After suffering a horrifying, yet soul stirring death experience, worldwide top bitch Winter Santiaga, of The Coldest Winter Ever, is alive and facing a dilemma that every living person faces: how to respond to the Fear of God, awareness of heaven and hell, while pursuing and satisfying deep desires for sex, fun, love, money, revenge, and fame.
In her new novel, Love After Midnight, Sister Souljah delivers a powerful hip-hop hood style, global romantic comedy.
After suffering a horrifying, yet soul stirring death experience, worldwide top bitch Winter Santiaga, of The Coldest Winter Ever, is alive and facing a dilemma that every living person faces: how to respond to the Fear of God, awareness of heaven and hell, while pursuing and satisfying deep desires for sex, fun, love, money, revenge, and fame.
In her new novel, Love After Midnight, Sister Souljah delivers a powerful hip-hop hood style, global romantic comedy.
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Overview
Sister Souljah asks questions of love and lust, religion and romance in this show-stopping sequel.
After suffering a horrifying, yet soul stirring death experience, worldwide top bitch Winter Santiaga, of The Coldest Winter Ever, is alive and facing a dilemma that every living person faces: how to respond to the Fear of God, awareness of heaven and hell, while pursuing and satisfying deep desires for sex, fun, love, money, revenge, and fame.
In her new novel, Love After Midnight, Sister Souljah delivers a powerful hip-hop hood style, global romantic comedy.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781982180652 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Atria/Emily Bestler Books |
| Publication date: | 10/08/2024 |
| Series: | The Winter Santiaga Series , #3 |
| Sold by: | SIMON & SCHUSTER |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 432 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1: Mood 1 MOOD
Tonight, I need something stronger than weed. It hit me all at once. After being the coolest, nah, the coldest bitch on the planet, it was like, I was getting hit, by an intense heat wave. Then anger overtook me. Fifteen fucking years on lock and finally free. But right now in this moment, I’m more hateful than grateful. Fuck the bullshit. Hate has its place. Suddenly famous, I’m out of my element. I’ve been all Brooklyn, da peeps and da streets or the cells. Upon my prison release in January this year, I caught a reality show starring me. The bag was big. Course I was amped about it. But somehow today... Fame gotta bitch feeling like comfortable is the most uncomfortable feeling. Blank mind. Blank soul. It’s false, empty, and vacant.
I realize I’m addicted to struggle and hustle, moving and maneuvering, fight and fury, action and reaction, pressure and tension. That’s how I got here in this dark club they calling a lounge. See, even the scene and the lingo switched up on me. No matter what they call it though, it’s where I need to be right now. It’s hot. The walls are sweating. Every body is body to body. No air, the scent of perfumes and colognes and funk and strong liquor and scented smoke intermingling. Inhale weed, exhale frustration. Music, louder than thunder. This is how I need to party, with hood bitches who can’t pay their rent, but got $150 mani-pedis, $500 weaves, and $700 shoes. Fuck cameras and papparazzi and the rich crowd of fame, and children of fame. Whether they young or grown, they all be insecure, suicidal, fake, and psychotic. They perform and talk too much about nothing. Think they know everything but never did nothing real. Don’t know the real deal about shit and whine like newborns bout this and that. My party needs to be packed with niggas and bitches who ain’t got a damn thing to actually celebrate, but who keep on pushing, rock the spot, make it pulsate, rhyme, sing, scream, or just mouth the lyrics, eat the beats, and make moves that look like seizures, or others who just lean back or glide and ride the rhythm real smooth.
I party with the ones who got no real reason to be confident, but still be the boldest, baddest, and the coldest. I love that. I crave that. But, in the twenty-first century I find myself chasing a feeling I used to feel. So much so, I am wondering if the feeling I felt before is no more in existence. Somehow, wafted away in the wind. But I’m still here. Ain’t found one man who can make my pussy pump, soul jump, or hips hump. I want to feel something. Make my eyes widen. Make me cry. Make me laugh so hard my stomach aches. Make my nipples plump, my thighs shake, my toes curl. Bite me. Fight me. I’ll bite you back. Excite me. Make me cum six or seven times in one night. That’s the only way for me to feel right and alive. Cause I am alive and love that fact. But neer nigga got that look, style, clout, or that energy. I know what it looks like. When I see it, I’ll snatch it, trap it, and make it mine. But I ain’t seen it day or night, night or day in the short amount of weeks that I have been free, awake, and active.
My bodyguard is with me. My investors insisted. They guard me like gold. My new accountant told me to look at each of my body parts as units of wealth. My time and each and every second as representing a certain dollar amount that I choose as my price quote. Make all pay to play. That’s the only way to prevent people, agents, businesses, and companies from wasting or interrupting my time, which equals my potential earnings. When I think of my name, Winter Santiaga, as a brand, and my body parts each separately as a unit of wealth, that gives me the power to sift out the diamonds and throw away the ordinary rocks, he says. I’m on my private time now, although I’m mixed in with the public at this club. I mean lounge.
