The Game Never Ends

Book 2: Game Series

by Zaire Crown

Genres: African American Urban; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

From hard times to getting it all, one woman must fight to keep her fortune, her family, and her life, in this
intense, unpredictable follow-up to Games Women Play …
By leveraging savvy and basic instincts, Tuesday Knight rose up from running an elite gentleman’s club to becoming
the mega-wealthy Beverly Hills wife and business partner of reformed drug kingpin Marcus King. Along with their
respectable, law-abiding new life came new names and a new family. But now the country’s most feared drug lord
wants to use Marcus’s legit empire to push her product—and the fallout threatens to be treacherous …
Soon Tuesday finds herself on the run with her two daughters—and under pressure from a devious FBI agent to
help take down the drug lord for good. But to clear the board of enemies and regain her position, and her life, she’ll
have to face unexpected betrayals—and play out a shattering endgame …

Release date: August 25, 2020

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

Tuesday checked her watch to learn that it was fifteen minutes past eight. She was late again. She cursed out loud and scrambled to get dressed.

Over the past few weeks she had gotten sloppy and careless. Careless was something she had never been. Sloppiness was something she never tolerated.

When she was back in Detroit, every minute of her day was meticulously planned, every decision weighed to the point of torment. It was the same neurosis that gave her the ability to analyze all the angles to a situation, and was the primary reason why her team pulled off so many successful licks.

Now she was barely able to keep track of time and doing something so reckless that it could cost her life.

She jumped into her panties and pants. She slipped her feet into her Marc Jacobs heels. Since she didn’t feel like taking the effort with her bra, she just shoved that into her Chanel bag after going headfirst into her shirt.

Tuesday had received the storybook ending that most little girls dreamed about. She got her Prince Charming in the form of Marcus and lived in a big white castle in Beverly Hills. Prada, Gucci, and Dior were overflowing in closets large enough to get lost in. She had cars and jewelry and more money than she could spend. Most importantly she had Danielle and Tanisha: finally a family.

So why was she at a low-rent bungalow in West Hollywood putting it all at risk?

Like most transplants, Tuesday soon realized that Los Angeles was the most image-conscious city in the world, where every waitress, check-out girl, and parking valet was a model-slash-actress in waiting. Tuesday had always been thick, so the thirty-five pounds of baby weight she picked up carrying Tanisha did little for her self-esteem. Neither did turning forty. So the millions she poured into renovating the entire thirtieth floor at Abel to create a first-class gym just seemed like a conscientious move for her and the employees.

Tuesday only hoped to reclaim some semblance of the banging body that had been as much a trademark as her color-changing eyes. She knew she would never again be the same bad bitch who used to cause thunderstorms when she danced at the Bounce House but wasn’t ready to let it all turn to pudding. Building the company gym had only been about keeping herself tight for her husband. She never intended to meet anyone.

She never intended for her and a co-worker’s innocent flirting to lead to an innocent lunch date. She never intended for their innocent friendship to become a not-so-innocent relationship.

There was nothing innocent about what just happened in that bungalow, and what had been happening several times a week for the past four months.

Tuesday left Shaun sleeping on the bed, grabbed her purse, then rushed into the adjoining bathroom. Inside she checked her phone to find twelve missed calls. She hissed a string of curse words then bit her lip in frustration.

As expected, most were from Brandon and the office sprinkled in with a few random numbers that were unimportant, but the final three were from her husband. Those haunted her. He had started calling at fifteen minutes after seven and tried two more times in fifteen minute intervals. Seeing this was like a gut-punch that dropped Tuesday onto the toilet.

She pulled up her event calendar and saw that it was clearly marked there: Danielle’s School, 7 pm. She had saved it in her phone, and had her secretary give her a verbal reminder, only to forget still. Tuesday had totally lost track of time, which was happening more and more often while she was with Shaun. It was bad enough that she was lying to Marcus, and being late for (if not altogether missing) board meetings and appointments at work, but now she was even flaking on her daughter.

