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4
Le Petit Trianon showcased Bahamian beauty with a a greedy, green-eyed fervor. Revenge fantasies fell from the sky, and as she stood in the cold, crepuscular furnishings of the once Princely château. It was in the eastern wing of the Manor, gilded in splendor and garnished in luxury, with a French pride streaming from the windows in the forms of expensive, extravagant liquor. Lolita had always coveted Robinʼs lifestyle, suckling the teat of moneyʼs ransom like a babe to a mother, but as she saw her paramour drowning in Brazilian red wine and Swedish chocolate-dipped strawberries with a dying fervor, she knew she never wanted it like this.
She wanted the beauty of it all. The extravagance of Le Petit Trianon with its diamonds dripping from the sky, and its upscale tastes in impeccable blackened timber. The exoticness of it all, with the scent of illegally imported Monte Cristo cigars flooding the room. The allure of it all, with the muffled piano ballads and championed Rousseau gardens outlooking the corrupted Pacific torrents. The coquettishness of Robinʼs beguiling beauty, wrapped in the violet chiffon of her see-through lingerie, and Latin American elegance blanketed in feverish marijuana dreams and fervent alcoholic nightmares.
She wanted it all.
And you just have to reach out and take it, just like He said.
"How is business in South America?"
Poetry rolled off of her inky pen in dark, rich waves, just like the Catalan Spanish she spoke. The Nightʼs curtain blanketed them with a hollow warmth, just like the dead language Robin thought Lolita didn't speak, but Lolita understood every word that dripped from Robinʼs mouth, just like Desdemona Princeʼs Milanese translators taught her. And as Lolita freshened up Le Petit Trianon, she caught a whiff of Frankie "Black Caesar" Matthews, and with that, she listened patiently. To the world, Frankie Matthews was a DeMarcus family pawn.
A sicario, born-and-bred in the violent cesspool of Atlantaʼs powdered economy, where he worshipped the newly crowned cocaine kings and kissed the ground they walked on. But history was fiction, a ploy to keep scheming Machiavellians in power, and within the worlds of the Order and the Hellbenders, Black Caesar was a ruthless man with a ruthless fortune he had built long before he ever said the name Robin DeMarcus.
An exiled prince from displaced African lands, with Haitian mistresses he slaughtered, painting the walls of the Southern Isles – the Orderʼs territories and the Hellbendersʼ islands surrounding South America, its fabled mercantile cities, and the Caribbean – a frightening shade of red. His skin was so hauntingly black that the knife marks on his face glistened like untarnished white shillings on a silvery suit, and with that, Lolita grew enamored. She had a fondness for fantastical cities and fantastical men that had explored her childhood home, and the Southern Isles were indeed something to be fond over.
"Brazil has joined the fold with Rys, the Eye, and the Men of the Blotchʼd Waters. The Hellbenders are all for the business, and those unaffected by the Drug Wars are the same. But for those that remember..."
Robinʼs pen stopped them, and as Lolita refilled her half-empty glass of loveless Brazilian red, she stared at the hearth in the middle of Le Petit Trianonʼs parlor. The logs laid on the red-hot embers of the igneous fireplace with the prowess of a restless concubine, and as Black Caesar spoke, Robin's words grew scarcer. Lost in thought.
"Argentina has found itself in a romance with the Cronish territories; selling to each other exclusively. Haiti and the Merovingian people are working to unify C-uba, Bolivia, and Paraguay against you and your brothers. Inamorata is neutral in this debacle, but other countries are in open rebellion against their presidents and their masters.
"The Southern Isles have fallen into debt, boss, and El Doradoʼs gold is running dry. But the people in Latin America, people in the Southern Isles, they donʼt find the product appealing and they want complete and utter independence from the West, where there are no magical borders like the Vale that separate the Enlightened from the Orderʼs citizenry.
"Where there are no kingpins and queenpins dictating what they can and canʼt do, what they can and canʼt trade, how they should and shouldnʼt make money. The Order controls all, and people enslaved by rich, white men, donʼt want to be controlled, patrona. So we canʼt break bread in Latin America, in the Caribbean, or in the Southern Isles."
Robin stopped writing, fingering the simple golden cross around her neck as she drew her eyebrows up, mouth parted by a long, slow breath of air. Lolita fluffed up the cushion around her, head shying away from Black Caesar and Robin so they wouldnʼt suspect her of eavesdropping. As the fire illuminated the glowing amber tint of Robinʼs alcohol, Lolita listened to her ragged breathing, her contained fury, her frustration as her muscles and mind clenched in agony.
Black Caesar watched Robinʼs silence grow sadistic. Promptly, she stopped writing, and she turned to face Atlantaʼs goon coldly.
"The Hellbenders like to run around acting like theyʼre some liberal governmentʼs wet-dream because they swear theyʼre against racism and right-winged ideology that gets spewed in politics. They swear that the Order of the Dragon is purely evil, and that they are the heroes in this story saving their damsels, but theyʼre just a rogue group of politicians that hire mercenaries and hitmen and traumatized people to do their dirty work hoping that one day they can head West, and claim it. Manifest destiny style. I will never trust those gringos for the life of me, but Black Caesar, for reasons I canʼt understand, I trust you. So why do you not trust me?"
"Patrona–"
"I have given Latin America, and the Southern Isles, and the Caribbean the option to go legit with porn, and the option to stay in the black market with cocaine. My cocaine is the purest cocaine the Eastern world has ever seen, and the pornography that can takes its place pays twice as much for four times the profit, and they have the audacity to compare me to Escobarʼs shadow?"
"Patrona, the drugpin world is not like it was when it was conceived. Escobar was a man of the people. A strong man."
"Escobar was a machismo fool who measured his success by how far and how fast his d*ck could f*ck over the world. He cheated everybody he knew, ravaged Colombia when She couldnʼt protect him–"
"He didnʼt have the ghost of Reina Santiago strapped to his back, patrona."
Silence.
Bone-cracking silence.
It chilled the air, perfuming it with the ghosts of the past, and as the rainʼs jagged breath sliced into their skin, Lolita dropped Robinʼs wine glass. She flinched once, twice, while Robinʼs pain throbbed in the room with dolorous woe.
Regret, that was the feeling that hung in the air. Regret.
"What happened in Havana was not my fault."
"She slaughtered women and children; she ate the men alive and skinned the men with her teeth. You were her lover, boss, her sworn confidant–"
"WHAT HAPPENED IN HAVANA WAS NOT MY FAULT!"
Black Caesar stared with a hollowness as Robin clung to her truths desperately, the way she clung to Lolitaʼs wine and her wavering faith. The rain trickled downwards now, screaming and crying with the sharpness of the autumn's cruel breeze, and as Lolita picked up the pieces of her shattered glass, Robin screamed and cried with the rain. Poised, however. Controlled. With a manipulative, performance-based talent.
"She was a murderer, patrona. And when what was done was done, you became a wh*re-monger. A dark, bloodthirsty woman, fleeing from one manʼs bed to another for power. You betrayed your blood to those you hate so much, so they will never do business with you, patrona. And they will never love you."
Robin inhaled sharply.
"It is better to be feared than loved, Black Caesar," Robin told him. "And we are not doing business in the Gulf and in the Southern Isles to be loved, old friend."
"Then why are we here, patrona?"
Robin stared at Lolita pensively, shaking her to her core, before sipping her wine nonchalantly.
"To win," Robin said simply, boring a hole into Lolitaʼs forehead. "I donʼt fear Reina Santiagoʼs ghost."
Lolita watched Black Caesar gather his thoughts and his things.
And I do not fear you, Robin.