Chapter 16
I'd been walking circles around the bedroom for the past hour. In and out of the bathroom. To the window. Back to the bed. My mind was moving faster than my body could keep up with.
I had to tell him. I KNEW I had to tell him.
Kaseem was downstairs with Namier. They were handling business, talking about the judge situation, celebrating the fact that Zaire was about to be home. And I was up here losing my mind because I couldn't keep lying to this man.
He'd looked at me with so much pride earlier.
When I showed him everything I'd pulled from the judge's computer.
When I explained what Demontae had done.
He'd kissed me like I was the smartest woman in the world.
And the whole time, I was sitting there knowing that my past had walked directly into his present.
Demontae Sullivan was Brick Boyz.
Demontae Sullivan was the rat feeding information to the DA, and he was also someone I was connected to. That shit had to look bad when Kaseem found out. I needed to break everything to him now.
I knew that sooner or later, my secrets would be exposed whether I told him or not.
I decided right then. I was going to go downstairs. I was going to wait until Namier left. And I was going to sit my husband down and tell him everything. About my past life and past decisions. All of it.
He deserved to know. And maybe, just maybe, he'd understand that I'd been trapped and crossed by the people that I loved the most.
I took a deep breath and walked toward the door. I was about to do this now. I could only hope for the best.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I stared at it for a second, then answered because my gut was telling me something was wrong.
"Tattiana." My aunt's voice came through sharp and cold.
"You need to get to my house right now. And I don't want to hear nothing about what you got going on.
This is urgent. You need to get here NOW.
Because some things need to get straight between us.
And if you want me to keep holding for you like I've been holding, you better not make me wait long either. "
The line went dead. She can’t keep doing this shit. It had been old, but now I was finally tired and over it.
This was my mother’s sister, the woman who use to be my favorite auntie when I was growing up. But now, she’d let greed and her triflin ways make me despise her ass.
My blood went ice cold, and in my mind, I’d made the decision to put an end to all of this tonight.
She knew something new, or she wanted something. Either way, she was threatening to expose me and that was the one thing I couldn't allow.
I ran downstairs without even thinking about what I was doing.
Kaseem was sitting on the couch with Namier, both of them looking relaxed for the first time in days. They were laughing about something, and Kaseem looked up at me with that smile that made me feel safe.
"Baby, I’ll be back and I need to talk to you later.” I said quickly, trying to keep my voice steady. "I need to make a run. It's important but I’ll be back soon."
Kaseem's expression shifted immediately. He could read me better than I could read myself lately.
"Where you going?" he asked, sitting up slightly.
"I'll be back," I said, kissing him quick before he could ask more questions. "Just wait up for me."
"Tatti—" he called after me, but I was already moving.
I didn't give him time to follow me out or argue. I grabbed my keys and rushed out to my Mercedes. The whole drive to my aunt's house, my hands were shaking on the steering wheel.
She had no right. No right to keep calling me, demanding money, controlling my life. I had a husband now. I had power that I was about ready to use against her. I had options.
But she had Nariyah.
The drive was 2 hours normally. I did it in just over an hour, flying down the highway, not giving a fuck about speed limits or traffic. My mind was racing through scenarios. What did she want now? More money? Some new threat?
When I pulled up to her house in Temple, I didn't even turn the car off properly. I just jumped out and walked straight to the door.
I didn't knock.
I burst right in.
My aunt was sitting at the dining room table like she'd been waiting for me. Her husband Ron was in the living room watching TV. And there, playing with her iPad on the floor, was Nariyah.
Seeing her face was the only thing that stopped me from crashing out, like I had came to do.
“Hey pretty girl, Nariyah," I said softly, my voice breaking slightly.
She jumped up immediately and ran straight to me, throwing her little arms around my waist.
"Hey Cousin Tatti! Did you get my text that I sent you?" she asked, looking up at me with those eyes that broke my heart every single time I saw them. "I was asking when you could come over again. If you could bring me those new dumplings so that we can open them together. My message never sent."
Cousin. She called me Cousin. One thing Nariyah would tell anybody was that Tattiana was her favorite big cousin and that I spoiled her rotten.
I grabbed the iPad from her with shaking hands.
I checked her messages. She had attempted to text me two days ago and it never delivered.
I went into the settings. Blocked. My number was blocked on her iPad.
The same iPad I bought her for Christmas.
My aunt had made sure she couldn't reach me.
This was some weird ass shit. Why would she want to cut off communication between us?
"Go to the back room for me, baby," I said, trying to keep my voice calm. "Let Cousin Tatti talk to your mommy for a minute, okay?"
Nariyah pouted but did what I said. She knew better than to argue.
The second she was gone, I turned to face my aunt.
"What do you want?" I asked, my voice low and dangerous.
"I saw the wedding pictures. People have been tagging you for days,” she spoke, cold as ice.
