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“It was a matter of survival.”
“You don’t fuck a bitch to help HER get a green card. Don’t play me like I’m stupid, Max!”
“Watch your fuckin’ tone...and nothing was a secret.”
“You have a whole wife and kid! A damn wife, Max! What the fuck!”
“You never asked.”
“You know wha—”
“Look. You wanted answers, here they are. Is she my wife? Yes, for now. Am I fuckin’ her? No. Do I love her? Always will, she birthed my firstborn. We done here?”
“You can’t be serious! Who the hell proposes when they’re already married!”
“A man with purpose. My marriage ain’t got shit to do with you. Stay focused.”
A whole day later, I couldn’t pull my mind from the train wreck that barreled through what turned out to be the most embarrassing night of my life. Even worse, Max stood there with a straight face once we finally made it home last night, so calm it made me want to knock his ass back into his daddy’s nutsack. Cool as the block of ice I wanted to crack over his head, he spun a Netflix-worthy story of how he came to have a whole hidden family. A favor for the connect to walk away from the game back in the day. A marriage on paper only, except at some point, they did exactly what married people do—straight fuckin’!
I was almost okay with believing the worst I had to cope with was Max having a kid I knew nothing about. But a wife? A whole chick who was legally his rib, his other half? I just couldn’t wrap my mind around all the fuckery.
If nothing else, Max was definitely a man of purpose, so his every move was calculated with specific intent. Let him tell it, his intent in marrying this Havana broad was to pay an old debt and save a life. Yet somewhere along the way, she slipped and fell on his dick, forever indebting him to her.
Ironically, Max lay claim to the last laugh when he blindsided me with yet another hidden truth last night. He’d long left me in the media room, charging me to collect my thoughts and get my life together if I expected to become the real Mrs. Calloway.
“And you just expect me to walk around like a fool in love, big ass smile on my face like all is well. And why the fuck was that bitch there? I thought you fired her thieving ass!”
Nothing. That’s what he gave me as he stood in the doorway, arms snapped across that same chiseled chest I drenched with orgasmic tears just hours before.
“I trusted you, gave you loyalty, and every time I blink, it’s another damn secret. More shit you’ve hid because I didn’t ask. How does that even add up?” I was fuming, so incensed I was trembling with a frantic rage I wasn’t sure I could control.
“Trust, loyalty and secrets. Definitely some shit you know about.” Hands steepled just shy of his lips, Max’s frown deepened into a rigid scowl that said I’d hit a nerve.
“Was it loyalty that led you to fuck that same clown you didn’t think I knew you were fucking? Was it trust that had your ass up in the clinic aborting the baby you didn’t think I knew you carried?”
Devoid of anything close to an acceptable response, I tried my best to avoid locking eyes with Max. Vacant gaze on the floor, I could feel the malice in his stare lighting my face up.
“Oh, we’re quiet now?”
“Max...it wasn’t like that. It’s not—”
“Not what it seems? ‘Cause it seems like you fucked this clown, got caught up, hid the shit, cleaned up your mess, then slid back up in my bed like shit was sweet.”
I finally found the courage to look this man in the eye, facing the very thing that I swore I’d avoid with everything in me: his wrath.
“Nothing is a secret. Ever. I don’t ask questions I know the answers to. The past is the past. Leave it there.” He capped that last sentence with a finality that dared me to rebut. So I did.
“Yet your wife and kid are very much alive and well in the present. And I’m supposed to just be okay with it? I’m not with that sister wife shit.”
The smirk that replaced his scowl made me wonder if that’s what he was expecting; some type of three-way relationship that let him have his main and his back-up.
I wish the fuck I would!
“Flawed perfection. That’s why I chose you, Rem.” He picked invisible lint from his shirt before continuing. “Sleep on it and get your mind right. Be ready to let shit ride and move the fuck forward when you wake up. And fix your face.”
I frowned even harder then because how the hell did he expect me to just ‘be okay’ with all this shit when I woke up tomorrow?
“For the record, I did fire her. But she’ll be ghost by tomorrow. Problem solved.”
I still didn’t know how sleep managed to find me but hours later, the sun was peeking through the drapes, coaxing me to question whether the night before had been a bad dream.
Finding the house empty, I pulled myself together and went about some semblance of my morning routine. A few hours later, I found myself headed to meet up with the last person I wanted to see, but a face I needed to see considering the way she’d fucked up my engagement party.
