Red Hot Liar

Book 4: Misadventures of Mink LaRue

by Noire

Genres: Urban Fantasy

Synopsis

She's an heiress to a mega-fortune. But expert con-mami Mink LaRue will have to go beyond the top of her game to win the biggest hustle of all. . . Now that Mink has pushed her way to the front of the line to capture the Dominion family's oil billions, her life has become a luxurious whirl of easy money, fine whips, and sparkling jewels. But she'll need to come out of a whole new trick bag in order to throw shade on her sizzling swerve with Suge, her uncle-by-marriage only. Meanwhile, Suge is going toe-to-toe with the Dominion's oldest adversary, whose shameless mudslinging could cast dirt on their family name and ruin their good fortune forever. His chosen ally is a gorgeous ex-girlfriend--a woman Mink will need her every conniving wile to out-score. But scandalous secrets that could change con-mami Mink's life forever are just about to boil over. . .

Release date: May 16, 2014

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Yeah, the hard-knock hood life might take a Harlem girl down, but if she was slick with the lips and smooth with her groove, it damn sure couldn’t knock her out!

Me and my rowdy Bowlegged Bunni Baines had come a long way from the run-down tenements of New York City, and if it was up to us we wasn’t never going back! For a gritty con-mami turned club stripper who had spent her life swinging off poles and yappin victims for illicit loot, I was finally saying good-bye to my beloved con game and upgrading to the life of an heiress to a multi-billion-dollar fortune.

All those long days and nights of hustling, scheming, and conniving were over forever. With about nine hunnerd grand in my bank account and more pouring in every day, the whole world was at my fingertips and I had enough yardage to do whatever the hell rocked my boat!

It felt like a dream. A minute ago I was just a regular old Harlem girl. A broke-ass Club Wood headliner: crotch-polishing them golden poles and luring horny niggahs with my slinky slides and my notorious double-hump lap dances.

But then Bunni came home from the corner store with a carton of milk that was sporting my six-year-old face on the back, and suddenly my luck—and my life—straight up changed forever.

You see, Selah Dominion, the mama-bear in the stupid-rich Dominion Oil family of Texas, had gotten tipsy while on vacation in the Big Apple and lost her three-year-old daughter Sable outside of a Duane Reade drugstore. Eighteen years later she was still looking for the kid, and for Sable’s twenty-first birthday Selah had offered a fat-ass bundle of reward money to anyone who could help find her.

Bunni had been hyped as hell when she spotted my age-progressed picture on the back of the milk carton, and some kinda way I let her convince me to catch a flight down to Dallas so we could hustle the Texas oil family out of Sable’s inheritance and the reward money too.

“This lil mama is you, Mink!” my ghetto day one chick had sworn up and down as we eyeballed the pictures of the missing girl on the back of the carton. “I swear this chick is so you!”

“Me?” I had bucked on her real quick. “Heffah, please!” Me and Bunni went way, way back. She knew damn well I wasn’t no missing heiress to no shit-load of money way down in no Texas! Hell, I was Harlem born and Harlem bred. From my rooter to my tooter I was a con-mami, a pole dancer, and if shit wasn’t nailed down I could also be a big-ass thief.

Bunni had called the number on the milk carton and we almost checked out when they told her in order to get the money I’d have to take a DNA test and the results would have to match what was on file for little Sable Dominion.

“Forget about it,” I had told Bunni. “It’s a wrap, boo. The only damn DNA I got in me is from those lying-ass LaRues!”

But the lure of fifty grand in birthday cash was more duckets than us two broke bandits could possibly resist. Me and Bunni’s ratchet little minds got to clicking and calculating like computers as we tried to come up with a ruse to swindle those mofos outta that dough. Bunni had back-rent due out the ass on her and Peaches’s apartment, and I had some real major playas hounding me for some real major cash in Harlem’s drug game. Getting our hands on a few racks was right up our alley. So, with visions of fitty thousand big ones dancing in our heads, we had flown down to Texas looking to pull a sweet little flimflam on a bunch of uppity rich niggas who were just a-swimming in cream.

