Vegarro “Vega” Moretti
That night, Prodigy’s bearded face filled my phone screen while I stood in the kitchen taking Sonnet’s food out of the bag.
“How’d the retrieval go?” he asked.
I scoffed with a chuckle. “She put up a hell of a fight.”
His eyebrows lifted. “The nerd?”
“The nerd tried to stab me in the eye with her keys, threw half a bedroom at me, and damn near bruised my ribs.”
Prodigy laughed. “You let a data analyst rough you up?”
“Keep laughin’.”
He ignored my threat, still grinning. “She still wilding?”
“I had to chain her up.”
“Damn.”
“She kept fighting. Screaming too. Lucky the walls are soundproof. That girl has a set of lungs on her. She screamed long enough for her voice to give out.”
As I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, Prodigy studied me through the screen. “And now you’re taking her dinner?”
“She needs to eat.”
“She needs to eat,” he repeated, dragging the words like they had entertained him.
I cut my eyes toward the phone. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“That don’t sound like nothing.”
He leaned back, smiling. “You care about this job a little too much.”
“I need her alive to find out what Roman is up to,” I reminded him as I grabbed a napkin and set it on the tray.
“You don’t order take out and get cutlery for everybody you kidnap.”
“She hasn’t eaten since I took her.”
“Probably because you kidnapped her, genius.”
Prodigy grinned. “You’re feeling her.”
“No.” But I felt the corner of my mouth try to lift.
Prodigy’s eyes widened. “Nigga, are you blushin’?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“You are. That’s wild.”
“I’m not blushing.”
“You damn near smiling while talking about a woman who tried to take your eye out.”
I looked down at the water bottle instead of the screen. “She’s cute and different.”
“You meet cute women that are different every day, and you don’t blush over them.”
“I told you I’m not blushing.”
“Your ears look red, nigga.”
I exhaled, already irritated that he wasn’t completely wrong. “I’m attracted to her. Not just in the regular way.”
Prodigy went quiet.
I didn’t know how to explain it without sounding crazier than I already felt. “She’s soft, but not weak. Smart as hell with a reckless mouth. She looked me dead in my eyes and asked when I was going to kill her like death didn’t scare her.” I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s something about her.”
“But?”
“But she’s an assignment. A woman I took from her home. She fears me, and she should. There’s nothing I can do with what I feel.”
Prodigy’s expression changed into something more serious. “Then be careful.”
I looked at the screen, raising a brow. “Why you say that?”
His voice lost the teasing. “I’m telling you this as the nigga currently yearning over a woman I might never get back. Be careful before you end up like me.”
“You really think Arielle was the one?”
“I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “That’s the problem. I let her go before I could find out.”
For once, I didn’t have anything smart to say.
Prodigy leaned closer to the camera. “That shit feels different when she’s gone and all you got left is what you should’ve done.”
I looked away from the screen and reached for a napkin.
“Sonnet’s not mine to lose.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “But you’re already acting like she is.”
I ended the call before he could expose me any further. “I’ll hit you later.”
He ended the call after saying, “Holla.”
I put my phone in my pocket, then picked up the container of what I knew, was Sonnet’s favorite order from Cava, and headed to her room.
When I opened the bedroom door, she sat on the bed with her hair wild around her face and her eyes red from crying or rage.
Her voice was rough when she spoke. “I told you I’m not eating shit.”
I stepped inside anyway and set the food on the bed near her. “Eat.”
She looked down at the bowl. For one second, I thought greed might win.
Then she grabbed it and hurled it at me. The bowl hit my chest and exploded open. Saffron rice, grilled chicken, pickled onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, romaine, hummus, tzatziki, and garlic dressing splattered across my shirt but most of it hit the floor in a wet, colorful mess.
A chunk of chicken slid down my chest.
Sonnet’s breathing came hard, but she looked satisfied. I glanced down at the food covering me, then back at her. Then I picked up the empty bowl from where it had landed near my foot.
“When you get hungry enough, eat off the floor.” I walked out before I forgot that I wasn’t supposed to touch her the way I wanted to.
Behind me, she screamed something I couldn’t make out with her ruined voice.
I shut the door and locked it.
Then I stood in the hallway with my mind still stuck on the fact that even furious and my biggest headache, Sonnet Ellison was the most fascinating woman I had ever met.