Chapter 23 Zhane
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t tired of being in this damn house with nothing but chairs in it.
Yes, I was thankful that Whodie was nice enough not to keep me cuffed another day.
The shower he allowed was also nice, but the fact that all the windows were boarded and I was locked in from the outside was leaving me uneasy.
If I didn’t get home to my son and Rico sometime today, I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to lie.
Grabbing a bottle of water, I sat back in the hard wooden chair and went through my social media when I heard the locks being tampered with.
Who I was expecting to walk in was Whodie, not this bitch.
Adore walked in instantly, sucking up all the energy in the room.
She had an aura about her. I could tell why Whodie was so deeply in love with her.
Her beauty was undeniable, and you knew when you saw her that she wasn’t just an ordinary hood girl.
Then Whodie appeared behind her. You could just tell the way he always stood on the side of her or behind her that he had her at all angles.
The kind of love that made me envious. Yet, I was the only one in the room married.
My love was nothing like theirs. Whodie grabbed a chair and sat it in front of me.
Adore then took a seat and just stared at me.
“I’m going to let you go home,” Adore started. “Whodie told me that you were willing to help us.”
“Yeah, I agreed, but what’s in this for me?”
“Your life,” Adore said coldly. “What the fuck else you want?”
My eyes went to Whodie.
“Ain’t no need to look this muthafuckin’ way. You can gon’ and get me outta yo’ head,” Whodie told me.
Adore opened her bag and pulled out some devices.
“You will plant these all over your house. I want one in his office in particular.”
“No! Y’all trying to get me killed?”
“Would you like us to do it or him? I believe he loves you a little too much to kill you. He’ll give you more chances than we would,” Adore said.
I swallowed hard when she said that. Something about it sounded so cold and sadistic. The look in Adore’s eyes showed me she had nothing to lose.
“I’ll do it. But what do I say if he catches me?”
“Zhane, please stop wit’ the woe-is-me antics. You from the streets, you kno’ how to sweet talk a nigga. Ain’t that how you got his ass in the first place?” Whodie said.
I grabbed the cameras and stuffed them in the bag that Whodie had bought to make it appear that I had gone on a trip for real.
They gave me a few more instructions before letting me hop in a Lyft and head back to the club to get my car.
When I got back to my car, I pulled the pink sticker off the window and climbed in.
For a few minutes, I just sat there trying to get my lies together.
Rico had a way of looking through my soul that made me uncomfortable when I lied.
To my surprise, Rico was not home when I arrived.
I snuck in before my son could see me, rushed to take a shower, and get my appearance together.
Once I was satisfied, I tiptoed to where I heard the noise coming from.
He and his nanny were watching television.
When he noticed me, he ran up to me and hugged me.
He was the only person in the world that I felt loved me genuinely.
My son didn’t judge my past and didn’t care if I had a dime to my name.
As long as I was around. I sent my nanny on her way and spent this time catching up with him and what he had been doing the last few days.
Rico hired the live-in nanny because I always fussed about going to school, but still hadn’t made the first move on that.
Hours later, I put my son to bed and was about to place the cameras when I heard Rico walk in through the kitchen.
The sound of his shoes hitting the freshly polished floor sent chills down my spine.
Usually, I wasn’t a bitch that was afraid of anything.
Here lately, everything scared me. I was in the middle of some shit I didn’t want to be a part of.
“Oh, you finally made it home,” Rico said as he placed a black bag down.
“I’ve been home for a few hours. I’m sure you saw me walk in with my bags on the camera,” I told him.
“I did.” He walked up and placed a kiss on my lips.
“How was the trip and where did y’all go?” He asked.
I had gone over the lies several times.
“We just went down to Miami. Nothing too serious.”
“I didn’t see any charges on your card? What money did you spend?”
He was in full interrogation mode, and I was prepared for it.
“It was her impromptu trip, so she fronted all the money. I didn’t have to pay for anything,” I lied.
Rico looked me up and down, but I stood my ground. I didn’t flinch or flutter.
“Damn, she got it like that?”
“She has a nigga that takes good care of her.”
“Next time, can you make sure you let me know. It’s not good for a wife to just up and go and then turn locations off. You know where my mind went, right?”
“Rico, I wouldn’t do that. I told you that I would never cheat on you. You gotta believe me.”
Rico cupped my hands and kissed me again.
Only this time, he was more intimate. He slipped my sleeve down off my shoulder and sat me up on the back of the sofa.
The buckle of his pants was undone, and his pants dropped to the floor.
The only reason Rico was doing this was to make sure my pussy wasn’t tampered with.
I wasn’t crazy, but I let him enter me anyway.
One thing I could say about Rico, he had never been with a woman of my caliber, and it didn’t take much to make him weak and put him to bed.
Since I had to put the cameras up still, I took control of the sex just to put him to sleep.
Almost two hours later, I eased out of bed with Rico.
My first stop was my son’s room to see him sleeping peacefully.
Our nanny’s room was closed and I could see the glow from her television under the door.
Now that everyone was out of my hair, I eased down the stairs and went to where I hid the cameras.
The first one, I placed in the kitchen. The next one was placed in the den.
Another I placed outside by the pool where Rico would love to sit and take some calls. The last one, I placed in his office.
I was forbidden to be in his office. He always told me what was in here was none of my business.
Usually, I respected his decision like he somewhat respected mine.
The only thing is, now I was curious why he was going after Adore.
It was strange now that I was putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
I started snooping through the papers on his desk.
It was nothing out of the ordinary, but a few bank statements and credit card statements.
“What are you doing in here?” Rico’s voice boomed.
“I wanted some water and there was none in the fridge. I knew you always kept some in here,” I said, waving the water bottle.
“You know I don’t like you in here. Next time, you need to wait.”
“Wait for what, Rico? You want me to thirst to death because you don’t trust your wife in your office?” I challenged.
“Zhane, it’s not about trust. It’s that I have important shit in here, and the less you know about my business, the safer you and that little boy are.”
“So, what you do for a living can get me and my son killed? I thought you told me I was safe.”
“You are safe. But you have to stay in your place.”
“I thought I was doing a great job at staying in my place.”
“You do, but you can do better by not coming into my office,” he told me.
I nodded and walked by him with my water that I now had to drink, so he wouldn’t think I was snooping or planting something.
For the next few days, I stayed around the house to see if anything changed about Rico’s behavior.
He was taking more private calls. All those calls were never in his office or by the pool.
Now he was starting to take his ass out in the garage.
“I’m close,” I heard him say. “Yeah, she doesn’t think I know, but once this is said and done, I’ll get rid of her ass too.”
My heart skipped a beat because who the fuck was he talking about? Was he speaking about me? Did he know that I wasn’t in Miami and was really held hostage? Or better yet, working with Whodie and Adore?
“Nah…she thinks she’s smarter than me. I don’t even think she knows who she really married.”
I eased back because now I knew for sure he was talking about me.
My hands started to sweat as I rushed back up the stairs and locked myself in the bathroom.
What the fuck had I got myself into? While Whodie was trying to use me to see what Rico was up to.
I needed to do my own fucking research to find out who I married.
Life was not supposed to be this way. I had to get out of here for a few hours.
I needed to talk to someone so I could get some protection for me and my son.
When Rico left, I got dressed and took my son with me without the nanny.
I knew once Rico looked at the cameras and noticed the nanny was not with me, he was going to call.
This was hard for me to do, but I had to worry about me and my son.
I was between a war that had nothing to do with me, and I didn’t know what the war was about.
I helped my son get out of the truck and walked through the glass doors.
“Hey! How may I help you?”
“I need some help,” I told the woman.