25. A Free Man – Kenya #2
He pulled back enough to grip my shoulders, forcing me to look at him.
“Don’t start that,” he said hoarsely. “You hear me? Don’t steal my moment blaming yourself.”
“I should’ve known Sharon was an evil Cunt”
“You were a kid,” he cut in. “A brilliant, stubborn, too-grown kid. Sharon and the DA did this. The state did this. Alan fucking Price did this. Cameron finished it. You didn’t put me in there.”
His eyes were wet.
“Your hands brought me out,” he added softly. “That’s the only math I care about.”
Behind me, I heard footsteps.
He looked over my shoulder, and something shifted in his face.
Last time he saw her outside of those gates, she was a Baby Bear for real.
Now she walked toward him in heels that didn’t wobble, in a blazer that said I will eat you alive in court, with eyes that had seen too much.
“Channy,” he whispered.
She stopped a few feet away, like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to touch him.
““We got you out.”
He smiled through the tears.
“I knew you would, counselor,” he said. “Even when I told you not to waste your life on me.”
“Too late for that,” she replied, lip trembling.
He opened his arms again.
This time, she moved.
She crashed into him with less control than I had. He staggered back half a step, laughing and crying all at once. He pressed his forehead to hers.
“My Baby Bear,” he said.
“I’m not a baby,” she sniffed.
“You always gon’ be the baby,” he said.
Camilla hovered near the edge of the group, arms wrapped around herself, eyes shining. She looked like she wanted to move and couldn’t remember how.
Jared noticed her.
His smile softened.
“Come here, Mila,” he called.
She froze.
“I look crazy,” she muttered, wiping at her face.
“You look beautiful Lovey” he said. “That smile was all I ever wanted to see again.”
She walked toward him slowly.
When she got close, she punched him in the chest.
It wasn’t hard, but the intent was.
“You stupid ass,” she snapped, voice shaking. “You left me with these two and went and made yourself a martyr. You know how annoying they are when they miss you?”
He laughed, clutching his chest. “I see you’re still as dramatic as hell.”
She cracked then.
Tears spilled over.
She grabbed his face in both hands and kissed his forehead like a blessing, then pulled him into a hug so tight his back popped.
“Don’t do that shit again,” she whispered.
“I’ll try not to catch another wrongful conviction,” he replied dryly.
Zayden approached last.
He stood in front of Jared, hands in his pockets, chin lifted.
“Welcome home,” he said.
Jared looked him over.
“You got old, Nigga,” he said.
“So did you,” Zay shot back.
They smiled at the same time.
Then they hugged that quick, hard, back-slapping embrace men do when the feelings are too big. It wasn’t long, but it was real.
“Thank you,” Jared murmured low enough that only Zay and maybe me could hear. “For taking care of my sisters. We ran in different crews back then. You ain’t have to protect mine and that means so much to me.”
Zay’s jaw flexed. “Always.”
Xavier hung back by the car, eyes scanning the perimeter, but his shoulders were looser than I’d seen them in weeks.
Jared clocked him, too.
“X,” he called. “You still ugly.”
Laughter rippled through us.
For a moment, we were just family again.
Not kingpins and lawyers and survivors and collateral.
Just Davis and King blood, breathing the same free air.
We took Jared back to our estate to shower and change, then we took him to food.
“Where you wanna go?” I asked as we loaded into the trucks.
He didn’t hesitate. “That spot on 83rd. The wings with the honey lemon pepper wet.”
I grinned. “I knew you was gon’ say that.”
The little hole-in-the-wall spot hadn’t changed much. Same faded menu on the wall. Same bell over the door. Same old dude behind the counter who’d been ignoring health codes since the mid-90s.
We took over two tables in the back, our presence filling the space in a way that made the two teenagers in the corner put their phones down.
Jared stared at the menu as if it were art.
“They got combos now?” he asked.
“They been had combos,” Camilla said. “You just been locked.”
He flinched.
I saw it, that little jerk in his shoulders. The way certain words landed differently on men who’d had their world shrink to concrete and steel.
“You good?” I asked quietly.
He dragged his eyes away from the board and looked at me.
“I’m out here,” he said. “That’s more than I let myself picture some days.”
We ordered too much food.
Wings every way, fries, and fried okra. Jared ordered a peach lemonade and a mac with collards.
While we waited for our food, Jared just watched.
He watched people come in and out. He watched them laugh and watched them talk to each other without looking over their shoulders first. He watched a little boy beg his mama for extra ranch.
I saw his fingers twitch, like he wanted to reach out and touch the world just to make sure it was real.
“My first day out,” he said suddenly, eyes still on the window, “I dreamed about driving. Not the beach, not a plane, not a big vacation. Just driving in regular fucking traffic. A red light. A turn signal clicking.”
“You’ll get that,” Chanel said. “We’ll get your license back.”
He smiled faintly. “You gon’ ride with me the first time I hit the freeway?”
She snorted. “Absolutely not. I like living.”
He laughed.
The food came.
He stared at the plate for a second, then picked up a wing like it was holy.
The first bite damn near took him out.
He closed his eyes, head tipping back, a low sound rumbling in his chest.
“Lord,” he groaned. “I miss flavor.”
We all laughed.
Even me.
For a little while, it almost felt like this story might bend toward happy.
Chanel told Dad about everything, and Mom was now living in our war room with her prison mate, Miles.
