4. KO
The kid’s arms were locked tight around my legs like he knew me. Like he’d been waiting for this moment his whole life. I didn’t move. I didn’t know how. Shit, I barely knew how to breathe.
“Daddy!” His voice rang out, and that one word hit me harder than any boxer or bullets ever had.
I didn’t know what to do with that. Nobody had ever muttered that word to me.
My eyes lifted to Lyrius. She was standing there with tears running down her face, nodding like that was all she knew how to do. Was that supposed to explain something?
“Daddy!” the kid said again, louder this time, more excited.
“I knew Mama was bringing me to see you.” My jaw tightened.
What the hell was her kid talking about?
What was going on? I looked back down at the little boy wrapped around me.
I mean, I really looked at him. He was standing there calmly with my dark eyes.
He had the same dimple in his cheek that I did.
The same features in his face. I swallowed hard.
The room felt too small, and the only thing I could think to do was look back at the woman who had the answers.
“What the fuck is he talking about, Lyrius?” I spat, and the kid shifted against my legs, like he didn’t fully understand but knew something wasn’t right. My jaw flexed, and I glanced down at him, then back at his mom.
“Hey,” I said, and he tipped his face up, like he was studying me.
“Let me breathe for a minute,” I said quietly as he stared up at me.
He wasn’t looking at me like a stranger.
He was looking at me like he knew me, like the same blood that ran through his veins ran through mine.
He loosened his grip and stepped back just a little.
I crouched down in front of him, and there was no pretending I didn’t see it.
The shape of his face. The texture of his hair.
The way he held eye contact without fidgeting.
It was me. My childhood pictures in the old foster home albums looked just like this. My stomach turned. Damn.
“How old are you, dude?” I asked.
“Five,” he said. “My birthday was July seventeenth.”
Five. I didn’t have to do the math to know what was up, to know that the timeline made sense. My eyes shot back to Lyrius.
“What . . . is this?” I asked again, my voice low because he was right there, staring at me like I was his hero. Lyrius’s lips parted, but nothing came out. She looked at him and then back at me, tears pouring down her face.
“He—” Her voice finally broke, and then she swallowed hard. “His name is Dakoda.”
Dakoda. The same name I’d told her a time or two that I wanted to name my son.
I always wanted my son to have my name but still wanted him to be an individual.
Damn. That had a nigga’s chest pounding.
She’d given her son that name. I stared at her because I didn’t ask her ass that, and she knew it.
Her hands tightened together, and her eyes dropped to the floor.
“He’s yours, KO,” she spoke. “He’s your son.”
Everything went still. What the hell did she just say?
My son? My eyes darted to the kid for the fifteenth time.
The same shit I’d been doing since they’d walked in here.
If he wasn’t right here, I would’ve snapped, because I knew damn well the woman who set me up wasn’t standing in my face telling me she’d had my damn seed.
“When?” I asked, not looking at her. “When you find out?”
She didn’t answer right away, and that pissed me off more than the bomb she’d just dropped on me. This kid was five. There was no way she’d known he was mine all five of them years and said nothing.
“When, Lyrius?”
“After,” she said through tears. “After everything.”
“After what?” I shot back. “After you set up the play? Pretended to love a nigga? After I got shot?” I dragged a hand down my face slowly.
She was making me show emotion, and I didn’t do that shit anymore.
Not since showing emotion put me through a year of recovery.
I shook my head once, like that would make sense of all this shit, but it didn’t. Nah. It couldn’t.
“Yeah, after all that.”
“Nah,” I muttered. “Nah, you don’t get to do this.
” I backed away from her. I needed to breathe.
“You not finna drop no five-year-old on me like this.” The kid .
. . Dakoda, shifted, moving on my damn heels, reminding me he was here, listening.
The little dude didn’t have any business hearing this shit. This was his mom’s mess, not his.
“Aye,” I said, kneeling and nodding toward the far side of the room. “Go check those gloves out over there. The red ones. They’re real.”
“For real?” His face lit up a little, and his eyes darted to the gloves I had displayed on the counter.
“Yeah,” I said, and he backed up slowly, then took off toward the wall where the gear was stacked. I watched him for half a second, making sure he was good. Then I turned back to her.
“Five,” I said, biting my cheek. “Five years . . . and you ain’t say shit.”
“I didn’t know how.”
“Nah,”—I stepped closer—“you knew how.”
She shook her head, voice breaking. “I didn’t know how to come back to you with that . . . with a baby.”
“Same way you figured out how to leave.” I stared at her.
Her tears almost got to me. Almost, but I knew better.
The room went silent as I watched Dakoda bounce around the ring wearing my training gloves.
My head was spinning out of control. None of this sat right with me.
I hadn’t seen or heard from Lyrius in five years.
