Chapter 5
Five
Honor Gravehart
"You sure you got this handled?"
"Honor, please get off my phone if you're gonna ask me stupid shit," Syn fussed. "You know exactly how I handle things, but if you need a refresher, hit Crown. He knows my work better than anyone."
"Nah, we good. Just make sure to send proof."
Syn laughed under her breath. "The proof will be on the news first thing tomorrow morning."
"Lucian wants it—"
"Look, I mean no disrespect when I say this because I actually like you, but what Lucian wants has never quenched my thirst, and it never will. You presented a job, I claimed it, and plan to handle it my way."
"As much as I appreciate the confidence, I need this to happen without drawing too much attention."
"And it won't. This isn't happening in your neck of the woods. This is my city, and in my city, we don't make a scene unless we're sending a message."
"Ight," I agreed. "Hit me when it's done."
"Say less," she responded, ending the call.
I dropped my phone on the cushion beside me and leaned back on the couch, staring at the ceiling.
Life was happening fast. Everything I needed to do in terms of dealing with Lucian was gon' hit back to fucking back, and there was no room for mistakes.
To pull this type of hit off, I needed to be in the right headspace.
Straight tunnel vision but Navy had my head somewhere in the clouds, when I desperately needed to be grounded.
After dropping Wolfe back at his crib, I came straight home and as soon as I didn't have shit to occupy my mind, my thoughts went back to wondering what Navy deleted from the camera feed.
Since I opened the club, Navy had access to everything.
Anything I owned was hers to fuck around with whenever she wanted.
Not once had she fucked with the cameras until the other night, and that said more than I was willing to admit.
I refused to pull the footage to avoid misinterpreting whatever the footage showed.
When it came to Navy, I only expected two things: love and honesty.
Her love had been engraved along the curve of my heart since the day we met because she wasn't meant to be a moment in my life.
She was the drum that kept my heart in rhythm and losing that scared the fuck out of me.
The alarm by the front door sounded, signaling someone was coming into the house.
I haven't felt nervous about seeing Navy in years.
This morning, it felt justified because she held the power to break the man I've become, into the boy she saved, and something told me today might be the day she put that power to use.
"Navy," I called out, listening to the clicks of her heels grow louder the closer she got.
I waited for a response, but when she waltzed past the living room like she didn't hear me, I pushed off the couch and followed behind her.
"Navy, look at me." Reaching the stairs, I caught her hand. I didn't want to use force to keep her here, so I squeezed.
"Honor, give me a moment," she requested, barely looking my way. "Let me shower and change into something more comfortable."
"Then we can talk?" I asked, sounding childish as fuck.
"Yeah, Honor." Navy sighed.
"Ight. Did you eat?"
"No, but I'm not hungry. I just want to shower."
"Go shower. I ordered extra food in case you came home instead of—"
"I fucking knew you orchestrated this whole shit," she grumbled, yanking her hand from mine. Navy climbed three steps, then turned to face me. A slurry of emotions exploded across her face.
"Is it not enough that I'm always fucking there for you, is it? Do you even appreciate what I do for you?" The grit in her tone made my jaw twitch.
"Since when don't I appreciate you?"
"Always! You needed me home, so you had Wolfe—"
"Ight." I chuckled, stepping onto the stairs. "If I wanted you at home, I wouldn't have went to Wolfe to get it done."
"Because I always do what you say, right?" she scoffed.
"No. You would've been home because I carried you out that muthafuckin' club and brought your ass where I wanted you."
"Whatever, Honor," she huffed.
"Man, go shower and lose the fucking attitude. I'll bring your food to you," I said, doing my best to keep my aggravation at bay.
"I'll come down to eat," she spat, then stomped up the rest of the steps.
My gaze lingered on her until she was out of sight. Shaking my head, I went back to the living room and grabbed my phone to call Wolfe.
"Yeah," he answered on the second ring, sounding like he knew why I was calling.
"The fuck you do?"
"I told her 'bout the shit that happened at Crown's spot."
"Nigga, what happened that she needed to know? She came in here with an attitude that I didn't fucking cause."