We busted up on the scene during a Fourth of July barbeque and damn near set that whole mansion on fire! You shoulda seen the way I performed for them boojie-ass black folks. I was super slick with my con game, and I laid my brilliant make-money scheme down on them with sass and finesse! I didn’t give a damn if the sisters and the brothers believed a word I said, with Big Daddy Viceroy laid up in the hospital in a deep coma, all I had to concentrate on was yanking Mama Selah’s heartstrings as I lied out the ass and pretended to be her long-lost daughter, Sable.

To top the act off, freaky-butt Bunni hooked up with a pain slut at the DNA lab and got him to write a phony report saying my DNA was a match for the missing girl Sable. I ended up rolling fifty thousand deep in happy birthday heaven, and Bunni ended up getting twenty-five racks as a reward, and a few days later we hauled ass back to New York City with our pockets fat and full.

Well, you ever heard that saying, “Give a hoodrat a hunk of cheese and she’ll gobble the whole thing up in one day”? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Easy come and easy the fuck go. By the time me and Bunni shopped our asses off, took us a vacation, got swindled by a slanga named Punchie Collins, and tried our hand at flipping dope, we were broke as hell again and right back where we started from.

We probably coulda handled all that, but when my ex boo-thang Gutta hit the bricks and came gunning for my throat, I had no choice but to get up outta Dodge, and where in the world was a Harlem hoodrat like me supposed to hide? Damn right. It was back to Texas time, where me and Bunni made plans to dig our grimy little fingers even deeper into the Dominion family pie.

It looked like this time everything was gonna go smooth and according to plan. Viceroy was about to kick the bucket, Mama Selah was hanging off my loose bra strap, and the rest of the family was practically eating outta the palm of my hand. I was this close to getting hold of a sweet three-hundred-grand annual payday when big brother Barron pulled a slick move and dragged some stink-ass Philly ’rilla named Dy-Nasty down to the mansion to toss her nasty weave up in my game.

Dy-Nasty turned out to be a ratchet-looking extra-gutter version of me, and to say that trick was a natural born liar wouldn’t hardly be saying enough! Between the two of us thirsty heffas we got to scratching and biting and kicking and slapping, and doing whatever it took to get our hands on the Dominions’ pot of gold. But when it was all said and done DyNasty messed around and dipped her chips in the wrong damn bowl and ended up on lockdown, while me and Bunni claimed us a prime suite in the Dominion mansion and got ready to live La Vida Loca for the rest of our days!

Oh, what a joy it was to be a paid-out-the-ass chick like me! Rich, black, and beautiful! Damn right, I had it made, baybee!

Viceroy Dominion was on a big one. The slick and ruthless Big Daddy of the Dominion Oil family was straight wildin’ out in his plush corner office as he stared at the colorful image glaring at him from the large computer screen. The virtual box of Gurkha Black Dragon cigars were stacked like a pyramid, with three on each side and one sticking up prominently in the middle like it was screaming fuck you, chump!

But it was what was slid down on that “finger” that had him ready to reach in his desk drawer and grab his tool. It had him ready to jump in his whip and haul ass to the Omni Hotel and bust a cap in Rodney Ruddman’s monkey-ass grill!

But first he was gonna handle his muthafuckin’ wife. How in the fuck did that bastard get a hold of Selah’s million-dollar engagement ring? Oh, Selah was about to explain that shit. She was gonna tell him how her precious ring, the one she claimed she had lost eighteen years ago, had ended up in his arch enemy’s fuckin’ hand!

A graphic vision of Ruddman ramming his black meat up in Selah as he held her pretty legs high in the air flashed through Viceroy’s mind and he had to grip the desk to keep from passing the fuck out.

Enraged, he swung his arm in a wide arc and knocked the forty-inch monitor off his desk along with almost every damn thing else that was up there. Foaming at the mouth, he stomped his foot and crunched the hell outta their framed wedding photo that bore her smiling, deceitful face.

“That dirty rotten liar!” Viceroy screamed. He knew it. He knew that shit all down in his bones. While he was laid up in a coma for all those months Selah had been out there fucking that frog-faced bastard! Now that he was back on his feet and ready to roll she didn’t wanna give him no pussy, but she’d been steady sucking Ruddman’s dick and licking his balls!

