I'm a book snob, I admit it. I judge them by their covers and if I'm not hooked by the first couple of chapters, I abandon it like a mama deer and her lame fawn.
There are too many good books out there waiting to be read! I can't waste time forcing myself to finish something that doesn't hold my interest, regardless of how good or bad the writing is. If it doesn't have 'it', it doesn't have it. That's that.
I'm confident that my books have 'it'. There are over a thousand readers all over the world that would agree, which is why, without further ado, I give to you chapter one of the first book in the Authority Series, Altering Authority. Enjoy!
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he
wasn’t particularly close to her father.
His mobster lifestyle kept him busy. Her mother tried desperately to keep her away
from the violence that life entailed, but push came to shove and the money was
great. How could her mother raise her alone? It wasn’t as if she was going to
get a job and pay the bills herself.
Surprisingly, his death came as a
shock. Not at the hands of a drug dealer hell bent on revenge, or one of the customers
who’d felt ripped off. He died suddenly with a brain aneurysm, sitting alone at
the kitchen table, reading his newspaper on a Sunday morning.
Tatum had known that he would leave
everything to her. She was his only child, and much to the dismay of her
mother, she was somewhat more - ungovernable – than her father was. Where he’d
have his henchmen do his dirty work, Tatum preferred to handle things herself.
The drugs and gun dealings were more
trouble than she preferred, but the high profits made them more than bearable. With
strong connections and repeat customers already built, Tatum used her
associates to collect and sell the merchandise. She rarely saw that aspect of
the business, just the cash flow.
Her favorite inherited business venture was the strip clubs.
She never had to threaten those girls; they knew their place and how to have
fun. The real money came from those
girls after hours. Tatum didn’t like
to consider her new job title as a ‘Madam,’ however, technically that’s what
she was. The word sounded so old, carried such a stereotype. She thought of
women like Heidi Fleiss and Michelle Braun and didn’t consider herself to be
anything like them, aside from their jobs.
Her business was
whores but she was the furthest thing from one of them.
Her father, Bill, was a pimp, even though he didn’t quite fit
the clichéd description. His business suits were pristine and expensive. There
most certainly were no fur coats in his closet or gold-grills in his jewelry
box.
Three months after Bill’s death,
Tatum found herself sitting awkwardly with her mother at the dining room table.
The same table her father’s face had smashed onto in death. Since then, it had
been uncomfortable around her mother. The older woman was withdrawn, morose. She
could see that something was weighing heavily on her mind and she knew it
wasn’t her deceased husband. They weren’t close, not the typical man and wife.
Her mother’s eyes
would stare off into nothing, growing glossy. Her usual pristine black hair was
in a constant state of mild disarray. Not her normal self. This day in
particular it grew more annoying to Tatum than anything.
“What is it mom?!” she said, a few
octaves higher than she knew were necessary. Her mother flinched at the
sharpness in her voice.
She inhaled deeply and looked at her
daughter, the words on the tip of her tongue. She made eye contact for a brief
second before looking away, wiping a tear from her cheek.
“You’re not leaving until you spit
it out” Tatum said, sipping calmly on her tea, staring intently at her mother, her eye contact unwavering.
Donna stood clumsily and made her
way to the opposite side of the table, the action looking funnier than it
should have, considering how polished she was dressed in her beige pant suit
and pearls. She sat in front of her
daughter and swallowed hard, the lump not disappearing.
She hesitated a few minutes more,
looking around the large room with its enormous windows facing out onto the dew
covered lawn 20 feet or so below. The streams of light slicing through held a
constant whirlwind of sparkles. In a house this size, one wouldn’t consider it
to be dust.
Tatum’s glare held up. Donna took a
minute to study her features. There was no denying she was her daughter. The same bright eyes, the slim nose. Tatum was more
Donna than Donna had ever really noticed. It’s no wonder no one ever questioned
her paternity.
She was sorry more than anything
that Tatum had grown up in this life. The drugs, guns, and violence were more
than most people could stand; however Tatum seemed to thrive in it, despite
Donnas best efforts. How could she not? It was in her blood, more than Tatum
even knew.
Looking at her now, Donna knew that
she couldn’t stop heredity. “I haven’t been honest with you Tatum” she finally
spit out. “I don’t even know how to tell you this.”
Her mother paused, choking on her
words. The look in her eyes was of sheer terror. Surely, Tatum thought, her
mother wasn’t afraid of her? There had been times when people had crossed Tatum
and she’d had to ‘take care’ of them herself, but her mother was kind of off
limits. There were boundaries when it
came to these types of things. Offing
your mother was one of them.
“Just say it mom.”
Donna took another deep breath. “He
wasn’t… Not biologically… He wasn’t your real father Tatum.”
The weight of the words hung in the
air for a moment. The only sounds were the waves in the distance on the beach.
The hum of the refrigerator. The ticking of the clock.
“I tried to protect you. I thought
this lifestyle was better than the one you would have grown up in if your real father had raised you.”
Tatum’s face wrinkled in thought,
but she couldn’t form a coherent sentence. All she could think was ‘it makes sense.’ She was nothing like Bill.
