He Don't Do BBW's
CHAPTER ONE
KAI
The woman had been looking at Kai for twenty minutes and still hadn’t moved.
He noticed because Kai noticed most things in a room before they became his problem.
The bartender changing bottles under the counter.
The man near the bathroom who kept checking the same text thread.
The couple arguing quietly over a set of keys.
And the pretty woman in a rust-colored dress sitting three stools down from him, glancing over every few minutes before dropping her eyes back to her phone.
Dez noticed because Dez noticed women.
“She fine,” he said.
Kai kept his attention on the score above the bar. “Go talk to her.”
“She ain’t looking at me.”
“Sounds personal.”
Dez sucked his teeth. His locs were tied back tonight, exposing the tattoo behind his ear that his mother still pretended not to know about. “You allergic to enjoying yourself.”
“I’m enjoying this bourbon.”
“That’s liquor. It don’t count.”
A woman stepped into Kai’s line of sight before he could answer. Brown skin, neat bob, fitted jeans, little white top that showed exactly enough. Pretty face. Confident smile.
“My friend thinks you cute,” she said.
Kai looked at her, then past her.
She pointed.
The woman in the rust dress.
Big woman. Gorgeous face. Soft cheeks. Full mouth. Dress fitted clean, makeup right, hair pinned up with two curls loose by her jaw.
The second their eyes met, she put her head down so fast Kai almost laughed.
He looked back at the messenger.
“Why she ain’t come over herself?”
“Because she’s shy.” The woman leaned her elbow on the bar. “Don’t be difficult. Send her a drink.”
“Nah.”
She blinked. “Damn. That quick?”
“You asked.”
“She’s nervous. You look mean.”
“I’m sitting here drinking.”
“Mean while drinking.” She smiled. “Come on. One drink.”
Kai shook his head.
Her smile thinned with understanding. “Oh. You one of them.”
“One of what?”
“Niggas that don’t like big girls.”
Dez made a choking sound beside him.
Kai ignored him. “She fine.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
He glanced over again. The woman had finally looked up, but not at him. She was pretending to study the drink menu like the ingredients had changed in the last thirty seconds.
“I don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
Kai gave her a look.
Her eyebrows rose. “You got a weight limit?”
“Yep.”
“That’s shallow as hell.”
“Probably.”
Dez finally turned on his stool. “Don’t argue with him.”
The woman looked between them. “You agreeing with this?”
“Absolutely.” Dez lifted his glass. “I support all foolish policies that improve my personal odds.”
She laughed. “You stupid.”
“And single. Your friend single?”
“Dez,” Kai said.
“What? He already declined the application. I’m reviewing it.”
The woman laughed again, louder this time. The woman in rust looked over, confused, then quickly away.
“She isn’t insecure,” the friend said to Kai. “She’s just shy.”
“She been looking over here twenty minutes and sent you. Whatever you call it, it ain’t for me.”
“So you need a woman to march up and throw herself at you?”
“No. I need a grown woman who can say hello.”
“You full of yourself.”
“A little.”
That made her smile despite herself.
She stayed.
Not because Kai asked her to. She just kept talking. About the game. About the bartender watering down drinks. About how she had brought her friend out after a bad workweek and wasn’t going to let two men with “funeral-face energy” ruin it.
Kai liked that she didn’t wait for permission to speak.
Forty minutes later, Dez had wandered over to the rust-dress woman and gotten her laughing. Kai had learned the messenger’s name was Tasha, she worked in dental sales, and she thought he needed therapy.
An hour after that, Tasha was leaving with him.
It wasn’t complicated.
She was pretty. She was direct. She knew what she wanted.
Those were the things Kai liked.
They were halfway across the parking lot when his phone rang.
Rome.
Kai stopped.
Tasha noticed immediately. “That face mean I’m not getting breakfast?”
“Give me a second.”
He answered. “Yeah.”
“We got a problem at the yard.”
Rome didn’t sound panicked. He had worked for Kai long enough to know panic wasn’t useful.
Kai unlocked his truck but didn’t open the door. “What kind?”
“Cash drawer from the Morrison settlement is short.”
“How short?”
“All of it.”
Kai’s hand settled on the roof of the truck. “Number.”
“Eighty-seven.”
“Hundred?”
“Thousand.”
Tasha’s smile disappeared when she saw his face.
Kai looked at his watch. 12:42 a.m.
“Who accessed the admin office?”