Then she just . . . showed up here—in my building, in the middle of a storm, with a kid she claimed to be my son.
“Why now?” My voice dropped. “Why are you here, Lyrius?”
“I—”
“You need money?”
“No.”
“This part of some setup? You here to finish me off or some shit?”
“Of course, not—”
“You had five years,” I cut in. My voice rose with the thunder shaking the windows. “Five years to say something.”
“What was I supposed to do, KO?” She snapped suddenly, and that caught me off guard more than the tears did.
“Show up at your door pregnant after being involved in setting you up and almost getting you killed?” I stared at her.
“You think that would’ve ended good?” she asked, shaking her head.
“You think you would’ve looked at me and just . . . excepted me and my baby?”
My jaw tightened. Because on some real shit? If Lyrius had shown up at my door pregnant five years ago while I was still in recovery and my life was falling apart, I probably would’ve told her to get the fuck out of my face.
“I had nowhere to go,” she continued, voice cracking now. “No family. No money. No protection. The people I crossed wanted nothing to do with me, and neither did you.”
“That ain’t—”
“You hated me. I saw it in your eyes.” Tears slid down her cheeks.
“And you had every right to.” The room went quiet except for the storm outside and Dakoda making little punching noises near the ring.
“I found out about him four weeks later,” she said softly.
“By then, everything was already ruined.” My eyes slid toward the kid again.
My son. The shit still didn’t sound real in my head.
“I kept thinking eventually I’d come back,” she admitted.
“Then days turned into months. Months turned into years and . . .” She shook her head.
“At some point, I convinced myself staying away was better than ruining your life again.”
I dragged a hand over my face slowly. That shit shouldn’t have made sense to me, but some fucked up part of me understood it anyway.
“You still should’ve told me,” I muttered.
“I know.”
I turned away from her. I needed space to process this shit. I paced once across the floor, sitting with the reality of all this. Five whole years, and she was standing here like this shit wasn’t crazy.
“Why now?” I asked, and she blinked.
“What?”
“All this time, you’ve been gone.” I shook my head. “Now you’re here. In my building, of all places. With a fucking kid.”
“I didn’t plan this—”
“Don’t lie,” I shot. “Who sent you?”
“I’m not. Nobody sent me,” she said quickly. “We just needed a safe place to wait out the storm.” I stared at her, and I mean really stared, and the worst part was that I believed her ass, and I hated that shit.
“Daddy, look!” the kid said, and my head turned before I could stop it.
Dakoda was moving around the ring, circling it with his little fists up like he was fighting.
It was like he already knew my world. I stared at him for too long, noting the way he moved, the way he bounced on his feet.
He was a natural. Damn. My son? This shit still didn’t feel real. But it didn’t feel fake either.
“You really weren’t gon’ tell me?” I turned to Lyrius, never taking my eyes off Dakoda.
“I never hid you from him,” she replied. “He knows who you are. He has pictures of you. We watch your fights together.”
“That ain’t the same thing.”
“I know.”
“I missed everything.” I dragged a hand over my face. “His first steps. First words. Birthdays. All that shit.” I shook my head. “Gone.”
“I know.” Her eyes watered again, and the silence stretched between us while Dakoda climbed onto the ropes like he owned the damn ring.
“I want a DNA test. ASAP,” I said finally.
“Okay.” She didn’t hesitate. That hit harder than I expected it to.
“I’m sorry, Dakota,” she said, and I didn’t say anything.
“I loved you. That part was never fake.” My jaw tightened.
“I don’t regret having our son. He was made out of love.
But I’m sorry I decided without you. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about the organization.
I’m sorry for taking five years from you that I can’t give back.
” I didn’t say anything, just stared at her.
“I know sorry don’t fix it,” she continued.
“I know I don’t deserve your understanding, but know that I’ve carried what I did with me every day since that day. I’ve never stopped loving you, Dakota.”
“Don’t.” My voice came out cold as fuck. “You lost the right to call me Dakota five years ago. It’s KO,” I said just as the lights flickered and everything went dark, and the storm got louder.
“Mama?” Dakoda called from the ring.
“I’m right here, baby.”
I moved on instinct, grabbed the flashlight off the table, and clicked it on. The beam instantly cut through the dark. I found the kid first, then her. They were both looking at me like I could make the lights come back on. I blew out a deep breath.
“Powers out,” I said as the wind howled outside. It was banging against the boards like it was trying to get in.
“Is the storm going to get inside?” Dakoda scurried out of the ring and wrapped his arms around his mama’s legs.
“No, Dae-Dae, we’re safe.” Lyrius comforted him, and I didn’t say anything, just stood there shining the flashlight on them. I was stuck, because for me, the storm was already inside.