And for what? Flawless caramel skin, an amazing body, and exotic features. Shaun was new and exciting but Marcus was her heart. It wasn’t even a contest.

Tuesday stood and when she caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror, she frowned. She was ripened by time but still had the luscious lips and gray-green eyes that made her a dime. Her skin had been bronzed some by the California sun. She eventually got her body right thanks to exercise, a low-carb diet, and a little bit of cosmetic surgery. It was not her appearance that had Tuesday put off by her reflection.

She said, “Bitch, you fuckin’ up!” And the twin staring back at her nodded to agree.

It was time to end this shit and she knew it.

When Tuesday came from the bathroom, Shaun was sitting up on the bed waiting. Nude, twenty-two years old, and perfect. This byproduct of a black father and Peruvian mother had a body toned by discipline and good genetics. Shaun’s mind had earned that degree in accounting, but the looks had helped to pay tuition. The brief stint as a model had resulted in a few magazine spreads and video shoots as well as three hundred and fifty thousand followers on Instagram. Shaun was a gym rat whose dedication had helped to spark Tuesday. One of Tuesday’s favorite pastimes was smoking some good California kush and just watching the youngster walk around the house naked.

Shaun was an Amazon, at close to five feet ten inches. When they met in the center of the room, Tuesday’s four-inch heels only put her at eye level with Shaun, who was still in bare feet. Shaun’s one hundred and thirty-seven pounds were always beach ready. What accentuated her figure was a pencil-thin waist and eight-pack abs. She had small up-thrust breasts with rubbery nipples that Tuesday loved to feed on almost as much as the pretty shaved pussy which always smelled and tasted of something sweet.

Tuesday took it all in, knowing that this was going to be the last time. Tuesday grabbed an ass that was well-toned from squats and leg-lifts. Their lips met for a long, slow kiss, and when Shaun tried to pull her back towards the bed, Tuesday had to stop her.

“Bae, just stay the night,” Shaun said in that whiny little voice that could be cute or annoying depending on Tuesday’s mood.

Tuesday gave her a look that expressed she didn’t find it cute at the moment. It was a stupid comment because Shaun knew better.

“Shit, I was supposed to be home like three hours ago.” She shrugged her bag onto her shoulder. “I missed another meeting with the board members today. Worse, I missed Dani’s competition! My husband and daughter probably flippin’ a coin right now to see which of ’em get to kill me.”

Shaun pouted the way she always did when Tuesday brought up her family. “I’m beginning to think you and him ain’t gone ever have that talk.”

Tuesday rolled her eyes. The talk Shaun wanted her to have with Marcus was never going to happen. Tuesday had only said it would to placate her, and Shaun was finally starting to realize that. Even if she did like to fuck a bad bitch once in a while, to Tuesday her family was, is, and always would be first.

Shaun went to the bed and yanked off the sheet to cover herself. It was to say that Tuesday had lost the privilege of seeing her beautiful body.

Tuesday turned to leave. “I gotta go.”

There was a finality in those three words that Shaun could pick up on. She snatched off the three-carat diamond earrings that Tuesday bought for her a week prior and threw them at her.

“Here, I don’t want ’em and I don’t want you. Bye! D’you know how many women and men try to holla at me every day? Shit, look at me. Just on my floor I got six or seven people lined up for a shot at me. You think a fine muthafucka like me can’t do no better than a bitch who old enough to be my momma?”

Tuesday didn’t feed. She understood that it was just Shaun’s youth and immaturity giving vent to her pain. Tuesday didn’t even bother to pick up the earrings. She stepped over them on her way out of the bedroom.

“Maybe I should go see HR in the morning. Tell ’em that the chief executive officer came on to me in the gym, told me that if I didn’t go out with her, I’d lose my job. What if I did that?”

Tuesday stopped and threatened her with a look.

