And Ares was there. He didn’t say sorry for your loss. He didn’t hug me. He just showed up. He took me with him when he hit back at the niggas who did it, made me sit in the car while he handled business. I watched him come out of that house, blood on his clothes, eyes darker than I’d ever seen. That was the night I realized Malik was gone, but I still had someone.
I’ve been with him ever since. A decade in his shadow. A decade of him helping me build into a legitimate businesswoman. A decade in his bed. I had always been into fitness, so he bought me a workout studio, and I had been in business for six years, teaching Pilates.
So when I say Ares wasn’t new to me, I meant it. The world saw a billionaire. I saw the same nigga who used to sneak out Malik’s window with a pistol tucked in his waistband.
Tonight, it was just us.
Thematte red bulletproof AMG Benzslid through wet LA streets low and mean, the kind of car you’d expect from a rich hood nigga, not a man Forbes just crowned a billionaire. That’s what I loved about him. He never stopped being who he was. No matter how high he climbed, he still touched the ground.
One hand on the wheel, the other massaging my thigh, he drove like a lunatic. Maybe he was. I leaned back, smirking at the way people’s heads turned when the Benz purred past.
We were supposed to be on a date. Wine, late-night food, maybe a blunt on the beach. But his phone rang, and that was it. Business. Always business.
“You rolling with me,” he said, no question.
“Always,” I told him.Because where else would I be?
We pulled up to a gated estate in Beverly Hills, the kind with marble columns and guards thicker than linebackers. I knew this wasn’t a regular meeting.
Inside, the air smelled like cigars and old money. Long mahogany table, crystal glasses, men in tailored suits speaking in sharp French. All of them were white men. All of them are Delacroix blood.
Ares walked in, black-on-black everything, dimples cutting when he smirked at his mom. Genevive was already there, sipping wine like the hood-mafia princess she’d always been.She spoke to me briefly and kissed me on the cheek. Genevive treated all of us like her daughter-in-law when she saw us.
The men looked at Ares like he didn’t belong.
But he made sure they knew he did.
He slid into the seat at the head of the table like it was carved for him.
“On commence?” he said, voice smooth.Shall we begin?
I sat beside him, quiet, legs crossed, nails tapping on my glass. I’d been to these meetings before. I knew my role. Watch. Listen. Be his shadow. I had been around Ares so much that I learned French. He would teach me on drunken nights, thinking I wasn’t taking it in. I even took an online class. I could understand it, but I sounded like an idiot when I spoke it. So I wasn’t dumb to what was being said around me.
The talk turned fast. Money owed. Territory disrespected. A French cousin was trying to smooth things over, pretending the debt wasn’t serious.
Ares let them talk. Let them sweat. Then leaned back, voice low and cold. “Le respect n’est pas négociable.”Respect isn’t negotiable.
You could feel the tension choke the air.
One of the men, who was fat, pale, and arrogant, scoffed. “You think because your grandfather lets you sit at this table, you’re one of us? You’ll never be Delacroix. You’re just a nigger playing gangster.”
The room stilled.
Ares smirked. Slow. Deadly.
He pulled his gun out and put a bullet in the man’s head before anyone could blink.
Blood sprayed across the white tablecloth. The man’s glass toppled, red wine spilling.
Nobody screamed. Nobody gasped. Not even me.
Because that was Ares. He didn’t like fear around him.
He wiped the barrel with his napkin, set the gun back down, and leaned forward, eyes sweeping the table like the king he was. He loosened his tie.
“Quelqu’un d’autre veut parler?”Anyone else want to speak?
Nobody did.