Dancing and drenched. My mood and my mind are swirling inside of the music. Don’t even see what nigga pushed up on me. I make my bodyguard stand at least six feet or six bodies away from wherever I am. I tell him, “play dead.” I don’t want him to be a cooler to my hot or my heat or my hunt. He’s in my employ. He has to do what I say. I’m his boss. That kills my desire to mix it up with him, even though he’s all muscle. I don’t want my new love or my husband to be under my command. Then when he’s coming for me, I won’t be able to tell if it’s because of money, lust, admiration, or love. I need it to at least be for lust for sure. A man’s lust makes my lust multiply. It’s okay if he admires me, long as he ain’t acting like a fucking freaky fan groupie or stalker. I mean I love my fans, but I need the man I choose, to not be a fan or a stalker. I need my man to have his own mind, schedule, and schemes, his own money and things, his own style and swag, Word up! I need my man to have 21st-century legit business, sprinkled with a half kilo of 20th-century murder energy. I laugh to myself. But, I’m serious.
Just then, in a flash, or should I say a glance, I spotted an unusually pretty bitch seated at the bar. I’m not about that girl-on-girl action, but I’m definitely about that beauty. I’m it. But I see myself every day. So, therefore, I’m drawn to other unique, beautiful people and things. So I walked over.
“What you drinking?” I asked. She cut her eyes at me. So I said, “Bitch you by yourself! I’m by myself. So what if we the baddest bitches in da club.” She broke out in laughter. I could only tell because of the way the red club light lit up her smile. The music devoured the sound of her laughter. The rough, raspy voice of Jada Kiss rhyming and the Brooklyn flawless flow of fashionable Fabolus sent bitches into a frenzy. The beats through the mega speakers caused the floor beneath my feet to feel unsteady. With one pretty finger, she tapped the bottle seated on the bar top next to her glass. The angle of her hand positioned for me to see her I’m better than the best bitch Rainbow Sapphire bezeled, factory set diamond flooded, yellow gold, beautiful black-faced Daytona Rolex Chronograph Automatic, woah. Costs almost a mil. A piece that only a chick associated with top hustler or the president or the king or queen of some country or a nigga that rules the military would wear.
“D’Ussé,” I saw her lips mouth. Then her eyes searched me like she was asking if I know the liquor. I’m thinking yeah bitch. It just debuted, a big money collaboration between Jigga and Bacardi. Then she used her pointing finger to call me in closer and yelled in my ear, “I can buy my drinks. Just pay for yours.” I gave her a look like of course bitch. Then I flicked my fingers at the bartender. I pointed to her bottle. Then I pointed to myself to let him know, I’ll have what she’s having. I pulled out two racks, from my thousand-dollar stacks, and placed them on the bar top. Had my drink in my hand in a jiffy.
With her booty on the bar seat and back to the party crowd, she was tapping her foot on the lower level of her bar stool and gulping her Cognac. I was sipping mine but then I figured, take it to the head so I could hurry up and fill it up again. After my second drink, I was feeling more than nice. I know when I’m nice. When I’m thinking less and feeling more. She shifted sideways on her bar seat and was facing me now. Her green eyes lit up like lightning bugs from back in my childhood days on the Brooklyn block when we tried to catchem and sneak peaks at them lighting up in the palm of our hands. The slant and shape of her eyes, plus the green, gave her an advantage. If I spot the man I been hunting for and I’m side by side with her, he would still choose me, I told myself. My beautiful brown doe eyes and naturally long black lashes should never be taken for granted. And even though females with green, gray, hazel, or blue eyes get a headstart, the sum total of each of my body parts, including even the dimple in my chin, knocks every next bitch out the box and I know it. She pointed her finger at me then at herself. “Let’s go!” I saw her lips say. I didn’t say nothing back. Just widened my pretty, big eyes like, Where?
“I got a next spot,” she said. “I’ve gone as high as I’mma go here.” She spoke into my ear. When she pulled her face back she had a nice smile and pretty white even teeth. I stood up instead of answering her back. So she got up also. I like a bitch who could drop 2 g’s on a bottle, and leave it behind for the vultures to devour. Now that we are both facing the crowd, we can both see that the niggas in the club could now see us beneath the red light where we are standing. We can feel the niggas bout to move forward towards us. I already know I am not drawn to any one man in here. However, my eyes landed on my bodyguard, who had me square in his iris. Meanwhile she must of saw my eyes lingering on him. She grabbed my hand and pulled me in to her. “Bitches over niggas,” she said. I pulled out of her palm and hand signaled my bodyguard. Of course he caught my meaning. We had practiced and used it enough for the past couple of weeks. He turned and pushed his way through the crowd, moving in the opposite direction of where me and her were standing, and headed to the back door. She turned and gave me an are you coming or not? look. I gave her a look back. We both stepped at the same time in our stilettoes towards the front exit, our hips swinging and pretty legs and thighs moving, our hair swaying and our titties bouncing.
