Truth, Lies, and Mr. Grey

Book 2: Three Mrs. Greys

by Shelly Ellis

Genres: African American Women's Fiction; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Diamond. Noelle. Vanessa. As Cyrus Grey recovers from a near-fatal shooting, the women who each thought they were his only wife are fighting hard to make new dreams—even if it means going one dangerous step too far . . .



On trial for Cyrus's shooting, Diamond is determined to clear her name—and get back the husband she still loves. But uncovering the truth will reveal more secrets than she ever imagined. And unexpected desire is bringing them all too close to home . . .



Beautiful Noelle has found happiness with new love Tariq. But Cyrus' scheming confronts her with an unthinkable conspiracy—and an impossible choice to save all she hopes for . . .



As seemingly sweet suburban wife Vanessa helps Cyrus recover, she's about to finish him off for good—and keep the expensive lifestyle she earned. But her manipulations will push her up against two relentless—and all-too-intimate—enemies . . .



Now with lethal agendas clashing, passions high, and everyone's future on the line, which rules will each woman break to finally end the past—and who will survive to secure everything?

Release date: March 29, 2022

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

“Nessa! Nessaaaaa!” Cyrus yelled from upstairs.

His voice ricocheted like a sonic boom from their bedroom door, down the hall, and then down the stairs to Vanessa Grey as she stood at the kitchen counter, assembling his lunch—a club sandwich with tomato bisque and chips—on a serving tray.

Her husband of twelve years may still be mostly bedridden from the gunshot wounds he’d suffered almost two months before, but nothing seemed to be hampering his mouth. He was as loud and demanding as ever.

“What?” she shouted back irritably over her shoulder as she poured pomegranate juice into a glass.

“What the hell is taking you so long, woman? I’m starvin’!”

She sucked her teeth. “Well, you can starve to death for all I care, you son of bitch,” she muttered before slamming the glass onto the wooden tray, making juice slosh over the side.

Vanessa had been catering to Cyrus since he’d arrived home from the hospital—feeding him, washing him, clothing him, disinfecting his wounds, and changing the bandages. And she’d hated every minute of it. It was bad enough that he had cheated on her for years, even marrying two other women behind her back while he was still married to her. It was bad enough that he was now blackmailing her to stay in their joke of a marriage by holding evidence of her affair with her eldest son’s soccer coach over her head. (He’d threatened to email that photographic evidence to everyone from the other soccer moms to their children’s stuffy school principal.) But now Cyrus was making Vanessa cater to him like some handmaiden and nurse all rolled into one. It was a slow torture she endured daily.

She still couldn’t believe how her life had gotten to this point. She’d gone from worry that her affair would end her marriage to fury at hearing about her husband’s other wives and now, wanting nothing more than to be rid of Cyrus—all in a matter of months. Vanessa was willing to do just about anything to end this living nightmare, including killing her husband, something she’d never thought would have entered her mind a year ago, let alone a decade before that, when she’d made it her mission to seduce and ensnare the handsome, wealthy Cyrus Grey.

Vanessa now opened one of the kitchen drawers to retrieve a spoon. As she did, her eyes landed on a bottle of Clorox spray she’d left sitting on the counter yesterday after she’d scrubbed down the kitchen. Her eyes then shifted back to Cyrus’s glass of pomegranate juice. Maybe she could pour a little into his drink. Not too much so he would taste it, but just enough to kill him. If he died, this whole ordeal would be over. No more Nurse Vanessa. No more Pain-in-the-ass Cyrus. She reached for the bottle.

“Nessa! Did you hear me?” Cyrus shouted again, making her jump in alarm and snatch back her hand. “Where the hell is my food?”

Vanessa grumbled. Instead of grabbing the bottle of cleaning fluid, she grabbed a spoon and slammed the kitchen drawer shut.

She wouldn’t poison her husband—not today anyway. It was too risky; a coroner might find traces of the bleach in his system.

She’d have to stick to the plan and let her lover, Bilal, kill him for her. She just hoped Bilal did it soon. Though she had to admit Cyrus being laid up in his bed at home most of the time didn’t make carrying out their murder plot any easier.

