Chapter 1
The sound of the gun clutched in Teonny’s hand vibrated through her body and pierced her ears. She never wore the sound-canceling earplugs the gun range provided. If Teonny ever needed to use a gun out in the real world again, she needed to be prepared, which meant no earplugs.
The gun range had become her obsession over the past five years. It was the only thing that left her feeling like she was actually in control. It was her attempt at righting her wrongs. She missed her targets five years ago. She’d be damned if she ever missed another target again.
Mommy.
The word sucked the air straight out of her. It echoed through her mind several times a day. Angel’s voice was still clear as the moment she said it before she died. It hadn’t gotten easier. In fact, her own daughter seemed to haunt her.
“Fuck,” Teonny murmured as she clamped her eyes shut and took in a deep breath.
When she felt she’d calmed down enough, she opened her eyes and pressed the button to bring her target toward her.
She already knew what she would find, but after the triggering moment she just had, she allowed herself to feel a bit of pride that she hit the outlined paper of a human body in the head every single time.
A whistle sounded from behind her. Normally, she would tense up at the thought of someone behind her, potentially with a gun, but she didn’t because she knew exactly who it was.
Patrick. Or Prosper, as most people knew him.
She could always feel him before she laid eyes on him. Teonny didn’t even bother to turn around. The feel of his eyes on her made the hairs on her arms stand on end.
“I know you heard me.” Prosper tugged on one of the curls that fell out of her messy bun, and she finally turned around.
“I heard you whistle. You ain’t say anything to me, so I didn’t acknowledge you.”
He smirked. That man knew he was fine. His coffee-colored skin looked edible, and his muscles always seemed like they constantly tried to tear out of his clothes. The soft curls on the top of his head looked buttery, and his goatee was always perfectly lined.
It had been a long three years of trying to ignore her attraction toward him.
Prosper, on the other hand, never ignored his attraction.
He leaned down and kissed her cheek, invading her space and filling her nostrils with his cologne. When he pulled back, he said, “You know better, Peanut.”
She wanted to melt, but she held herself together. One thing she wasn’t looking for was love, though it seemed to have found her anyway.
They’d met three years ago at this very gun range. They never saw each other outside of the gun range, actually. Teonny never allowed it. She protected her heart fiercely, and even though Prosper had penetrated it, she would never let him know that. It didn’t matter because his ass never let up.
He called her Peanut the first day they met because of the color of her skin. Teonny was sure that was the moment she fell in love with him, but she would never admit that out loud. She would, however, allow him to kiss her cheek any time he felt the need.
She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes. “Boy, please.”
“Ain’t no boy in here,” Prosper said as he looked around the small space and then behind him. “Looks to me like it’s just a grown ass man and a beautiful woman who won’t give him the time of day.”
“You got the time of day, Patrick. You’re just mad that’s all you’re going to get.”
He chuckled. “I keep telling you if you keep callin’ me by my government name, the least you can do is let me take you out to dinner. Hell, lunch? Coffee?” He put his hands up in a prayer position like he was begging her.
A giggled escaped her lips. “You should have never told me your government if you didn’t want me to use it.
” Teonny kept busy by rolling up the paper target before discarding it in the trash bin next to her station.
Then she fidgeted with her gun so she could avoid his eyes.
If she looked at him right now, he might see her true feelings.
“Like I had a choice. You refused to talk to me when I introduced myself as Prosper. You ain’t really talk to me until I told you my government.”
“Because I ain’t one of those niggas you run the streets with or the bitches still stuck in the projects. I didn’t want your street name.”
“Aye, man, ain’t no need to snap at me. You already know whatever you want you can get up out of me. You got the government, didn’t you?”
Her lips turned up into a smirk, and she finally looked up at him. “I did.”
“And you won’t let me spoil you any further than that,” he said, lifting his hand and brushing her black curls from her face.
She sighed. It didn’t take long for Prosper to get affectionate with her.
Outside of her mom, his affection was all she got.
She craved it, but she always had to pull away.
Love had been cruel to her. The way she saw it, all she had was her mom’s death to get through, unless she died first. One more death, she could handle, but she couldn’t let anyone else into her heart and risk any more than that.
Lord knew Angel’s almost took her out. Her mom forced her up out of that depression and kept a close eye on her since.
“We’ve had this conversation, Patrick.”
“That don’t mean I have to accept your lame ass excuses.
” He was right. He didn’t have to accept her excuse that she wasn’t dating at the moment and hadn’t for the last five years, but she wished he would.
Part of her did, anyway. The other part of her begged to allow him in because she was lonely as hell.
Tears gathered in her eyes as she thought about how unbelievably lonely she was.
Prosper’s hand cupped her chin. “Aye, look at me,” he coaxed. “Who hurt you, Peanut?”
She barked out a laugh that would let anyone who heard it know that there was nothing funny at all. “That’s a long story.”