Whirling around, he snatched a jewel-crusted photo from their Mediterranean vacation off the wall and hurled that shit across the room like it was a boomerang. It hit the far wall and exploded, and countless glass shards rained down on the floor.

“I’ma murder her ass!” Viceroy fumed as he kicked over a fifty-thousand-dollar Chinese vase and started snatching wooden plaques and awards off his shelf and flinging them at the tinted glass window. “I swear to God I’m gonna kill that bitch!”

There were rushing sounds of footsteps in the hallway and then his door belched open as several of his staff members burst into his office and swarmed around him, their frowning faces red with concern.

“Mr. Dominion!” His chief contractor and long-time friend Bob Easton grabbed him by the shoulders and held him firm. “What’s going on in here? What’s the problem, sir?”

“It must be his head injury,” his elderly secretary cried out. “It has to be his head!”

“I’ma kill her!” Viceroy shrieked as he stared down at his toppled computer screen where the seven cigars were still screaming “fuck you” and mocking the shit outta him. “Y’all better hold me back,” he hollered, “ ’cause when I get my hands on that grimy bitch I’m gonna fuckin’ kill her!”

“Mr. Dominion!” His secretary trembled as she grabbed hold of his arm. “Please sir, you’ll be fine. Just don’t say such things!”

“Get the hell off me!” He jerked his arm away so hard old Miss Ginny lost her balance and stumbled forward, then yelped as she landed hard on her brittle knees.

Ignoring her cries, Viceroy looked around wildly, searching for something else to throw. But when his staff fanned out around him so they could protect him from himself, Viceroy drew his hand back and threw a short, hard jab at the wall. Every bone in his knuckles screamed. The impact split his skin and a mist of bright blood sprayed from his hand in a wide arc.

“Oh, shit . . .” Viceroy moaned, ignoring the staff members who were pulling out handkerchiefs and rushing to his rescue as he damn near crumpled to his knees from the pain.

“That lying bitch!” he groaned and gasped. “Look at what she did. Just look at what the fuck she did!”

“Rise and shine!” It was the crack of dawn on a Monday morning and Bunni busted her tail up in my luxurious suite making all kinds of crazy noise.

“Hey now!” She plopped down on my bed, disturbing my groove. “You gonna be on TV today, Miss Rich-ass Domino! Wipe summa that slobber off the side of your lip and let’s roll!”

Squinching my eyes tight, I raised my arms and stretched out in my luxurious Egyptian sheets ignoring Bunni as I fought back a satisfied smile.

Ever since I hit the once-missing-but-now-found jackpot I woke up in the mornings feeling like a real shady crook. Like I had just ganked somebody for their whole damn life. For Sable’s life! Every night old broke-ass Mink from the projects went to bed just a’ praying like hell that the super-turnt-up mansion, the shiny whips, the jewels, and especially the ocean-deep moolah wasn’t some sorta crazy hallucination. And when the sun came up in the sky and I opened my eyes again—still rich and surrounded by all the luxury and finery a hood chick could ask for, I couldn’t help feeling like a straight-up thief!

“I got a taste for some grits and bacon this morning,” Bunni blurted in my ear. “And maybe some panny-cakes too. You want me to call the cook and tell her to bring Okrah’s ace boon coon some grub, or are you gonna get up off ya royal ass and go downstairs and get it yourself?”

The news of my return to the Dominion family fold had been blowing up the airwaves. I mean that shit had made big-time headlines everywhere. It was the best rags-to-riches ghetto princess story in decades and the media ate that shit up. The word FOUND stamped over my smiling face was in every Internet news feed, not to mention all the newspapers and magazines between New York and Texas, and my name was ringing major bells.

The National Centers for Missing and Exploited Children had gotten a big boost in donations after that special milk carton campaign, and they quickly arranged for me, Selah, and Viceroy to go on a whirlwind media tour. We had already done some radio and a few television spots, and now they were calling for us to appear on Good Morning America, TLC, and The View, but first we had to get past Okrah Sinfree, who was coming to D-Town to blow up the spot live from the mansion.

