10,000 Hours With A Rich Menace (Caselli Family Book 1)

10,000 Hours With A Rich Menace: Chapter 5



I remember when I was younger, and my mother had Kora. A nigga was pissed because I wanted a little brother. All I wanted was a little brother to follow behind me and be exactly like me. I had a whole list on how I would train him and how he would listen.

Back then my parents should have known something wasn’t right because why was I, as a child, carrying around a list on how to train a little brother that I didn’t have. Either way, I wanted a little brother.

When I was finally blessed with one, it was years later, and the nigga didn’t listen. Don was the complete opposite of me and did whatever the fuck he wanted. The only thing I could never or would ever take from him was the fact that he was so damn smart.

He skipped a grade in second grade because of how smart he was. The teachers were trying to figure out why he was correcting them, and it was because he was bored and wasn’t challenged in the classroom.

Aside from being smart, he was hardheaded and did what the fuck he wanted. Going to college was something that he had no choice but to do unless he wanted to end up panhandling on the side of the highway.

Finishing college was the only way he could get his trust fund and Don wanted that shit bad. Both Zoya and Kora had access to their trust funds and never touched it. I almost wanted to keep it from him because I felt like he was going to go through that shit. The few times I saw him at a Case House property, I warned him that they were off limits.

He could fuck Wendy Williams for all I cared, long as he didn’t touch none of the women at Case House. I had strict rules when it came to crossing those lines and Landon knew he better not have broken them.

Duke came walking in from the front smacking on an apple. “Don just pulled through the gates.”

I nodded my head, lowering the newspaper that I was reading. Leave it to Landon to bring his ass during my designated quiet hour. Every day for an hour I scheduled time to read the newspaper. I liked to sit in silence because my mind was always going. Whenever I sat in my study, it was quiet, and I could actually focus on what I was doing.

My mind wasn’t thinking about twenty things at once, and I could enjoy reading something without thinking about all the other shit I had going on in my life. My attention span was one of a child, and the minute I got bored, I was onto the next thing.

I had been the same way as a child, always unable to focus without doing a million things before doing my assignments. Though they were always right, and I passed my classes, it took a lot to get them done.

It was the main reason that I had structure. Everything in my life was planned out, even when it came down for me to take a shit. I knew what I was doing for the day two weeks in advance. Chaos was my enemy, and I made sure to keep that shit far away from me.

“Something came up that I couldn’t get around.”

Without looking up from the magazine, I replied, “You get around whatever the fuck you need to when I tell you to come see me.”

Landon stood there, looking like me in every way. He carried himself the same way, except he wasn’t as organized and quiet as I was. “Mens, my life don’t fucking revolve around you. I had some shit that needed to be handled.”

“Your life and your sisters’ lives revolve around me. Every time either of you need me to handle something that’s when I can get a call to ask me to step in and mind y’all business. So, yeah, when I fucking tell you to come see me, you do that shit.” I looked at my watch, a Cartier crash, that I gifted myself for my birthday.

I spent every birthday alone. My brother and sisters called to wish me a happy birthday and sent flowers to the house that I saw when I returned home from Aspen.

Always in Aspen.

“I’m hungry as fuck,” Landon sat his bookbag down, and crossed the room to sit behind my desk.

I bit the inside of my cheek as I watched him move the paper weight and other shit that I had strategically placed on my desk. “Eat when you’re done telling me this twenty-four-hour news.”

He opened his laptop. “I was going over Case House Vegas numbers the other day, and shit not adding up.”

I didn’t trust many, so when it came to doing things in house, I made sure that it was my family. Landon was in college now for cyber security, but he had graduated with a bachelor’s degree in accounting.

It was Core who told me to force him to go back for that second degree. Landon had always been into whatever Core was in, and seeing the knowledge that he knew without a degree was some wicked shit.

“I don’t like when shit don’t add up, Don,” I replied, going back to my newspaper, figuring I could finish this article while he ran down whatever to me.

“Me either… Ryan hit me up and told me that new nigga ain’t been moving right… said shit been missing, and he been scheduling girls for shit outside of the app.”

