Chapter 8 Bishop #3
I yanked my eyes from the guard I’d been aiming at when I heard someone closing in on us and I was shocked when it was a woman, a tall one with locs that went midway down her back in a floor length white dress that was hugging her body.
She was accompanied by another woman, just as tall and in a knee-length black dress and tall ass heels.
The two of them walked over and sized Rook up.
It was obvious the one in white was the person whose wedding party we’d just ruined and she walked over and slapped the taste out of Rook’s mouth.
He clenched his jaw and chuckled darkly.
I looked around quickly for an exit strategy in case it came down to it.
“You killed my fucking husband!” The woman screamed and I looked over at her.
“So, what? You want to be paid off? You want to go to war? You want a life for a life? What do you want?” King asked.
The woman scoffed. “I want my fucking husband back.”
“Look, your husband stepped to me, not the other way around, and I did what I had to do. He reached for his gun and I laid him down. You know how this shit goes. Don’t reach for it unless you’re ready to use it.
That’s the rule. That’s what I based my choice off of.
If it was his life or mine, I’m gon’ pick me every time,” Rook said simply.
“He wouldn’t do that.” The bride sniffed.
“Pull the cameras and call the head of his family. We’ll wait,” King instructed.
“You’ll wait?” The woman beside the bride looked King up and down. “You didn’t have a choice.”
He chuckled. “I always have a choice. I promise you that.” King walked forward to the women like there weren’t guns aimed at our fucking heads. “King Barron,” he offered and stuck his hand out.
“Flora,” the woman introduced herself and shook King’s hand. “This is my younger sister, Winnie.” She gestured to the woman in the wedding dress. “It’s her husband that you just killed on their wedding day.”
“Condolences.”
“You don’t really sound sorry,” Winnie snapped.
“And you don’t actually sound sad.” King placed a smile on his face.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know that the cameras haven’t been pulled and your husband’s next of kin isn’t present. If you don’t want to have a sit down and negotiate what you think your husband’s life was worth, tell me what you already have in mind.”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure I could think of something.” Winnie scoffed.
Flora looked around and cleared her throat. “Look, he wasn’t the one with the powerful family, alright? We were. He was marrying in.”
“Were vows exchanged?” King smirked.
Flora exhaled deeply. “No. We were on our way to the room when he heard his sister screaming and came back out.”
“So my brother killed a civilian with no immunity in place?” King scoffed. “Have a good night, ladies, and I genuinely am sorry for your loss. You’re a pretty girl though. I’m sure your family can easily find you another husband.”
King turned around and started to walk toward the door. I let Xavia and Knight trail directly behind him and waited for Rook to come along too.
“Wait!” Winnie’s voice came out firm and demanding, like she was the one in charge of us, and we all stopped in place. “You have to hear me out. You killed my fiancé on our wedding day at our wedding party. It’s the least you could do.”
Rook was the first one to turn back around to face her and he sighed.
“We can talk in our seating area,” Flora offered. “Come on.”
The rest of us slowly turned around and she led us to a little room that looked like a library. King and Xavia sat together across from Flora and Winnie. Rook sat on the couch between them. I stood behind my twin’s seat while Knight stood behind King and Xavia’s.
“You don’t want to take a seat?” Flora looked from Knight to me and back.
“Nah,” Knight grumbled.
“No. Thank you,” I said politely. I didn’t know these people and I wasn’t about to give them too much of an upper hand.
“Okay,” Flora exhaled. “So—”
Winnie cut her sister off. “My marriage was a business deal.”
“Most of them are,” Knight deadpanned.
“Yeah, well mine had a deadline.”
“How old are you?” King asked.
“Twenty-three as of tonight.”
“I married my wife when she was twenty-four,” Knight offered.
“You don’t stop being marriage ready at twenty-three.
Hell. You never really stop being ready and even though they say that prime marriage age for women is between eighteen and twenty-one, there are a lot of perfect marriages made outside of that.
” Knight paused. “Oh, and happy birthday.”
“Thanks.” Winnie snipped and took a deep breath to center herself before continuing. “Look, you don’t understand. I’m not saying that I need to be married now because I’m worried I won’t find a husband to take me. I could care less about that. It’s just…”
“If she wants to come into her portion of our inheritance she needs to be married by twenty-three and stay married for two years minimum.” Flora shifted where she was sitting.