Okrah was a white, southern-fried ratings diva who billed herself as a cross between Wendy Williams and Paula Deen. She was the queen of the south and had a real hot talk show and a nasty cooking show that white people amped out about, and with Viceroy’s permission she was bringing a film crew to our crib to shoot a live segment about my miraculous return to the fold. The attention I was getting was real exciting and all that, but Bunni was ten times more hyped over that shit than I was.

“Get up, Mink!” she hollered, jumping all over my plush king-sized bed like she was two damn years old. “They’re filming live, you know. Whatever comes outta your mouth is going straight into America’s ear. So come on now. You only got a couple of hours to shake some of that ugly off ya face before all them cameras roll up in here.”

“Owww!” I shrieked as Bunni jumped high in the air and landed hard on my shin-bone. “Sit your ass down, Bunni! Stop acting so damn ill! We ain’t back in the projects no more, you know.”

She snatched my pillow from under my head and cackled.

“You goddamn right we ain’t! ’Cause if we was in the projects wouldn’t nobody on the Oh-So-Sinful Network wanna hear shit you had to say! Now get up, Mink! You snooze you lose, boo, and you got a date with the Queen of the Dirty South today!”

I igged Bunni and rolled over on my stomach. I had gone to sleep with a big smile on my face after receiving a real sweet good-night sex-text message from my boo-baby, Suge. We had started out playing our roles with him as my so-called uncle and me fronting like I was his missing-from-a-long-time-ago niece. Suge was big and fine and powerful as hell. His massive build and his gangster swag put you in the mind of a cool, calm, and calculating killer. He was the enforcer in the family. The big homey behind the Dominion fortune. Whether shit needed busting up or burying deep, Suge was the nigga everybody called when the crack of their ass got hooked on a fence.

A flaming hot spark had flared up between us the very first time we met, and it wasn’t long before we were deading all that “Uncle” shit and getting our undercover smash on. Hell, the Dominions had adopted their missing daughter Sable anyway, so even if I was her—like I had been tryna fool everybody into thinking—me and Suge still wouldn’ta been related by blood.

The real deal was, I had come down to Texas looking to gank the Dominions out of as much dough as possible. Falling on Suge and all that good ol’ country sausage he was packin’ just happened to be the icing on top of a thick hunk of cake.

The text message Suge had sent me late last night had been sexy as fuck and it promised to set the stage for the kind of x-rated showdown we was gonna have the next time we ran a horse race at the OK Corral. I pushed my face deep down in my pillow and squeezed my thighs together as I thought about his big ol’ rough cowboy hands and the way he slung his monster pipe up in me like he was roping wild steer. Bunni was right, I thought as I shivered with excitement. I needed to get my horny ass up and get it in gear. For true, for true, I was amped about getting turnt up in front of the cameras with my rowdy Okrah, but on the real tip the best part of my day was gonna pop off tonight when I climbed on that chocolate bronco and got my guts busted open by my favorite black stallion, Big Suge!

Selah Dominion stood in front of her floor-to-ceiling mirror dressed in a six-hundred-dollar bra and matching thong, along with an elegant garter set that had been hand-crafted in white lace. Bending over, she stuck her feet into her thigh-high stockings and then carefully pulled them up over her firm thighs. Pausing right below her crotch, she attached the edges of the stockings to the dangling garters and then stood back to scrutinize her firm, damn-near forty-eight-year-old body.

Not bad, not bad, she thought, turning to peer at her back. Her ass was still damned good, and her legs were holding too. Curvy, with defined muscle tone. She turned back around. Her breasts were high and full, and even after giving birth twice, her tummy was flat and her waist was tightly cinched in a sweet V.

She spritzed a light mist of designer perfume over her body, then carefully stepped into her five-thousand-dollar custom-made Vera Wang scribble lace dress and pulled the straps up over her shoulders.

Today was going to be a very special day. This afternoon she would be opening her home and playing hostess to the beautiful Okrah Sinfree, and not only did Selah want her mansion to look perfect and inviting, she wanted to be at her personal best as well.