I put the newspaper down and looked across the room. “Oh word?”

“Stealing from us is wild… Kennedy told me that he approached her first, and she told him that she only does work that is coming from the app and has your approval. The other girls that he has been using are new.”

“Why the fuck is Kennedy telling you anything, Don?”

He sucked his teeth and continued on his computer. “Why we focusing on the wrong shit? I happened to be in Vegas and ran into her… damn.”

“Why the fuck you in Vegas, Landon?” I questioned.

He looked up from his computer. “My fucking business… I’m not a fucking little boy no more… I’m twenty-four, and don’t need you worried about why I’m somewhere. I ran into Kennedy; we went to dinner, and I sent her on the way. She was out there with her girls, and I was out there with a shorty I’m messing with.”

“And had time to go and have dinner with another woman… lie to me again.”

Landon bit back his remark and then looked at me. “I know because you don’t have shit else to do but have scheduled nap times and shit, that worrying about what me, Zoya, and Kora are doing is the only entertainment that you have. I didn’t come over here for a lecture about who I can be around… I’m not fucking Kennedy.”

I folded the newspaper up, no longer interested in the current events in the world. “It’s only you and Zoya that give me problems… she wants to keep fucking with a nigga whose days are limited, and you want to test the waters of Case House.”

“We’re grown, Mens… respect that shit. Everybody can’t be perfect like Kora.”

I looked at my brother, and then at the book on the side table. It was wrong to toss that shit at his head.

Yeah. It was wrong to throw things at him.

“Kora knows that I do everything in her best interest. Where have I ever steered her wrong? It’s you and Zoya’s ass that need to understand the same thing and it would be peaceful around here.”

“This why you spend holidays alone,” he mumbled as he continued to type on his computer, and I looked at my watch.

I hadn’t spent a holiday with my siblings since they went away to college. They used to come home, then that stopped. Holidays weren’t big in our family, and they usually just sent holiday wishes in the form of a text message.

Last Christmas, Kora came over and chilled with me for the day. Me and Kora were naturally closer than the younger siblings. Where me and Kora stuck together, Landon and Zoya did the same thing.

Of course they would, they were the two causing me the most headaches with their bullshit. Zoya did everything when it came to going to college and then law school, down to her career. When it came to her personal life, she didn’t take any advice and did shit to spite me. She knew her nigga’s days were limited, and she wanted to lay up with him and play stepmother.

Zoya’s ass loved to shop, so I knew her ass had some designer black outfit to wear when they lowered that nigga in the ground.

“Like I was saying,” Don snapped his fingers, getting my attention because I was focused on something else. “These new bitches and that new nigga that Ryan put on been stealing.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?” Landon mocked, trying to figure out where my head was at.

I could overlook a lot of shit, except stealing from me. I was very generous with my team, and they knew as long as I was eating, they would be too. When I took over Case House, my uncle had them eating scraps. He was always deducting money from them for some stupid ass reason. The houses that we owned for Case House, he had them paying him rent, as if they lived there.

The houses were only used when clients didn’t want to go to their own hotels. We never allowed the girls to go to a client’s personal home. It was either one of our homes, where there was security and privacy, or they would use a hotel, where security and privacy was also an option.

There was never a reason for anybody to steal from me. Not when I would give the shirt off my back for my girls. I would do anything for them because of their loyalty and how they made sure Case House remained the best.

The reason I was so passionate about Case House was because my father was. Aside from his kids and wife, his love was Case House and making it what it was until my uncle stepped in. That nigga turned it from high class escorts to a damn brothel.

No health care for the women, paying them whatever he wanted, and the condition of the houses were deplorable. I remember visiting the first house after everything was transferred to me, and I made one of the girls go to the nearest store and get cleaning supplies.

I cleaned that bitch from top to bottom. Cleaning calmed me and centered me. In that moment I needed to be centered because I wanted to kill my uncle for the second time, and he was already dead.

