Chapter 16
They didn’t give me food that night.
The hunger sharpened my memory.
I remembered Zayden at twenty-four. He was too big for his own anger, too smart to stay loud forever. The way he’d learned to sit still without going soft. The way he watched patterns like they were gospel.
I remembered Xavier quiet and deadly, always three moves ahead, never emotional unless it came to family. He wouldn’t escalate without proof.
Good.
And Chanel—
I swallowed.
I remembered her at eighteen, curled up on her bed, reading romance novels like they were armor. Like love was something that happened to other girls in safer worlds.
I had promised myself she wouldn’t see this side of me.
That she wouldn’t have to become this.
My jaw clenched. I had to get out of here. My baby sister would not have to see me identify myself. I would not leave that burden on her. Although my mom never liked me, I could imagine her wailing as if she cared. The irony is, I looked just like my mom.
My father used to say, “Kenya, you are Sharon’s twin. Your mother’s sharp mouth, attitude, and beautiful brown skin are what drew me to her.”
Yet those were the very same reasons my mother hated me.
She said I was too damn loud, too prideful, and too fast. Looking at me was akin to looking in a mirror, and Sharon hated what she saw.
She would rather see Chanel, lighter, softer spoken, and smaller.
She never made comments about her thicker frame or made comments about a hair color not fitting her complexion.
As beautiful as my mother was, she hated herself, and she hated me more because I refused to hate myself.
All the life she didn’t allow herself, I graciously gave myself.
I showed my midsection rolls and all. I sewed in different bang colors to match my outfits.
I wouldn’t let her sew discord between me and myself.
Denise came into the storage unit and broke me out of my train of thought.
She had dark circles under her eyes now.
“One call and I do the talking,” she said. “That’s all I can do.”
I wanted to smile, but I didn’t. I knew smiling would’ve spooked her.
“Thank you,” I said.
She asked me for the phone number.
With a cheap, old, burner phone, she dialed with shaky hands.
It picked up on the second tone.
I couldn’t make out the words he said, but I could hear his deep baritone.
“She told me to call you,” Denise whispered.
A paused ensued.
“That… you’d know what to do next,” the woman said. “She said not to panic. Said you’d understand.”
Denise began to feel nervous again, and her hands shook.
She seemed anxious to get off the phone as if she was second-guessing her loyalty.
Little did Denise know she was already a gonner.
Loyalty cannot be reestablished. Even if she got out of here in one peace a bullet in her head was the only fate waiting for her.
Then she said it. “For the restie.”
Denise left without another word.
When the door shut, I leaned back and closed my eyes.
They thought that call was a favor.
It wasn’t.
It was a signal.
Zayden knew now.
Not just that I was alive—
But that I was still running the board. I also knew that he’d kept her on the phone long enough to trace it.
It would be exactly when Charles least expected it.
I let the darkness take me.
Not sleep.
Just stillness.
Because this wasn’t the worst thing I’d survived.
Not by far.
And I wasn’t done teaching them the cost of touching what didn’t belong to them.
The door flew open hard enough to rattle the concrete, light slicing into the room like a blade. My eyes adjusted fast. I expected Zayden but was pissed to see Charles instead. Shock was a luxury I didn’t allow myself.
Charles stood in the doorway.
Smiling.
That was how I knew the phone call had rattled him.
“You look tired,” he said, stepping inside like this was his living room, and I was an inconvenience he’d decided to tolerate. “Did you sleep?”
I didn’t answer.
Silence pissed men like him off more than insults ever could.
He circled me slowly, shoes scraping the floor on purpose. He wanted me to track him. Wanted my attention fractured.
I tracked anyway.
Old habit.
“You know,” he continued, “I expected more screaming. More begging.”
“I don’t perform for men who confuse volume with authority,” I said calmly.
His smile twitched.
There it was.
“That mouth,” he said. “Your sister got a sharp ass mouth too, but I prefer hers wrapped around my dick.”
“Bet that shit little.” I replied.
The slap came fast.
Open palm. Side of my face. Enough force to make my head snap, but not enough to knock me out. What a fucking bitch.
I tasted blood.
I smiled anyway.
That infuriated him.
He grabbed my chair and tipped it backward, sending me crashing to the floor. Pain flared down my spine, sharp and immediate. My breath left my lungs in a harsh sound I couldn’t stop.
He crouched over me.
“You think you’re running something?” he hissed.
I met his eyes.
“I know I am,” I said. “And that terrifies you.”
That was the wrong thing to say.
He dragged me up by my arms, hauled me across the floor, and shoved me against the wall.
My shoulder screamed. While I should have been begging him to stop, I welcomed it.
Pain anchored me in my body and kept me from drifting.
I knew I sustained so many injuries and the worst thing I could do was sleep.
“You don’t get to talk like you’re in control,” he said. “Not here.”
I laughed. Low. Hoarse.
“You brought me here because I am,” I said. “Men like you don’t kidnap women they think are weak.”
His hand tightened around my throat.
His grip was tight but not enough to kill me, but it did scare me.
I let my body go loose, and I let my eyes flutter.
Men like him mistook compliance for surrender.
I let my body dangle. I collapsed to the floor, coughing, forcing air back into my lungs in controlled pulls.
He stepped back, adjusting his jacket like he needed distance from his own reaction.