A blast of summer wind rushed our faces once outside. Compared to the lounge atmosphere, hot summer wind is like air-conditioning. Feels good. She reached into her Chanel clutch and pulled out her iPhone. “Beejoo pull up,” she said, to whoever was on the other end before I could put my words together to say, I got a whip and a driver. Tonight I am in the Lamborghini, one of the cars in Santiaga’s Exotic Fleet Dream Car collection. That’s right. My father, who is also my new and first ever business manager, told me, before I drop a bag on a whip to own, I should drive or be driven in the most exotic vehicles I ever dreamed of. “Choose to purchase the ride that complements you. Makes you feel high just looking at it, and even higher once you get inside.” I listen to Poppa. Our love is legendary. I love the way he always has a connect to whatever I need. From then on I been changing whips like I change my nail design. I love not letting niggas know who exactly is in the whip. Keep them watching, guessing, and most importantly keep them off of me, unless I want them on me.
A Mini Cooper pulled up, looking like a Coney Island El Dorado bumper car. I smiled. That shit ain’t it. Ain’t exotic, but... I could definitely camouflage in it for my next nightclub adventure. She opened the front door then turned to wave me into the front seat, saying to me, “You ride shotgun.” I thought she would sit up front herself. I didn’t need her opening doors for me. I don’t know the petite little bitch whose driving her whip. I got in anyway. She hopped in the back, threw her legs up to rest over both back seats, and sat with her back pressed against the driver side rear window.
“Let’s hit up The Box,” she said to her she-driver.
“I got you,” the girl, who must be the one she called Beejoo, said, passionately like she really meant it.
I was both eyes on the front passenger side rearview mirror. My driver had just pulled up behind us. Now I’m watching my big-bodied bodyguard get into the white Lambo. When Beejoo pulled off, they followed. That’s exactly what they suppose to do. My bodyguard makes it possible for a celebrity bitch like me to do whatever the fuck I want to do with whomever the fuck I want to do it with, cause I know I always got invisible backup.
“I’m Beejoo,” she driver said. She has a weird feeling to her. I take a half glance and quick study. She’s very light-skinned, lightweight. Boy hair cut, Caesar style, no titties and small sneaky eyes like a rodent.
“Beejoo?” I repeated even though I had already heard Green Eyes in the back call out her name on the celli.
“I didn’t ask you,” I said, but then added, “but that’s a name I never knew nobody with.”
“That’s Bijoux, B,I,J,O,U,X.” She spelt out each letter of her name with some type of accent spin on it. “It’s French,” she added.
“Your name might be French but you speaking English just like me and you look the same as the next bitch from my hood,” I said, and she took it lightly and laughed.
“True dat! My father is Black American. My mom is white Brazilian,” she announced like it was some type of an upgrade from being a regular hood bitch like the rest of us.
“You’re mixed. Got it,” I said as I took out my phone and Googled Mini Cooper to check the value of this little car.
“Mixed! Oh don’t say that,” she said like I had insulted her.
“You said it first. Like you want to be sure that I know.”
“No I was just introducing myself and most of the time everyone pronounces my name wrong and not one person can ever spell my name right and nobody understands even why it matters. My name means ‘kiss.’” She puckered up her unappealing thin lips. “It also means ‘jewel.’” She raised her hand and jingled the fake crystals she has hanging from a thick thread on her rearview. “But honest kisses are like jewels aren’t they?” she asked, and I’m thinking Is she tryna push up on me?
“And what is your name?” She slid the question in after saying all that.
“Bitch you know who I am,” I said. “You think this is a fucking job interview?”
Green Eyes started laughing, then leaned forward. “Bijoux is mine,” she said. “She works for me. Her job is to not do whatever I am doing, so that I can do what I do. She gets me to where I’m going safely and doesn’t leave till she tucks me in.” She said it like it was normal for a bitch to have a she-butler who’s also a she-driver and maybe she even does karate or got an arsenal with switches in the trunk that makes Green Eyes believe Bijoux can get her home safely. Then she opened up the palm of her hand and pushed it right beside my face, then beneath my eyes.
“You, my Royal Highness... need to take the edge off. Obviously the Cognac didn’t do for you what it did for me.” I looked at the pill, then looked at her. I liked being called Royal Highness, by her.
“It’s way stronger than weed, and it makes you feel like...” She made a sucking sound like she was inhaling the wind through her teeth.
“I’m not no fucking junkie. I don’t want nothing that fucks up my look,” I said calmly.
“How do I look?” she asked swiftly. She pulled her head back some so that I could take a good look at her. She was smiling like she was posing for a flick. Her eyes sparkled and her teeth were pure white. I had already studied the rest of her, her form and her flesh and her fashions and her angle and attitude. She is top tier. She pulled her hand back and closed her pill palm. Her manicure was doped-off the way I like it. Not nails that are long like animal claws, that make it impossible for a bitch to thoroughly clean her own body or wipe her own ass. Not nails sharp and pointed like knives that make a bitch look like a dangerous beast. And, not raggedy or jagged nails clipped too short, without design or precision, like how some sloppy or boring bum bitch might do hers. I tapped her palm. She lifted it up and opened it again. I picked up the pill and popped it into my mouth. Why not? That was my first thought of the night. I need something stronger than weed.