“I went to meet with Ryan while he’s in town, and he showed me the amount of money they’re making… this ain’t no little shit, Mens.” Landon looked at me. “How do you want to proceed with this?”

“What do you have?” I relaxed in the chair, and listened to my brother break everything down. Landon was like Core and could find anything out with just a few strokes of a keyboard.

He was a headache any other time, however, when he had a computer in front of him, it was a sense of peace that I saw in him. “Nigga was sending the money to his bitch… and she was sending it to her friend’s account. Stevie Raye… you ain’t gonna believe what the fuck I found out.”

“What?”

“She’s related to Skyler… that’s her cousin. I knew the name sounded familiar, so I went and looked her up, and she’s the one that’s been receiving the money into her account.”

I stood up and started pacing with my hands behind my back. “Now Core gonna be all in his feelings because I killed Skyler’s cousin.”

Landon laughed and I turned to look at him and he dropped the smile. “Mens, you dead serious?”

“She fucking stealing from me… hell yeah.”

Landon relaxed back in the chair. “I don’t think she knows about the shit. She really thinks she’s helping a friend out.”

“A friend is sending you large amounts of money and you don’t question the shit?”

Landon raised his eyebrow. “Have you ever met Stevie? She would help a burglar rob her damn house.”

“I want them brought to me… her included.” Before I could even call her, Jeffie came into the room with my smoothie.

“What’s that look that you both giving me?”

“You know Stevie, right?”

“Yes… Skyler’s cousin.” She slowly dragged her words while looking between me and my brother.

“That bitch a thief.”

“She’s not,” Don added.

Jeffie handed me my smoothie and looked between us. “What are you talking about? Stevie is in the Bahamas right now living her best life.”

“You know all that information and ain’t tell me? I thought we were family, Jeff?” I looked at her with a serious expression and she shook her head, dug in her pocket and put a napkin onto the desk.

“Good looks. Lupita makes the best fucking macaroons.” Don tore into the napkin and devoured the first one.

My macaroons that my chef made just for me. “Jeffie, why the fu⁠—”

“I knew Landon was coming over and had Lupita make a few extras. The seventeen you always request are in the kitchen, Maverick.” She cut me off and sat on the edge of the desk. “About Stevie, what does she have to do with anything that you have going on.”

“The bitch is a thief,” I repeated for the second time. She was acting like she couldn’t hear or something.

Jeffie cut her eyes at me and turned toward Don for answers. “I don’t think she knew she was transferring stolen money into her account.”

“Stevie is a little bit out there,” Jeffie agreed with Landon.

“Well, she can be a bit out in that grave when I get my hands on all of them muthafuckas… Get the jet fueled and go with Duke to bring them to me.”

“You’re not going?” Don questioned.

Jeffie snickered. “You know he don’t take spontaneous trips. He has to know about them well in advance… stupid superstition.” She eased up from the desk and walked toward the door.

“You right. I ain’t lived with this nigga in so long that I forgot some shit.” He went back to doing whatever on the computer, and I sat back down in my chair.

“Mens, you cannot kill Skyler’s cousin.”

“Don’t think I asked you, Jeffie,” I replied, snatching my newspaper, then tossing it across the room. “Fucking stealing from me… I give them fucking everything… and they stealing from me!” I roared, pissed.

“Greed.” Jeffie folded her arms, probably feeling lonely since she wasn’t holding that damn iPad in her hands.

“They spending big money, too… hacked into her bank account. Willshire Bahamas… sheesh,” Don whistled as he was scrolling through what I assumed was her transactions. “Dior, Gucci, Prada… bitch has expensive taste.”

I was becoming more angrier by the second. “I’ll go and get everything set for the jet… remember you cannot kill her, Mens.”

She gave me that look on her way out and I ignored her ass. “Why the fuck you still here?” I grumbled and left out the room.

“First you mad I didn’t show up, now you throwing me out,” Don smacked on my macaroons while I headed down the hall to go into the bottom level to my gym.

My blood was boiling and only one thing could control the feeling I got when my blood was hot.

Running on the treadmill until I felt like I was going to fucking vomit.


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