Chapter 7
The ride was quiet, how I liked it. All that I could do was hope that Tattiana understood that I wasn’t the nigga who was about to play with her.
In the middle of what I was doing this morning, I had to stop my day and head over to snatch her ass up.
That shit already had me pissed. She really thought that she could run away from this, and that wasn’t about to happen.
My life, my legacy, and my inheritance of the throne depended solely on me having a wife of her caliber.
Her family was well known and respected.
She was what I needed, even if she wasn’t what I wanted.
Don’t get me wrong, finally laying eyes on her, she was most definitely beautiful but I’d just never imagined having to be somebody’s husband.
My mother and my father made it clear that I didn’t have a choice in the matter if I planned on taking over.
The Taylors had the political connects that we needed and when my father broke it down, it all made sense.
There was more than just the marriage that was required, but I couldn’t break all of that to my future wife while she was in the state of hating my ass.
I’d drop that other bomb on her at a later date.
The closer we got to the compound, the more I felt her eyes burning into the side of my face.
She hadn’t said anything since I took her phone.
Just sat there with her arms folded across her chest, jaw tight, trying to look like she wasn’t scared.
I could tell she was though, and she had every right to be.
Her leg was bouncing and she kept glancing at the door handle like she was really debating whether jumping out of a moving vehicle was a real option.
It wasn’t. But I wasn’t gone tell her that. If she wanted to kill her crazy ass self, that was on her. Life with a nigga like me couldn’t be that damn bad. Hopefully she lived long enough to see that.
“Put this on,” I said, holding out the blindfold without looking at her.
She stared at it. “Are you serious.”
“Don’t ever ask me that again, I’m always serious. Put it on.”
“You already kidnapped me. Now you want me blind too?” Her voice cracked on the last word and she caught it, pressed her lips together like she was mad at herself for letting that slip through.
I didn’t respond. I just kept holding the blindfold out and waited.
She snatched it out of my hand and put it on herself. Rough. Like doing it fast meant she was still in control of something.
I watched her for a second after she got it on. Sitting there stiff, blindfold over her eyes, hands back in her lap. She was trying hard to hold herself together and I could respect that even if I wasn’t about to say it. She wasn’t crying, yelling or making a scene.
I turned back to the window.
Nothing about this was personal. Tattiana Taylor was a means to an end.
Her father had the connects and pull in the community that we needed ties to.
Tyree Taylor had done something unimaginable, a secret that would ruin everything that he worked for and turn his world upside down.
My father held the strings to Tyree’s life and in exchange, Tyree does what my father asked of him.
That arrangement they came to was my marriage to his daughter in exchange for my father’s permanent silence.
A business transaction. She just happened to be on the other side of it.
My father made a promise that she would be protected by all means, as well as Tyree’s secrets.
In the business that we’re in, I learned long ago that a nigga will do damn near anything to protect his secrets.
This is proof of that. This nigga gave away his princess that supposedly means the world to him.
The truck slowed, and I heard the gate roll open. We pulled through and I heard it close behind us.
“Keep it on until I tell you to take it off,” I said.
She didn’t respond. But she kept it on.
—
Sam met us at the door. He was one of my in house security.
Six-four, built like a damn wall, and one of the few people who moved through my house with any kind of authority.
He held the door open and fell into step behind us.
He was nervous about something and I didn’t have time to ask what was that all about.
I walked Tattiana through the entrance, one hand on her arm so she didn’t walk into anything.
The house was quiet the way it always was at this hour. My staff was gone for the night. Security was posted at every exit like they were supposed to be. Everything was the way I left it.
Or it should’ve been.
We were halfway down the main hall, almost to the room I had set up for her, when a door down the corridor swung open.
I heard her before I saw her.
And then Mallory stepped out into the hallway wrapped in nothing but one of my sheets, her hair was everywhere, looking like she had just woke up and decided drama was the answer.
She stopped when she saw us.
I stopped and shook my head at the sight of her standing in the doorway of my bedroom. Looking exactly like she did when I left her. She wasn’t supposed to be here still.
