CHAPTER 12
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Samir
I watched Kales as I placed soft kisses along her thighs. I didn’t know exactly what she was doing to me, but I knew I was feeling it. Truthfully, I’d been feeling her from the very first moment I laid eyes on her.
After showering her with affection, I made my way back up to her lips and pulled her into a deep kiss.
When I finally looked into her eyes, the connection between us felt undeniable.
I moved with slow, deliberate strokes, savoring every second as she met me with equal passion.
Her soft moans filled the room, sounding like music to my ears, and I could tell she was completely lost in the moment.
“Are you ready to come with me, baby?” I asked, giving her everything I had.
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice barely above a breath.
Once those words left her mouth we both came together enjoying the moment.
“You good?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m good always when I’m with you.”
Once those words left her mouth, we both came together enjoying the moment.
“You good?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m good. Always when I’m with you.”
I smiled at that because I couldn’t even lie, hearing her say some shit like that did something to me.
The thought of being in a long-term relationship was different for me. I was used to women wanting me for what came with me. They liked the money, the attention, the gifts, and the lifestyle. They liked knowing I could drop a bag on them without thinking twice. But with Kales, shit was different.
And I wasn’t even gone lie and say this little insta-love shit wasn’t scary, because it was. It was fast as hell, and it wasn’t like me at all. But at the same time, we were both grown, and I knew how I felt when it came to her.
So, we were gone do what it do.
“Are you ready to visit with Quay today?” I asked.
“Yeah, I guess.”
I had set up a meeting with Quay and made plans for Kales to go too.
I already knew it was gone be hard, but I had pulled a few strings.
I knew the warden, so I was able to get in through another entrance where I wouldn’t be seen.
I hated taking Kales up in that place, but at the same time, I didn’t want to hide shit from her either.
Tariq wasn’t too thrilled with our relationship, but I didn’t give a fuck.
Kales had already put me on to his bitch ass acting funny anyway, and that was something else I was gone handle.
We laid there for a little longer just holding each other, and for a second the whole world felt still. Kales had her head on my chest, and I kept my hand rubbing slow over her back while I stared up at the ceiling thinking about how much life had shifted in such a short amount of time.
A few months ago, she was just Quay’s girl.
Now she was in my bed, under my arm, and looking at me like she trusted me.
That wasn’t some little thing.
That meant something.
And whether I wanted to admit it or not, it came with pressure.
Because once I let somebody get that close, especially somebody like Kales, I knew I was either gone protect what we had or destroy it.
There was no in-between with men like me.
Eventually we got up and showered together, and that alone almost had me saying fuck the whole jail visit. Kales looked too good standing under that water, and the way she kept smiling at me like she was trying not to laugh every time I touched her had me not wanting to let her out my sight at all.
But I knew we needed to get this out the way.
Too much shit had been moving around us for me to keep pretending it could wait.
By the time we got dressed and in the car, Kales was a little quieter than she had been earlier. I noticed it right away, but I didn’t press her. Some things didn’t need to be dragged out with words when I could already feel it sitting on her.
She was nervous.
Maybe not about seeing Quay itself.
More about what seeing him again was gone stir up.
I understood that.
Hell, I respected it.
The ride to the jail was quiet for the most part. I drove with one hand on the wheel and my other hand resting on my lap, but every now and then I would glance over at her and catch her staring out the window like she was trying to get herself together.
When we pulled up, she looked over at me.
“You sure this is okay?” she asked.
I looked her in her eyes. “If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”
She nodded once.
That was enough.
I led her in through the side entrance the warden had opened up for me.
We got checked through quick and were walked to a private room instead of the regular visitation area.
That had cost me a favor, but I didn’t care.
If I was gone hear Quay out, I wanted to do it face to face and without the whole world in my business.
Kales sat beside me once we got in there, and I could feel the tension in her body before Quay even came through the door.
When he finally did, the first thing I noticed was how much county had sat on him.
He still looked like Quay, but harder around the face now. More tired too. Like he had not really slept in weeks. His eyes went straight to Kales first, and whatever he felt hit him fast enough that I caught it before he could cover it.
Pain.
Then his eyes came to me.
And that was when the room changed.
I stayed sitting back in my chair, calm, while Quay took the seat across from us.
For a second, nobody said anything.
Then I broke the silence.
“You wanted to talk. Talk.”
Quay looked at Kales one more time before he dragged his attention back to me.
“This bigger than me and you,” he said.
I leaned back a little more. “Then make it make sense.”
He exhaled slow and rubbed his hand over his mouth. “Tariq moving behind your back.”
At that, my whole focus sharpened.
I didn’t let much show on my face, but inside, that got my attention quick.
“What about him?” I asked.
Quay looked at me hard. “I think he the one who killed Markie.”
Kales sucked in a breath beside me, and I felt her body tense up.
I kept my eyes on Quay.
“You got proof?”
“Not enough yet,” he said. “But I got pieces. And the more I sit with it, the more that shit line up.”
I stared at him for a second, then let out a dry laugh. “So let me get this straight. You call me up here to throw one of my men under the bus with a theory?”
His jaw tightened. “It ain’t just a theory.”
“It sound like one.”