"I know who your husband is. Kaseem Carter.
And you know what? I don't want thousands a month anymore, Tattiana.
I want a lump sum. Five million dollars.
And I want you to never come back around here again.
Since you wanted a way out, this is your way out. "
I felt something inside me snap.
"I'm not doing that," I said flatly. "And I'm not giving you another dime.
Not a penny. So what we're going to do is, I'm going to take my own daughter, and I'm going to deal with the consequences.
You have her believing that I'm her cousin, and all of this is wrong.
She's MY child. And she's not staying here with you anymore. "
Ron stood up from the couch, his face red with anger.
"You better watch how you talk to her," he said, walking toward me. "We been feeding that little girl, keeping her alive. You think you can just come in here and take her?"
He got in my face, his breath hot and angry. "You ain't taking shit. You been paying us to keep quiet, and now you married to a nigga with money, you think you can just walk away? Hell nah."
He reached out like he was about to grab me.
The front door exploded open.
Kaseem stood there with his gun drawn, his face ice cold.
"Stand the fuck down bitch ass nigga. Touch her and watch how I blow yo shit," he said quietly to Ron. But his eyes were on me. And they were full of disappointment. "What the fuck do you mean by 'daughter,' Tattiana?"
My eyes filled with tears immediately.
"You better not say a word," my aunt said sharply from the table. "If you expose that secret, I have to expose the other one and we both know you don’t want that.”
Footsteps thundered behind Kaseem. Namier came through the door next, taking in the scene in a split second before pulling his gun out too.
"What's going on?" Namier asked.
Ron started yelling. "Everybody get the fuck out of my house!"
Namier looked at Ron with pure disgust.
"Shut the fuck up," he said coldly.
Ron kept talking shit, kept running his mouth about his house, about his money, about all the shit he'd done for us.
Namier walked over to him without saying another word and started pistol whipping him. Hard. Brutal. Each hit was calculated and vicious.
"Stop!" I screamed, running toward them. "Stop! There is a child in the back room! Please, please stop!"
Namier finally stopped, breathing hard, Ron's face bleeding and broken.
Kaseem's gun was still trained on the room, but his eyes were locked on me.
"What the fuck is going on, Tattiana?" he asked, and his voice was colder than I'd ever heard it. "Talk to me. Right now."
I was shaking. Everything was falling apart.
Everything was spiraling. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen.
I was supposed to tell him calmly. I was supposed to explain.
I was supposed to have time to tell him how the summer I spent with my auntie had changed my life forever all those years back.
How I was forced to live with her for a full year to hide my pregnancy and give birth.
How something tragic had happened, and she held it over my head to keep my daughter and claim her as her own, and to blackmail me into paying her for all of these years.
"Kaseem, please," I said, tears streaming down my face. "Please just leave with me. Right now. We need to get out of here. I promise you, I will tell you everything. Everything. Just... not here. Not like this. Not with her watching. Not with Nariyah in the back."
"Who is Nariyah?" he asked, but he already knew. I could see it in his face.
The room went silent except for Ron's pained breathing.
Kaseem looked at me like I was a stranger.
"Kaseem," I begged, walking toward him. "Please. We can't do this here. We need to leave. Right now. Please. I'm begging you.”
“Didn’t I hear you say that you was gone just take your own daughter? If you got a daughter and these muthafuckas been blackmailing you, then get her and come on!”
“It’s not that simple Kaseem. Please! We can’t do it like this.
If I take her, my life and freedom is at risk.
It’s more than just blackmail because I have a child.
Please! I will explain everything. I will tell you who her father is.
I will tell you about the money. I will tell you about my aunt.
I will tell you all of it. But please, baby, please can we just go? "
Kaseem's jaw was clenched so tight I thought his teeth might break.
He looked at Namier. Namier nodded and moved toward the back room to get Nariyah.
“No! Namier! I’m telling you, we can’t take her!
If you go in that room, she’s gonna be confused.
She don’t know about any of this. She has no idea that I’m her mother.
My father doesn’t even know about her. If you all take her while I’m begging you not to, I will leave and never come back. I mean this!”
Hearing me say that I would leave for good made Kaseem’s eyes turn cold on me. He nodded in my direction, and that made my stomach drop. He was beyond angry with me.
"Let's go," Kaseem said finally, his voice dead. "We're leaving."
But the way he said it, the way he wouldn't look at me, told me that everything had just changed.
Everything.
And I had no idea if our marriage was going to survive what came next.
I looked at my aunt and did something that I hated to do.
I told her that I apologized and that I did not know I was being followed.
I told her that I will pay for her husband‘s medical bill, and I will have a lump sum put into her account by morning.
I just had to buy more time. I had to tell Kaseem what was really going on and hope that he would help me come up with a solution rather than leave me.