For about three seconds nobody said anything.
Then Mallory’s whole face shifted when Tatti took her own blindfold off to see what was going on.
“Kaseem.” She said my name slow, drawing it out, her eyes moving from me to Tattiana and back again. “What the hell is going on? Who is this?”
I didn’t answer her. I turned to Sam.
“Why is she still here and you had instructions to send her home hours ago. You know bitches ain’t never laid up in my shit all day,” I said.
Sam straightened up. “She wouldn’t get dressed, sir. I asked her twice and she—”
“Who is in charge around this muthafucka, Sam?”
He dropped his head. “You are.”
“So when I say send somebody home, what does that mean.”
“It means send her home.” He paused. “I apologize. It won’t happen again.”
“And that much, I know. I’ll deal with you later.” I looked at two of the other men posted near the end of the hall. “Get her out. Now. And don’t forget to blindfold the bitch. Don’t give her phone back either. She can get another one.”
That’s when Mallory found her voice all the way.
“Are you serious right now? You gone give me my phone back. You not that damn crazy. Or give me the $1800 I’ll need for a new one.
” She pulled the sheet tighter and stepped forward, not even trying to lower her volume.
“Then, to top shit off, you gone bring some bitch up in here while I’m still in your bed?
You playing in my face for this?” She looked Tattiana up and down, her lip curling. “This big, uncomfortable ass bitch?”
I almost laughed. I had to press my back teeth together to stop it because Mallory knew better.
She had to know better. Tattiana was thick in every place a woman was supposed to be thick and put together in a way that Mallory knew that she couldn’t match.
Three years I’d been messing with Mallory off and on and it had never been anything more than what it was. A fuck.
She knew that. She’d always known that. The fact that she was standing in my hallway, hours after her ass should have been gone, in a sheet trying to claim me like I was her nigga or something, that told me she had gotten confused somewhere along the way and I was gone have to clear that up.
But before I could open my mouth, Tattiana stepped forward.
“Watch your mouth, that’s connected to yo ugly ass face,” she said.
Her voice wasn’t loud. It was flat. Direct.
Like she was too tired and too done with her day to waste energy raising it.
“I’m already having a bad enough day. Don’t make it worse for yourself.
This ain’t even what you think it is with me being here.
So please, don’t get yourself fucked up over nothing.
” she looked her directly in the eyes when she spoke.
I loved how she could speak up for herself, because the fat comment was unnecessary like a muthafucka.
Mallory blinked. I don’t think she expected that.
I know I damn sure didn’t.
“Baby, you better check your little—”
“I’m sure he’s not your baby. Any nigga that wanted or respected you wouldn’t be throwing you out they house on yo head like that.
” Tatti said, cutting her off clean. “And I’m not little.
And he don’t know me well enough to be checking anything, but you called me out my name twice now and I don’t play that.
So however this goes from here is on you. ”
Mallory laughed. That sharp, disbelieving laugh women do right before they do or say something stupid.
“This raggedy bitch,” she said, and took two steps forward while swinging and missing.
Tattiana didn’t wait for a second.
She closed the distance between them fast and caught Mallory before security could even process what was happening.
It wasn’t a slap. It wasn’t a pull. Tattiana grabbed her by the side of the head and took her down to the floor.
She started working like she had been waiting for a reason.
All that I could think about was that she was doing to Mallory what she wanted to do to my ass for kidnapping her.
Mallory screamed and grabbed at her hair, then got a fistful of it.
Tatti was still working, and punching all over her head and face. This shit was wild. She ain’t look like she had it in her, but again, me snatching her up must had gave her some anger that packed some extra strength.
“Aye—” I moved and so did Sam but it took both of us and another one of my men to get in there and pull Tattiana off.
She was breathing hard, chest heaving, but she wasn’t even really ruffled about it.
Once she calmed down, she straightened herself up and smoothed her hair back down while two of my guys dragged Mallory toward the door.
Mallory was still yelling, hair a even bigger mess, eye swelling and a knot on her forehead. The sheet barely hanging on.