She pulled away from him and packed her gun up.
“You always say that.”
“Because it’s the truth.”
Silence stretched between them, but the sudden sound of a gunshot made Teonny jump. She immediately picked her gun up from the case as she looked around the space with her brows dripped. When she noticed Prosper suddenly had a gun in his hand, too, her brows rose.
“What was that?” she asked hesitantly, though she already knew. She could never get the sound of a gunshot out of her head. The problem was, the sound came from outside the designated area for active guns.
“Aye, stay here right quick,” Prosper said, already moving toward the door with his gun in his hand and raised slightly.
Before he could open the door, it swung open. Everything happened quickly after that, but luckily for both Prosper and Teonny, her reflexes were on point.
The man who shoved the door open raised his gun to shoot Prosper, but Teonny shot him first.
Another man walked through the door, and both Teonny and Prosper shot him. He dropped right next to his buddy.
Prosper backtracked toward Teonny, who shook violently, despite her steady hands. Fear gripped her as she had flashbacks from the last time she’d been attacked like this.
“W-what the fuck is going o-on?”
“I’on know. Stay behind me. We gonna go out to the front and exit through the back door.”
Teonny nodded, but she didn’t really think that was the best idea. Sitting still wasn’t either. She knew that from experience.
Prosper made sure his entire body covered her as he walked toward the door at a steady pace. Every so often, he reached a hand behind him to make sure she was on his heels, but he kept his eyes forward and alert.
When he pried the door open, Teonny was ready with her gun raised, but tears blurred her vision. She knew she had to blink them away quickly if she wanted to stay on point.
Teonny glanced at the men on the floor and shook her head, immediately wishing she hadn’t looked.
I killed someone. Two people.
All these years she wished she could kill the two people who had gotten away with murder, but nothing could have prepared for what it felt like taking a life.
They got fully out of the door when they heard another gunshot ring out. Terror caused Teonny to freeze. She couldn’t see behind Prosper’s large frame, so she felt completely helpless.
He returned fire and then pulled her forward.
They stopped in the lobby where two bodies lay in a pool of blood.
One was dead, the super nice man who owned the small gun range.
Teonny said a silent prayer for him and his family before focusing back on Prosper, who had the other man by the collar.
Blood leaked out of the man’s stomach, and he groaned in agony as Prosper shouted at him.
“Who the fuck sent you?” He shouted in the man’s face.
Teonny had only ever seen him sweet and gentle with her.
She’d never seen him like this, but it didn’t scare her for some reason.
Given her history with Kevin, it probably should have, but it didn’t.
She’d known Prosper was in the streets, which meant he probably had a mean streak.
Nothing about him scared her though. She could admit now that with Kevin, there had always been signs that he was sick in the head.
She just ignored them. There was nothing to ignore with Prosper because he never gave off one red flag.
“Ghost sent us to knock you off, man. Please let me live. My mama—”
Prosper put a bullet through the man’s head before grabbing Teonny’s hand and pulling her toward the back exit. She tried desperately to process what had just happened, but her mind felt like it had suddenly turned into mud.
When she realized they had gotten into Prosper’s truck, she said, “Wait, my car—”
“I’ll have someone come get it.” Prosper already had his phone out and tapped away on it. A moment later, a voice sounded on the speaker.
“Yo.”
“Aye, get clean up to the gun range off Temperance and Lexington.”
“You good?”
“Yeah. I need you to pick a car up too.” He glanced at Teonny.
“What kind of car, love?” She rattled off her car’s description, feeling like she was on autopilot.
She hadn’t even realized she was crying until Prosper reached over and wiped her tears with his thumb.
“Drop the car off at yo’ spot. I’ll come get it in a few days. ”
He disconnected the call.
“What just happened?” she asked, trying to understand why she had been so unlucky to be shot at twice in her lifetime.
“Some street shit. Nothing for you to worry about, okay? I’m sorry you got caught up in that. You gonna roll wit’ me to my safe house. Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen to you.” Teonny could only stare at his profile as he drove. After a few minutes, he said, “You saved my life, Peanut. You know that?”
She blinked at him. “He was going to shoot you.”
Prosper lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. “But you got him first. You gotta let me take you out on a date now. I insist.” Teonny couldn’t help it. She laughed. Like, really laughed. “What’s so funny?”
“We just survived a shootout, and you still aren’t lettin’ up on that date?”
A crooked grin graced his face. “Ain’t nothin’ ever gon’ make me come up off you, especially now.”
“You are ridiculous.” She stared at him in wonder before she whispered, “But damn, you just might be worth it.”
And she didn’t tell a lie there. Something about what had just happened shifted things for her.
Life was so damn fragile. Why should she suck all the happiness out of her life because she suffered a devastating loss?
She didn’t know, but she understood that she definitely had a lot to think about because, suddenly, she wanted to start living again.