Yayo
Kayla had no clue what the fuck she was asking of me.
I didn’t choose the game, the game chose me, and just up and walking away from that was never an option.
Annoyed didn’t even begin to describe the anger flooding through my body.
She looked at everything from the outside, seeing the money, the trips, the jewelry, the cars, and the lifestyle, but none of the blood that paid for it.
None of the nights I slept with one eye open wondering if the next knock at the door was gone be the one that finally ended me.
None of the negotiations, betrayals, bodies, and sacrifices it took to build something people now expected me to casually hand over because life had gotten difficult.
I knew it was Marius who put that call in to Queen.
Her husband was no stranger to the relationship me and Marius once had.
He just wasn’t around long enough to witness what that relationship eventually turned into.
Somewhere along the line respect became rivalry, rivalry became hatred, and hatred became all-out war.
Queen wasn’t making an emotional decision; she was making a business one, and if I was sitting in her seat, I probably would’ve done the exact same shit.
That didn’t make swallowing it any easier.
While they weren’t my only customers, they were my best. Nobody moved the kind of volume the Vaelorians did, and losing an expansion like this wasn’t just a hit to my business, it was a hit to everything I’d spent years building.
Me and Kayla wasted no time getting back on the jet the following day.
There was too much going on back home for either one of us to keep pretending Vegas mattered anymore.
My mind kept drifting back to Memphis, replaying everything that’d happened while we were gone.
I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that Masina had survived an explosion.
First Aretha, then Sera, then the hotel.
Every time I turned around Marius was leaving another trail of destruction behind him, and the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that nigga had to go like yesterday.
He wasn’t just a problem anymore. He was a cancer spreading through everybody connected to us, and the world would genuinely be a better place without him breathing the same air as the rest of us.
Looking across the cabin, I found Kayla sitting by the window with her arms folded, pouting like she hadn’t looked in my direction once since we boarded. She refused to even acknowledge I existed, choosing instead to stare out at the clouds rolling beneath us.
Letting out a slow breath, I pushed myself up from my seat and walked over to her side of the cabin. The second she noticed me standing there, she glanced up, rolled her eyes with all the attitude in the world, and turned right back toward the window.
“You mad at me?” She didn’t even bother looking away from the window.
“What you think?”
I let out a slow breath and dropped into the seat across from her, resting my forearms on my knees.
“Look, Kayla...you know my past, but you also know how I feel about you. I ain’t never said that to no woman but Ysis, and that’s only ‘cause she my sister. I don’t want to say it because you said it.
I want to say it and mean it.” She finally turned toward me.
The tears gathering in her eyes pissed me off because I knew I was the reason they were there. She slowly shook her head.
“You won’t leave the game for me, and you don’t love me...but you crazy about me.” She laughed bitterly.
“Got it.”
“You taking this shit out of context.” My irritation crept back in. Every word coming out my mouth seemed to be getting twisted into something I never intended.
“No.” She sniffled, wiping beneath her eyes. “I’m taking it exactly how I hear it.” The cabin fell quiet for a second before she looked me dead in my face.
“So let me ask you again, Isaiah...what the fuck am I here for?”
“Because I want you to be.” I held her gaze. The question hit harder than I expected. I didn’t have some rehearsed answer. I only had the truth.
“That ain’t enough?”
“No.” Her answer came so fast it knocked the wind out of me. “No it's not...and I’m done settling for the bare minimum.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means when we get back to Memphis...”
She swallowed hard before forcing herself to finish. “you go your way and I go mine.” Every muscle in my body locked.
“I can’t be with a man who isn’t willing to sacrifice for me the same way I’ve sacrificed for him.”
For several long seconds I just stared at her. Everything Queen said, everything Marius had done, everything waiting on me back home, and now this all crashing together at once was about to make to turn into a certified crash out.
“So what I’m hearing is you ready to get back to Memphis so you can pick out your casket?” I stared a hole straight through her.
