I recruited new chicks to dance for her.

  I defended her when the other dancers talked shit behind her back.

  I called that no-good, blonde-haired, mixed-breed bitch a friend.

  But no more. No mas. Fuck that.

  I hated that bitch with a passion. I hated everything about her, from the way she looked to the way she moved. I hated that she walked this earth. I hated that she thought she was the best thing God ever created—on some real conceited-type shit—but she’s absolutely mistaken. See, after her, God made me. And I’m a bad bitch too. A beautiful, curvy, dark-skinned chick who refused to let a redbone make me feel less than. Fuck that.

  And if it’s the last thing I do on this earth, I’m going to make her pay. She will have a mirror moment when she asks her trifling self: “Why did I fuck a good friend over? Why did I do that shit?” She’s going to regret the day she stabbed me in the back by spreading her legs to my man. I hope the dick was worth it to her, because it just brought her a fucking enemy.

  And I know to really get at her, I have to be about this paper. I need to get this money. I’ll give it to the bitch. She’s making that money on some real rags-to-riches shit. I don’t have a choice but to get where she’s at. See, I learned in college that water seeks its own level, and I know to reach where she at—to really get at her the way I want—I have to step it up.

  I can’t rely on his money, his fame, his nothing. Not no more. I have to get my own. It’s time to get money and then get my revenge. I got plenty of time to get straight. See, revenge is best served up cold, and that bitch will never see me coming.

  This. Is. War.

  1

  Three Months Earlier

  From the moment I laid eyes on Make$ at Club Infinity that night, something about that dude just drew me in. He was a Newark, New Jersey–based rapper on the rise whose first album had went gold on the wings of his platinum-selling hit single “Get Like Me.” But what got me wasn’t just his celebrity, or the fact that I recognized him from his video in mad rotation on MTV and BET, or his hit record, or being on the cover of magazines, or even his spot posted up in the VIP section of the club that night. Not even the fact that he sent one of his security guards to invite me past the velvet rope to take a spot next to him. I’m not gone lie and say I didn’t feel extra special with all those disappointed chicks eyeing and vying to be me in that moment. But even that wasn’t what drew me in to him. It was a vibe or some shit between us when he took off those shades and looked me in my eyes. I was so gone. Instantly. Right in the club like in that old Usher song. For me, it felt like love at first sight in the club.

  Even though I was a stripper when we met, I wasn’t a ho—far from it. But when he asked me to leave with him—to be with him—it made me think he felt that craziness between us too. And I went. I took that nigga’s hand, forgetting about my girls Goldie and Missy that I came to the club with, forgetting that I didn’t know him or anyone in his huge entourage, forgetting that what I thought was taking a chance on love might’ve been taking a chance on my safety. He asked. I accepted. My first rapper. My first one-night stand. And to me, my first real shot at love.

  That was seven months ago and everything about that nigga had me straight fucked up from the jump. All the emotions I had wrapped up in him—emotions I thought would fade—was stronger than ever. I was in love. Deeply. Just twenty-four and wide open.

  But . . .

  That meant all the power was in his hands. Thing was, I straight up didn’t know if all the love I gave was equal to the love I was getting from him. There were plenty of times that shit seemed unbalanced as hell. Unfair. Fucked up. See, being the one in a relationship to love the most means you’re the one to get hurt the most too.

  A pang crossed my chest that burned with the fire of a bullet’s graze as I watched everything and nothing outside the window of Fornos of Spain restaurant down in the neck on Ferry Street in Newark.

  “Luscious . . . Luscious?”

  I shifted my jet-black eyes from looking out at the crowded streets to the face of my friend—and ex-boss—Kaeyla Dennis. “Huh?” I said, thinking as always that her nickname of Goldie suited her, with her honey complexion and eyes combined with shoulder-length hair highlighted with natural blond streaks that screamed her ass was only half-black.

  Goldie arched a brow as she eyed me. “What the hell you braining on?” she asked, her East Coast accent even heavier than mine.

  My years at Rutgers University—before I dropped out—had cleaned my shit up just a little bit.

  “I was just wondering what Make$’s ass was up to on that road,” I admitted, picking up my wine goblet to take a sip and feeling the many layers of my lip gloss damn near glue my bottom lip to the glass.

  Goldie shook her head, her glossy hair pulled back into a tight asymmetrical reverse French braid that I was already planning to copy. She was the type of chick that made any woman in her company want to elevate their game because she stayed on point. What woman would want to look like a lame-ass loser, like she was doing them a favor even being in their company?

  “If you had stayed on top of your own grind and made your own fuckin’ money, you wouldn’t have time to try and stay on top of some dude out there livin’ life while you sittin’ home waitin’ on him,” Goldie said, before picking up her vibrating BlackBerry.

  Goldie stayed handling her B.I.

  Truth be told, I looked up to the bossy bitch. She wasn’t playing about her grind. I’d heard her story about that old married man embarrassing her in front of his wife and everybody living in King Court projects when his ass got caught with Goldie. She went from wifey with a dream of marriage to falling the fuck off. Hard.

  But she crawled back on her feet. She went from being a waitress at a twenty-four-hour diner to stripping at Club Naughty on Hawthorne Avenue. From my janky-ass spot as a daytime stripper, I saw her rise to being the headliner of the entire cub. And when she realized Slick Rick, the owner—and her lover—wasn’t cutting her in on a big enough slice of the profits she kicked his ass—big donkey dick and all—to the curb and opened her own strip club in her little-ass two-bedroom apartment.

  Chick was bold as hell for that shit.

  I guess me and Missy was shot the fuck out too since we were the first two strippers to become “Goldie’s Girls.” Between doing them weekend shows in her apartment and then Goldie hiring us out for private shows and parties and shit, the three of us all made serious money.

  I can’t
front: Goldie taught me shit to make sure we made money. Hell, she schooled all of us on taking our shows beyond straight tits-and-ass shakes. We put on shows. Created fantasies. Fucked niggas’ heads up. Made them better lovers to their women because they was dreaming about us the whole time.

  Goldie was running the pole game in the tristate area and the streets knew it.

  That’s why our asses got robbed at gunpoint last month during one of our shows. And to really make shit fucked up, besides robbing everybody in the apartment, they pulled a Let’s Do it Again move and made us all strip before they hauled ass.

  That was one of the craziest nights of my life . . . and the last time I stripped. Missy was still doing private shows for Goldie.

  Me? I was off the pole. Once me and Make$ got serious he put pressure on me to quit stripping. I tried like hell to sneak and do it, but no haps. He started accusing me of messing around on him on them nights I told him I left but I really snuck and went right to shake all my tits and ass in men’s faces. I knew I had to dead that shit . . . especially when word hit the street about the robbery.

  Besides, I got tired of lying to him about it, and Goldie got tired of me missing shows. It was him or the pole. So I chose my man over my money.

  “So you wouldn’t dead that shit for a man willing to take care of you and give you a better life?” I asked, feeling a little defensive because Goldie’s opinion really mattered to me. Even after I stopped working for her we remained friends.

  Goldie leaned back in her chair as she laughed a little—kinda sarcastic and shit. “I been there and it got me nowhere but with my ass wet and my face cracked when his wife made him choose,” she said. “Choosing a man would have me still getting fucked and fucked over by Rick. That’s nothing.”