I looked up at him. "Will your guards be in there monitoring us the whole time?"
"Of course," he said. "Unless you want to be home by yourself all day."
I thought about it for a second. My girls. A full spa day. Even with guards, it was better than being locked up. "I'll call them."
"Good," he said. "Im about to grab your phone so you can set it up.”
He came back into the room with my phone in hand. I grabbed it and called Nyla and River on three-way. They lost their minds when I told them. A spa day? Paid for? They were already planning what they wanted done. Less than twenty minutes later, everything was set.
This nigga was being too damn nice that it almost made me nervous. This mean ass man was being not so mean today.
When I came back to bed, I laid down and he pulled me against him the same way he had the night before. His arm around my waist. My head on his chest. The steady rhythm of his heartbeat putting me to sleep.
This was becoming our routine. And I wasn't fighting it anymore.
---
I woke up to an empty bed.
But this time I wasn't surprised. He'd told me he'd be gone. I checked my phone. 6:47am. The car was supposed to pick up Nyla and River at 8. That gave me time to shower and get ready.
By 8:15, they were walking through the front door of the compound, both of them already complaining before they even saw me.
"Why the hell did we have to be blindfolded again?" River was saying. "I feel like I'm being kidnapped all over again."
"And they took our phones," Nyla added. "Like we're in prison."
River cut her off the second she saw me.
"Okay, so real question," she said, walking straight toward me. "Why in the HELL did you let Kaseem knock Savion's teeth out like that?"
I froze.
"What?" I asked.
"Girl, it's all over social media," River said. "Well, it WAS all over social media before they took our phones. Kaseem walked into Greyson Fitness yesterday and beat that man like he owed him money. Two teeth knocked out. Broken nose. The whole gym saw it."
My stomach dropped and my heart started racing at the same time.
"He did what?" I asked, but I already knew. This had to be about Savion texting me back after I asked him not to. Did Kaseem go through my phone and find those messages or did he do this just off the strength.
“Are you sure that it was Kaseem? I can’t see him doing that,” I lied.
"Hell yeah! I know what that man looks like. Beat. Him. Down," Nyla said slowly. "In front of everybody. And apparently he told that man that you were his wife and to never contact you again."
I felt heat rush through my whole body. Anger. Fear. And underneath it all, something else that I knew I shouldn’t befeeling while hearing this. Damn, Savion didn’t deserve that. But hearing Kaseem fighting for what was his, that made me blush like a muthafucka.
"I would show you the videos if I had my phone," River continued. "But apparently your husband is controlling enough to take ours away. That's crazy, by the way."
I was pissed. Not at Kaseem for handling Savion. I was pissed because he did it without telling me. He beat a man down for me and didn't even mention it and I never would have known if River never told me. And that made me feel some type of way that I wasn't ready to feel.
At that moment, one of the guards walked into the room holding a stack of money. Five thousand dollars, thick and crispy.
"Are the ladies ready to depart?" he asked me.
My mind was still on Kaseem. On what he'd done. On the fact that he'd claimed me in front of the entire city and the world wide internet.
"Yeah," I said. "We’re ready."