“I’m pulling logs now. Camera caught the temp kid leaving with the gray lockbox at nine fourteen.”
Kai didn’t move.
“What temp kid?”
“Dre James.”
He knew the name. Twenty-two. Warehouse temp, sometimes ran documents between the yard and office. Quiet. Late twice in his first week, then not again after Rome checked him. Good with the dispatch software. Kai had approved extending him another month two days ago.
“Where is he?”
“Phone off. Didn’t clock out. Car still here.”
“Nobody touches his shit. Lock the office. Pull exterior footage from eight to ten. I want badge logs, override logs, and everybody who was physically on property.”
“Already started.”
“Good. Dez with me. We’ll be there in twenty.”
Kai hung up.
Tasha folded her arms. “Work?”
“Yeah.”
“So definitely no breakfast.”
“Definitely no breakfast.”
She studied him for a second, then sighed. “You could’ve at least lied nice.”
“You want me to?”
“No. That’s probably why I was leaving with you in the first place.”
Kai called her a car and waited until it pulled up.
Dez came out of the lounge five minutes later with a grin that died when he saw Kai.
“What happened?”
“Eighty-seven missing from Morrison. Camera got Dre carrying the box.”
Dez’s mouth flattened. “Dre?”
“That’s what Rome said.”
“Kid don’t strike me like eighty-seven-thousand-dollars stupid.”
“People get creative when money get involved.”
“True.”
They drove to the yard.
Vaughn Recovery occupied a fenced lot between a tire warehouse and a plumbing supply company. Twenty-three trucks, two flatbeds, a low brick office building, and enough cameras to make people complain until one of them needed footage.
Kai didn’t storm in.
He checked the exterior gate first.
No damage.
Then the employee lot.
Dre’s ten-year-old Nissan sat in the back row. Driver window cracked. Work hoodie on the passenger seat.
Inside, Rome had two security feeds up on the conference-room screens. Three employees were still there, separated while statements were being taken. Dez went to the server room with Malik from IT. Kai watched footage.
At 9:13, Dre walked into the admin hallway empty-handed.
At 9:14, he came out carrying the gray fireproof box against his stomach.
At 9:15, he disappeared through the side corridor.
“Where that hall camera?” Kai asked.
Rome frowned. “It dropped around nine ten.”
Kai looked at him.
“Malik’s checking it.”
“For how long?”
“Fourteen minutes.”
Not good.
Dre’s badge had opened the admin office. No forced entry. No alarm.
But the cash was kept in an inner safe.
Kai asked, “Who opened the safe?”
Rome tapped the log. “Manager override.”
“Whose?”
“System isn’t attaching a user. That’s part of what Malik’s on.”
Kai stared at the screen again.
A twenty-two-year-old temp had apparently walked into an office he was allowed to enter, opened a safe he wasn’t allowed to access, taken a lockbox containing eighty-seven thousand dollars, passed through the one hallway whose camera happened to be down, left his own car behind, and vanished without clocking out.
Maybe Dre was stupid.
Maybe somebody wanted Kai to believe he was.
“Emergency contact?” Kai asked.
Rome pulled the file.
Nola James.
Sister.
Address was fifteen minutes away.
Kai took Dez.
“You want me to call first?” Dez asked as they turned onto a block of attached townhouses.
“No.”
“Friendly.”
“If she calls him after I call her, I learn nothing.”
“Fair.”
At 1:38 a.m., Kai stood at a blue front door with a chipped brass number seven hanging crooked over the peephole.
He knocked three times.
Not hard.
A light came on upstairs.
Locks moved.
The door opened four inches with the chain still attached.
A woman looked through the gap.
Big.
Black.
Bare face. Satin scarf. Oversized gray T-shirt. Thick gold hoops still in her ears like she’d fallen asleep without taking them out.
And annoyed enough that whatever sleep had softened in her face disappeared the second she saw two strange men on her step.
“Can I help you?”
Kai’s brain, traitorous as hell, supplied one useless thought.
Pretty.
Then she looked past him at Dez and back.
“Actually, let me change that. Who the fuck are y’all?”
Dez coughed into his fist.
Kai said, “Dre here?”
Her expression changed.
Not fear.
Attention.
“Who wants to know?”
Kai held her eyes.
“The nigga he stole eighty-seven thousand dollars from.”
Upstairs, something hit the floor.
Nola whipped her head around.
Then the back of the townhouse went quiet.