10,000 Hours With A Rich Menace (Caselli Family Book 1)

Duke pulled up to one of the warehouses I owned on South Avenue in Staten Island. I owned a bunch of warehouses all over the city. Some empty, and some functioning businesses. This one happened to be empty.

It had been a week since I had Duke go and snatch sticky fingers and her friends. He opened the door, and I hopped out, going around to open the door for Jeffie. “Maverick, you listen to me… keep a calm head. I already don’t like that she’s been here for a week, and I’ve been quiet to Skyler.”

I stopped in my tracks and looked at Jeffie, one of my best friends. Shit, I would go as far as to say she was my damn heart because there was no one closer to me than her. Corleon counted, but me and Jeffie were soul mates.

Not no freaky shit either.

She understood me like her mother did, and for that I would always have a high respect for her. “You remember that Skyler may be your freaky sister-wife, but I’m family… your soul mate, right?”

Jeffie pointed her finger into my chest. “Me and Skyler are not sleeping together, Maverick… I’ve told you that already. I have a loyalty to both of you, and Stevie is innocent and you’re going to see for yourself. Let’s not bring this soul mate mess up… just because you went down a rabbit hole on platonic soul mates doesn’t mean we’re about to have this conversation again.”

She turned on her feet and walked through the door that Duke held open for us. “Where the fuck are they? I said I’m on my way, had Duke give you the ETA, and here I am in this stink ass warehouse, and I don’t see them in chairs with their mouths gagged and wigs in they laps.”

“Boss, you never said that was the plan.” One of the flunkies looked at me, and I had half the mind to pull my gun and empty it into his chest because I was so pissed.

“The curly head one kept crying so we kept her in the back… Mens, she had a panic attack twice,” Beans, one of my top generals, and Don’s best friend replied.

“I don’t have time for this shit,” I rubbed my temples and took a seat in the chair that was set up for me – the only thing these niggas had ready for me. “Bring me out that nigga and his bitch first.”

One of Bean’s flunkies went to the back, and I heard him hollering before two others brought out a man and a woman with cloth sacks over their heads.

“Please don’t kill me… please, I don’t know what we did, but I promise we can fix it,” the woman’s muffled voice sounded through the bag.

I stood up as they slammed them both down in the chair, and she broke out in a hysterical scream. “Yo’ ass wasn’t fucking crying when you were stealing, huh?” I snatched the bag from her head, and she jumped back because of how close I was to her face. “Your breath smells like fucking Kangaroo pussy, Bitch.”

She took a large gulp and closed her mouth as her body shook and she tried to calm herself. “I…I haven’t been able to brush my teeth or shower.”

“Do you think there’s showers in hell?”

Tears poured down her face at my question. “N…no,” she tried to get out, and it came out all chopped and screwed because she was bawling.

“Then why the fuck do you think you getting a shower and pillow service in my hell?”

The whimpering from her was driving me fucking crazy. I didn’t bother to snatch the cloth bag off homie’s face, I swung my arm back and sent it crashing into his face. The blow from my hit knocked his ass and the chair onto the floor as he howled.

I don’t know how it was possible for shorty to have even more tears, but she was a blubbering mess. We couldn’t understand what the hell she was over there crying about because she was a fucking mess.

“Speak with your mouth and make sure I understand everything you’re saying because I’ll pull every tooth out your mouth with twine around each tooth and that metal door over there,” I snarled while staring in her face.

She took a deep breath and tried to contain herself as best as she could, while her boyfriend was on the floor howling. “My…my friend. She was with us and she…she is single. You…you can have her.”

“You steal from me and then you offer your friend’s pussy, and think that’s gonna get me to change my mind on sending you through the meat processor in the back room?”

“Oh God!” she shrieked to herself as she tried to find her words. Anything that would save her from being killed and turned into ground meat. “She…she’s a virgin.”

Jeffie scoffed from behind me.

“Oh word?”

She must have thought her friend’s virgin status was going to save her. I mean, I was intrigued because she was untouched. Nobody had soiled her, which meant she was clean.

Squeaky clean.

It made me all that more interested in her. “Yes… you can take her as your wife, or whatever. She’s always complaining about not finding the right guy.” I motioned for them to pick up homie, while he was still over there moaning in pain, while choking on his blood.

When they snatched the bag from his head, his entire jaw was out of place, the bottom half was more to the left than the top. “So, this is the nigga with the bigger dick than mine, huh?”

He was trying to say something, and I couldn’t make out what he said, so I kicked his ass into the chest with my sneaker, sending him back onto the floor, squealing in pain. Like they had done seconds before, they lifted him back up.