“I’m coming, damn it! Stop yelling!” she shouted back before grabbing the tray and trudging out of the kitchen and later up the stairs to their bedroom.

Vanessa eased the bedroom door open with her shoulder and found Cyrus sitting up in the center of their California king in maroon silk pajamas.

Though the bed was easily big enough for two, Vanessa hadn’t slept in here with her husband since he’d arrived home. Instead, she slept in one of the guest rooms two doors down the hall. She’d told their three children she’d made the move to the other room because she wanted to give their father space to spread out and get comfortable, anything to expedite his full, healthy recovery from the shooting. But the truth was, the less time she had to stay in the same room with Cyrus, the better. And she suspected Cy knew the truth and hadn’t asked her to stay in here with him for that reason.

Besides, if they slept in the same bedroom, she couldn’t vouch that she wouldn’t try to strangle or smother the bastard in his sleep.

“Lunch is served,” she now announced dryly as she carried the tray to his bed.

“Took you long enough,” he muttered.

She set the tray on his lap. “Even if I didn’t come up at all, you would’ve been fine. You could skip a meal or two, honey.” She poked his growing paunch through his shirt, making him swat her hand away.

Cyrus had never been a man with sculpted muscles, but he’d always been solidly built—her own John Henry, with a bald head, big arms, and tree-trunk thighs, like the folk hero. That is, until recently. Cy had gone from frail, when he first returned from the hospital, to now almost doughy after being in bed and stuffing his face for so long. He even worked from his bed now, grazing on snacks as he typed emails and made business calls.

Vanessa glanced at the opened bags of nacho chips, chocolate chip cookies, and trail mix that sat on his night table. If she didn’t kill him, all the food he was eating certainly would.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be up and around sooner or later and get back to my old fighting weight,” he assured her before taking a bite from his sandwich.

She turned away. “Let’s hope it’s sooner rather than later,” she tossed over her shoulder with a withering glance as she strolled out the bedroom.

A half hour later, Vanessa was finishing up her own lunch when her doorbell rang. She rose to her feet and walked out of the kitchen through the living room and into her foyer. When she swung the front door open, she saw her mother, Carol, standing on the welcome mat in a tank top, capris, and kitten-heeled sandals.

“Hey, Mama,” she said tiredly.

“Hey! How’s the patient?” her mother asked as she cocked a finely arched eyebrow over her sunglasses. “Still alive, I assume?”

“Unfortunately,” Vanessa whispered before cutting her eyes at the stairs. “Let’s go outside to the deck and talk.”

Her mother nodded as she stepped inside and shut the front door behind her.

“You don’t look too good, sweetheart,” her mother said as she trailed behind her across the house. They winded their way through the spacious living room and sunroom.

“Oh, thanks,” Vanessa replied sarcastically.

“I mean it, baby! Are you getting a good night’s rest? When’s the last time you got a facial, or at least an exfoliation treatment? You can’t neglect yourself, Nessa. You’re a woman of thirty-seven. You have to maintain what you have, my dear!”

As Vanessa neared the French doors leading to the rear of her home, she caught her reflection in the windowpanes. Her mother was right. She didn’t look like herself. She was wearing a wrinkled, nondescript sheath dress rather than the clingy, designer dresses and outfits she usually wore that showed off her petite, curvy figure. Her glossy, dark curls were haphazardly pulled into a bun at her nape because she hadn’t been in the mood to style her hair in days. There were bags bigger than Birkins under her eyes. And worst of all, she was starting to look pale, especially next to her mother, whose soft, brown skin had taken on the warm radiance it always did at this time of year. Vanessa hated it when her own skin lost its healthy, golden glow. She had Cyrus to blame for all of this.

“I’ve just been down lately,” she mumbled to her mother. She swung open one of the doors and stepped onto the two-story deck.

Her mother closed the French doors behind them. Both women headed to one of the patio tables, squinting at the blinding afternoon sun that now hovered in a cloudless sky.

