A Sister's Survival Read online

  Also by Cydney Rax

  A Sister’s Secret

  The Love & Revenge Series

  If Your Wife Only Knew

  My Married Boyfriend

  Revenge of the Mistress

  My Daughter’s Boyfriend

  My Husband’s Girlfriend

  Scandalous Betrayal

  My Sister’s Ex

  Brothers & Wives

  Reckless (with Niobia Bryant and Grace Octavia)

  Crush (with Michele Grant and Lutishia Lovely)

  Published by Dafina Books

  A SISTER’S SURVIVAL

  CYDNEY RAX

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1 - Survival

  Chapter 2 - License to Marry

  Chapter 3 - Love Hurts

  Chapter 4 - Ghosts of Troubled Pasts

  Chapter 5 - March Madness

  Chapter 6 - Why Did I Want to Get Married

  Chapter 7 - Sex Ain’t Better Than Love

  Chapter 8 - Basic Training

  Chapter 9 - Unfinished Business

  Chapter 10 - Daughter

  Chapter 11 - Girls’ Trip

  Chapter 12 - Back at Ground Zero

  Chapter 13 - Everything Must Change

  Chapter 14 - Side Deals

  Chapter 15 - No One Wants to Swim in the Rain

  Chapter 16 - Reinvention

  Chapter 17 - The Weary Blues

  Chapter 18 - Coco is Loco

  Chapter 19 - Sleeping with Married Men

  Chapter 20 - Death Is Better than Life

  Chapter 21 - Survivor’s Remorse

  Acknowledgments

  Cydney Rax Social Media

  Teaser chapter

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  DAFINA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 by Cydney Rax

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Dafina and the Dafina logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-1540-1

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1546-3 (ebook)

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-1546-2 (ebook)

  “All I’m trying to do is survive and make good out of the dirty, nasty, unbelievable lifestyle that they gave me.”

  —Tupac Shakur

  “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”

  —Friedrich Nietzsche

  Chapter 1

  Survival

  It was the early part of January. Gamba Okorie and Elyse Reeves were in the parking lot of an AutoZone on the west side of Houston. Elyse was quietly stationed in front of Gamba’s Chevy pickup. She peered through the lightly tinted windshield and watched as Gamba pulled on a handle underneath the dashboard. Then he exited his truck and stood beside her.

  After months of running into each other while she was working at her sister’s restaurant, the two had become close. Gamba had become someone Elyse could rely on as she dealt with the mess of her family.

  “Go ahead, Elyse,” he said.

  “Reach down over here. And when you feel underneath it, you will come across a skinny metal part. Push it to the right, then lift it up. Do it.” He patiently waited.

  Elyse hesitated but desperately wanted to follow Gamba’s precise instructions. However, compared to her petite frame, the steel hood appeared enormous. What if it she wasn’t strong enough to lift the hood and it slammed on her delicate hand? She knew it would hurt and she’d look like a fool. But she nodded at Gamba and struggled to do as he said. Gamba smiled at her effort and meekly assisted her till the hood was all the way up and secured.

  “Great job,” he said with an encouraging wink. Elyse’s knees felt like a bowl full of jelly.

  Twenty-six-year-old Gamba was tall and dark with thick, purplish lips topped by a mustache. His wide nostrils hinted of his Zimbabwean roots, with broad shoulders that swelled with thick muscles that warned his enemies to never ignite his fury.

  “Now tell me, Elyse. Do you know what you’re looking at?”

  She stared at her mentor with lustful eyes. Do you know how perfect you are, she asked on the inside. But she pulled herself together and tried her best to appear as if she were deeply interested in an assortment of engine parts.

  “Nah,” she finally admitted. “Not really.”

  “No problem,” he told her. “I will teach you. I’d be happy to do it.”

  The second that Gamba began to talk and point, an erotic sizzle swirled around in Elyse’s belly. Elyse simply wanted to close her eyes and fully enjoy listening to the authority and strength that he always conveyed.

  “No problem. You won’t ever have to worry about that as long as I’m around, but just in case I’m not here, you ought to know these things.”

  “Mmm hmmm.” Elyse would turn twenty years old in April. And up until that point, she hadn’t experienced a romantic relationship with a man. She’d never known how it felt to make love. She’d only known brutality and coldness. Sex that was never consensual. She remembered how horrible it felt to be violated by Nathaniel Taylor, her older sister Burgundy’s husband. The abusive experience she endured at the hands of Nate nearly caused her to lose her mind.

  She stared at Gamba, hoping that if they ever got together, he’d be different from her brother-in-law—prayed that he’d never hurt her.

  When Elyse realized that Gamba could quiz her at any moment, she tried her best to concentrate.

  “This, Elyse, is where the transmission fluid is kept. And that’s the receptacle for your windshield wiper fluid.”

  Gamba reached inside and grabbed a yellow plastic handle.

  He removed the dipstick, glanced at the tip, then thrust it back inside of the long tube. “This, Elyse, is very important. The best type of engine is a well-oiled one. And you must learn to check and see how much oil is remaining, for you never want it to run out.”

