Absolute Corruption: Southern Justice Trilogy Read online

  Absolute Corruption

  Southern Justice Book 2

  Copyright © 2016 Cayce Poponea

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Cover Design by Jada D’Lee Designs

  Editing by Elizabeth Simonton

  Proofread by TCB Editing

  Interior Design and Formatting by Champagne Formats

  www.caycepoponea.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Afterword

  Other work by Cayce Poponea

  “It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed is you.”

  ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

  The sounds of the city echoed around me, as I walked down Broadway. Car horns blaring, and the squealing of taxicab brakes were all sweet lullabies that played on the streets of New York City. My hands were stuffed in my pockets, and my eyes were on the sidewalk before me, a sure sign I was a local. Well, as local as I could possibly be.

  Pulling the steel handle of the storefront, the glass doors opened, casting the reflection of the street around me. The white vinyl letters affixed to the glass reminded me of where I was; a place I should have visited weeks ago.

  “Austin Morgan!” Katarina Swiss, or Kiki, as she liked to be called, stood at her station with her comb in one hand, and a pair of sheers in the other, both resting on her poor excuse for hips. She was dressed head to toe in black; even her hair lacked any trace of another color. In all the years I’ve been coming to see her, I’ve never seen her wear any other color.

  “Good mornin’, Miss Kiki. “When I first moved to Manhattan, I learned my southern accent either really turned people on, or completely pissed them off. Fortunately for me, Miss Kiki melted when I walked into the room. My dad said it was a curse, the way we affected women. But he was an old married man, lost to the love of his life, no longer searching for his other half. To him, the attention we received would be a curse.

  “Don’t you ‘good mornin’ me, Austin Morgan.” Having good manners would only go so far with Miss Kiki. But I had her pegged, I knew what she loved. Crossing the space between us, I gave her my pouty lip, and lowered my thick eyelashes. Pulling the hand without the scissors toward me, I placed a kiss on the pale skin of her knuckles.

  “Oh my, tell me there are more where you came from.” She winked, as she pulled, not too firmly, her hand from my grip. As many times as I have sat in her chair, she knows just about everything there is to know about my brothers and me.

  “Yes, Ma’am.” I tossed one more ounce of southern charm in her direction, laying it a little thicker on the accent she melts for. It worked, as she pointed to the empty chair, shaking out the black cape to keep the clippings off my clothes.

  Miss Kiki takes her time, as she pulls her polished fingernails through the strands of my hair, something I find extremely relaxing in all honesty. Like an artist with their brush, she runs her comb in several directions, changing the flow of my hair. She told me not long after I started coming to see her, she would give just about anything to have my hair color; deep black and thick, with shimmers of light bringing about a silver hue. Something she admits she can’t duplicate with bleach and heat.

  “I’m surprised you have any hair at all, with those eyes, and all that charm just dripping off you. Women must be lined up for days to have a turn.” Growing up in the south, I had my fair share of talkative women. Miss Kiki was in a class all her own. Hell, even my momma would politely tell her to shut the hell up. For the next half hour, I had the privilege of hearing all the latest gossip; who was sleeping with whom in the shop, and what celebrities came in looking terrible. You name it, Miss Kiki had seen it since the last time I sat in her chair. I gave her a generous tip, a kiss to the cheek, and my word I wouldn’t wait so long to see her again in the future. With a wave of my hand, I welcomed the sounds of the street, before making my pilgrimage to the glass tower I called my second home.

  When I was younger, I recall my dad saying he wished there were more hours in the day. It wasn’t until I was sitting in this very seat, clicking away on my computer, that I finally understood what he meant. My calendar was bursting with events I’d never attend, meetings I had to ask colleagues about, and dates I’d broken with girlfriends; all to be sitting alone in my office on a Friday night.

  My cell has to be nearly out of battery life, from all the text alerts I’ve received. It’s the weekend, and I was due to be downtown in a bar with the rest of my friends. I’m one of those crazy guys who swears up and down they will stop what they are doing, just give them ten more minutes. I have a million and one excuses for ignoring the ping of my cell; the haircut I needed, my backlog of work, and the inability to leave my desk on the same day I arrived.

  I’m wrong about my phone battery, when the ringtone I’ve assigned for my granddaddy fills the room, giving me the first valid excuse for a break in hours “Hey, Granddaddy.” Leaning back in my chair, the light from my desk illuminates the chess set perched on a table across the room. When I was seven, Momma drove us boys over to our grandparent’s house. As usual, they were sitting on their front porch playing a game of chess. I walked over, and asked Granddaddy if I could play. He pulled me onto his lap, showed me the pieces, and then explained what moves they each could make. It was then, during those sessions, he began to teach me how to be a man. “Austin, all southern men drink good bourbon, and treat their ladies better than the Queen of Sheba.” It was the beginning of a special bond between the two of us. Not a day has passed that we haven’t had a game going. He would show me how to play, all the while sharing with me the pearls of wisdom he had collected over the years. Most of them I follow, some…Well, I’m not sure they apply just yet.

