Page 22 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

The fear of this conversation I’d been avoiding for a while now, the one I’d promised myself I was finally gonna come clean about tonight over dinner. I was still gonna come clean, now it wasn’t gonna happen over candlelight and after a good conversation. It was gonna happen with my daughter missing and my husband’s whole world already falling apart. Now I had to break even more fucked up news to him.

Just as I felt my mind about to spiral completely out my control, I heard knocking at the door.

I stood up off that sofa fast while Nyla went to answer it. Kaseem, Namier, and Zaire all walked in together, filling up that whole living room with the kind of tension you could feel pressing against your chest, hard. Nyla ran straight to Namier, jumping up into his arms like she hadn’t seen him in weeks instead of just a few hours. Zaire stood off to the side looking annoyed, his jaw tight, and I understood that completely given everything he’d probably already been through tonight. Kaseem rushed past both of them straight to me while Zaire found a spot on the far end of the room, making himself comfortable, watching everything unfold with them sharp, quiet eyes of his.

Kaseem grabbed my face with both his hands, looking me dead in my eyes, and I broke down crying all over again just from that look alone. He pulled me straight into his chest and whispered into my ear, telling me everything was gonna be okay, that we was gonna get Nariyah back safe.

“I really need to talk to you alone,” I told him, my voice shaking.

He grabbed my hand without a single question and led me outside, out into the yard, away from everybody else’s ears.

As much as every part of me wanted to beat around the bush, wanted to find some soft way into this, I already knew that wasn’t an option tonight. This was life or death now. I needed to come clean with my husband, no matter whatever may it cost me.

“Before I let you take the blame thinking this whole war is the reason my daughter got kidnapped,” I said, forcing myself to look him in his eyes even though everything in me wanted to look away, “I need you to know it wasn’t. This is my fault. I didn’t tell you the whole truth when I should have.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he said, his face scrunching up, confusion and impatience both covering his face. I was taking too long getting the words out, and I could feel him losing his patience by the second. “Tattiana!”

“Kaseem, I love you more than anything in this world,” I said, the words tumbling out fast now, desperate to get them out before I lost my nerve completely. “You came into my life and gave me a love I ain’t never experienced before, a love I didn’t even know I needed till you married me. And naturally, I ain’t want to do or say nothing that could jeopardize that, that could make me lose you. I never once lied to you in this marriage, but there was some information I ain’t disclose, cause I was scared. Scared to lose you. I ain’t find out the full truth till after our wedding already happened, and by then I was just… scared.”

“You finna piss me off if you don’t come on and say the shit,” he said, his voice getting harder now, sharper. “Clock ticking, Tattiana, and life is not a game! I need to get back out in these streets tonight. I already made calls before I even got here. His car, his cards, anything attached to him will be flagged and sent to me tonight. It’s about to be an end to all this other shit before the sun come up. So what’s up? What you ain’t tell the truth about? And what the fuck it got to do with baby girl getting snatched up tonight?”

“You remember I told you about that summer I got pregnant?” I said.

“Yeah.” His eyes narrowed. “You was with your aunt, and some fuck nigga tricked you, ran off on you after everything went left. That’s how all that shit with your aunt blackmailing you started in the first place. And I still gotta see her bitch ass too. I ain’t forgot about that.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I said, my voice breaking apart. “The father of my daughter. The nigga who left me to take the fall for everything that happened that summer. His name is Demontae Sullivan.” I watched something start to shift in Kaseem’s face already, some understanding creeping in before I even finished. “The same man you at war with right now. And Kaseem… he’s also your brother.”

Kaseem’s eyes went wide, and I watched something drain straight out his face, watched him take a step back from me like I’d physically hit him.

“What?” he said, his voice low, dangerous. “Hell nah. And what you mean he’s my brother? What would make you say some shit like that? Tell me that you making this shit up about him being your kid father! Tell me that you didn’t keep something this big from me! Knowingly!”

“I didn’t know, Kaseem!” I said, tears streaming hard down my face now, my whole body shaking. “I swear to you, I didn’t know. When I was going through them files from the judge’s computer, trying to get Zaire out that prison, I saw that Demontae was the informant. I put it together right then, realized that was who you was at war with. I was so scared to tell you, cause I didn’t want to lose you, and at the same time, we needed to keep everything focused on getting Zaire home safe. I didn’t want your vision clouded with something like that in the middle of everything else you had on your plate.”

“Lying to me is exactly what’s gonna make you lose me, Tattiana!” His voice cracked through the night air, loud enough I flinched. “I been nothing but solid with you. I put you in business you should’ve never even known nothing about. I trusted you with my whole life, my freedom, everything that was real to me, and the biggest thing that I should have known, you kept it from me? How the fuck am I supposed to be with somebody I can’t trust like that? This nigga left a dead body on my property. Tried to kill my brother in prison. Kidnapped my momma tonight. Kidnapped your fuckin daughter too. And simply from you telling me the truth before, and who the fuck he was to begin with could’ve avoided a whole lot of this shit. A whole lot of it.” He shook his head slow, his jaw twitching. “Man. I can’t even fuckin look at you right now.”

“What do you mean, your momma got kidnapped?” I said, my whole chest seizing up from hearing that for the first time. “Kaseem, please, hear me out. I was scared. I did what I thought was right to protect my marriage, to protect us.”

“Yeah! Yo old lover kidnapped my damn momma today! My pops texted me when I made it here,” he said, cutting me off cold. “Said that she’s finally made it home safe. But that’s beside the whole point right now. I begged you for the truth repeatedly, and you lied to me with a straight face. And how the fuck you even figure that’s my brother?”

“The night Mallory was at the gate,” I said, forcing myself through it even though every word felt like it was tearing something open inside me, “I opened your mom’s mail. It came to our house by accident. He’d sent her a letter, said he was looking for her. It came from one of them ancestry websites. I know it was legit, Kaseem, cause it had the DNA results attached, a handwritten letter from him too. I confronted her about it, and she begged me not to tell y’all. Said she needed to tell y’all herself, on her own time, but had some things she needed to handle first. That wasn’t my story to tell, Kaseem. I tried to respect what she asked of me, and now I can’t undo none of it.”

“I don’t know who the fuck I married,” he said, shaking his head slow, backing further away from me. “And that shit crazy to sit here and realize right now. I’ll get your daughter back to you. I promise you that. But you gotta give me some time away from you before I do something real bad to yo ass. I mean something I can’t take back. I can’t even look at you right now.”

He turned and walked past me, straight back into the house.

“Namier! Zaire! It’s time to roll,” he called out, his voice hard, all business now. “Come on, I’ll be in the truck.”

He walked back outside past me again, and I reached out fast, grabbing at his arm, but he snatched away from me hard enough that I stumbled a little.

“Kaseem, please,” I said, following behind him, my voice breaking apart completely now. “Please just talk to me.”

I grabbed the back of his shirt, desperate, not ready to let him walk away from me like this.

He spun around fast, faster than I expected, and grabbed my face with one hand, forcing me to look him dead in his eyes, his grip firm but not rough, like even in all that rage, some part of him was still being careful with me.

“Leave me alone right now,” he said, his voice cracking, something raw and exhausted dripping through all that anger. “I’m begging you, man. I love you. I really do. But how much can a nigga really take? Get in the house. Stop following me right now. I’ll send for you soon, and we can figure out where we go from there.”

He let go of my face and walked off toward that truck.