James followed suit, and Kennedy was right on their asses, watching to ensure they left her salon without doing some shady shit. As soon as they were gone, and she saw them climbing into their vehicle through the window, she hauled ass back into heroffice—locking her door behind her before beelining straight for the mirrors tacked on the wall behind her desk. Relic was dead set on accepting his karma, but she refused to take any chances with her own. Her thoughts flooded with her next moves as she gripped the mirror in the center on both sides like she’d watched him do. Before she could remove it, her purse blared and juddered on her desk, causing her heart to ram against her chest.
“Fuck!”
She released the mirror and tousled her braids with a strained laugh, shaking off her nerves before she snatched up her purse to fish her phone out of it. As if he knew that she was up to no good, Relic’s name covered the screen.
“How can I help you?” she answered before spinning in a circle, inspecting the walls and corners. It didn’t cross her mind until that moment; Relic could’ve put cameras in her office like his home.
“What are you doing, Larenn?”
“Nothing. Just finished eating and was about to run a few errands.”
“We can run them together then. I’m about to scoop you up in thirty minutes. I want to show you something.”
She cursed under her breath before reminding him, “I drove. What about my car?”
“I can swing you back there to get it, Kennedy. Don’t you have to lock up the salon, anyway? Fuck are all these excuses for? Yo other nigga there or something?”
“Nope. Just a salon full of women talking about you and your other bitch.”
The line went so silent; Kennedy removed the phone from her ear to check if Relic was still there. The mostain’t shit funnylaugh shot from her before he sighed.
“Look, would you rather fuss about the same shit on a new day, or see what I want to show you?”
“I feel like this is a trick question. Is it multiple choice or...?”
“Just bring your ass outside when you see me pull up, and leave that stank ass attitude in there.”
He hung up in her ear, and her eyes rolled before she dropped her phone back into her purse and then turned to face the mirror hiding the answers to her problems behind it. Relic had interrupted her mission, but she’d figure out a solution before the day was out. Another situation crossed her mind, and she spun to shove her hand to the bottom of her bag, shuffling items around to locate the card Morrone had given her.
One thing Kennedy had learned from Relic was that if she wanted shit done right, she had to do it herself. It was time she took certain matters into her own hands.
“What’s on your mind, Larenn?”
Relic stole a glance at Kennedy before he tapped the volume button on his steering wheel, lowering the music she had turned on as soon as she’d hopped inside his car. Outside of greeting him, she hadn’t spoken, and he could tell that her mind was elsewhere because she hadn’t even mentioned Aura. He’d been driving for the better half of an hour, and she’d spent most of it with her pensive stare aimed out his passenger window. Relic knew she was lost in her head when she didn’t respond to his question.
“Kennedy!”
She jumped like she forgot he was with her and then angled in her seat to glare at him.
“Why are you yelling like we aren’t in arm’s distance from each other?”
“Because I called you, and you didn’t hear me. Where is your head at?”
She spun to face the front and answered, “Nowhere. I just had a long day. Hell, days, because it’s like everything has been nonstop since we got home. I haven’t gotten the chance to slow down.”
“And you won’t. You know what is about to happen, and what’s at stake. Every minute is of the essence, so we don’t have the luxury to waste time. That’s what the vacay was for.”
“I know that, Relic. You asked what was on my mind, so I told you.”
“Had I known it was complaints, I would’ve ignored your ass over there, drifting in another world.”
“My own world. You’ve gotten so used to me being in yours that you forgot the shit I have going on isn’t always about you.”
Relic frowned and directed his attention back onto the road instead of feeding her statement for it to grow into an argument. If he did, he’d have to acknowledge that he was aware of her actions not revolving around him since if that was the case, her audacious ass wouldn’t creep around his home on her prepaid phone whenever he was gone.
Even with her knowing he’d found out, and that there were cameras in his home, neither detail stopped Kennedy from skinning, grinning, and snickering more than he had ever witnessed while that fucking device was glued to her palm. He watched every night from the surveillance on his phone. The days she seemed happiest while doing it were the days he allowed Aura to post him on her close friends, hoping it’d get under her damn skin. Kennedy’s late-night sessions had gotten so frequent that he’d stooped to a new low and snooped through her phone like a simp ass nigga to find out who she’d become more invested in than him. Relic was tempted to choke her outof her sleep after he’d noted she scrubbed it so fucking clean, it was like she had done a factory reset on it.
“I scheduled our meeting with Morrone.” He resorted to telling that lie to gauge her reaction, but made a mental note to do it ASAP since it seemed like him and time were in a close race.
