Page 7 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

Everything went left in a matter of seconds after that. Demontae’s men came in, guns drawn and they were ready to use them. The look on their faces let me know they already had clear instructions, and that was to kill anything moving.

Before I could even process what was happening, I had a gun pressed against me and I was being dragged backward out that warehouse, leaving my other three sons standing there while men with assault rifles, had every intention of killing them. I let out a gut wrenching scream as I pleaded with Demontae. But he just kept dragging me.

I had my own weapon tucked at my waist, but the way Demontae had me positioned, dragging me back with his arm locked around me, there wasn’t no way I could reach it. And the second that thought crossed my mind, he snatched it straight off my waist himself, like he’d just read my mind.

He threw open the passenger door of his car and shoved me down into that seat.

“Get out this car and I swear I’m gone shoot you down to the muthafuckin ground,” he said, his voice shaking with something between rage and pure panic, and for the first time in my whole life, I felt genuinely scared to test a man. He felt like he’d been set up, so I believed that he’d do what he said he would. And the way that this was looking, I understood why he felt that way. But I promise, I had no idea that my boys were going to show up here like this. In my mind, they were gonna be busy for the day handling business.

He came around to his side of that car in less than a second flat, one gun pointed straight at me, the other hand back on the wheel, and he peeled out that parking lot so fast the tires screamed against the pavement. He hit the child locks the second we cleared the lot, making sure I had nowhere to run even if I wanted to try.

“Please, call your men and tell them to stand down,” I said, my voice cracking despite everything in me trying to hold it together. “You cannot hurt your own brothers, Demontae. This needs to stop. NOW! I came out here to talk to you before things got this far, I swear to you I did not know they’d show up today. I’m just as shocked as you, and that’s why I stood in front of you, to keep this shit from going any further.

We don’t even use that warehouse anymore, so I thought it was safe. What Kaseem told you back there, that was the truth. If you hurt me, if you hurt them, you will not walk away from this. Be smart, son. Please.”

“Bitch, shut the fuck up talking to me,” he snapped, not even glancing my way, eyes locked hard on the road ahead. “You think I’m stupid? You really think I’m about to believe a single word coming out your mouth right now? Anybody who know me, know I grew up in the system. Never had no family and that I’d been looking for my biological mother since I was a youngin. You just using that shit right now trying to get in my head, but I ain’t dumb enough to fall for it.”

“Listen to me,” I said, keeping my hands slow, visible, nonthreatening. “Here’s the letter. I’m gonna reach real slow and pass it over to you. How would I have gotten my hands on this? How would you have written to a random stranger who just happens to share my exact same initials? Explain that to me if I’m lying. This letter came to my house, addressed to me. I’m Zuri Carter. The same ZC initials they gave you.

I passed him that folded paper, careful, watching his face the whole time.

He snatched it out my hand rough, laid it flat across his lap for a second before grabbing the wheel back with his right hand, steadying the car. Then he looked back down at it, skimmed it fast while somehow still keeping his eyes flicking up to the road, before settling his gaze back out the windshield.

“What the fuck?” he muttered, shaking his head slow, like his whole world had just shifted underneath him and he ain’t know which way was up no more.

“Demontae, I never wanted this for you,” I said, my voice breaking apart even as I tried to hold it steady. “For neither one of us. I know you want answers, and I want you to have every single one of them, I do. But please, make your men stand down first. Please.”

He sat with that for a second, and I could see him actually contemplating it, weighing it in his head, before something in his face hardened right back up again.

“Hell nah,” he said. “Them niggas back there is your sons, right? You kept them? You been protecting them their whole life, and now you sitting here asking me to spare their asses?” He let out a short, bitter laugh. “The way I see it, fuck them niggas. They lived they good ass lives while I been out here struggling my entire muthafuckin existence. They got you. They got Kadeem. They had a good ass two parent household, both of y’all right there every single day, while I been a grown ass man since I was nine years old, cause I ain’t never had no fuckin choice in the matter. And you sitting here asking me to spare the exact niggas you chose over me?” His voice cracked, just barely, just enough for me to catch it. “Fuck that. Why wasn’t I good enough for y’all? Kadeem ain’t want his own son? But the others was good enough for y’all to keep? They had the life I never did, and you are sitting here begging me to spare them.”

I saw the pain sitting all over his face just as clear as I heard it shaking through every single word he threw at me.

Now I had some real explaining to do, and all I could do was pray, silently, desperately, that I could still find some way to get every last one of us out of this alive. I had to break it to him that Kadeem wasn’t his father, and that’s what started all of this. But looking at how he was driving this car, I knew that he wasn’t about to take anything that I had to say well.

I sat in the office going through emails, a little smile creeping up on my face every time I thought about tonight. Kaseem had promised me a real date, just the two of us, no business, no drama hanging over our heads for once, and I was actually looking forward to getting dressed up and sitting across from my husband like a normal couple for a change.

He’d left for that drop a couple of hours ago, and before he walked out the door, I made myself a promise. Tonight, I was gonna tell him the last piece of everything. Not just the parts about Nariyah. He knew all of that.. all except the biggest part. I wanted him to know everything that I’d been keeping in the dark, even from myself half the time. I loved that man too much to keep holding things back from him now that the biggest secret was already out in the open. If we were gonna build something real, I needed him to have every single piece of me, good, bad, and everything in between.

Was I scared? Hell yeah!

This man was at war with the nigga who’d sold me dreams, gotten me pregnant and left me for dead 8 years ago. Not to mention, they were brothers and Kaseem didn’t even have a clue. I know Zuri asked me to keep her secret, but if I was gonna tell it, I had to tell the full truth.

My husband had been nothing but raw and transparent with me. I wanted to start showing that same love and transparency back. He was everything in a man that I wanted. Not to mention, he was ready to step all the way up and take on the responsibilities that came with me having a daughter. I was definitely ready to get my child into my care. I just needed to know that my aunt would be handled and that she wouldn’t try and pin that murder on me, knowing damn well that I didn’t do that. I also hope that my baby girl would understand this entire situation, and adjust to it. I have been close to her, her entire life, I never missed milestones or big events. She really looked at me as her big best friend. I prayed that this wouldn’t change.

I clicked over to check my email while that thought was still sitting warm in my chest, and two messages caught my eye right off top. Job offers. Two different people reaching back out after I’d put feelers out over a month ago, before all this chaos with my new life, and all these secrets had swallowed up my whole existence.

I sat there for a second, scrolling through the details, thinking it over.

I ain’t have to work a day in my life again. Not while married to Kaseem Carter, not with everything sitting in them accounts, and everything he stood to inherit. But something in me still wanted to hold onto a piece of who I was before all this. My own money. My own purpose outside of being somebody’s wife. I wanted that independence for myself, hell, I needed it even. I’d already learned the hard way what happened to a woman who let everything about her identity become nothing other than who her husband is. I couldn’t become my mother. Especially looking at the situation that she was in now. And the saddest part was, she didn’t even know it. And if she didn’t know it, she clearly didn’t care.

I was just about to click accept on one of them offers when my phone rang.

Nyla was calling. This made me pause.

My stomach twisted up immediately, remembering how that lunch ended, remembering her walking out that restaurant shaking while I sat there feeling like I’d broken something between us that couldn’t be fixed. But I knew, whatever came out her mouth today, I needed to tell her exactly how she’d made me feel. I wasn’t finna just sweep that under the rug cause we’d been friends too long.

“Hello?” I answered.