“So tonight was your last chance at making the cut?”
“Yep.” Winnie exhaled.
“What does this inheritance look like?” King leaned back in his seat and threw his arm behind the couch.
Flora climbed up, made her way to the bookshelf, grabbed a book, opened it, collected a piece of paper and walked it over to King who unfolded it and read it quietly. He whistled then passed it to Knight.
“We can probably split it four ways and cover it.”
“Why would we do that?” Knight asked seriously and passed the paper down to Xavia.
“Her fiancé took shit there knowing what was at stake and I have two babies on the way. I can’t just throw that kind of money out because some woman we’ve met once didn’t pick a husband who could stay alive for two years and a day. ”
“You were ready to go to war after meeting Casmi once.”
“Casmi needed help. This woman is comfortably settled in a family home with the ability to choose a husband of her own. She doesn’t need saving and nobody broke any laws.”
“So, just fuck my money?” Winnie asked incredulously.
“Look, I need this money.” She looked between us.
“It can change my life and if I decide to walk away I can take this money with me. At this point, I’ll take anyone.
If you can find anyone to marry me in the next three hours, I’ll pay them. I’ll give them twenty percent. I’ll—”
I cut her off before she could start panicking. “Hold on. Breathe. Tell me exactly what the rules of your inheritance are.”
“I just have to be married by twenty-three and stay married for two years. During those two years I can’t be on birth control.
There’s a doctor already assigned to keep my body in check.
There’s nothing too crazy wrapped into it.
My great-grandma put it in place during a time when her daughters were doing whatever they could to get out of their arranged marriages.
The money was an incentive for them to get married and the birth control thing was in hopes that they’d get trapped.
” Winnie chuckled darkly. “You know how it is. Once you have a kid with a powerful man, they own you.”
“Unless you abandon them,” Flora inserted. “And trust me, it’s been done.”
“Right.” King exhaled. “Can we have the room for a second, ladies?”
“Uhm, sure.”
Winnie climbed up and she and Flora made their way to the door and quietly let themselves out.
“Is there a reason we’re entertaining this?
” Xavia asked quietly. “I’m with Knight on this one.
We didn’t break any laws and we don’t owe them anything.
The amount of money that they were promised is absurd and even if we split it it’s swallowing up a significant amount of our earnings for the year. ”
“Yeah, but we did fuck up their life.” King sighed.
“No. Rook fucked up their lives,” Knight corrected. “If the three of you want to split up the payments, cool, but I’m not willingly signing up for that shit and I want to make it clear that I don’t think she’s entitled to the money.”
“It’s money that would have been hers if we—”
“If Rook,” Knight cut him off.
King looked over at Rook. I scoffed but didn’t comment.
Knight was always clear that he thought King let Rook get away with everything so I wasn’t shocked by him putting his foot down right now.
It was what it was at this point. He was standing strong on how he felt and I didn’t blame him.
He was right. He was the provider for two wives and what would soon be the main provider for two children.
His fiances were going to be tied up. He wasn’t lying and he owed it to them to give them the best life he could, despite what kind of shit Rook dragged us into.
“Fine. If Rook hadn’t shot a groom on their wedding day we wouldn’t be in this situation, sure, but in the grand scheme of shit, he’s a Barron and it looks bad on us that we came into these women’s home, killed one of their future husbands, and swindled them out of millions of dollars.”
“Bishop,” Knight said. “Do you have your portion of the money?”
“I can get it.” I said without hesitation.
“So you don’t have it?”
“No.”
“Right,” Knight scoffed. “King, you’re treating this like we’ve committed some noble sin because Rook defended himself. Nah. Do I think he should have been fighting at a wedding to start off with? No, but he’s not in the wrong outside of that.”
“Life isn’t just black and white, Knight. You know that.”
“So, what? You think they’re going to call our family’s honor into question or something?” Knight chuckled.
“Yeah,” King answered seriously. “I do.”
“Can they do that?” I looked from King to Knight and back.
“They feel like they were wronged so yeah, they can. The issue is that in this business…”
“Honor is everything,” Xavia finished.