We dropped Jared at Daddy’s house,
“Your place is too loud,” he said. “Too many stairs. Too many cameras. I need a small for a minute.”
“I can turn the cameras off,” I offered.
He gave me a look. “No, you can’t.”
I smirked. “Okay, I won’t. But—”
“Kenya,” he said softly. “Let me sit in Daddy’s old recliner and watch the news like I’m seventy-five. Let me take a shower in a tub where the curtain rod doesn't screech. Let me sleep with a door that doesn’t slam itself.”
I swallowed.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “You’re right.”
Daddy met us on the porch.
He’d been pacing.
His hands shook when he reached for Jared.
“Son,” he said.
Jared froze.
They hadn’t seen each other outside of visiting rooms in over a decade. Plexiglass and metal detectors had a way of thinning out father-son bonds until they were just reports
“I’m good, Pop.” “I’m proud of you, son.” Words with no space for silence.
Now, on that little patch of porch where we used to leave our shoes, they just stared at each other.
Then Daddy pulled him in.
Held him like a man who finally got permission to breathe.
“I failed you,” Daddy whispered.
“No,” Jared said into his shoulder. “The system did.”
“But I’m your father,” Daddy insisted.
“And I’m your son,” Jared replied. “We both survived that bitch. That’s enough for today.”
They went inside together.
Camilla followed, lingering in the doorway. Chanel hugged him one more time, whispering something in his ear that I didn’t catch.
Zayden stayed by my side.
When the door closed, I stood there for a second, staring at the peeling paint.
“You did it,” he said.
“We did it,” I corrected.
He nodded.
Then his phone buzzed.
He checked the screen, jaw tightening just slightly.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s Miller,” he said. “Wants to go over prep for the hearing. They got footage. Witness timelines. The whole alley situation is tightening.”
The alley.
Charles’s blood still lived in the grooves of my mind even though the rain had washed it off the concrete weeks ago.
“You gotta go?” I asked.
“Not right this second,” he said. “But soon.”
I leaned against the porch rail and looked at him.
“We got Jared out,” I said. “But we’re still fighting for air. Channy’s bar license was hanging by a thread. My businesses are under a microscope. Cameron is still out there breathing and believing she’s right about all of us.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“It’s not fair,” I added.
He smirked without humor. “Since when have we ever used that word ?”
I sighed.
“Do you regret it?” I asked quietly.
He raised a brow. “Regret what?”
“Any of it,” I said. “Me. The empire. The way we built it. The way it made us targets.”
He stepped closer, crowding my space in that way that never felt like suffocation, only alignment.
“I regret not killing Alan Price myself,” he said. “I regret letting Sharon breathe long enough after the first time I heard her talk down to you. I regret not putting a bullet in Charles ten years ago when he and Channy got married, and I had an eerie feeling about the Nigga.”
He lifted my chin with two fingers.
“I have never regretted you,” he said. “Not one fucking day. You understand me?”
My throat burned.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
His phone buzzed again.
“Go,” I said. “Handle it.”
“You coming home?” he asked.
“In a minute,” I replied. “I wanna sit with this.”
He kissed my forehead, a soft press that still felt like we were twenty-somethings that fucked in the car for the first time, then he walked back to the truck.
Xavier was already in the passenger seat, profile hard against the windshield. War looked good on him and bad on him at the same time.
I watched them drive away.
For a few minutes, I sat on Daddy’s porch steps and just breathed.
For the first time, I had no plans, no maps, no contingencies.
By the time I got back to our house, the sun had started to sink, turning the sky that soft, bruised purple I always loved.
The twins were home now, laughter echoing faintly down the hall, their voices overlapping in that twin-speak that still sounded like music to me.
I paused at their door.
Amara was on the floor on TikTok. Aniya was on the bed, tablet in her lap, headphones around her neck, narrating some game out loud.
“Mommy!” Amara squealed when she saw me. “Pop Pop said Uncle Jared’s out of jail! Is he coming to my recital?”
“Yeah, baby,” I said, leaning against the frame. “He is.”
My niece Genesis looked up, eyes wide. “Is he really home? For real?”
“For real,” I said. “You’ll meet him tomorrow.”
They’d grown up with “Uncle Jared” as a concept, a man in stories, a face in old pictures, a voice sometimes on the phone when the call connected right. Now they’d have to stitch that myth to a living person who carried scars they couldn’t yet understand.
I closed their door gently.
In our bedroom, I sank down onto the edge of the bed.
Jared was free.
Sharon and Miles were caged.
Charles was dead.
Cameron was somewhere out there, reloading her strategy.
Zay and X were still under the system's thumb.
Chanel was walking a tightrope in court heels.
This wasn’t a victory.
This was a reallocation.
I lay back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the house breathe.
Tomorrow, we’d go take Jared shopping for clothes that weren’t regulation orange. We’d get him a phone he didn’t know how to use yet. We’d sit around Daddy’s dining table and finally tell the whole truth about Sharon with no censors and no excuses. We would need to help him heal.
We’d keep strategizing for the alley case.
We’d keep watching shadows for Cameron.
We’d keep moving.
Because this was what collateral love looked like in real time. It was messy, incomplete, heavy, and still somehow worth it.
I closed my eyes.
For the first time in weeks, the darkness that met me didn’t feel like a cage.
It felt like a pause.
Just that.
A pause between one war and the next.
The End