  When I entered high school, he and Nana bought me the set which I keep at work. They had taken a trip to Australia, and during one of Nana’s shopping excursions, she’d found the ebony and ivory set in an antique store. Daddy came home from work one afternoon, with a box tucked under his arm. Inside was the marble board, in a deep green with black veins and gold flecks, each piece wrapped in tiny plastic bub
ble sheets. Where other kids crawled around on their knees with trucks and cars, I sat at a table, admiring the details carved into the pieces.

  “Austin, you still workin’?” Granddaddy was the one who taught me to work this hard, so I knew he had something up his sleeve. When I graduated college, I created a program where we could continue our chess game, even if one of us was unavailable. Adams Lighthouse got wind of my invention, and wanted me to write the program for production. I said no, this was something I had made just for granddaddy and me.

  “Nope, just sitting here waiting for you to make a move.” The chuckle that echoed over the line told me he knew better. I suspected he was ready to make a big move, maybe even win this game tonight. I switched my screen from the code work, which would wait until Monday, to the game we had been playing for three days now.

  “Queen to H4.” I watched my monitor, as he moved his piece into place. At first I rolled my eyes at his amateur move, until I saw my error. I had left my king unprotected.

  “Check,” he said smugly.

  “Motherfucker!”

  Had the chess pieces been real, I might have tossed them across the room. There’s no way around it, the master had won once again. “You left your king unprotected! I tell you again and again, never leave a fox in charge of your hen house, and never leave that king to protect himself.” He was right, he had drilled it into my head over and over. Too bad I hadn’t quite learned that lesson yet.

  Turning my chair around to face my window, I could see the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance. Tiny orbs of lights, as the cars moved back and forth across the span, reminding me of worker ants on a mission to feed the queen. I remember with absolute clarity the first time I crossed the New York landmark. At the time, I was convinced I was trying to make a name for myself, putting some distance between the man I was expected to be, and the man I wanted to be. Years later, I’ve realized they are one in the same. Lessons like this had to be learned by experience, and not handed down like an heirloom chess set.

  Now, as I watched those headlights, it’s a different bridge I see; one I have fond memories of back home. Like the first time I watched Dylan gasp for air when he’d challenged Chase to a race across the bridge. Or the day they ran side by side as we spent a few hours together before Chase went off to boot camp. I remembered how I had my first kiss with Jacqueline Moore at the very top of the bridge, still all knees and elbows, without an ounce of charm at the time.

  “Speakin’ of hen houses, how’s your girl, Keena? Turning back from the window, I lowered my shoes from the edge of the desk, reality finding me once again with that question. Keena, my current girlfriend, had just moved into my newly purchased condo on Park Avenue. She was beautiful, not a stitch of common sense in her entire body. She was working as a cocktail waitress in a bar on the East side, a place my buddy insisted I had to visit. Keena gave me her number, and I of course called her. The sex was hot, and I was horny. It had just evolved from there.

  “She’s…Keena.” Granddaddy and I spoke in depth one evening, as I was about to meet my friends. I chose to duck into a coffee shop, and told him pretty much everything. Keena had the legs every wet dream required, blonde hair, with curls so perfect you’d swear the angels above gave them to her, and an hourglass figure so precise, you could set your watch to it. Unfortunately, that is where her attributes ended.

  She had no formal education, and furthermore, no desire to attend college, or even a trade school. Having a conversation that didn’t include what the Kardashians were wearing was beyond her. Her time was spent watching reality television, so if you didn’t follow the trends, which I didn’t have the spare time to do, there was nothing she could follow and talk about

  “You thinkin’ of puttin’ a ring on that finger yet?” Granddaddy was not one to beat around the bush. He made it clear he wanted to see little feet running up and down his front steps. He came from a large family, and expected all of us to follow suit. Another area I wasn’t sure was going to apply to me.

  “No, Sir.” The one thing I did know about Keena, she wasn’t the girl I thought about when I pictured my forever. I needed a girl who desired knowledge, as much as I did, and who possessed the same passion about something, as I did, like Chess and computers. I didn’t care what it was, as long as it was something real. Reality television did not qualify.

  “You’re treatin’ her right though, aren’t you, Son?” My daddy and granddaddy not only told us, but also showed us, how to treat the ladies in our life. Keena wanted for nothing, just as my momma and nana did not want for nothing. She had full access to all my credit cards, keys to my car, and cash given to her weekly. Even a maid came to the condo to clean, and laundry was sent out.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “She still watchin’ them soap operas?”