  “Why not?” she politely asked, silently wishing she had a fan with which to cool herself off.

  “Good question. The oil is a lubricant, and all the parts need it to keep the engine functioning and moving. It’s like humans needing oxygen to breathe or else we will die.”

  Elyse felt her mind wandering again, and she nearly let out a moan until she realized what she’d been doing. Her cheeks flamed red, and she felt ashamed. Would her emotions for a man ever be normal? Could she ever enjoy a true relationship?

  She and Gamba had been hanging out since last December when he decided to take her under his wing. He’d never shown any romantic interest. She figured it was because she used to act and look too much like a tomboy with her long-sleeved shirts, golf hats, and baggy slacks that covered her figure. These days she wore shirts that clung to her breasts, paired with hip-hugging jeans, and occasionally she’d throw on some booty shorts or a dress.

  But even with the cute little outfits, it seemed as if Gamba barely noticed.

  What if she was wasting her time? What if she had no real future with this man or any other man?

  “And so, if the oil runs out,” Gamba went on to say, “the engine will start to grind. It will make loud, screeching noises then, God forbid, it will lock completel
y up. Basically, the parts grind together, engine gets overheated, and the car parts get hotter and hotter.”

  Feeling overheated herself, Elyse waved her fingers across her face and enjoyed the little bit of cool air. She hoped Gamba didn’t think she was weird, like everyone else—people, especially her family, thought she was an oddball, awkward young woman.

  But Gamba was deep into his lecture, not aware of how Elyse fanned herself and the cute way she licked her bottom lip.

  “Elyse, I’m going to teach you how to change your own oil. You understand?”

  “Yeah,” she firmly told him. “I understand.”

  “And by the time we’re done, you will know how to change your own tire.”

  Her brown eyes widened in distress. At nearly seventy-four inches, Gamba’s pickup stood much taller than Elyse, who was only five feet one.

  The tires were so huge it seemed like they could easily crush her to pieces. She was thin and willowy and hadn’t been active in a gymnasium since she’d graduated from high school.

  She glanced at her bony arms. “You see this?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “So?”

  “I’m not strong enough.”

  “Shhhh,” he told her and pressed his finger against her soft lips. As his finger lingered for a moment Elyse tried to keep herself from whipping out her tongue. She wanted to suck his finger, suck on other parts of Gamba’s sexy body. But she told herself that he wasn’t thinking about her, her lips, or her shameful lust. He saw her like a sister, nothing like a lover. And Elyse hated that all Gamba wanted to do with her was to teach how to change a damned tire.

  “Gamba,” she said, her voice quivering with anger. “No! I can’t do this.”

  “You, young lady, are much stronger than you realize. I believe that.”

  “But I just don’t think I can—”

  “Have you tried, Elyse? Have you?”

  She stared once more at the gigantic truck that towered above her. It looked like it could kill her without even trying. Elyse shivered and whined. “Gamba, me? Change a tire? I-I can’t do that. I just can’t.”

  “Yes, you can, sweetheart. Don’t be scared of anything that looks too hard, Elyse.”

  “Don’t be scared?” she asked.

  “Right, never be scared of anything or anybody because you—”

  “But, Gamba,” she said in a rare interruption, “my sista Alita told me . . . She said if someone wants me to do something . . . and they say, ‘Don’t be scared,’ then that’s a bad man. He’s trying to do a bad thing. He’s lying his ass off and he can’t be trusted.”

  “And you believe everything your man-hating sister tells you?”

  She nodded. She could agree that Alita did have nasty opinions about most men, but what if was the truth? At that moment, Gamba seemed anti-Alita. And to Elyse’s ears it sounded like he doubted her just because she trusted in the one family member who had cared enough to rescue her.

  “I’m not trying to be disrespectful,” he gently replied. “But what if your sister is wrong? Because instead of thinking negative, what if you throw away all that fear and end up doing great things . . . things you never dreamed you could do?”

  “I-I dunno. I have to ask my sista about it first, then I’ll let you know what she says.”

  Even though he was tempted to, Gamba could not be genuinely upset at Elyse. Nor could he blame her paranoid, overprotective sister. All he could do was gain her trust by assuring her that he understood.

  “Your brother-in-law, Nate . . . well, yeah. He is a bad man. He wanted you to do bad things. He should be in jail, but that’s another story altogether. But this right here . . . learning how to drive defensively, being able to do simple car maintenance, it’s not wrong. And I’m not, either. I just don’t want you to be afraid, and that in itself doesn’t make me the bad guy. You get it?”

  He took a moment, wanting to explain things in a way that would make her feel safe.

  “Elyse, what if you’re out on the road driving. And I’m with you but I’m tired as hell and I couldn’t help but doze off.” He laughed to himself. “That’s what happens to a hardworking man sometimes,” he said. “We hardly ever get enough sleep. So anyway, you and I are in my truck and you’re behind the wheel, and we happen to drive on a road where some stupid person left some nails in the street. And you drive over the nails and we get a flat. What would you do?”

