Kayla
I stared out the plane window, annoyed beyond measure.
The flight from Memphis to Vegas should’ve been exciting.
Hell, under any other circumstance I’d have been pressed against the window like a little girl seeing the city for the first time, talking Yayo’s ear off about all the places I wanted to visit and all the money I planned to make him spend.
Instead, I felt nothing. The only thing I found myself staring at was the reflection in the glass.
The woman looking back at me looked exhausted, and if I was being honest, I felt it too.
Yayo had put me on this plane with no further information other than the location and the fact that he had business to handle.
When I refused, still pissed that he aired out a parking lot, he picked me up, threatening to carry me out or I could walk on my own, but either way I was coming.
Reluctantly agreeing, I tried to pack only to be told I wouldn’t need any of it because we could get everything we needed once we got there.
Knowing he was already pissed at me, I didn’t bother putting up a fight.
Ever since everything happened back home, Isaiah hadn’t been himself.
The same man who usually couldn’t keep his hands off me had barely spoken outside of whatever business call he happened to be on.
Every few minutes his phone buzzed, followed by another conversation about shipments, manifests, routes, or somebody checking in from Memphis.
Even sitting thirty thousand feet in the air, that city refused to let him go.
I glanced over at him from beneath my lashes.
Yayo sat stretched out on the other side of the plane with his Airpods in.
One leg bounced impatiently under the seat, and his eyes never seemed to leave the screen of his phone for more than a few seconds.
Every now and then he’d rub the back of his neck or tighten his jaw before firing off another text message.
He hadn’t said more than two words since we boarded.
He was treating me as if he weren’t the one hugged up with some bitch in the club.
I didn’t even have a chance to act on my impulses, yet somehow, I was still the one being punished.
Physically he was sitting ten feet away from me, but mentally he was somewhere back in Memphis.
That night after we left Kade’s house and made it back to his place, shit seemed to go from bad to worse.
We circled right back around to Monclair, and to add insult to injury, he went through my phone and found our messages.
I had to plead with him not to go wherever that man was and disrupt his peace over something I started, knowing full well what Yayo was capable of when his temper got the best of him.
After blocking and deleting Monclair from everything I had access to, only then did Yayo finally decide to leave it alone.
The rest of the night only confirmed what I knew.
He wasn’t angry because of Monclair alone.
Everything that had happened in Memphis had finally caught up with him, and I happened to be the closest target.
Since then he’d barely uttered two words to me.
Yeah, physically he was present, but mentally he was gone.
The farther we got from Tennessee, the more I realized this wasn’t just another business trip.
Everything that had been eating away at him back home had followed us to Vegas, and judging by the tension sitting on his shoulders, it wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon.
As soon as we landed, we slid into the waiting truck and made our way toward the Bellagio, where Yayo had booked one of the penthouse suites overlooking the Las Vegas Strip.
Under any other circumstance, I’d have been glued to the window taking in the lights, the fountains, and everything that made Vegas feel larger than life.
Tonight I barely noticed any of it. My mind was too busy trying to figure out how we’d gotten here.
Somewhere between falling in love and surviving Memphis, we’d stopped talking to each other.
The suite was breathtaking. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the entire Strip, expensive artwork lined the walls, and every piece of furniture looked like it belonged in a magazine.
I dropped my purse near the bedroom and headed straight for the bathroom, desperate to put some space between us before one of us said something we’d regret.
I figured if I reset, got my mind right, and washed away the stress of the flight, maybe we could finally have a real conversation that didn’t end with us arguing.
Using the hotel’s soap, I washed my hair and body, taking my time under the steaming water before rinsing everything away.
Wrapping a plush towel around myself, I stepped out of the bathroom expecting, or maybe just hoping, that he’d finally acknowledge my existence. He didn’t.
Yayo never even looked up. He continued typing away on his phone like I hadn’t walked into the room at all.
“You gotta look at me at some point.”
“I’m working.”