“I…I didn’t know, man,” he stuttered, speaking out the side of his mouth, while I looked over at his girlfriend who was staring at him horrified.

“He got a big dick?”

She looked at me as if she didn’t know if she could answer the question or not. “Um… ye…yeah.”

“Big enough for you to die over, right?”

“Nooo, please nooo… my best friend, you can have her.”

“Who the fuck are you to even offer her up?” Jeffie’s voice floated through the warehouse, as she stood with her arms folded, truly disgusted with the woman’s actions.

Her actions were disgusting, however, she had me intrigued with her best friend. “Bring her ass out.”

Beans went to the back and was gone for a few seconds before he nicely walked the woman out. She wore a bag over her head, as she spoke to him. “Thank you so much for not putting them on me this time. Last time it dug into my skin,” her voice was low, and sweet.

Little fucking thief had the nerve to be kind, and have a beautiful voice, and I hadn’t even seen her fucking face yet. “No problem, Stevie.”

I looked at Beans and he shrugged. “She’s nice… not like this bitch who spit in my fucking face.” He kicked the other shorty’s chair, and she yelped.

“Priscilla, are you alright? I asked them about you,” she asked about her friend, clearly worried about her well-being. Not knowing her friend offered her virginity up on a silver platter.

Beans carefully sat her down into the chair, and she sat there with her hands folded like she was waiting to be interviewed for a job.

He looked at me and I nodded for him to remove the bag from her face. Carefully, because clearly Beans was being nice cop, he removed the sack from her face. I couldn’t even front, I didn’t expect for my heart to hit the inside of my chest like it did when he removed it. Her strawberry blond curls were flattened to her head, thick eyebrows were perfectly arched, and her cute button nose sat right in the center of her face, making you look down to her pouty pink lips. They were dry, and she realized it because she quickly licked them as she stared at me.

Freckles dusted the top of her nose and under her amber eyes. Her almond complexion had a slight tan to it, which was to be expected since she was on a trip with my fucking money. As she sat there, her thighs filled the chair. I wasn’t paying attention to her body much on her walk out here, but from the way her thighs and hips filled the chair, she was thick.

Her hands unfolded, and she quickly hugged her arms, which were bare. She rubbed them as she looked away from me. “Here you go, Stevie.” Beans came back with a pair of glasses, and she put the circular glasses on, and that’s when my brow raised.

Little sexy blind ass couldn’t even see me, because once she saw me, she really felt self-conscious sitting in front of me. I could tell she was looking over herself and trying to fix how she sat.

Homie slowly peeled his eyes from me onto her and nearly knocked his own self out the chair. “St…Stevie?”

Her head snapped in his direction. “Raye?”

“Stev…Stevie, what in the fuck?”

Shorty in the middle looked between her dude, and Stevie. “You know him?”

“That’s my damn father.” The way she said father told me that he wasn’t a good one, and they didn’t have a relationship with each other.

“Oh, this shit interesting,” I pulled my seat up, flipping it in the opposite direction and taking a seat. “Soo, how did you meet?” I rested my face in the palm of my hand as I spoke to shorty in the middle, while she squirmed in her chair.

“In Vegas.”

“Oh, when he was stealing money from me?”

I could hear Jeffie’s heels entering the warehouse again, and Stevie looked past me. “Jeffie? What… what is going on?”

Jeffie rushed over toward her side and checked over her, pissing me off. She was acting like I wasn’t conducting business. Her ass was lucky that I could tell sexy over there wasn’t involved. The girl was acting like she didn’t know why she was kidnapped from another country and held in a warehouse for a week.

“You were stealing from Case House, Stevie… I know you didn’t know because you would never, but why would you trust her?” Jeffie tossed, showing her disgust up close instead of across the warehouse.

Stevie shook her head quickly and pushed her glasses up. “I would never steal from someone… I mean, I do eat the grapes in the grocery store, but I get hungry at times and a few grapes isn’t that bad.”

“It’s still stealing, Cleo!” I barked.

“Cleo?” she asked.

“Yeah, you and your Set It Off crew thought you were hitting a lick.”

Jeffie rubbed her shoulders. “Skyler has been worried about you. She warned you about this one… Gosh… I hate being caught in the mi⁠—”

Her head snapped up in Jeffie’s direction. “No, she cannot find out about this. I will tell her that my phone fell in the pool or something.”

“How you gonna do that when you’re dead, Sweetheart?”