While the company had no official policy against employees dating, her and Shaun’s relationship was inappropriate, which was why they took great care to play it low-key at work. Outside of Tuesday’s marriage, their respective ranks within the company did violate the unwritten rules of the corporate caste system. If a low-level drone from the accounting department went to human resources and claimed that the owner’s wife and CEO used her position as leverage, it could cause a scandal. Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein’s accusers had opened the floodgates, only to be pushed wider by the #metoo movement. Powerful people making unwanted sexual advances against their subordinates had embroiled many celebrities and had recently become the media vultures’ favorite carrion.

“Going to HR wouldn’t be the smartest thing you did,” said Tuesday. “My family doesn’t like unwanted attention, and you’ll be surprised how far we’ll go to keep our names out of the press.”

Tuesday saw in Shaun’s face that the message was received. She turned and continued her exit.

“Wait.” Shaun ran down the hall after her.

Tuesday was in the living room a few feet from the door when Shaun came and wrapped her up from behind. Shaun was a big girl and Tuesday was too old to be fighting. There was a Heckler in her bag; her alias Tabitha King had a license to carry in the state of California. She liked Shaun, but if she tried to go Fatal Attraction, Tuesday wasn’t above shooting this bitch.

“Please, baby, please. Just listen to me.”

She spun Tuesday to face her. Shaun needed all her beauty and the sincerity in those sparkling brown eyes to make her final plea. “Tabitha, that nigga will never love you as much as I do. NEVER.”

Tuesday stared back at her with eyes that were hard and gray. All the green had vanished from them.

“And I will never love you as much as I love HIM.”

Shaun stumbled backwards, holding her chest as if the words were a gun blast. Her face contorted, her lips quivered.

Tuesday saw the buckling of the emotional dam and could pinpoint the exact second when Shaun’s heart had broken. Tears spilled in a steady stream. She ran to the couch, flopped down hard, and began to bawl like a child.

Everything Tuesday had in her wanted to go and console her friend but she couldn’t. This was always going to end ugly, and Tuesday knew it even if the youngster didn’t. She left that cheap bungalow in West Hollywood. Tuesday pulled the door closed to the sound of Shaun calling her a thousand different kinds of bitch.

By the time Tuesday made it home, dusk had descended and the landscape lighting bathed the limestone facade of the big Grecian mansion in a luminous white. The portico over the front entrance was supported by huge columns with decorative acanthus capitals. Out front, statues of Aphrodite and Athena stood post on either side of a wide, reflecting pond where a fountain sprayed water jets into the air that resembled arcs of gold coins when dazzled by the moonlight. Tuesday often thought that their house looked like something that should sit atop Mount Olympus rather than be a home for ordinary mortals.

She parked her white SLS AMG Benz beneath the portico behind Marcus’s black G Wagon SUV and the two-tone Rolls Royce Wraith they shared. The rest of their toys were kept in the attached garage. She sighed when she saw her stepfather’s Bentley Mulsanne, only because she had hoped to avoid him until tomorrow.

Tuesday killed the engine but didn’t get out. She wasn’t quite ready to face her family. For a second she just sat there behind the wheel of her two-hundred-thousand-dollar car, looking out over the grounds of her thirty-million-dollar estate.

Life was good. In fact, life was so damned good that it was easy to forget how hard things used to be. Just three years ago, Tuesday would spend months plotting a lick that might only net her twelve grand when now she could easily spend ten times that in a single trip to the Hermes store. She had forgotten about those lonely nights in her one-room condo, eating microwave dinners with only her cat for company: no family, no man, and so horny that she was going through fresh batteries every few days. She promised herself that she would never take Marcus and the girls for granted, but that was exactly what she had done. That was why she had to cut Shaun loose.

Tuesday never hid the fact that she was bisexual; she and Marcus had even tag-teamed a few thots. Those times had been just for fun but Tuesday broke the rules when it came to Shaun. First, she had kept her a secret, and second, she had gotten emotionally attached. She knew it was no excuse, but the past few months had produced a change in her husband. He was more reclusive, opting to work from his home office rather than be at Abel. Marcus had never kept many friends but he was being less social with the few people in his inner circle.

