Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
RHODES
“H ello?”
When I saw Karima’s name on the caller ID, it scared me. It had only been a week, and her silent treatments usually lasted longer. I missed her lil ass. I missed rubbing on her and talking to my baby. I felt like I was about to lose my mind without her.
“Hey, Rosewood.”
“Hey, baby. How are you feeling?”
“Horrible. I’m so sorry for shutting you out.”
“It’s okay, baby. I know how you operate. It takes you a little time to come around. All I can do is wait for you to miss me enough.” I chuckled to let her know I was joking. “When your missing me outweighs your anger, I know you’ll reach out.”
She took a deep breath. “God, this is hard, baby. I want to see you so bad.”
She started crying, and I knew I would have to sacrifice and go see her. Ali said I could call him for whatever, and I would have to call for protection to go check on my baby. “Please don’t cry, KD. I’m gon’ make something shake. Watchful Eyes is watching my back now. That was what I’d been calling to tell you. I’ve been waiting for them to get their bearings. I’m gonna call to see if they can have my back for me to go see you. I’ve been in this house for days, feeling depressed without you.”
She was quiet, so I said, “KD. Baby, you there?”
“Yes. Are you really gonna come see me?”
“Yeah, baby. I left the meeting early, because it didn’t seem like your people was fucking with me. I thought I would have to handle this shit by myself. That was why I had to get you away from me. I didn’t want you to get hurt. When your dad and Watchful Eyes showed up at my house that night, I was relieved as hell. So, I’m somewhat a part of their team now. As Ali explained to me, they will go to war for their own.”
“Damn. This is unbelievable. I’m glad I called.”
“Me too. I thought you didn’t want to see me any time soon after me pushing you away, so I didn’t want to bother you unless the shit was about to be resolved. Let me call them right quick… Oh shit! I forgot Rondo lives out here by me. Let me hit him up.”
She giggled. “Okay. I can’t wait to see you. I miss you so much.”
“I miss you too, baby.”
I ended the call, feeling excited as hell. Before I could call anyone, my doorbell rang. That caught me off guard, because I never had pop-up visitors. Going to the door, I grabbed my heat from the closet and trained it at the door. “Who is it?”
“Ali, nigga.”
I cracked the door to see it was him then closed it to take the chain off. When I opened it, he said, “I would much rather she come to you so we can keep the drama separate. We’ve been watching the Hendersons for other bullshit. If it happens out here, we know it’s your shit. Philly is on his way to pick her up now.”
I frowned as I closed the door then set my gun on the coffee table. He chuckled as he stared at me. “Nigga, what’chu talking about?”
He laughed more. “If we are watching your back, you have to know that I have an all-access pass to your life. I heard your conversation with Karima. I wasn’t really paying attention until I heard you say Watchful Eyes. I had to rewind the convo to see who the fuck you were talking to. While I invited you to be a part of our crew, you still in your probationary period.”
I nodded repeatedly. “A’ight. I’m not tripping on that. I know how the game works. You just caught me off guard.”
“This ain’t the game though.”
“It may not be the drug game, but it’s the game. You seem to be running it similar to how my dad ran things.”
He gave me a slight smile. “So, Philly is going to have her pack some clothes. With our help, I know you can protect her. She needs to be with you. Ain’t nothing worse than a depressed pregnant woman. It puts her and the baby at risk for all sorts of things. She don’t have to be away from you no more.”
“I appreciate you, man.”
He waved me off. “So, that nigga got released on bond the other day. Chad has connections, though, so we know exactly where he is and were able to get his phone tapped. Surprisingly, his connect at the prison has connections to a nigga that has plenty of street cred in Cali. If it all checks out, I’ll let you in on names.”
I nodded. It seemed these niggas had connections I could only dream about. “Can you tell me what part of Cali the friend has street cred in?”
“Mm-hmm. Watts, basically L.A., but his range is pretty wide.”
“So, let me tell you what I know,” I said, enlightening him, although I was pretty sure he knew this already about me. He probably wanted to see if I would reveal what I knew. “The Hendersons are connected to the rapper, Noah. He has a brother named Ryan that has ties in Cali. Noah is also connected to Sonya, the former video vixen who is from Beaumont. That has to be who you are talking about. If I’m not mistaken, Sonya has a brother that works for the federal prison system, last name Jameson.”
He gave me a huge smile and said, “Welcome aboard.”
I frowned. “I thought I was already aboard.”
He chuckled. “That was a small test to see if you were truly with us… if you would reveal what you knew already. I know that your pops was familiar with Ryan. They both ran for a nigga named Rodney back in the day when they were practically kids. I think Ryan is a little younger than he was though.”
“I didn’t know all that, but I’ve heard his name a time or two. I wanted to know as much about Karima as possible. When I researched her family, their ties to Noah popped up. So because Noah popped up, so did his brother. Then I went down a rabbit hole after that, especially when I saw Sonya was from Beaumont. After researching her siblings and her husband, who also has major connections, I stopped there.”
He gave me a one-cheeked smile. “So what do you know about her husband?”
“He’s very resourceful… has connections all over the country.”