“I haven’t had much energy for self-care thanks to Cyrus,” Vanessa continued. “Taking care of his big, lazy ass is a twenty-four-hour job.”

Carol pulled out one of the table chairs and looked over her shoulder at the overhead windows, searching for the man himself. When she didn’t see Cyrus and was reasonably sure he wasn’t eavesdropping, she sat down. “Well, hopefully you won’t be taking care of him too much longer, honey,” her mother whispered. “Any progress on that little project of yours?”

Vanessa shook her head as she sat in one of the chairs on the opposite side of the table. “Nope. Bilal can’t really do anything while Cyrus is staying home all day.” She inclined her head. “I guess we could try to do it while I’m out on errands and the kids are away at day camp. Maybe he could break-in, do a fake robbery, and . . . you know . . . get the job done, but I really don’t want him to do it here at the house.” She winced. “It could get messy, and it might creep out the kids.”

“Hmm, I see your point,” her mother said, pursing her lips. “Now, explain to me why you two decided not to do it as he was leaving the hospital.”

Vanessa groaned. It was still a touchy subject for her. She and Bilal had discussed the plan about a dozen times, then had to abruptly abort the mission only hours before it was supposed to take place.

“He was supposed to walk up and shoot Cy as he was being wheeled out to our car,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper again. “He was supposed to wear a ski mask . . . you know . . . so his face would be covered and everyone would think it was the same guy who tried to kill Cy the first time. But the night before I found out that Diamond and her pimp boyfriend were charged with Cy’s attempted murder. If the cops already have the guy who says he did it, Bilal couldn’t very well pretend to be him, could he?”

“I guess not.” Her mother slumped back in her chair, removed her sunglasses, and tossed them onto the patio table. “Too bad that other wife of his didn’t succeed the first time! All your problems would be taken care of.”

“Maybe,” Vanessa said, though she still wasn’t convinced the cops had arrested the right person.

She wasn’t fond of Diamond, Cyrus’s third wife, by any estimation, but she found it hard to believe the young woman would try to have Cyrus killed. Diamond had defended him fiercely to both Vanessa and Noelle, Cyrus’s second wife, the last time they were all together—the only time all three women had agreed to meet once they learned of one another’s existence. Vanessa grudgingly had to admit that Diamond seemed firmly smitten with Cyrus. And Cyrus was equally convinced of her innocence, insisting to Vanessa that Diamond wasn’t the culprit and he knew who really was behind his attempted murder—though he refused to name names. But still, the cops said Diamond’s boyfriend had confessed to the shooting, claiming he’d received a gold chain as payment. And the cops wouldn’t charge her with the crime unless they had credible evidence against her, would they?

“So what are you gonna do?” Carol now asked. “Just hope your husband heals faster and finally gets off his ass and out the house? I thought you had a deadline with this. Didn’t you tell that boy toy of yours that you were pregnant months ago? Won’t he start wondering why you aren’t showing?”

“I gave him a copy of one of my old printouts of Zoe’s ultrasounds to buy some time. I altered the dates on my computer so it looks like I took it a couple of weeks ago.”

“How inventive! I guess he believed it, then?”

Vanessa nodded. “He started crying. He keeps the printout on his refrigerator.”

“Oh my goodness!” Her mother threw back her head and cackled. “The dumb pretty ones never cease to amaze me!”

Vanessa didn’t join Carol in her laughter. The truth was, she was starting to feel a bit guilty for lying to Bilal about being pregnant. He was so excited at the prospect of becoming a father, musing about what the baby would look like and how he hoped they were having a boy.

“But I’d be okay with a girl too, bae,” he had assured her just yesterday over the phone. “I’ll be happy either way!”

She didn’t enjoy lying to him about something like this, but she didn’t know what alternative she had. He wouldn’t have agreed to murder Cyrus if she hadn’t told him about having a baby on the way.

“Well, hopefully,” her mother said as her laughter tapered off, “he’s finally able to take care of your husband for you in the next month or so. Or you’ll have to dig up another ultrasound photo, I suppose, or maybe start wearing a damn pillow underneath your clothes when you see him.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t get that ridiculous,” Vanessa muttered.