  She thought for a second. “I wake you up.”

  “Good one, Elyse.” He chuckled. “But seriously, sweetheart, everything that I am teaching you will empower you. I’m only here to help.”

  Elyse hated when he said that he was “only here to help.” At the same time, she felt ashamed for being ungrateful to someone who begged her to believe in herself. But in Elyse’s world, trust was a slow-moving golf cart, not an Aston Martin.

  When she failed to reply, Gamba proceeded to tell her the exact type of oil that the engine required, how much the tires needed to be inflated, and used a portable air compressor to show her the proper way to pump air into them.

  “Got it?” he asked when he was done demonstrating.

  “Yeah,” she lied. “I got it.” He’d been instructing her for a good thirty minutes. At this point, information overload made her feel dizzy with exhaustion.

  In observing the stressed look on her tender face, Gamba was concerned. He never wanted to overwhelm her. But he was on a strict mission to give her the strength that she would need to make it in this cold, cruel world.

  “Don’t be upset, Elyse,” Gamba gently told her. “You’re doing fine, really well so far. I believe in you, and I know that you’ll be able to handle everything that I teach you.”

  “But why teach me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I lived with my sista Burgundy for a long time. You’ve taught me more in weeks . . . than she taught me in years. She let her husband do me wrong. She’s a bad sista, a terrible woman.”

  Elyse’s heartfelt confession made Gamba feel sad for her, yet he remained unfazed. “I don’t know the answer to why your sister neglected to school you on the things that a woman should know. Maybe she had her own issues that she was dealing with. But all I can say right now, Elyse, is that you act like a wallflower, but you are a rose. A dozen roses. So, hold your head up high. I want you to forget about the people that hurt you.”

  At his positive words, Elyse felt her chin and head lift. And she slowly forced herself to trust in Gamba and in herself. At least for today.

  In that wonderful way of his, Gamba continued speaking calmly yet firmly to her. She fought hard not to stare into his dark eyes; she wanted to compose herself whenever he smiled, for it was true that each time Gamba broke out into that wonderful laugh of his, Elyse wanted to laugh, and melt, and throw herself in the safety net of his arms.

  Even if the topic bored her to death, right then Elyse decided she could listen to him talk all night. He seemed so strong and self-assured.

  After another five minutes, Gamba wrapped up his lecture then slammed the hood of the truck.

  “Come on, let’s go,” he said to her. He reached for his keys while she jogged to the passenger side so she could climb in the seat, sit back, and allow her mind to rest after harboring many sexy thoughts. Before she could get in, Gamba stopped her.

  “No, don’t sit there. Elyse, I think you’re ready. You can drive.”

  “No, Gamba,” she complained. “I don’t like big trucks.”

  “I know you don’t. But it’s only because you’re scared. You don’t have to be.”

  She shook her head in defiance.

  “Even though you don’t feel comfortable, Elyse, do me a big favor and try anyway. Just get in. We can go down this block till we reach the corner; we can drive a few miles on the next street, then turn around and come back. Easy!”

  “Gamba!” She folded her arms across her chest and stood firm.

  He smiled at Elyse until she couldn’t help but smile bac
k. When he tossed the keys at her, she ran around to the driver’s side and got in.

  She’d do anything to please him. Gamba had been so tender with her, had expressed such confidence in her, that it would not hurt her to try and make him feel happy for a change.

  Expelling a deep breath, Elyse adjusted the seat and mirrors, started the ignition, then they chugged along.

  “Relax,” he instructed her. “You’re gripping that wheel and driving like you’re eighty.”

  She laughed and sat back. It felt odd to be up so high above the ground. But thankfully it was an easy Sunday afternoon, and the streets were not very busy.

  “Okay, I think you can go a little faster,” Gamba encouraged her. “We’re leaving this residential street and we’re turning onto a main street. Do like thirty-five to forty-five miles an hour.”

  “Ohh,” she said with a shudder. She could see there were a few more cars now zipping along up and down the road.

  “I-I’m scared,” she finally admitted.

  “Nothing’s going to happen, Elyse. When will you believe that I got you?”

  “You got me?”

  “I’m here for you.”

  Elyse nodded. “Okay,” she whispered. And she pressed her foot on the accelerator. The truck lurched forward hard enough to jostle them in their seats.

  “Oh uh,” Gamba said. “That’s too much gas. Just give it a little bit of a push. Do it again.”

  Before she could respond, a late-model luxury car swerved into the truck’s path. Alarmed, Elyse slammed hard on the brakes. She and Gamba jerked forward. The tires screeched. Shocked and afraid, Elyse raised both her hands and placed them over her eyes, but she accidentally lifted her foot off the brakes and hit the accelerator.

  The truck sped up, hopped over a high median, and violently rocked several times before landing on the grass. The truck kept moving, rolled down the median, back onto the street and began heading in the wrong direction.