While he was physically more available to Tuesday and the girls, spending lots of time with them, mentally he still seemed to be elsewhere. Even when he was laughing and playing tickle-monster with Tanisha, there would flash a far-off look in his eyes that gave Tuesday concern.

Their sex had even suffered, but only because Tuesday felt like he wasn’t connecting with her emotionally. There was no drop-off in his skill or stamina, in fact, over the past month Marcus had been wanting her more than ever, and he still earned a standing ovation from that ass whenever he hit it from the back. Still, Tuesday didn’t enjoy it as much because she sensed he was only using her as a distraction from some problem he was secretly dealing with.

Tuesday’s repeated inquiries were met by casual dismissals. A few times he offered simple explanations that she knew were only to shut her up.

Although Marcus was being distant, Tuesday knew that it didn’t justify her creeping with Shaun. Marcus had done so much so for her that she felt he could ignore her for a year and it didn’t warrant her sneaking behind his back. This was selfish and potentially dangerous considering what happened to the last woman who cheated on him.

Her husband did so well at disguising himself as Marcus King, respectable entrepreneur and philanthropist, that Tuesday sometimes forgot about his alter ego, Sebastian Caine: ruthless drug lord. An ex-fiancée had done him dirty in the past and gotten her head chopped off because of it. Tuesday didn’t think Marcus was that person anymore but knew betrayal could bring the worst out in people.

Many women who went both ways often used the saying “eatin’ ain’t cheatin’” but Tuesday didn’t subscribe to this. She knew if she caught Marcus with a young side-piece, Tuesday would kill that bitch even if she was only sucking his dick.

But she never had to worry about this because Marcus was fiercely loyal. She knew how rare that was in a man and it made her feel even worse.

A flawless fourteen-carat cushion-cut diamond dominated her left hand. She glanced at it, feeling unworthy of the ring or the man who gave it to her.

After a little more self-loathing, Tuesday finally let up the gull-wing door on her AMG and entered the house. They had twenty-two thousand square feet under one roof: eight bedrooms, fourteen baths, two elevators, two indoor pools, a gym with a sauna and a home theater. Carrera marble ran throughout the first floor, and the grand staircase in the foyer was adorned with custom brass balustrades designed by Versace. From the ceiling, twenty-five feet above, hung decadent chandeliers made in Paris by some designer with a name Tuesday still couldn’t pronounce.

There was a time when Tuesday had been intimidated by the big white house, but it quickly became as comfortable as an old slipper.

All the staff had already gone for the day so the house was quiet and still.

Tuesday had been gone since breakfast and had eaten nothing the entire day—except for Shaun. They had two kitchens, a gourmet kitchen plus an executive chef’s commercial kitchen, which they only used to cater formal gatherings. The first was the smaller of the two and where Tuesday immediately went for a snack.

The granite countertops were spotless and the stainless steel appliances shone like polished chrome. Dinner was typically prepared by their personal chef and Tuesday figured that the family already ate without her. She found a veggie lasagna in the refrigerator and reheated a slice. For dessert she stole four of the walnut chocolate chip cookies their housekeeper Esperanza baked especially for Marcus. Tuesday was at the center cook island nibbling on one with a glass of milk when Brandon entered the kitchen.

To the world, Brandon King was Marcus’s father and the face of their legitimate empire. In truth, he and Marcus were not even related—a secret known to no one outside the three of them. Brandon had played the right-hand and enforcer to her husband back when he was known as Sebastian Caine. People would look at this handsome elderly gentleman with his tailored pinstriped suits, salt-and-pepper curls, and friendly smile, thinking he belonged on the cover of GQ magazine. They would never suspect that he had once been one of the most notorious hit men in the country.

He perched himself on the stool next to hers. “We missed you today.”

