For the past two weeks, my girls had been with me. Today, I wanted to turn two weeks into forever. Bella was with her mom for a few hours since she was off work today. I couldn’t wait to see both of my girls.
Thunder rumbled the house as I sprinkled red rose petals from the front door all the way to Jameela’s bedroom. I tossed my phone on the dresser so it wouldn’t get wet while I was outside.
I’d left the champagne and my baby’s personal roses in the car, so I dashed out to grab them while I still had a chance. I made it back from my car just in time for the bottom of the sky to fall out again.
I’d had the ring stuffed in my pocket all day long. A five-carat pink diamond set in rose gold. It was perfect for my queen, mi reina. I wanted to make it special. I had been racking my brain about how to make the moment just right.
At the end of the day, how I asked her wasn’t as important as what I planned to do afterward. I wanted every day to be special for my girls. No matter how sure I felt about Jameela, I was nervous as hell about asking her to be in my life forever.
I needed something to drown out the thoughts racing through my head and putting my nerves on ten. So, I walked over to her dresser and grabbed my phone. I wasn’t usually a nosy nigga, but the feeling of something cold and hard made me flip the folder back.
A smile curved my lips when I saw a Glock. I’d expected to find something small and dainty like the little purple .22 she carried in her purse, but my baby was packing some serious heat. The pride swelling in my chest instantly deflated when the shiny metal object resting right next to her gun caught my eye.
A badge.
I reached for it but snatched my hand back as it registered why a badge with Officer Jameela Sutton etched in blue would be sitting on her dresser. Sutton? I flipped open the folder that I’d shoved out of the way. My knees buckled when the first thing I noticed was a picture of me.
Target: Nicholas Toriano King, wire fraud, racketeering, money laundering.
Jameela was a cop. Not only was the woman I loved a police officer, but she was investigatingme. My legs gave out, lowering me to the bed as I scanned through the documents. I sat on her bed and read through pages and pages of her describing our times together and mentioning my patterns and inconsistencies.
There were surveillance reports and even a wiretap request. She had been wearing a wire on one of our dates! What the fuck? I swept everything off the dresser, sending the paperwork flying through the air and her beloved badge crashing to the floor.
I knew I needed to hold it together. I needed to know how far her treachery went. I needed to know what she knew. Jameela had a list of my businesses, even ones that I never mentioned to her. She listed the trips that I had taken her on and who was present. She kept a record of it all.
Jameela even logged the money I gave her, the car, the simple things I bought her and Bella just because. She even noted the dates and times that we met just to let the girls play. Every fucking moment that I’d spent falling in love was just a footnote in an investigation to her. Everything we shared sat in front of me, twisted and tainted into evidence in a month-long investigation. How had I missed this?
Her questions were subtle. There was nothing that stood out. Even her pulling away didn’t set off any alarms. I searched my mind for any evidence that I had missed the signs. At the end, the only thing I came up with was betrayal. How long had shebeen playing me? From the liquor store? The first night at the casino?
Was this all just a fucking job to her? The job I thought I was protecting her from was all about taking me down. With all the air gut punched out of me, I sank down in a recliner in her living room. Tears rushed down my face hot and silent. I couldn’t believe I was fucking crying.
I didn’t cry. I hadn’t cried since the first time my mom overdosed when I was ten. In just a few months, this woman had made me cry twice. Now I was questioning everything. Every single late-night call, every single question that came out of the blue, everything I had charged to us getting to know each other better. Was any of it real?
I didn’t know how long it took for Jameela to get home. When she made it, I was still in the same position in the chair in her living room. The surprise on her face when she saw me sitting there melted into a soft smile. She was happy to see me. I didn’t react to her presence at first. When her eyes fell to my lap, the smile died on her lips.
“What’s going on, baby?”
Using what strength I had left, I stood from my seat and crossed the room to stand in front of her. She took a step back, but I caught her hand before she could run and pressed the gun into it. I wrapped her fingers around the grip and raised it until the barrel was aimed at my heart. Her hand trembled, but I held it in place.
“What are you doing, Nicholas?”
“You’re a fucking cop?” I asked, voice low and even. I didn’t like that she didn’t immediately blurt out that I was mistaken. “Tell me I’m wrong, Jameela. Tell me you’re not a fucking cop, baby.Don’tdo this to me.”
Her face crumpled, but she still didn’t offer the protest my heart needed to hear. It was true. It was all true.
16
Jameela
My throat felt like it was constricted. I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe. The purse hanging on my shoulder still held the weight of my everyday carry, but the one in my hand was different. It was my service pistol. I’d handled it a thousand times, but this time felt foreign.
Now the gun I’d learned to handle with ease felt like dead weight in my hand. It was colder, heavier than it should have been. Nicholas’s heart pounded, vibrating steadily against the barrel of the gun.
The expression on his face was eerily calm as he stared me down as if I was the target. This was not how it was supposed to go. The pain in his eyes pierced me deeper than any bullet ever would. I wanted to snatch the gun and toss it across the room. I wanted to wrap my arms around Nicholas and tell him that it wasn’t what he thought it was, but I couldn’t.
The rose petals strewn across my floor mocked me. I didn’t have to ask what he was doing here because it was clear.Nicholas was here to surprise me and ended up getting a surprise of his own.
The music playing at a low volume haunted me with every note. What should have been a romantic gesture was tainted with the truth. This wasn’t for me. Nicholas had scattered rose petals to set the mood for the woman who loved and wanted to protect him, not for the woman who was secretly plotting his demise every day.