“Okay. If Ryan needs backup, I’m sure that’s who he’ll go to. I can see now that you’ll be even more of an asset to our team than I expected. So what you plan to do with that agricultural degree and that animal science degree?”
“I just wanted to be familiar and knowledgeable about my environment and to know some shit about Karima’s way of living. She wasn’t fucking with me because I was unfulfilled potential. I mean, we were friends. She didn’t want anything more with me though. So I figured, if I was gonna go to school, it had might as well be for something that could benefit me for the area I lived in.”
“Yeah, that’s smart nigga shit. You might can work for her family or at least partner with them. They have plenty of horses and cattle, and WJ said they are about to start putting those chickens to work, mass producing eggs.”
“Yeah, I thought about that before I met her family, using it as a peace offering, but then all this shit popped off. I was scoping out their cattle, seeing they were somewhat on the thin side.”
He slowly shook his head. “You and Rondo gon’ get along well. He live about five minutes from here.”
I nodded as the doorbell rang. That had to be my baby. I glanced at Ali, and he said, “That’s her.”
I quickly made my way to the door, not bothering to even check to see if he was telling the truth. I swung the door open, and her pretty ass hopped into my arms and kissed me long on the lips like them niggas weren’t even here. When I heard the door close, I separated our kiss and lowered her to her feet. Philly was standing there with his lip turned up.
“You know she my niece, right?”
“My bad. I wasn’t gon’ leave my baby hanging though.”
He slapped my outstretched hand and said, “I told you I was gonna be dipping in shit to fix things.”
“That you did. I didn’t know until a couple of nights ago that you worked part-time for Watchful Eyes.”
He smiled and nodded. I gave my attention back to my baby to see she’d gone straight to the bedroom with her duffel bag. Philly set her other bags on the floor by the door, and he and Ali slapped my hand. It looked like she was moving in. I bit my bottom lip at the sight. She refused to be without me, no matter what I said.
“Rondo gon’ be keeping watch tonight. Seneca will be here tomorrow. I’m always around.”
With that, they left. After locking the door, I grabbed Karima’s bags and hit those stairs three at a time to get to her. When I opened my bedroom door, she’d already hopped in the bed and covered herself up to her neck. She gave me the biggest smile as I closed the door behind me. I dropped her things to the floor and pulled off my shirt and sweats.
I couldn’t get to that bed fast enough. It was like I hadn’t seen her in months, and it had only been a week. “With as happy as we are to see each other and how miserable we both were after a week, you can’t tell me this isn’t destiny, baby. I just wanted to protect you. You and Roselynn are my primary concern.”
“I realized that, and I’m sorry for bucking against your decision to keep us safe.”
“Just tell me how to take better care of you, baby. I wanna love you how you want to be loved, not how I want to love you. I want my love to reach your soul,” I said as I slid my arms around her.
She was naked as the day she was born under these covers. As bad as I wanted to just slide my dick inside her, I chose to rest my hands on her belly. I kissed her bare shoulder then her neck as I listened to her soft moans.
“I would say you’ve already reached my soul. That’s why I was losing my mind without you. I love you so much, Rhodes.”
I closed my eyes briefly, allowing her words to free me from the regret of pushing her away. If I had to choose between her being with me or being safe, I would choose her safety every time. I supposed I was regretting it because of how I knew it affected her.
“I love you more, baby.”
She turned to face me and brought her hand to my cheek then slid her thumb over my lips. I was about to kiss her until I felt slight movement against me. My baby said I was gonna acknowledge her first. I smiled big and lowered my face to KD’s belly and kissed it. “Hey, princess. It’s daddy. You missed me? I missed you so much.”
After kissing her stomach again, I felt the movement right against my lips like Roselynn was trying to kiss me back… or punch me in the mouth. She would definitely inherit that Henderson feistiness if that were the case. Without warning, the tears left my eyes. I closed them, doing my best to lasso my feelings and contain them, but it was of no use. Karima gently swiped them away. This woman and this little girl were gonna have me softer than cotton.
“Why are you crying, Rosewood?” Karima asked softly.
I scooted up to be face-to-face with her again. Although I knew that she knew exactly why I was crying, I let her in on my inner workings. “I’m so blessed, and I haven’t figured out why God chose to give me the desires of my heart. I don’t deserve either of you.”
“Baby, look at me.”
I lifted my eyes to hers.
“None of us are deserving of His blessings, but His grace and mercy are sufficient for us. God loves us. He knows your heart. He’s not like us, where we assume things and judge each other by our actions. Beneath the flesh, which is wicked at best, is our soul. The parts of us that many people don’t get to see. That’s the part of us He sees. You’re a good person, Rhodes… despite your mistakes and bad decisions. None of us are perfect. However, through it all, you and I are perfect for each other. I couldn’t fight it if I tried. God told me a while ago that you were the man He made specifically for me. No matter how much I run, He wasn’t going to allow you to leave me.”
Nothing more needed to be said. She was proving just how merciful God was. Whenever she tried to harden her heart toward me, He wouldn’t allow it. Just like He made me specifically for her, He made her specifically for me. I kissed her lips as she wiped my cheeks. She laid her head on my shoulder, and I knew tonight would be spent with me holding her in my arms, showing her the care and tenderness she was showing me, what I knew we both needed.