“Mmm-hmm,” Elvira mumbled, visibly mulling that over in her head before she agreed. “I hear you. I’ll see what I can get on where they are.”
My eyes drifted back out the window.
“Millie?” Tyra called.
I looked back to her.
She tipped her head to the side. “Honey, you sure you’re good?”
I wanted to believe that Chaos had one last battle to win before they were clean and free forever and they were going to win that battle.
But Benito Valenzuela was a man who would go after what he wanted in a way he wouldn’t be stopped.
Unless he was stopped.
And as crazy as he was, that was a black mark I didn’t want on any of their souls.
“Tack’ll protect you, High, all the brothers,” Tyra said when I didn’t reply. “I hope you know that. What we’re doing, it’s just helping him accomplish that.”
“Logan followed a dark path,” I told them. They all looked at each other and from the way they did, I guessed they knew a bit about that path so I didn’t need to get into that and kept going. “It was because of me even if it wasn’t. I don’t want him on that path again, because of me, even when it isn’t.”
“Keep ’im off it, then,” Elvira declared. “Man’s gettin’ more than his fair share of blowjobs, gonna have his mind on his woman’s mouth, not on some motherfucker with a screw loose.”
A giggle erupted from me because that was the truth.
They laughed with me, theirs I could hear filled with relief that I was laughing at all.
And with that, I decided we were done. Not because I didn’t like spending time with them, but because I didn’t want to think about this anymore.
Not to mention, I had to go oversee some Christmas decorations being put up in an office suite.
“I gotta go,” I said, pushing up from the couch.
They all moved. I put on my coat, grabbed my bag, got hugs and another prompt from Elvira to think about talking with someone to get the tools to deal with what happened.
I took off with a heavy heart, wishing in all that was promising with Zadie coming around before I got kidnapped that we were still on that trajectory of a life of budding happiness that would bloom to carefree.
I knew it wouldn’t always be a trip through the tulips.
But the quick taste of having just that that weekend with the girls was sublime.
Hence, I got where Logan’s rage was coming from. I got it was about Valenzuela taking me, what happened, what I saw.
It was also that he took that away from all of us.
I just hoped we could get it back.
All of us.
Intact.
Elvira
The door closed behind Millie at Tyra’s office and Elvira looked to her girls at the desk.
“We all know you bitches can’t wade into this,” she stated.
Lanie and Tyra didn’t say anything but Elvira knew they knew. They were doing what they thought they had to do for Millie right now. But they knew their men would lose their minds if their women gave a hint of interfering.
“I’m callin’ in Shirleen,” she declared.
She didn’t expect an argument.
She didn’t get one.
“Agreed,” Tyra replied.
Elvira didn’t delay. She dug in her purse and pulled out her phone.
There was one person on this earth outside Millie and the members of the Chaos brotherhood who would stop at nothing to keep Logan “High” Judd clean, free, and alive.
So Elvira called her.
She didn’t expect Shirleen would decline her invitation.
She was right.
Millie
The next afternoon, I was sitting at my desk in my studio, my eyes to my computer screen, my fingers entering figures for a budget that would deliver a doable bar mitzvah for a kid whose parents wanted me to pull out all the stops but they didn’t exactly have the funds to pull that off when my door opened.
Speck, my protector for the day, stuck his head in and stated, “He’s good.”
Then he pulled his head out and a large black man so beautiful, I completely forgot how to breathe, walked in, smiling at me.
As he continued to walk in, my head tipped farther and farther back until he stopped at the other side of my desk.
At that point, my mouth was hanging open.
I did not care.
I knew this man was used to women making fools of themselves at the sight of him.
And anyway, I still hadn’t regained bodily function.
“Millie, it’s good to meet you,” his deep, smooth voice said. “I’m Elvira’s man, Malik.”
Ho...
Lee...
Shit.
No wonder she wanted her ball and chain on him.
“I... uh... I...” I swiftly got up and shoved my hand his way. “Malik, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you.”
He took my hand and smiled at me again.
I licked my lips.
He let me go and stated, “It’s come to my attention you’re planning my wedding.”
Damn.
Fuck.
Shit.
“I... uh... I...”
I stopped talking because I had nothing more to give to that statement.
“Don’t worry,” he said, his voice deeper, smoother, like a lullaby. “I just have one thing to ask.”
He could ask anything, so I nodded.
“You plan a wedding that’ll make my baby happy. But before you do that, you plan a night where I ask her to spend the rest of her life with me that she’ll never forget.”
Instantly, I forgot how beautiful he was when I felt my eyes fill with tears.
“Really?” I whispered. “You’re gonna ask?”