Stevie turned her head toward me slowly and took a deep breath. “That is true… I want my last words to be that I didn’t steal from you. I steal grapes from the grocery store, not money. Priscilla tell them about the money Raye was sending you.”

“Wait a minute, why do you call your father by his name?” I was so damn interested in her little nerdy fine ass. “Yo, Raye, why your seed calling you by your name?”

He was over there in pain, trying to keep his eyes opened because that punch I delivered was going to have him in pain for the next week. “Since her mother passed, she ain’t want to be close.”

“Wrong! I called you, needed you, and you weren’t there. I had to bury her alone, and you showed up late to her funeral,” her voice cracked. “Matter fact, go on and kill me already so I don’t have to have this conversation.” Her legs started to shake as Jeffie rubbed her shoulders. “No, please don’t kill me… I was bluffing, I don’t want to die, Mr. Sir.”

“Menace,” I replied.

“Mr. Menace,” she corrected herself as she looked into my eyes, pleading for me to spare her life.

Something that I had already been told that I had to do because she was family. How the fuck was she family when Skyler wanted to be Ms. Independent woman, and I wanted to fuck this little quirky shorty in front of me.

“Menace,” I corrected her – again.

She straightened up. “I hate when people call me Steve, so I get it. Please don’t kill me.”

I looked over at her father, and then shorty in the middle that was holding onto every word that came out of Stevie’s mouth. “Why you letting people put money in your account?”

“I have a credit union… I don’t know if you know how that works, but not eve⁠—”

“He owns one, Stevie,” Jeffie informed her.

She gulped. “Well, I thought it was that… I didn’t know she accidentally stole from you.”

“You don’t accidentally steal from me.”

“I guess that’s true.”

Jeffie whispered something and she remained quiet, as I pulled my gun from behind me and shorty hollered out. “I’m so sorry… I thought it was his money!”

“You thought my money was his money, and her pussy is yours, right?” I looked over at Stevie, who was confused. “Your friend offered you up… said you a virgin.”

“What?” she whispered as she looked down at her hands.

She was disassociating and I never gave a fuck about what someone said or felt, but I felt something when I looked at how hurt she was. Here she was trying to get them out of trouble, and her friend offered her virginity the first second she opened her mouth.

“Stevie, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to die, and he fine as hell… it’s not gonna be bad.”

I looked at her and watched as Jeffie looked at me. “Stop, Jeff.”

“I didn’t say nor do anything,” she continued to rub her shoulders, as she shot the friend a stink eye.

“I can cook… I can make you something good to eat. Just not that, please,” she pleaded, and my fucking stomach dropped.

I looked down at my gun, and aimed it near shorty’s leg, firing a shot at the floor near her. She toppled over onto the floor trying to get away while Raye did the same. Stevie was so damn hurt that the gun shot didn’t phase her.

“You not his wife… trying to cook him food,” one of the flunkies chuckled, and I aimed the gun and shot him in the arm.

He went from trying to clown her to holding his arm while squealing out in pain from the bullet I put in his arm.

“I won’t kill you.”

“In exchange for?” her eyes slowly met mine.

“You’re going to marry me… I need a wife, and you need your life saved, no?”

She looked at her friend, and then father. “Marrying you saves them?”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t kn⁠—”

“Child, marry the damn man. My life on the damn line and you debating… you always been a little slow, Baby Girl,” Raye spattered, trying to keep his breath even.

“The fuck you said to my wife?” I aimed my gun at his ass next, and she jumped up out the seat, and I saw all that ass.

“Please don’t shoot him,” she pleaded with me.

Despite not being close, or caring much for him, she cared enough to spare his life. “Wifey, he stole from me… can’t let that go with a slap on the wrist.”

She looked at me repulsed when I called her wifey. “Don’t call me wifey,” I watched as she choked the word out.

I looked at her as she looked between me and them. “I’ll marry you if you don’t kill them… please, I really would fall apart.”

“Stevie, she tried to sell you to the highest bidder,” Jeffie reminded her.

She sighed. “I know, and that really sucks.”

“They fucking stole from me, so why the fuck we discussing shit like death isn’t in their immediate future?” I interjected into the little pow wow about what I was going to do.

Jeffie nodded her head toward the exit, and I groaned, following behind her. “You need a wife and she’s willing to become your wife. Is proving a point more important than being removed as the third founding family?”

“Actually, yeah. Hell yeah.”

“Maverick,” she whispered.

“What the fuck you want me to do? Throw these bitches a birthday party and send them on their way. We’re not talking small money, Jeff.”

