Forever Certified 4 (Forever Certified: A Love Story, Unhinged #4)

Chapter 1

Slab Ridge, Candy County

Flashback…

I stood outside the house I paid for, dragging on a cigarette. Even though it had only been a week since I got out, it felt like I had been building up to this moment the entire time I was locked up.

About a year before I got caught up in Trill-Land over some guns, I bought this place for Harlow and me.

Back then, I really believed I was setting us up for something solid that wasn’t gon’ fold the second life got hard.

Standing here now, looking at the same house, I could already tell things weren’t the same, but I still found myself hoping I was wrong.

At the same time, I wasn’t no dummy and already knew better than that.

Too much time had passed, and too much shit had happened for everything to still be the same, but that didn’t stop me from standing here.

When I first got released, my brother-in-law was the one who came to get me.

He was already waiting when I stepped out, dressed clean and calm as ever, like picking me up from jail was just another thing on his schedule.

He didn’t ask me a bunch of questions, and I didn’t offer him anything extra either.

We kept it simple, walked straight to the jet, and took off back to Candy County like there wasn’t a whole situation between me and my family.

They made it clear how they felt when they let me sit for a fucking year without stepping in, so I didn’t need to hear it again.

I had already accepted what it was. I moved different from them, and I wasn’t about to change shit up just to fit into whatever version of me they wanted.

The whole ride back, my mind stayed on Harlow.

I thought about her more than anything else while I was locked up.

Even after that fucked up letter she sent me about aborting our baby, I still couldn’t shake her.

That shit hurt in a way I didn’t even try to put into words, but at the same time, I kept telling myself I understood.

She was by herself, she was scared, and she didn’t want to raise a child alone, even though I promised her she wouldn’t have to.

I told myself all of that over and over again, just so I wouldn’t sit there feeling like something got taken from me without my say, but no matter how I tried to reason it out, it still sat heavy on me.

When we landed, I didn’t go running to my family or back to anything tied to them.

I checked into a luxury hotel and stayed there for a full week, handling my business the way I always did when I needed to get myself right.

I made calls, got my money moving again, and set up everything I needed so I wasn’t depending on nobody.

By the time I was done, I had more than enough lined up, and I felt like myself again instead of somebody who had just been sitting behind a locked door.

I took that time to clean myself up, too.

Got a fresh cut and made sure everything about me looked the way it always had.

I bought a suit that fit right, not because I was trying to impress anybody, but because I wasn’t about to show up in front of Harlow looking like I had been down bad.

That’s not how she knew me, and that’s not what I was going to give her now.

Somewhere in the middle of that week, I ended up in a jewelry store, looking at rings like I had already made a decision before I even walked in.

I didn’t overthink it, though. I picked one, paid for it, and walked out like I knew exactly what I was doing, because, at that point, I did.

I wasn’t coming back into Harlow’s life halfway.

If I was going to fix what we had, I was going to do it all the way.

We’d been together for six years, and six years didn’t just disappear because time passed and mistakes were made.

Six years sit with you whether you want the shit to or not, and no matter how much I tried to act like I was above it, I thought about her every damn day I was locked up.

I thought about her when the lights went out and everything got quiet, and I thought about her when I woke up.

I dragged the cigarette again and let the smoke fall out slow while my eyes stayed on the front door.

I finally flicked the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under my boot before walking up to the door with the flowers in my hand and the small box tucked in my back pocket.

I lifted my hand and pressed the doorbell.

Then, I heard movement inside after a second, quick and a little rushed, and then the door opened.

Harlow stood there in a short silk robe, her blonde hair messy like she had just run her fingers through it too many times, and her blue eyes got wide the second she saw me. She looked like she wasn’t expecting me at all, and that alone made something in me pause, but I didn’t let it show.

“Kelli…” she said, her voice softer than I remembered but not as warm as it used to be.

I looked at her for a moment, taking her in.

Even with everything that had happened, seeing her standing here still did something to me.

My eyes moved over her slowly, taking in every little detail like I was reminding myself she was real and not just something I had been holding onto in my head all that time.

“Can I come in?” I asked, keeping my tone even while I shifted the flowers in my hand.

She swallowed and pushed her hair behind her ear, her fingers lingering like she didn’t know what to do with herself. “Kelli… what are you doing here?”

“I’ve been out for a week,” I told her, stepping a little closer without breaking eye contact. “Been calling you too.”

Her eyes dropped for a second before she looked back up at me. The way she shifted her weight told me she was uncomfortable.

“I know…” she said real low.

She moved like she was about to close the door, but I stepped forward and put my boot in place, stopping it before it could move.

At the same time, I reached up and brushed a piece of her hair back from the side of her neck, my fingers lingering just enough to feel her skin before I let my hand fall.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, gasping a little.

“Looking at you,” I said, my voice low. “You don’t even know how long I been waiting to do that in person again.”

“I can’t do this right now,” she said, but it didn’t come out as strong as she probably wanted it to.

I looked at her, really paying attention now, and something about the way she was acting didn’t sit right with me.