  That’s what he called Keena’s reality shows. He knew my DVR was full of them. She would stop everything, including sex, to watch the misfortunes of the lives on the television. She raved on and on about how they seemed to have the perfect life, all while fighting with cheating husbands, and bad tabloid reviews.

  “Day and night.” There was no use in trying to hide the frustration in my voice. I had allowed this to happen, encouraged her when she lost her job, told her she could stay with me. I would take care of her.

  “Well, you know how I feel about it. But you’re a grown man now.”

  Granddaddy had a way of changing one’s perspective, and steering them to his way of thinking. Or maybe it was just his way of helping you listen to the voices in your gut, telling you which way to turn.

  “I know, and trust me, I’ve thought about it. But I want the woman I decide to marry, to make me a better man, not one she feels the need to change.”

  “Austin, I’ve lived long enough to know everyone does a little bit of growing when they find the one that’s right for them. The key is to want to change, to be the better person.”

  He was right as usual. I knew Keena wasn’t wife material. Hell, she wasn’t really girlfriend material. But, she was what I had, and I would treat her decently until the relationship was over. Things were okay with us. She didn’t complain about my long hours, and had never asked for more than I gave her. But maybe I wanted someone to nag me, to show me with their actions, they really cared.

  “How did you know Nana was the right girl?”

  “That’s easy, she told me.”

  He also possessed the ability to bring you out of yourself. To show you how an ounce of laughter, can do a person a ton of good. With granddaddy, seriousness was saved for the courtroom or the Senate floor, not for conversations between families.

  “Austin, when the right girl for you comes along, you won’t need to ask if she’s the right one, you’ll know it. Until that happens though…” He didn’t need to finish his thought. Treating women well was more than just showering them with gifts, and making sure the bills were paid. It was being honest with them about things that mattered. Leading a girl to believe there was a future wasn’t something a gentleman ever did.

  “Keep treating her right,” he warned me. “Hey, you know next weekend is the Azalea run.”

  Every year in Charleston, the city would host the Azalea festival, complete with a run over the Ravenel Bridge. The first year I moved to New York, I flew back home to run it with Dylan. I looked over my shoulder at the bridge I wouldn’t walk across if you paid me. It made me miss home even more.

  New York was sizably larger than Charleston, but it couldn’t compare. While there were ample activities here in the city, I longed for the slower pace, and graciousness of Charleston. I missed the way everyone knew me, wished me a good day, and meant it.

  “Is Dylan running this year?” Even as I asked, I could not imagine him missing the opportunity to run.

  “He and Carson. You know they would love to have ya.”

  Carson was more of the kick ass, cool uncle, than a family friend. He kept Dylan in line, and didn’t let him get too full of himsel
f. A full time job, in and of itself. I love my brother, don’t get me wrong. I envied the way he could move from girl to girl, without a second thought, no feelings, and no promises. I just wasn’t that way. I allowed my heart to lead me, instead of my dick, like Dylan.

  “I’ve been thinking about Charleston quite a bit recently.”

  “You know, Austin, it’s never too late to come back home.”

  I didn’t know it at the time, but those would be the last words of advice I would ever hear granddaddy speak.

  Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the ability to face it, overcome it, and finish your job.

  ~ Billy Cox

  “Come on you chicken shit.”

  My palms were sweaty, and my heart was racing so fast I was afraid it would pop out of my chest. Bouncing back and forth on the balls of my feet, I felt like a runner getting ready for the Olympics. It’s the third time this month I’ve stood here. Praying for the courage to just do it, and get it over with.

  Concrete lions stand sentry to my goal, mocking me with their blank faces. Where the fuck were they when the attack happened? Checking out a pretty skirt like most of the men on this street? Several pedestrians have looked at me with questioning glances, wondering where my shopping cart and crazy hat were.

  I refused to stop trying, to give up. To allow a spineless coward of a man make me crawl under the covers, and hide from the world. I was sick of seeing the pity on Claire’s face. Tired of her placing her life on hold, so she could secure my hair, as I vomited.

  Never in my life have I ever let a man have an ounce of control over me. Not when Thomas Cowart said I couldn’t use the tree swing over Parkers Cove back home in Kentucky. He told all the kids the swing was too short to make it over the water. Too bad for him, I weighed less, and sailed over the water to the other side. He cried all the way back to his momma, when he landed in the muddy water.

  Not when Griffin Powell chased all the girls around the schoolyard with a garter snake. I watched the evil glint fill his eyes. As he went from screaming girl to screaming girl, thinking he was something, as he shoved the head of the poor snake in their faces. Fucker screamed the loudest of all, when I took the snatched the snake from his grubby fingers, and yelled at him for holding it too hard. He ran like the devil himself was chasing him, once I put the snake in his face.