Though she had another printout saved on her computer, just in case, and a pillow on standby.

Cyrus listened to the front door slam shut, then to his wife’s and mother-in-law’s voices until they receded and disappeared. They must have gone to another part of the house. He waited one minute . . . two minutes . . . three minutes before shifting aside his tray on his lap and setting it on the bed beside him. He then tossed aside his bedsheets, threw his legs over the side of the mattress, and rose to his feet.

Cyrus winced a little as he stood, but the pain was fleeting. It wasn’t sharp either. It was more like a lingering soreness from stiff muscles after working out too hard, nowhere near as bad as it had been a month ago, or when he first arrived home from the hospital—though he would never tell his wife Vanessa that.

Whenever he stood up from the bed when she was around, he made a big production of groaning and moaning, of leaning most of his weight on her shoulder as she guided him to the bathroom. She thought he couldn’t make it to his bedroom door without her help. But the truth was, when she and the children weren’t home, he freely walked around the house, even up and down the stairs by himself. He’d ventured outside a few times to sit in the patio chairs and smoke a cigar on the deck. He was building up his endurance. Cyrus figured in a week or two, he should be ready to venture from home on his own, though he had to do it carefully so hardly anyone knew what he was doing, including Vanessa.

Part of the reason he was pretending to still be an invalid was because the longer he stayed “sick,” the longer his lawyers could put off his bigamy trial. The other reason was because there were advantages to seeming weak; it was an easy way to catch your enemies off guard, and Cyrus Grey had many enemies.

He walked across his bedroom and peeked into the hall, finding it empty and quiet. Usually, the house would be filled with little, energetic bodies and a wall of sound—television soundtracks, video game explosions, and the shouts and laughter of his children as they ran from room to room—but Cy Jr., Bryson, and Zoe were away at day camp right now, doing craft projects and sailing in paddle boats. They wouldn’t return until later that afternoon.

Cyrus walked down the silent hallway and caught a glimpse through Cy Jr.’s bedroom window of Vanessa and Carol sitting on one of the outside decks. The two women were reclining in the patio chairs under the shadow of an umbrella. He could see they were talking. Cyrus strolled into his son’s room, stepping over discarded clothes, game cartridges, and books. He watched as his wife and mother-in-law talked, as they leaned their heads together and whispered to each other. He frowned.

What were they talking about?

Nothin’ good, he surmised.

He didn’t trust Vanessa. He hadn’t trusted her since he’d found out she was cheating on him.

He’d been confronted with the truth about his wife’s infidelity when he saw the photographs the investigator had taken of her with her weak-ass side nigga. But Cyrus had secretly suspected something was off with her before he got evidence. For weeks Vanessa had seemed less than excited when he returned home after being “away on business.” At least, that’s what he always told her, but more than likely he was with one of his other wives—Noelle or Diamond.

Vanessa had stopped fawning over him like she used to in the old days; she no longer cooked him big, elaborate meals anymore or met him at the bedroom door in a negligee. Instead, she’d reheat leftovers from the night before, or loudly be snoring before he even climbed into their bed. And he’d noticed when he was home that she would disappear for hours at a time, claiming to be running errands, but she didn’t come back with anything.

He’d told Tariq, his business partner and confidante, about his observations and growing unease.

“She’s cheatin’ on you,” Tariq had said casually in his usual blunt manner.

“No, she’s not! Not Nessa. Somethin’ else has to be goin’ on. She would never cheat on me.”

“Why not? You cheat on her!”

Cyrus had contemplated Tariq’s words. “Shit. You really think she’s cheatin’?”

Tariq had only laughed in reply and walked out of his office, like it was the stupidest question he’d ever heard.