She paused and I could tell she was thinking. “Compared to what you’re worth, any amount is small money. Case Farms… send them both to work there until we figure something else out. They work there for now to start paying back their debt.”

“I’m with a lot of shit, but you not about to make me into no damn slave owner.”

Stevie was talking to her janky ass friend and had turned with her back facing us, and I saw her ass in those damn sweats again. “Is there any more room for me in those jeans!” I started singing, startling everyone in this bitch except for Duke, Beans and Jeffie.

I couldn’t help but belt the words to the song out because her ass was singing the words to me.

Duke chuckled while Jeffie folded her arms. “This is the solution to the problem, she gets to keep her father and that rodent alive, and you get a wife.”

“Why you more concerned about this than me?”

“Because you’re stubborn and will walk away as the third family because you hate being told what to do.” She looked at Stevie, and then back at me. “I just have a feeling about this.”

“Yo, Wonder… how bad you want to keep your friend alive?” I walked back over toward them, and her friend started crying on command.

I walked over toward her and rubbed my gun against her jaw before resting my gun on the table next to her. Leaning my arm on top of her head, I started picking at the front of her wig, while waiting for my future wife to tell me what needed to be done.

“My name is Stevie⁠—”

“Wonder… answer the question.”

She looked at Jeffie, who tossed her hands up. “How do you know I wasn’t the master mind of all of this?”

“I told you the girl was⁠—”

I quickly turned, tapping her father’s jaw, and I’m sure I probably knocked that shit back into place with the way he was back squawking on the floor again.

“Is your purpose to get him to kill you, Stevie?” Jeffie asked, trying to understand this woman. Shit, I was trying to understand her, as I continued to pick shorty’s wig.

It was something soothing about picking the hairline of this shit. “Why would you lie to me, Priscilla? I thought we were friends.”

“We are friends… ouch.”

I started picking the pimple on her forehead. “Stop lying. You offered her virginity up like it was yours.”

Stevie put her hand on her hips and looked at her, and I licked my lips as I took her in. “Why do that to me? I told you about Tony.”

“Who Tony?”

“Nobody,” she quickly shut me down.

Priscilla had more tears than a newborn with the way she kept turning those shits on and off. Every time she thought she was in the clear, she would stop crying. The minute she wasn’t, then she started hollering and throwing on those fake ass tears.

“I’m sorry, Stevie… I thought I was gonna die.”

“Who says you’re not?” I mumbled, and she tried to move her head, and I put it back into place and continued picking in her face. “You stealing from me and not even investing in good skin care… skin look fucking gross.”

“I would have never done that to you.”

“I’m sorry, Stevie. That was so wrong on my end, I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Then my father.” She looked on the floor at her father moaning, too scared to move because I would put my foot in his ass.

Her eyes nearly bulged out. “Relax, you got hella black heads,” I continued to pick in her face while she sat there uncomfortable.

“I didn’t know that was your father… I swear. We met in Las Vegas, and he was tricking. You know me, Stevie. If he got it, I’m there.”

“Now you about to die… if he got it, I’m dead, right?”

“Oh, God, please… please… please,” she continued to beg me and Stevie, who stood there torn.

“If I don’t marry you?”

“They die, Wonder.”

She looked at Jeffie and then back at me. “Skyler can’t find out about this… As far as she knows, we met on vacation, and I like you.”

“You want me to keep two people that robbed me blind alive, and lie… what fucking else?” I mushed shorty and moved back over toward my chair.

“She wouldn’t understand, and she would just say that she warned me about Priscilla.”

“Can’t say she was wrong,” Jeffie rolled her eyes, and grabbed her purse.

Stevie took a deep breath. “Well, I guess I should head home and face the mus⁠—”

I laughed. “Wonder, your home is with me… fuck you think this is? I’m gonna negotiate a deal and let you off the hook. You Skyler’s cousin, not mine… I don’t fucking know your loyalty. Shit, I’m questioning it right now ‘cause this bitch should have a bullet smoking from her forehead.”

“I have to live with you?”

“Yes, Beloved.” I smirked, as I walked past her.

“Beans, get these niggas to Ryan so he have them flown out to Case Farms… I’ll figure out what to do with them until they pay their debt.”

I would have had Priscilla selling pussy, however, that wouldn’t be a punishment with the way the girls at Case House were treated. Shit would have been a luxury for her disloyal ass. My blood still boiled at how hurt Wonder looked when she realized that her friend had offered her up.

“Like slaves?” Priscilla screeched.

“Like alive ones,” I mocked and headed toward the exit.