Quay leaned forward. “Tariq been feeling some type of way about me for a minute. He seen you trusting me more. Giving me more. Markie and me had already fell out, so when Markie ended up dead, that made me the easiest person in the world to pin it on. That was the play.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “And now you up here sounding like a snitch.”
Kales turned her head and looked at me quick, but I kept my eyes on Quay.
That word hit just like I knew it would.
Quay’s whole face hardened.
“I’m not telling you shit to save myself,” he said, his voice low. “If it was just me, I would’ve sat in here and figured it out another way.”
I lifted a brow. “So why tell me?”
His eyes moved to Kales.
That alone answered part of it before he even opened his mouth.
He looked back at me. “Because she around you. And if Tariq really doing what I think he doing, then that means she in the middle of some shit she don’t even know about. I’m telling you because whether I fuck with you or not, she need to be safe.”
The room got quiet after that.
I looked over at Kales, and when I did, her face had softened in a way that told me them words landed exactly where they were supposed to.
Sadness sat all in her eyes.
Not love maybe. Not fully. But history. Pain. Something unresolved.
Quay saw it too.
That was when he looked straight at her.
“Kales,” he said, and his voice changed.
That hard edge left it.
What was left was something tired and real.
“I’m sorry.”
She blinked fast and looked down at her hands before looking back at him.
He kept going.
“I know that don’t fix shit. I know I already broke too much for them words to mean what they should. But I am sorry. For lying to you. For letting you find out about my son like that. For dragging you into a life you ain’t ask for. For all of it.”
Kales swallowed, and I could see she was trying hard not to let too much show on her face.
Quay rubbed both hands together and looked at her like he was trying to burn the image of her into his head.
“You didn’t deserve none of that,” he said quietly. “And no matter what happened between us, I never wanted this kind of life to fall on you.”
Kales finally spoke, but her voice was soft.
“I know.”
That was all she said.
But the way she said it held enough emotion to fill the whole room.
I sat there and let it breathe for a second because I wasn’t gone act like I couldn’t see what that was. They had history. Deep history. Real love at one point. A couple months with me wasn’t gone erase all that overnight.
I knew that.
Still, I wasn’t no weak nigga either.
I wasn’t about to sit there feeling insecure over a man in county who had already fumbled what I was holding.
So I brought the conversation back where it needed to be.
“What exactly you got on Tariq?” I asked.
Quay looked at me and got back serious.
Then he started laying it out.
He told me about little shit he had brushed past at first. Times Tariq had moved weird when I put more responsibility in Quay’s hands.
The slick comments he made when Quay and Markie’s issues got brought up.
How interested Tariq seemed in every little crack between them.
How after Markie died, Tariq got too comfortable too fast, like shit had gone more according to plan than grief should have allowed.
Then he told me what really made him pay attention.
“Tariq wanted me out the way first,” Quay said. “I think his real plan was always you. He just needed me gone before he could move on to the next part.”
That made my jaw tighten.
Because if that was true, this wasn’t just betrayal.
It was ambition.
Snake shit.
The dangerous kind.
I thought back over the last couple months, replaying every conversation, every shift in energy, every time Tariq seemed a little too watchful. Then I thought about what Kales had said too, about him acting funny when it came to her and me.
That had bothered me already.
Now it was bothering me different.
Kales looked between both of us. “So what happens now?”
Her voice was calm, but I could hear the worry in it.
Quay answered first. “Now he get watched.”
I nodded once. “And if he moved like this behind my back, then he made the worst mistake of his life.”
Kales shifted in her seat. “You both keep saying things like that and acting like it’s normal.”
That made me look at her.
She was right.
To us, this kind of talk was regular. To her, it was a reminder of exactly how ugly our world really was.
I reached over and touched her hand once, just enough to ground her.
“It is handled,” I said.
She looked at me, and even though she nodded, I could tell she wasn’t fully settled.
Truthfully, neither was I.
Because now I had to sit with the fact that one of my own men might have been plotting under me while I was too distracted by Kales to catch every sign.
That didn’t sit right with me at all.
After a little more talking, the meeting was over.
There wasn’t much else to say in that room that was gone get handled right then. Quay had told me what he needed to tell me. I had heard him. Kales had heard enough to know this mess was even bigger than she thought.
When we stood to leave, Quay looked at Kales one more time.
Then he looked at me.
For a second, neither one of us said anything.
There was too much sitting in that silence. Too much pride. Too much history. Too much unspoken shit.
Then Quay spoke.
“Take care of her.”
Simple words.
But the weight behind them wasn’t simple at all.
I held his stare.
“I am.”
He nodded once like that was all he could do, then looked back at Kales.
She didn’t say nothing else.
She just gave him one last look that felt like the end of something and the pain of it all at once.
Then me and her turned and walked out.
The whole way down that side hallway, she was quiet.
I let her be that way too.
Some moments didn’t need to be crowded.
By the time we got back outside and into the car, I already knew two things for sure.
One, Tariq had just moved to the top of my list.
And two, whatever me and Kales had between us had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.
Because now Quay had put his guilt, his love, and his warning all in the same room.
And whether I liked it or not, that kind of truth had a way of changing everything.