At times, after she’d gotten into the family business, he would look at her as
if she were an anomaly. He could call the shots, give the orders, but there was
no way he’d be able to put a bullet in someone’s head and not bat an eye about
it the way Tatum did. She had none of his characteristics. Not a single thing.
It dawned on her then. If Donna
thought that this was a better
lifestyle compared to the one her real father was living, what kind of person was
he exactly?
She knew she’d done
horrible things. Abnormal things. It wasn’t a typical day at work to beat
someone to death for information about drug lords or rival gangs. But with her
lifestyle, it came with the territory. Donna knew this. She wasn’t proud of it,
but never really seemed to try to stop Tatum. What was she keeping her from?
Then, at a rapid pace, the questions
flooded in. Was he still alive? In prison? Did she have siblings? Nieces?
Nephews? Grandparents that knew about her? Did he know about her?
“Speak Tatum. Please tell me what
you’re thinking” Donna pleaded as she saw the emotions run across Tatum’s face.
“I’m sorry” she choked out in a whisper.
Of all the thoughts swirling around
in her head, “Why?” was all she could muster.
Donna looked at her, thoughtfully.
She licked her lips and rubbed them together, the way she normally did when she
was about to talk a lot.
“He’s a good man. We had a short
lived fling, nothing serious. He’s involved in some things, Illegal gambling,
prostitution... I didn’t think you’d end up taking over all of this” she
gestured with her hands around the large room, but implying so much more. “I
didn’t think this life would affect you as much if you were raised by Bill. I
was wrong though, obviously. You ended up more like him than you did Bill.” She frowned and looked down at her hands. “He
lives on the west coast, in San Francisco.”
“Does he know about me?”
Donna looked Tatum in the eyes for a
moment, as if she were waiting for this question. She shook her head slowly.
“He would have been involved if he did.”
Tatum nodded and ran her fingers through her long, curly,
dark hair. “Did Bill know?” It would explain his distance from her. Why bother being
a father to a child whom you know isn’t actually yours?
Her mother shook her head and at
least had the sensibility to look embarrassed.
“Do you know how to contact him?”
Donna hesitated a minute before
nodding.
“Find him and tell him… I want a paternity
test first.” She stood and walked away then, leaving Donna alone and staring
after her.
She was numb. She didn’t know if she
should be mad at her mother or thankful that she had a father again?
Walking out of the patio and down
towards the beach, she heard the rev of her mother’s Audi RS5 Cabriolet leaving
the driveway. She wrapped one arm around herself, propping her elbow on it to
chew her fingernail as she walked.
The wind was up, the tide out. Spray
from the waves wet her face but it was soothing, almost. A distraction from the
tsunami in her brain.
She knew a slew of gambling rings in
San Francisco. She should have asked her mother which one. Had she met her biological
father doing a deal? A bunch of them up there bought guns from Bill in the
past.
She pulled her cell phone out of her
pocket. Noticing the time, she sent a text to Rick, her go-to man, saying she
wouldn’t be able to go to the clubs today. Putting the phone back
in her pocket, Tatum sat down on a fallen log that had been dragged toward the
shoreline as a seat for the fire pit in front of her. She was beginning to
regret not grabbing a sweater.
She
couldn’t picture Donna ‘fooling around’. She seemed too uptight to have flings.
Tatum herself was a believer in big romantic gestures. She knew the men that
were associated with her lifestyle were a different breed, not the type to
shout ‘I love you’ from a rooftop, to cry over and fight for their women, and
she accepted that, never truly expecting to find ‘the one.’ She’d probably end
up like Donna. Settling for whatever was the most convenient. However, the way
she saw her mother light up when talking about him, Tatum could see that there
was more to it than she was letting on. Perhaps she was even more like Donna
than she realized.
She thought
about what this meant for her businesses. Legally, her father – or Bill – had
left her everything in his will. If
word got out that she wasn’t biologically his, would others try to take it all
from her? Was she still entitled to it? Legally, she knew she was, however in
her world, the one with prostitutes, drug lords, and gun dealers, things were
different.
The first decision she
made was to keep this new found knowledge under wraps until she knew what to do
about it.
She
wandered aimlessly around the property for a while. Only running into the
gardener, who politely tipped his hat to her and went on his way on his ride-on
mower.
When night
fell, she climbed into bed, a bowl of cereal in hand. The TV was only a mild
distraction. She flipped through the channels, never really settling on one
thing. Eventually, she fell asleep, her head pounding with thoughts and
questions, but no answers.
©2015, Ashley Dooley, all rights reserved
I've been dreading my Birthday this year for as long as I can remember. My heart constricts and I get a lump in my throat just thinking about it. As I was lying in bed last night however I realized something. I like who I am as I'm going into my 30's. For the first time, I'm ok with me.
My friends and I would swap stories ("Remember that time that we got so drunk?"), make more plans to do it again, share pictures of our travels but all the while, it didn't feel right to me. 
I sent my daughter to school because ALL teachers are nice, friendly, loving. I believed those teachers when they told me that "something wasn't right" with her. They tossed around words like A.D.D and autism and so, with a heavy heart, I dragged her from specialist to specialist, trying to get a diagnosis because hey, the teachers had to be right, right? When the doctors looked at me like a crazy person and shook their heads saying, "Your daughter is fine. She's 100% normal", it clicked.
