Page 1 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

Tatti’s father had just left, and I walked over to check on her.

“You good?” I asked, watching her face for any sign that conversation had left her worse off than when it started.

“Yes,” she said, and I could see it in her eyes, something had genuinely shifted for her. “Things went a lot better than I expected them to. I told him I’d try.”she said, and I was really proud of her. No, I didn’t agree with everything that he did, but I knew that he truly loved her.

I kissed her face, soft, right on her cheek.

“I’m taking you out for dinner tonight,” I told her. “We gonna talk about all of it on our date. Find something nice to wear for me.”

She thanked me, smiling for the first time all morning. We hugged and I ain’t want to let her go. I told her that today, I had this first drop since Zaire got home, so I was riding out with him and Namier to oversee it today. I told her I’d be back later. She told me to be safe. I kissed her again on my way out the door and told her that I loved her.

Walking out that house, I sat with how easy it had gotten to say that to her now. A year ago that word wasn’t even in my vocabulary when it came to a woman. She had my mind gone, and I laughed to myself thinking about it on the way to my car.

I picked Zaire up first. He climbed in looking fresh, smelling like money, adjusting back into his old ways faster than I expected. He’d always been a fly nigga, and it did something to my chest seeing him back out here living instead of locked behind bars where the system tried to keep him.

We swung by Namier’s next, but he wasn’t home. I called him, and he picked up telling me he’d stayed at Nyla’s overnight, was getting dressed now, on his way to the spot.

When I hung up, Zaire looked over at me from the passenger seat.

“You niggas heads ain’t even in the game right now, and I feel like y’all are getting soft,” he said. “That’s why I gotta do everything.”

“What the fuck you talking about, nigga?” I said. “You just got home. What you done did already? I been letting you adjust, but clearly you ready to jump back in this shit, head first. Let me see what you got in you.”

Zaire just laughed, shook his head. “You don’t even know the half of it.”

We got to the warehouse an hour later, and Namier pulled up right as we did. Zaire clowned him the second he stepped out his car, telling him he was pussy whipped, and Namier didn’t even try to deny it.

Namier and Zaire walked the floor with the team, clipboards in hand, marking off product while everybody else loaded trucks for the customers. I hung back, watching my brothers move, taking note of how neither one of them played when it came to this business, no matter what personal mess either of them had going on outside these walls.

Mars caught my eye from across the floor, nodded once, then looked away fast. I shrugged it off, ain’t think nothing of it in the moment. Usually we’d chop it up, but I guess he was preoccupied today.

Once everything wrapped up and we were leaving the location to get into our cars, Zaire told Namier to ride with us, said he had something to show us both. Namier agreed to leave his car there for now, telling our brother that whatever he was about to show us, better be good. I kept asking him the whole way what it was, but he wouldn’t give it up, just handed me an address. When I put the address in, I instantly realize that it was our old trap house.

We pulled up, walked inside, and what I saw stopped me cold my tracks.

“Man, who the fuck is this,” I said, “and why the fuck you got her here? You just got home and this what you doing already? You know this ain’t how we move. You must want to go back.”

Namier shook his head slow, standing behind me.

“It ain’t what y’all think,” Zaire said, calm, and he reached down and snatched the tape off her mouth, made her repeat everything to us straight from her own lips.

“Mallory did what?” I said, my chest going tight.

“Where yo bitch ass baby daddy at?” I barked, stepping closer to her.

“I don’t know,” she said, crying, “but I’m supposed to get my son from him today. He’s probably been calling me. Please, let me do this. Let me call my best friend, have her go get my son. He’ll be safe with her, please don’t hurt him. I can have Demon meet her someplace public. Then y’all can follow him and do whatever you need to do. Just please, let my baby be out of this whole thing.”

I looked at my brothers. We all nodded at each other without saying a word. I’d handle Mallory later, and the grimy bitch was definitely getting handled. Today, I needed Demon dead for everything he’d already taken from this family.

We powered her phone on, and I called her friend on speaker first, Brit acted normal, and asked if she could keep Sonny for her today and pick him up from his dad. The friend agreed easy, no questions. Then I dialed Demon’s number myself, made sure Mallory understood not to try nothing funny while I held that phone up to her face.

He picked up on the second ring, already going off before she said a word.

“Bitch, where the fuck are you? I been calling you all day. I got shit to handle and I can’t do it while I’m stuck with my son. What’s up? I need to drop him off now.”

“I got tied up with clients, nigga,” Brit said, her voice shaking but holding steady enough to sell it. “Miracle said she can meet you in an hour, Trader Joe’s, North Dallas.”

“You done made me late for a whole meeting,” he snapped. “Don’t ask me for shit else for a minute with yo deadbeat ass.” He hung up before she could say anything back.