Jaheim
“Your assignment has been emailed over. I need it done by the end of the week,” Rex said before disconnecting.
I ended the call and dropped my phone into the lockbox beside me. The box doubled as a jammer. Nothing came in. Nothing went out. That was the whole point of this room.
Over the years, I’d picked up clients for all kinds of jobs. Security. Recovery. Digital cleanup. Growing up moving from place to place made it hard to commit to one lane, so eventually I stopped trying to.
Rex was part of the reason why.
He’d been my neighbor when I was fifteen. A grown man with enough sense to know I shouldn’t have been tagging behind him.
Still, he let me.
I learned by watching. Listening. Remembering.
Now we worked together. Legal and otherwise.
I trusted Rex with my life. He was the closest thing I had to a brother besides Beau.
He taught me how to get in. How to get out. How to leave nothing behind.
More importantly, he taught me how to protect myself so thoroughly that by the time people realized I’d moved against them, proving it was impossible.
I checked the time and decided I’d handle the emails when I got back from the gym.
I also needed to run the finance pulls before the end of the week.
Six women in three states who had been left by men who thought leaving meant taking everything had found me somehow, formed their own secret network, a first wives club operating in the dark.
It hadn’t been easy to find me, but they had, and it had now been two years.
I had helped countless women protect assets and locate accounts their husbands didn’t think they knew about.
I didn’t respect men who didn’t take care of women. I loathed a man who got violent. Making sure what was theirs found its way back to them was a mission I took pride in and kept to myself.
It was the most honest work I did.
I grabbed my bag and headed out to meet Beau. Bloomington didn’t have a gym worth joining, so we used the one Beau had built in his house. By the time I wrapped my hands, Beau was already sweating through his first set.
“So what you think she gon do when she puts it together?” he asked, not looking up from the bag.
“Handle it however she handles it.”
“That’s a lot of money, Jah.”
“It wasn’t his to begin with.”
Odeal Jordan deserved more taken from him but for now I had caved his chest in enough to satisfy my need for blood.
Evelyn married him, knowing exactly how he had treated Liana and had still put him on her inheritance and trust fund.
Love made people temporarily insane. Odeal had hidden a portion of that money the same way he had hidden assets from Liana throughout their marriage.
Two different women, same man, same pattern.
I couldn’t let that fly.
“I bet that nigga got the runs like a motherfucker,” Beau said.
“I’d be sick.”
“So you hit Evelyn, too?”
“I broke her off some of what was hers. I couldn’t leave her completely out of it; she was a victim of the same shit.” I moved to the bench. “I don’t know the woman, but I know what he did to her. It’s fuck Odeal, not her. But I got a heart.”
“Oh, you used your moral compass.”
“I always use my moral compass.”
Beau shook his head. “Robin Hood ass nigga.”
I shrugged because that wasn’t the worst thing anybody had called me.
I wasn’t too moral, though. My illegal work involved surveillance, and sometimes that required getting comfortable in the gray.
Legally, I built software for companies to protect themselves from people like me.
That was another thing Rex taught me early.
Keep a front or two. Stay legitimate enough that nobody looked too hard at the rest.
“You think she gon be upset or cool about it?”
“I hope cool. Because fuck that nigga. I want that nigga’s soul for her.”
“The pussy that good?”
I swung on him, catching him at the jaw, and we fell right into it, sparring and talking shit the same as we did back when we were teenagers with too much energy and nowhere to put it.
“Not you tender ‘bout her already.”
He swung and landed one clean. I shook it off.
“So you ain’t tender about her girl. What’s her name again, Noeva?”
“Man.” He moved back and reset his stance. “Noeva gon miss out on a good thing tripping with me. She won’t let anybody help her. Shit, I ain’t about to beg to lighten her load.”
“Don’t even think about crying nigga,” I said, hitting him in the ribs.
“I will drop you, little nigga.”
“You ain’t the big cousin no more. Drop me then.”
He didn’t.
We went another two rounds talking about what we wanted out of life. Marriage. Stability. Kids maybe. Somebody waiting for us at home after a long day. All the shit we used to joke about not wanting.
Somewhere along the way, both of us changed. Or maybe we just grew up and got out of our own way.
By the time we finished, we were breathing hard.
“How we gon get that?” Beau said, toweling off. “I fuck with Noeva, and I know she scared Wren could run me off, but man, I’m grown. I can handle whatever comes with her.”
“Liana thanked me for persistence. I gotta stay on that. She is a tough nut to crack, but I ain’t stopping.” I took a long pull of water. “I ain’t been right since I walked into that damn bar.”
“Same way I feel about Noeva.” Beau leaned back against the wall and shook his head.
“Wren told me her mom was a big, pretty princess one day. I had to see for myself. Now I’m a stalker and shit because I brought them dinner without asking.
” He mugged at nothing in particular. “She got me fucked up.”
“Chill.” I laughed.
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are. That’s why it’s funny.”
He threw the towel at me. I caught it. My phone went off, and the message pulled a frown out of me before I could stop it.
Camille: Hey stranger.
I deleted it. Another came in before I could put the phone down.
Camille: Don’t be like that. I won’t cancel this time. We can meet at The Bloom. I heard it’s nice. I’ll be visiting the Garden Inn soon.
I deleted that one too. There was no way in hell I was inviting Camille to that bar after everything I had been putting into Liana.
Plus, Camille had already served her purpose as far as I was concerned.
She canceled on me and dropped me right at my future wife’s front door.
I was good on anything that wasn’t Liana Trini Bloom.
“You tracking Bloom Day yet?” Beau asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Nah. What’s that?”
He stared at me like I’d lost my damn mind. “You’ve been in Bloomington six months and ain’t heard about Bloom Day?”
“Clearly not, nigga. Put me on.”
“The Bloom family has been tied to this town forever. Every year on the first day of summer, they throw this huge festival. The whole town comes out for it.” He shrugged. “My camp runs the flag football tournament.”
I set my water down. “So Liana’s family is basically Bloomington royalty.”
Beau laughed. “Man, every last brick on this side of town got a Bloom story attached to it.” He pointed at me. “You need to be there.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Better be. My boys coming in for the tournament, and I’d hate to replace you with a real nigga.”
“Say that shit again, and I’ll pop you right here.” I grabbed my bag and shook my head. “I’m plenty of man for Liana. Let me handle mine.”
“Whatever, nigga,” Beau laughed.
I headed out with work to do and a head full of Liana. The thought of her entertaining another man had the pit in my stomach feeling more like the Grand Canyon. I couldn’t let that happen.
I wasn’t going to let that happen.