“You’ve been working since Memphis.”
He finally put his phone down and looked at me.
His eyes traveled over me for the first time since we’d landed, lingering just long enough to let me know where his mind wanted to go before he forced himself to look back up at my face.
He slowly licked his lips like he wanted to ravage me, but refused to fold no matter how good I looked standing there wrapped in nothing but a towel.
“What you want me to say?”
“Well for starters, why you dragged me all the way down to Vegas with you if you planned to ignore me the entire time?” He leaned back against the edge of the desk, crossing his arms over his chest as if he was trying to create some kind of distance between us.
“Because I can’t trust yo ass to be mad and sit the fuck down somewhere. You gotta be all up in niggas faces. Then you got the nerve to walk in my crib smelling like that nigga.” His nostrils flared as he pushed himself upright and took a slow step toward me. “You lucky he still breathin.”
“Nothing happened, Isaiah.” I squared my shoulders and held my ground, readjusting the towel around my body. “But you refuse to see it that way because of your own indiscretions.”
He dragged a hand over his face, looking like he was working overtime to keep himself together. “How many times I gotta tell you I didn’t touch that girl?”
“What the fuck ever.” I folded my arms across my chest.
“That picture was worth a thousand words.” I turned to walk away, determined to end the conversation before it spiraled into another argument, but before I could make it two steps, he reached out and caught the edge of my towel.
The fabric slipped free from my grasp and fell to the floor between us.
I stood there with my hands planted firmly on my hips, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking away first. Isaiah had always been stubborn, but so was I, and if he thought ignoring me was going to make me cave, he clearly hadn’t been paying attention these past few months.
His eyes swept over me once before he let out a quiet laugh and shook his head.
“You really think you got me figured out, don’t you?” he said, grabbing his phone off the desk. “You standing there thinking I’m gone fold first because that’s how this usually go.” I crossed my arms.
“Ain’t that what you about to do?”
A crooked smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, but it never reached his eyes.
“Nah.” He slipped his phone into his pocket. “See, that’s where you keep getting it fucked up. You so used to getting your way you think every argument end the same. Not this one.” He took one slow step toward me before stopping just out of arm’s reach.
“You gone learn something about me before this trip over with. I ain’t competing with no nigga, Kayla.
I don’t acknowledge competition because there ain’t none.
Whatever attention you think another man can give you, whatever game you think he got, whatever little fantasy he done built up in his head...
that shit die the second I decide it do.
” His voice stayed calm, but somehow that made it worse.
“You think you got it like that, but ima show you better than I can tell you,” he added. “I’m your only nigga with motion.”
He tilted his head slightly, eyes locking onto mine with a confidence that made my stomach twist. “So keep testing me if you want to. Just remember, I don’t lose sleep over proving who I am.
I let time do that for me.” Without another word, he walked out of the suite, letting the door close behind him without looking back. Not him trying to play hardball.
Shaking my head, I picked my towel up off the floor before throwing on one of the hotel robes.
Pulling out my phone, I placed a quick Target order through DoorDash so I’d have a few essentials until we could get out tomorrow.
Once that was done, I scrolled to Ysis’s name and pressed FaceTime, figuring hearing my best friend’s voice would help calm me down.
She answered on the second ring.
The moment the screen lit up and I saw her sniffling, my heart immediately dropped. “Ysis...what’s wrong?”
“She’s gone.” My heart dropped into my stomach.
“Who, Ysis? Who is gone?”
“Aretha.” Her voice cracked as she struggled to get the words out. “It’s so sad how she died, Kayla. None of us could’ve seen it coming.”
I slowly sank back on the edge of the bed as tears welled in my eyes.
My mind refused to process what she’d just said.
Who the fuck would want to kill Aretha? She was one of the sweetest souls I’d ever met.
That woman did nothing but love on everybody around her, feed people until they were miserable, and make sure every person who walked through that house felt like family.
She’d never harmed a fly, so why would anybody want her dead?