“Talk to me, baby. What’s up?” I asked, my voice dropping.

She let out a breath like she was already overwhelmed. “Kelli, please.”

“I miss you,” I said. “I still love you.”

Her shoulders dropped, and for a second, it looked like she felt that, but she still didn’t move.

“I’m not even fucked up about everything that happened,” I continued. “We can start over. I’m here now.”

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, that same look was still there.

“I can’t,” she said again.

Before I could ask her what the hell she meant by that, a voice came from deeper inside the house.

“Harlow, baby. Is everything alright?”

Everything in me went still for a second because that voice was familiar.

My brows pulled together while I pushed the door open wider, not giving Harlow a chance to stop me this time, and stepped inside.

“What the fuck…” I muttered under my breath as my eyes landed on him.

My younger brother, Bishop, stood there in nothing but his fucking drawers, his hair messy like he had just rolled out of bed.

The second our eyes locked, that brief look of confusion on his face faded into something else real quick.

It was something that told me he already knew exactly what the fuck this was and what the fuck it looked like.

For a second, I just stared at him. It felt like everything in my head slowed down enough for me to really take it in.

Bishop had always been the one I couldn’t move comfortably with, even growing up.

We had an older brother, but me and Bishop were the ones who always clashed, always circling each other like it had to be a winner and a loser between us.

It never mattered what it was, whether it was attention, girls, money, respect, or just being seen as the one who stood out more, it always turned into competition with him, and neither of us ever backed down from it.

Now, this muthafucka was standing here… in this house… my house… the one I bought for me and Harlow.

I ain’t gonna lie… I fucking snapped.

I closed the distance between us before he could even move, grabbing him by his throat and slamming him into the wall hard enough to shake all the frames behind him.

My grip tightened, cutting his air off as his eyes started bulging out his head.

He tried to fight back like we were kids again, reaching up and grabbing at my hair, trying to yank me off him, but I was too locked in.

My fist cracked across his face before he could even get set, then again, not giving him space to recover while he struggled under me.

“You out your fucking mind, muthafucka?” I growled, my voice low and mean while I hit him again, feeling myself lose all control.

He tried to reach for my eyes, but I caught his wrist clean and twisted it just enough to throw him off balance before I lifted him and slammed his body straight down on the floor.

The impact knocked the air clean out of him.

I dropped with him, straddling his chest like it was nothing.

My weight planted while he tried to buck me off, still grabbing and swinging like he could get control, but I stayed on his bitch ass, driving my fist straight into his face and feeling his nose break under my knuckles the second it connected.

I hit him again right after, not letting him breathe or think while keeping that pressure on him the way I was trained to do, breaking him down piece by piece while he lay there, trying to fight back with nothing behind it.

“Kelli! Oh, my God! Stop!” Harlow screamed behind me, but her voice barely broke through the noise in my head.

I reached in my pocket and pulled my hunting knife out without even thinking about it, pressing the tip into his throat while he lay under me, his chest jumping while he tried to catch his breath.

My hand stayed still, applying just enough pressure for the blade to break his skin.

A thin line of blood slid down the edge while I looked down at him.

“Is you cool, muthafucka?” I shouted, my voice deadly. “You think this shit sweet?”

He didn’t answer but just lay there choking on his breath and blood. His eyes were wide like it was finally clicking for him.

“In my fucking house?” I added, pressing the blade in just a little deeper, ready to really poke this bitch.

His chest rose and fell fast, and for the first time since I saw him, he looked like he understood exactly how far this could go.

“Kelli—” Harlow tried again, her hands grabbing at my arm, trying to pull me off him.

That’s what made me pause…

All of a sudden, everything started lining up in my head at the same time, from Harlow ghosting me to the ignored calls to the way she looked when she opened that door, and it hit me without nobody having to say it out loud.

I felt it settle heavy in my chest while I pulled the knife back slowly and pushed myself up off my brother, standing there trying to breathe through something I couldn’t even explain.

My brother stayed laid out on the floor, breathing hard, his face already swelling and unrecognizable, but I wasn’t even looking at him no more because my attention shifted to Harlow.

Standing here, it all hit me at once how six years with her meant nothing in this moment, and how the baby we were supposed to have was gone, and how my own brother ended up in the middle of something that was supposed to be mine.

I could feel my heart bleeding, but I wasn’t about to let it come out the way it wanted to.

I just looked at this bitch Harlow for a second longer, letting everything I wasn’t saying sit right there between us.

Then, I turned and walked out…

Each step felt heavier than the last, but I kept moving until I was off the property and back in the open air.

I reached in my pocket and felt the small box still sitting there, untouched. For a second, I just stood real quiet, staring at nothing. Then, I pulled it out, looked at it, and let out a low breath before closing my hand around it again.

After everything I had been through, and everything I had lost, I still came here, thinking I could fix it.

Now, I was standing outside the same house I bought for her, realizing I had never been the one in control of any of this shit.

I ran my hand over my face and looked up at the sky for a second before turning away from the house completely.

I turned and walked away for real this time…