She stopped responding after that, knowing better than to dance with the devil.
Kayla had always been stubborn, but she also knew when I was dead serious.
If she thought she was leaving me once we touched back down in Memphis, she had another thing coming.
I’d revealed parts of myself to that woman I’d never shown another soul.
Aside from the fact that she knew too much, the truth was I really did have strong feelings for Kayla, and whether she believed it or not, those feelings scared the hell out of me.
She was everything I’d ever imagined a wife would be if I ever decided to have one.
She was loyal, smart, independent, and never afraid to challenge me when everybody else tiptoed around my temper.
The problem wasn’t Kayla. The problem was me.
A nigga had issues, and although every part of me belonged to that woman, I still wasn’t ready to drop the three-word bomb.
That didn’t mean I didn’t feel something.
It didn’t mean she was any less mine. It meant I needed time to sort through years of bullshit before I could say those words and know I meant every last one of them.
I wasn’t gone tell her I loved her because she wanted to hear it.
When I finally said it, it was gone be because I couldn’t hold that shit in another day.
The rest of the flight passed in complete silence.
Every now and then I’d catch myself looking over at her, hoping she’d at least glance my way, but she stayed focused out the window like I wasn’t even sitting across the cabin from her.
Once, I reached over, intending to grab her hand, and she smacked mine away without so much as a second thought before cutting her eyes at me with a death stare that would’ve made most grown men think twice.
I almost laughed because that attitude was exactly what made her... her.
When the jet finally touched down in Memphis, she was the first one up. By the time I grabbed my bag, she’d already made it down the stairs and had her phone out trying to order another car. I caught up to her just as she hit the confirmation button.
“The fuck you doing?”
“Calling myself a ride.”
I snatched the phone just long enough to cancel it before sliding it in my back pocket. “You tripping.”
“Isaiah—”
“Get cho stubborn ass in my car.”
She looked like she wanted to argue. Instead, she rolled her eyes and started walking toward my truck. I smirked to myself, shaking my head as I unlocked the doors. That hardheaded attitude of hers would’ve driven another nigga insane, but for some reason it only made me want her more.
She climbed into the passenger seat without another word, folded her arms across her chest, and turned toward the window like Memphis suddenly became the most interesting city she’d ever seen.
The ride back was quiet, save for the low hum of the engine and the occasional vibration of my phone lighting up against the center console.
Neither one of us had anything left to say.
We’d argued ourselves into a corner somewhere over Tennessee, and now we were both too damn stubborn to be the first one to climb out of it.
Every now and then I’d steal a glance in her direction, hoping she’d at least look at me once, but she stayed committed to giving me the cold shoulder.
Fine by me. She could be mad all she wanted. She still wasn’t going nowhere.
Instead of taking her back to her place, I pointed the truck toward Kade’s estate.
After everything that’d happened while we were gone, I already knew everybody would be gathered over there trying to piece together the latest bullshit Marius had managed to stir up.
Besides, I wasn’t about to drop Kayla off by herself while the city was damn near under siege.
She could cuss me out tomorrow if she wanted to.
Today she was staying where I knew she’d be safe.
Pulling through the gates, I parked beside Kade’s truck and killed the engine.
The compound looked calmer than it had any right to after the past couple of days, but appearances had become deceptive around our family.
Behind every closed door was somebody carrying grief, guilt, anger, or all three.
I climbed out first, rounded the front of the truck, and waited while Kayla reluctantly opened her door.
She didn’t wait on me to walk with her either.
She brushed right past my shoulder and headed toward the front entrance like I was just another stranger she’d happened to ride with.
The front door wasn’t even locked. Walking inside, the familiar smell of Chef Aretha’s kitchen hit me before reality settled back in.
Except this time the house felt...different.
There wasn’t any music playing from the speakers.
No laughter drifting in from another room.
Just low conversation that came to a stop the second everybody realized we’d walked in.