"The fuck you mean what happened? You tried to off yourself, my nigga."
"That's what you fucking told her?" I groaned.
"Yeah, and from what she said, it wasn't your first time."
"That shit at Crown's house was nothing." I sighed, not wanting to get into the details of it with Wolfe. "Why didn't you talk to me if you were worried?"
"Since when do you talk about your feelings? You're cool with helping everyone else, but don't want nobody helping you. I'm not Crown. I'm not begging you to express yourself, so I went to the only person you open up for."
"I'm telling Crown you said that shit." I chuckled.
"Y'all not even talking," Wolfe shot back.
"We cool."
"Word?"
"Yeah. I don't know if we a hundred, but I agreed to see his couch lady."
"How'd he get—"
"Good!" Chosyn cut in.
"Nigga, you got me on speaker?" I said to Wolfe.
"Yeah. I was feeding Nix and Chosyn wanted to be nosey."
"I did not," Chosyn smacked. "Anyway, Honor, I am so proud of you."
"Thanks, Chosyn." I grinned. "But aye, tell your friend be easy on me."
"This is her being easy on you." Chosyn's whole tone shifted into something that felt like pity and sorrow swirled into death. "Honor, I…" she paused. "Wolfie, do you mind if I have a moment with your brother?"
"Why can't the phone stay on speaker? Fuck you got going on, my heart?"
"Nothing. I just don't think Honor wants to have this kind of conversation with an audience."
"You know I'll bury that nigga behind you, right?"
"As you should. Never play when it comes to your heart, 'cause I'll never play when it comes to my love."
"Ight, you got me blushing like a nigga whose crush talked to him for the first time."
"I'ma always keep it like that about you.”
"You already got my last name, and birthed my daughter, what more you tryin' to get up out me, my heart?" Wolfe stated, and I could hear the grin in his tone and feel the love he had for his wife in every word he spoke. The shit was beautiful.
"I'm trying to have it all with you, Wolfie."
"We gon' have it all too. Put that shit on my heart, and you know how I get 'bout you."
"And do." Chosyn giggled. "Now take my daughter so she can turn up to Gracie's Corner."
"Come on, Nix," I heard Wolfe say.
"Okay, now that he's gone, we can talk," Chosyn joked after a moment.
"Wassup?" I asked, not knowing where this was going.
"How are you, Honor?"
"I'm straight," I answered. "You good?"
"I'm great, actually, but this isn't about me. How are you, really?"
Before answering, I thought about how layered a question it was. Then I wondered if she actually cared. Deciding to keep it brief, I told her, "I'm straight."
"Many people don't ask you that and actually mean it, huh?" She softly laughed.
"I don't like to assume the next person's intentions, but not really."
"I get that. It took me a while to get comfortable with the question. Before River and her mom, I used to feel like no one really cared. My father didn't," she huffed.
"Choyce probably did. She looked up to you," I told her, wanting to get the conversation off me.
"How you know? You been talking about to my sister about me?"
"Nah," I laughed, catching the frown in her tone, "I only said that 'cause I know what it feels like to see someone as your whole world and find out you're not theirs."
"That can hurt, but with Choyce, it's more like we let miscommunication get in between us. Kind of like you and Navy."
"There it is." I smirked. "The reason for the call. Give it to me straight, Chosyn."
"No chaser?"
"No chaser light on the ice," I joked, bracing myself for whatever she had to say.
"Navy is hurting, and that's not to say I don't recognize you're hurting too."
"Chosyn, I'm good."
"No, you're not, Honor. I don't know you well, and that's probably why you think lying will pacify my concern, but it won't. I don't need to know your favorite color to know what hurt looks like.
We've both been hurt by the same kind of people.
Lucian hurt you worse than Chance hurt me, but when we both close our eyes, those memories still hit like nightmares. "
Groaning, I ran my hand over my head.
"What you want me to say? That I'm broken?
Cool, I'm broken and fucked up in the head, Chosyn.
I've done shit I can't escape. I got blood on my hands that I can't wash clean.