“Sorry, I had an appointment that ran long.” Tuesday was staring straight ahead trying to avoid the judgment in his eyes. “When I knew I wouldn’t make it, I sent you a text and told my secretary to take notes. I’ll look ’em over tomorrow.”

The appointment she was referring to was at the salon. Tuesday just wasn’t in the mood to deal with work this day. While the rest of Abel Incorporated’s senior staff was taking care of business, Tuesday was out with her girlfriend getting their hair and nails done.

His tone was sympathetic: “Hey look, I get it. Boring ass three-hour meeting and you decided to play hooky. Who wants to listen to stuffed suits go on and on about Pakistan’s changing export regulations and how they’ll affect our market share? Shit, I wish I could skip ’em too. But as the chief executive officer, and one of the Kings to boot, that’s not a good look for the company or the fam.”

Guilt slumped her shoulders; she offered a nod. She knew that what she did at Abel reflected back on Marcus and Brandon, which was why fucking with Shaun was doubly stupid. The two of them had worked extremely hard to conceal their pasts and build the Kings’ reputation. They were proud of the name even though neither of them were born with it.

Tuesday swallowed more milk. “Why is he doing this? He knows I don’t have the slightest fuckin’ idea of what I’m doin.’ Most of the time I’m just sittin’ in my office, looking stupid and signing shit I barely understand.”

“It was his decision,” Brandon said, breaking himself off a piece of her cookie. “It’s not like he listens to me. Just made me pour another hundred million into the scholarship program. I told him it would kill our third quarter profits but I’m just the puppet; we both know who pulls the strings.”

Being in charge was something Tuesday never wanted. When she first came to California, Marcus hadn’t just set Tuesday up with a new identity; he gave her a job in his company. It was an advisory position that basically allowed her to collect a six-figure salary with no actual responsibility. In fact, Tuesday never had to even show up at the office.

Then after years of allowing Brandon to run the company while Marcus played the background, he stepped in and made Brandon hand the reins over to Tuesday and demoted Brandon to executive vice president. The old man didn’t think it was wise and Tuesday was in full agreement but for some reason Marcus had insisted.

She said: “The only business I ever ran was a booty club and it did so bad I still had to rob niggas on the side. Why in the hell does he think I can handle running a big ass corporation?”

“Do you remember the very first conversation you and I had? It was when I picked you up from that police station just as he was going on the run.”

Tuesday remembered. It was three years ago, her last night in Detroit. The feds had held her for an entire day sweating her about Marcus but she gave up nothing. When she saw the suave assassin pull up in that Maybach, Tuesday had first thought Brandon was there to kill her.

“One of the first things I told you about my boss is to never try to figure him out,” he reminded her. “You’ll never be able to do it and you’ll only drive yourself crazy in the process.” Brandon playfully nudged her with his shoulder and Tuesday smiled because he was right.

“He been actin’ weird lately,” she said, serious again. “It’s something he ain’t tellin’ us.”

“Of course there’s something he’s not telling us,” the elder said laughing. “Did you forget who he is?”

Tuesday understood that her husband was better than most at keeping secrets. He had survived the game at the highest level for over two decades by being clandestine. Sebastian Caine had done business only through intermediaries; buyers and suppliers never got to see his face. Even the people within his organization never dealt with him directly. This was how he eventually became known as The Invisible Man.

Brandon pecked her cheek then stood to leave. “And if I gotta’ sit through those meetings bored out my mind then you do too. If he asks, tell ’em I got on your back about not showing up.”

Tuesday agreed that she would.

Even though he wasn’t Marcus’s real father, Brandon had come to be a father figure to her. He was the one who held down Tuesday and Danielle that first year. She was pregnant with Tanisha while Marcus was running from a federal indictment. Since then, Brandon had served as a sounding board and counselor.

She sat there a while longer thinking, relishing the combination of chocolate, walnut and brown sugar. Despite the warning, she couldn’t help but try to understand why her husband would hand over his Fortune 500 company to a woman who didn’t atte. . .