Chapter 4 #2
“It didn’t. You chose to go through with it, to appease Arrow! That sick, sadistic son of a bitch doesn’t care about anyone but himself. He uses everyone around him for his own twisted little games. You’re just his fucking puppet,” Celine accused.
“Let’s talk about why you really mad, Celine.” I heard his tone change.
It was low, the way a man talks to a woman when they have been intimate.
“Get over yourself, Kut.” She scoffed. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you take your ass back to the UK, with your wife. Anything between us died a long time ago.” Celine voiced.
The fuck? How did I miss this all these fucking years?
“That’s what you would like to think,” he replied.
“You’re not going to come here and try to sink your fucking claws into him again. Don’t you think you’ve done enough to him? Tormenting him with your twisted ass games wasn’t enough as a child? Why can’t you just let him live his life?”
“We agreed a long time ago that your place in his life is not as his mother.” Kut implied, and I wondered what the hell that meant.
“He’s a grown man now, Kutlass. He can make his own decisions for his life.” Celine conveyed. “He damn sure doesn’t need you and your influence around him anymore. Let him live his way, how he sees fit.”
“He can’t just walk away from this job! That’s not how this works.
Even if he wants to, Arrow won’t let him.
Nobody ever walks away from this mothafucka.
He’s like a fucking tapeworm that doesn’t get full.
He will keep coming back no matter what you do.
” Kutlass stated firmly. “You see what happened to the mother of his child. He should be grateful his daughter wasn’t on that plane.
” My blood ran cold in my veins and I saw red.
“What are you talking about?” Celine gasped.
I heard it in the disbelief she carried in her voice.
“Are you saying that it wasn’t some freak accident like they said it was? Someone took down that plane with her and all those people on it?”
Kutlass didn’t answer and I stepped from the shadows into the doorway.
“I want the answer to that too.” My voice shook them both, and they stared at me from where they stood.
“Quency—” Celine uttered.
“Answer the fucking question! Did Arrow have something to do with Ivana’s plane going down!” My focus was on my father.
“What you think? Didn’t I tell you back then that walking away wasn’t an option?
So you set up the meeting and went to him and he had you thinking it was all good.
Arrow likes to mind fuck you. He knew that taking Ivana would turn you into even more of a cold-hearted killer.
And he was right. Once she was out of the way, you were more efficient than ever! Focused!”
I couldn’t believe what I was fucking hearing.
The weight of curiosity had been lifted, but the burden of built-up rage was now pressing down on me.
Smoothing my beard with my hand, no fucking cap, my trigger finger started to itch.
My father, my blood, had a part in taking the woman that I love away from me.
“You one cold hearted ass bastard, Kut. I always knew you were twisted, diabolical even. This game… it fucked you up, and you use it as a crutch! You don’t care about nobody but your fucking self!
Get the fuck out of my house, and don’t you ever step foot in this mothafucka again!
” I gritted out combatively. “And you better walk light wherever the fuck you go. There won’t be a fucking rock you can hide under that I won’t find you.
Remember that. It might not be today, tomorrow or next fucking year…
but when its time… I’m punching that clock on you. You are no longer my fucking father.”
Celine blocked her cries, hands against her mouth in horror. Nodding, Kut’s hard glare raked over me.
“That’s how you want to play this?” he questioned.
“That’s how you made this.” I rebutted, hands in the pocket of my robe. “Leave.” I turned to go before I lost it on him, and he never made it out this mothafucka alive.
I meant every word I said. The next time I wanted to see his face was on a fucking obituary.
He didn’t mean shit to me. I was in the kitchen by the time I heard the door close.
It was taking everything in me not to run and get a gun so I could handle this shit tonight.
Kut wasn’t the only problem though. Arrow was the mastermind.
Hit the big nigga first to make the rest sit down.
Once he was out of the picture, his camp would move on.
Somebody else would already be in place, groomed to take over.
I gripped the granite counters in front of me and bowed my head.
The urge to tear some shit up was coursing through me like morphine from an IV drip. Shit was heavy and potent.
