“Ohhh, so you’re the famous girl from Ares’ Forbes party? The sweet event planner,” Leona cooed, her words slick with liquor. “Didn’t realize party favors came in Chanel sweaters.”
Amara straightened, polite as ever. “I’m just doing my job and like to dress nice doing it.”
Leona leaned closer, a smirk curving. “Sure. Keep the flowers fluffed, keep the candles lit. That’s all he really needs you for, right?”
That was it. I put my drink down and stepped forward before I thought twice.
“Funny you calling somebody a party favor,” I said, my voice cutting through the bass, “when you were the one who had to take care of a pregnancy problem not too long ago, because you were the real party favor.”
The whole section froze.
Leona’s smile vanished. Her eyes burned, glassy and dangerous. “What the fuck you just say to me, fat bitch?”
“You heard me.” I folded my arms, steady. “Thw world don’t forget rumors that loud. Ares made you abort that baby, and we all know why.”
Her hand snapped fast, grabbing a Don Julio bottle off the table. She swung before I could react, glass cracking against my shoulder and grazing my temple. Pain shot white-hot, but I didn’t stumble.
I swung back, fist connecting with her cheek. She shrieked, clawing, and we crashed into the velvet couch. Drinks spilled,people screamed. The whole crowd lit up with phones out, flashes popping like fireworks.
“Somebody send this to Shaderoom!” somebody hollered.
Amara tried to move in, reaching for Leona’s arm, but the crowd shoved her sideways. She went tumbling into a table—glasses shattered, liquor soaking her sweater, her headset falling to the floor. She looked stunned, like she hadn’t signed up for this kind of battlefield.
Security finally swarmed us, dragging Leona and me apart. My shoulder throbbed, blood warm at my hairline, but I was still ready for another round. Leona was screaming, face twisted, rhinestones falling off her dress like tears.
And Amara… she just stood there, clutching her sweater closed, wide-eyed, silent in the chaos.
I caught her gaze. “I don’t got no issue with you,” I told her low, so only she could hear. “Don’t let her trick you into thinking I do.”
She blinked at me, shocked. Then she nodded once, quick, grateful.
And right then, I knew—out of all the women in this messy love feud, she was the one who wasn’t playing games.
CHAPTER 9
Ares “Lil Ghost” Delacroix-Jackson
“Five Women, No Attachments”
Marseille was where I came to breathe. Where I didn’t have to think about my women, or the streets, or the vultures back in Los Angeles trying to keep me in the blogs like I was a celebrity. I was a businessman, and a leader, not a nigga dying for attention. But when you had a bunch of popular women like I had, it was almost impossible not to be seen.
Don’t get me wrong—I loved my women. I chose them. Every one of them had a place in me.
Whenever I touched down here, I never stayed at my grandfather’s estate like the rest of the Delacroix clan. I kept my distance two hours away, checking into my own suite, Penthouse 17, at the La Couronne, windows opening out over Aix-en-Provence. Cognac on ice. Room service women who smiled too long. Peace.
Peace I didn’t get in California.
But France wasn’t safer. The mafia wars here ran deeper than colors back home. Names, generations, grudges carved into marble. A black man in the middle of it should’ve beendead already. But I’d been crowned. I wasn’t just Ares. I was Delacroix.
The call came in while I was finishing a glass of cognac, shirt open, fresh from a meeting.
Maman.My mother.
“You need to come to the estate,” she said, not asking.
So I closed my laptop and put my suit back on because my grandfather hated casual clothing. I went outside and signaled my driver, letting him roll the bulletproof Rolls-Royce through streets older than my bloodline. Guns tucked in every corner. Eyes in every alley. France wasn’t my sanctuary… it was my battlefield.
The estate glowed against the night like a museum, all marble pillars and golden gates. Security swarmed.