“What the fuck, Zee!” I laid into her the minute I stepped through the door of the address she’d sent me.
“Bruh, calm the fuck down!” Zee snapped back like she hadn’t violated, breaking every single home girl commandment.
“On everything I love, Zee, I promise that was the most foul shit you’ve ever done.”
“You should’ve invited me...” She picked at her nails like she had better things to do.
“And why the hell would you show up with him?”
“Because she had no choice,” he cut in, his voice entering the room mere seconds before he came into view. “You still fine as fuck, Rem.”
“Why now? What the fuck do you want?” I locked eyes with this...man who I never meant to get caught up with. This man who I vowed to keep buried. This man whose badge nearly cost Max everything...except Max had no clue.
“I want the baby you owe me, but I’ll settle for your downfall.” The way he glared at me, pulling me into his private strip tease made my skin crawl.
“Excuse me?” I shook off the shiver that had me trembling under his gaze.
“Took me a minute...you’re smarter than I gave you credit for. But murder is murder, and we both know it’s never too late to pay that type of debt, Raven. Or should we go with Remani to—”
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
“What the fuck, Zee!” I found myself choking those same words out again, just as his body fell at my feet.
“A cop! You just shot a cop! Shit! Is he dead? What the fuuuuuck did you do?” Panic set in as so many images consumed me. Handcuffs, jail, jury, cell, lockdown.
“Ex-cop. And what I always do. Save your ass.” Zee unscrewed the silencer from the pistol I never even saw her retrieve.
“How did you...shit...what the fuck is going on?”
“When this clown hit my line looking for you, I knew he was on some snake shit. Also knew he had to go; you shoulda laid his ass down like I said back in the day.”
“Zee-”
“I know, we can’t kill cops. And technically, we didn’t. His ass was fired a year ago.”
“I can handle him. Shit. Okay, lemme think...”
“So you already got your story together to explain all this shit to ya boy?” Tucking the SIG Sauer into her bag, Zee cut her eyes up at me before flipping a compact open to check her lipstick. “I didn’t think so.”
As much as I hated it, she was right. I’d gone this long living a life that wasn’t mine to live, completely convinced that the old me was dead and gone. I prided myself on having my shit together, but there was no back-up plan to this. No chance for shit to fall apart because how would I explain it all?
“You make a mess, we fix it, it’s what we do. The code of The Hills. Like I said, it’s always gonna be a part of you. Always gon’ be who you are.”
One last gasp slipped past his lips as death set in for good. Staring down into his lifeless orbs, I felt...relieved. Long ago, he approached me with a deal he thought I couldn’t refuse. Except I had a plan of my own. No way in hell I’d willingly help the feds get to Max, so I turned the tables in my favor. Or so I thought. Trading ass wasn’t supposed to be part of the plan, and neither was the seed he’d planted in my womb.
“So now what?” Dropping bodies was the last thing I thought we’d be doing. I came prepared to square up with Zee if need be, but this was some shit I needed a minute to wrap my mind around.
“This...” Zee motioned toward him, pausing to check the time, “will be handled in...about an hour.”
“And what if—”
“Trust me, nobody will come looking for this snake ass piece of shit. You can go on back to your lil’ bougie ass life and this dude will be long buried...him and Remani.”
No words spoken, we exchanged a telling gaze that spoke things we’d never allow to slip past our lips.
Through thick and thin, Zee had been down for me in a way I knew that no one else would. Even Max questioned why I didn’t sever ties with her when we started our lives over in Mahogany Heights. Unfortunately, I’d never be able to explain it in a way he’d understand.
I couldn’t tell him all the times she’d done just what she did here today and had my back, often two steps ahead and ready for whatever. Couldn’t tell him how many bodies we’d caught together, all in the name of self-preservation. Definitely couldn’t tell him that when I saw my own sister about to snag the life I felt I deserved, I traded Remani in for Raven and left Raven somewhere that even the most astute eye would never find her.
Every kiss, caress, every stroke he thought he was blessing her with...felt like heaven to me, and the best was yet to come. I learned long ago to play chess, not checkers and while Max thought he chose Raven, I captured his queen and gave him an upgrade.
He thought he knew it all, thought he had the answers to all questions, but this was one secret he’d never know...