And if none of that is enough to show you how fucked up in the head I am…
let me make it clear. Most people think about the future and make plans about the shit.
Me…" I chuckled darkly. "I think more about death than I do about life.
I don't make plans for the future because for every day I wake up with air still in my lungs, I'm asking God why, right before I look to the woman I love and pray my darkness never snuffs out her light. "
"Honor—" Chosyn choked back, sniffling.
"Nah, don't cry for me, Chosyn. I don't deserve your pain or sympathy."
"Yes—"
"Nah, I don't," I cut in. "We never had a one-on-one conversation about it, but I knew Chance and your sister were still alive.
I even knew what happened that night, everything went down.
After the van left and you dipped out, I pulled up with Lucian.
He forced Talon and me out of the car. He called for someone to take care of Chance and had us clean up the blood. "
"You knew all of that?" she whimpered.
"I fucking knew but kept to myself to keep Wolfe alive."
"I understand."
"Do you? 'Cause a lot of muthafuckas wouldn't."
"I'm not muthafuckas. I'm the daughter of Chance, the weapon Lucian wanted but never got his hands on. If no one else gets it, trust me, I get it."
For a moment, we both sat quietly, trying to settle the wave of emotions that seemed to keep crashing into us.
"I apologize," I finally said. "As a man, I should've told you about your family."
"Thank you, but trust, telling me wouldn't have changed anything. Chance was still trying to marry me off, and Choyce was still going to do what she did to get her way."
"Do you see yourself fixing that situation?"
"There's no fixing it. The woman she is now is someone I don't know. All I can do is get to know the new version of her and build from there."
"Y'all gon' be straight."
"You sound so sure." She chortled.
"She's more of the little girl you raised than you think."
"Do you like her?" Chosyn blurted. "And you can tell me the truth. I promise I won't tell Navy. I need to know because she's my sister, and Navy's already taken it too far."
"I don't like Choyce. I pity her. The person she's becoming isn't who she wants to be. She thinks adapting to this life Lucian pulled her into makes her better, but she's changing for all the wrong reasons."
"Does Navy know that?"
"Shit, you tell me. I know she's talked to you about our shit."
"She thinks you like Choyce."
"I bet," I grumbled. "I've told Navy more times than I can count that she's the only person I'll ever love in this lifetime and the next. Why she's not hearing me… I don't know."
"Stop talking about how much you love her and prove it. Make her feel safe and alive in what you say, 'cause after a while words stop sounding like love and sound like responsibility."
"Fuck," I grumbled.
"You said no chaser, and this is that. Navy's been holding in a lot because she feels protecting you is more important than wanting you to love her in a way that speaks to her."
"All she ever gotta do is tell me what she needs, and I'ma make it happen." I sighed.
Failure wasn't some I felt when it came to Navy, not until the day I walked in on her talking to Gigi and Chosyn, and even more so right now.
"That's the thing about Navy. She's not going to tell you what she needs unless you make it clear you can handle it."
"How I'm 'posed to do that, when I thought I was doing that shit already?"
"Show her she's your peace. Confide in her without needing her to fix or reassure you. Show her you can handle what life throws at you on your own. Let her see your strength and carve out space for her to show you the cracks she hides."
"Fuck," I gritted, squeezing my eyes closed to stop the tears.
"It's going to be okay, Honor," Chosyn assured. "You can't fix everything today, but you can start listening to how she feels."
"I gotchu," I forced out.
"I love you, Honor, and I'm always here for you."
"I appreciate that. I love you too," I murmured, then ended the call and tossed my phone onto the couch.
I started to leave the living room, but the pressure building in my chest wasn't letting me go that easily. I turned around and swung, driving my fist into the wall.
"Honor!" Navy shrieked, coming out of nowhere.
My head dropped as my shoulders caved in.
"I'm straight," I mumbled.
"I'm sure you are?" she dryly responded. "I'm going to eat."
Instead of following her, I took a second to get my shit together. Whatever was about to happen in that kitchen couldn't be a repeat of all the other conversations we've already had. We both needed something different or some type of resolve because, without it, we wouldn't last.