“Quency.” Celine’s soft voice pulled me from my rampant thoughts.
Bringing my head up, I kept my gaze straight ahead before I turned slightly to check her out in the doorway. Somber, she wiped her face and took a couple of timid steps inside.
“I need a minute.” I croaked out, not even recognizing my own voice right now as my chest tightened.
“Okay.” She lowered her eyes to the ground and I felt her leave the room.
Instead of the water I initially came out here for, I ended up grabbing the Hennessy from the liquor cabinet and a glass.
I poured until it was full and brought the liquid to my lips.
Gulping quickly, my chest burned from the heat.
Sitting up most of the night with my gun in hand, I grew more paranoid by the second.
Knowing what my own father did to me, he was capable of anything in my eyes; including coming after me.
Seated in a chair in my office, facing the door and the monitors for every part of my house, I sipped my drink until the sun rose.
Eventually, I woke with the bright rays streaming across my face.
I was still holding a half full glass of cognac when I peeled my eyes open and gazed around the room.
Setting the glass on the table beside my chair, I stretched a bit and lifted myself to my feet.
I decided to shower, so I carried myself upstairs to my bedroom, still toting my pistol in hand.
When I entered, Harbor sat up. She saw the gun in my grip and her eyes stretched in alarm.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, shielding her body with the sheets.
I paused and examined her there, in my bed, beautiful as fuck with her hair wild.
“Nothing,” I answered, walking over to her.
I set my gun on the bedside table.
“It’s early, you should still be sleeping.” I leaned over to kiss her.
“Mmm. I was trying to, but my stomach started growling.” She groaned, closing her eyes and kissing me back.
“I think Celine is up in the kitchen. I’m going to shower.” I ran my fingers through her hair.
“You okay?” she asked, worry on her face.
“I’m good.” I lied.
“Are you having second thoughts about what happened last night?” she asked, a crease forming in her forehead.
There was doubt there, and I didn’t like that shit.
“Hell nah,” I answered adamantly.
She seemed relieved. Cupping one side of her face, I thumbed her cheek, admiring her smooth ass chocolate skin.
“I don’t regret anything between us.” I assured her.
The one thing that was highlighted in all this was the fact that life was short, and anything can happen at any fucking time to take you away from the people you love.
I didn’t want any time to slip away from me this go round.
Loving a woman was some shit that most men considered weak, not realizing that she actually was the strength that held a nigga up.
Looking at Harbor, it opened me up in a way I didn’t know was even possible after all this time.
I took her hand and intertwined it with mine, facing her. Her eyes misted and she held my stare.
“You came into my life and I was at a point where I didn’t think it had anything left to offer me.” I started slowly, trying to find my way through what I was trying to say.
Harbor hung on to my words, her sharp eyes surveying me.
“And the way we met—” I shook my head— “definitely didn’t think shit was going to come of that.” I made her smile, and that was like a remedy to a niggas soul.
“Not your average fairytale at all,” she murmured, then laughed.
“Nah, it ain’t. But it works somehow. You are all the things I didn’t know I needed.
” I confessed, and her breathing hitched.
“You’re soft, but fierce. Strong, and resilient.
Sexy as hell. And you see life from a different view.
One that’s not tainted like mine. Being around you is like taking in fresh fucking air.
You breathe life into me, Harbor. You got me wanting to be everything for you that you need.
I know the shit is real because I want to change how I move for you.
That only happened one other time in my life.
This kind of shit ain’t supposed to happen to me again.
I need to be the best for you and for Ivy.
You made me see that I need to build and nurture that relationship with my baby girl. ”
“You wanna know what I think?” she questioned, staring at our hands.
“I think everything happened just how it was supposed to. I’ve never felt like this before, ever.
I just want to stamp it in time, and then sometimes I can’t even believe it’s real.
I never imagined any of this for my life.
You give me a confidence I have never had.
You have the kind of faith in me that I don’t even have in myself sometimes.
I thought you were so fucking arrogant and didn’t feel anything the first time we met, that much is true…
but I know you are so much more than that.
” She teased, bringing her face closer to mine.