“You think Zayden’s coming for you,” he said.
“He already is,” I replied.
“You think he’s being smart about it,” Charles continued. “You think he’s calm.”
“He always is,” I said. “That’s why you’re pacing.”
He kicked the chair across the room.
The sound echoed.
Good.
That meant he was unraveling.
“You still protecting your sister?” he asked suddenly.
The air changed.
That was deliberate.
That was a threat.
I stood slowly, ignoring the ache in my knees.
“You bring Chanel into this,” I said evenly, “and I promise you won’t live long enough to regret it.”
He laughed, sharp and ugly.
“See?” he said. “There she is. The real you.”
“No,” I corrected. “The prepared one.”
He stared at me like he was seeing me clearly for the first time.
He turned and left without another word.
The door slammed.
I exhaled slowly.
That was a test.
And he’d failed it.
A few moments later, Denise came back.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“They're moving you,” she muttered.
“Where?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“That’s smart,” I said.
She hesitated.
Then crouched.
“They're scared,” she whispered. “Charles isn’t sleeping. He keeps checking his phone. Yelling about money.”
I nodded.
“Denise,” I said softly.
She flinched at her name.
“You already crossed the line when you gave me that phone call,” I continued. “There’s no neutral anymore.”
Her eyes filled despite herself.
“I got kids,” she whispered.
“So do I,” I replied.
That landed.
She swallowed.
“What do you need?” she asked.
“A delay,” I said. “Delay them just ten more minutes.”
I knew we had driven for about 42 minutes, and if my calculation was correct, Zayden should be getting here in 7.
She nodded once.
A few moments later, I felt a shift in pressure.
The air tightened and then–Boom.
The wall to my left detonated.
Concrete explodes inward, dust and shrapnel spraying like a rain of shrapnel. The blast rattled my teeth, punching the breath from my lungs. I cured instinctively, chains biting into my wrists as the room filled with smoke and screaming.
Boots hit the floor.
The sound was heavy and deliberate.
I heard gunfire erupt in short, controlled bursts. I blinked through the haze, ears ringing, heart slamming so hard it hurt. I saw figures moving through the smoke like silhouettes cut from violence itself.
I saw two figures well over 6 feet armed and masked. Despite the debris, I heard my bestie’s voice.
It was low, calm, and unmistakable.
“The left is clear. Grab her.”
My chest caves in so hard it almost knocks me unconscious.
Another voice answers him—deep and cold.
“Hall secured.”
I stared at Xavier in awe. He was no longer the boy who played the Wii all day. He wasn’t
The quiet brother who used to watch corners while Zay moved loudly.
This version of X moves like death learned patience.
A guard lunged toward me.
He didn’t make it two steps before shots rang out, and the man dropped mid-stride.
“Kenya!”
I turn my head just as the smoke thins.
And I see her.
My baby sister Chanel sent that shot
She wasn’t shaken, frozen, or screaming. She stood in tactical black, hair pulled back tight, eyes locked forward like she’s been doing this her whole life. A Glock steady in her hands. No hesitation or fear.
One of the guards swung a rifle up.
She doesn’t flinch.
She steps inside his reach and fired her gun twice—once to the knee, once to the throat.
He collapses, choking, blood spraying across the floor.
My stomach flipped from shock.
That’s not the Chanel I left reading romance novels in her childhood bedroom.
That’s a Davis woman who survived.
And I didn’t protect her from this, but I’m so glad X prepared her for it.
She turned and saw me.
For half a second, I saw the flicker of panic on her face, then she locked it down.
She moved to me immediately.
“I got you,” she said. Voice steady and commanding. “Stay with me.”
Xavier appears beside her, weapon still up, scanning, calculating.
“You hurt?” he asks me.
I tried to answer.
My voice comes out raw. “Chains.”
That’s all I get out before Zayden was there.
He dropped to one knee in front of me, eyes scanning my face.
I knew I had to be badly beaten up. My head was pounding and my right eyes was swelling shut. He looked at me in his eyes, and his jaw tightened.
He stood and turned.
The remaining guard barely has time to beg.
Zayden moved like controlled rage. He struck one of the guards in the throat. The man collapses. Zayden grabbed another guard by the collar and slammed his head against the wall
Blood smears down concrete.
Xavier stepped forward and pressed the barrel of his gun against the back of the head of a man approaching Zayden’s
“You got three seconds to decide how much you like breathing,” X says calmly.
The man sobbed and spilled everything.
Names.
Addresses.
Mistakes.
Chanel cut my restraints while they worked.
Her hands were steady.
She helped me stand, but I collapsed.
Zayden caught me instantly, arms locking around me like a brace.
Only then did he let his forehead press against mine.
My village got me out of there and I understood something with brutal clarity:
This wasn’t a rescue.
This was enforcement.
And the people who took me woke up the infamous King brothers.
They activated the system.
As we move through the wreckage, I catch my sister’s eye.
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed quietly.
She shakes her head.
“No,” she replies. “I was always going to be this.”
That one hurts more than the chains ever did.
As we step into the night, sirens distant, city unaware of what just shifted beneath it, I lean into Zayden’s chest and let myself breathe.
Because tomorrow? Tomorrow comes consequences. And somebody is going to learn what collateral love really costs.