With the arrival of Mink LaRue in their lives there had been more drama going down in the mansion than she could shake a stick at. Between Viceroy waking up from his coma with his old gangsta from the hood personality, and Mink’s DNA coming back a perfect match to Sable’s, not to mention all the drama Dy-Nasty Jenkins had kicked up when she tried to con the family and shake them down for a fortune, it had been a rough couple of months.

Drama! Drama! Drama!

Selah shuddered as she remembered how that Philadelphia gold digger had tried to blackmail her into giving up two million dollars to get her long-lost engagement ring back. And even after Selah had agreed to give her the money, the slick little ghetto troll had tried to double-cross her by leaving her nasty slum toe-ring sitting on her pillow instead of coughing up the real thing!

Selah had been too damn through as she stared at that disgusting piece of moldy green metal stinking up her goddamn pillow. All the Brooklyn had come rushing up out of her, and she had rolled out to the airport and put a grown-woman Bedford-Stuyvesant beat-down on that young girl’s ass!

Just the memory of whipping Dy-Nasty’s ass had Selah’s face flushing hot, and she took a couple of deep breaths and fanned herself with the small square of cardboard that had come in the packet with her silk stockings. She didn’t know if her sudden heat storm was from reliving the memory of that beat-down, or from a menopausal hot flash, but she was sure as hell on fire!

Calm yourself, she thought as she sought her inner peace. As a high-class socialite Selah carried herself like an elegant lady at all times. In fact, most people had never seen her when she wasn’t poised and dignified, and she typically exuded sophisticated gracefulness with her every word and gesture.

And now, with her long-lost baby back in the fold, life was about to go back to normal around the mansion, and Selah for one, was looking forward to her peaceful reward.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Sinfree.”

Selah smiled gracefully and practiced her greeting in the mirror. But should she really call her Ms. Sinfree? Who did that? This was the south, and everyone called Okrah Okrah. Besides, she had just as much money as Okrah did. Probably even more.

“Welcome to the Dominion Estate, Okrah. Please, make yourself at home.”

Yes. That sounded much better. She flashed her fake smile in the mirror again and then nodded in approval. It was going to be a splendid afternoon, and Selah couldn’t wait to get it started.

“Oooow, shit-shit-shit!” Viceroy winced in pain as he cradled his bloody fist in his lap. He had come to the office planning to get a little work done before heading back home to meet with Okrah Sinfree later in the afternoon, but now all that shit was a bust.

“That muthafucka!” He foamed at the mouth as he thought about the slimy tactics of Rodney Ruddman. Everybody knew Okrah would be airing live from his place today, and no doubt Ruddman had wanted to throw some shit up in his flow. “That bitch-ass muthafucka!”

“I know,” his chief contractor Bob Easton said as he dabbed his friend’s bloody knuckles. “This is the damnest thing but you gotta calm down so you can think clearly, Viceroy. You’ve got to calm down.”

Viceroy had been raging like a crazy bull in his office, smashing pictures, kicking furniture, punching the walls, and full-out tossing the joint up. Bob had rushed in to pluck him from the midst of his stunned and frightened staff, and had just ushered him down the hall to a private conference room that only a handful of executives in the entire building had fingerprint access to.

And now, while Viceroy chugged gin straight out the bottle and bitched about his wife’s bedroom fuck-outs, cool and steady Bob busied himself slathering antibiotic ointment on his boss’s shredded knuckles and wrapping a tan-colored ace bandage around his fist as he spoke in low tones trying to still the beast that raged in Viceroy’s chest.

“I swear I’ma kill that bitch, Bob,” Viceroy panted and seethed. “So help me God, her black ass is mine!”

Bob nodded his understanding. At seventy-two he was an old head in the game of politics and Texas oil. He’d seen wicked women and fine wine take down even the most powerful of men, but he was a shrewd businessman first and foremost, and right now he needed Viceroy to pull his shit together and keep his game tight. He didn’t give a damn where Selah had been lifting her skirt or who’s dick she had been blowing from her knees, as a chief contractor, political advisor, and major stockho. . .