Tariq was right in both regards, of course. Vanessa was, indeed, cheating, and Cy had been having affairs of his own for years, and had even married other women while he was still married to Vanessa. But he’d never done anything as tawdry as fucking one of his women in the back seat of a car in a public park, like Vanessa had done with her lover. He’d never been that reckless. Anyone could have seen Vanessa and her lover together—a jogger or a gaggle of moms on a playdate pushing strollers. How could she have been so stupid? So tacky? He’d given her more credit than that. And to add insult to injury, Vanessa had cheated with a man with no money or status: a twenty-something soccer coach who worked part-time at a gym, a guy who wasn’t worth the dirt on his shoes. After all Cyrus had done for her, after how well he had taken care of her unemployed, spendthrift ass for all these years, this was how Vanessa repaid him?

He now stared at his wife and his mother-in-law through the window, squinting until his eyes were narrowed into slits, trying his best to read their lips from this distance. Did he see Vanessa say the words “kill him”? Did her mother say something about money? Maybe they were talking about killing him to get his money.

“Jokes on y’all. I don’t have any more,” he muttered.

And he wasn’t that easy to kill, either. He’d already had one brush with death thanks to Tariq. That backstabbing bastard had set up the shooting, but Cy had survived.

“Jokes on that motherfucka, too,” he now whispered.

But it still angered him that he hadn’t seen it coming. Neither had he anticipated that Tariq would steal his wife, Noelle.

Tariq and Noelle had seemed friendly for years. Cyrus had never picked up anything more than that when they were together, but maybe he had been ignorant to the obvious signs. Maybe it had been Tariq’s mission to seduce and steal her from Cyrus all along. That could be why he had plotted his murder.

Noelle now thought she had herself a winner with Tariq. She believed Tariq was a good guy she could trust, but little did she know she now had an even bigger liar and con artist than Cyrus—and a deadlier one at that.

Tariq had been a shooter for many years for the Nine Crew in DC during his younger days, and what he’d done weren’t your average, low-level drive-bys. No, Tariq was more skilled than that. He handled the higher profile hits, the ones that required the shooter to get in and get out quickly and unseen. Tariq had even used his skills to execute the occasional “favor” for Cyrus to protect their business interests. Cyrus had lulled himself into thinking that after years of friendship and being in business together, after so many shared secrets and crimes, Tariq would never turn on him, but his old friend had proved him wrong.

They still ran Greydon Consultants together because—despite everything that had happened—business was still business, and Cyrus wouldn’t let anything get between him and his paper. But he kept a close eye on Tariq and had marked him for payback. He was just biding his time until he could execute it.

With Vanessa, Tariq, and Noelle no longer in his corner, Cyrus had no one he could turn to except Diamond, who was out of prison for the time being. He had put up the money for her bail, dipping into his already tenuous savings, but she was barred from contacting him per the conditions of her release. They managed to sneak the occasional phone conversation every now and then, but that was it.

It wasn’t much of a sacrifice for him, though, because sometimes he wasn’t eager to talk to Diamond. She had caught him off guard when he started to hear stories about her past: the prostitution, the pimp boyfriend, and the other murder trial in which she’d testified. He’d thought she was just a wide-eyed hostess at a classy restaurant in Baltimore, a college dropout with a good heart but lack of direction. He hadn’t known she’d been turning tricks and masturbating on the web as horny strangers paid to watch. Why hadn’t he researched her better? It was yet another example of him letting down his guard and being made a fool of.

Well, not anymore, he thought.

Cyrus Grey wasn’t a fool. Cyrus Grey didn’t cower. He would regain control of the situation, including the women in his life.

He turned away from his son’s bedroom window and walked out of the room and down the hall to one of the guest rooms. He glanced over his shoulder, listening for the sound of footsteps or voices. He heard neither. He eased open the door and stepped inside.

The scent of Vanessa’s signature perfume hit him as soon as he entered. She’d been staying here for less than two months, but she had already added her own little touches, switching out the blinds for satin curtains, adding her mahogany makeup table and a plush fur ottoman. He strolled across her bedroom to her makeup table. Again, he glanced at the guest room doorway to make sure no one was there and reached into the pocket of his silk pajama shirt.

Cyrus had worried that when she’d jabbed his stomach earlier she may have felt it, but she obviously hadn’t or she would have said something. He now removed it from his pocket: a remote, voice-activated recording device the size of a USB. He’d gotten it from the private d. . .