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“Hawaii,” Joyce says.
“A waterfall?” Parker asks.
“Yep,”
“Them damn Gideons! They know what they be doing. What man can live up to over-the-top shit they do for us? The do the shit, get you hooked and spoiled, knowing you’ll end up lost and turned out over their asses,” Brooklyn says. And each one of us nods because she is right.
“The good thing is they keep it up. They will consistently put their money where their mouths are,” True says.
“True,” we all agree.
“Well, I would like to give you an engagement party,” Brooklyn tells me.
“I’m okay with that. It has been so long and so hard keeping the engagement a secret, now I can finally act like a soon-to-be bride. But first, we have to give Ms. Parker over here a baby shower! Ma’am, that baby is gonna be huge,” I say, referring to the stomach that seems to have appeared overnight.
“Listen, first of all, I am too old for this shit! Secondly, this baby has completely rearranged my internal organs, I swear he be in there using my kidneys as stress balls!”
“He? You’re having a boy?!” we all ask.
“Brooklyn hasn’t done an ultrasound to determine the gender but I feel like this big headed baby is a boy,” she explains and you can see all our hopes deflate.
“Well let’s get to planning, we have two huge celebrations to put together,” Brooklyn says and we spend the next several hours planning Parker’s baby shower but I was told I could not participate in the planning of my bridal shower. Since the house was destroyed and is beginning construction, we decided to have a destination baby shower and engagement party. I was at least informed it wouldn’t be here. They didn’t want to do too much planning where I was concerned until they got with my mom and Momma B. I feel the weight I have been carrying around lift now that everything was out in the open. I also talked to the women about the shootout, and of course True had several guns and clips on her and even a few grenades. The woman really is a one-woman killing machine, and I love that. It is amazing how the men have come into each of our lives and have cultivated the ground with each of us that gave us the freedom to be the women we have always wanted to be without judgment or repercussions. Only a man who truly loves a woman could be okay with the level of unhinged True is and not only be okay with it but love it, foster it, and participate in it. But it isn’t just Uncle Atlas, it’s all of them. I look around the table at my aunts and sisters and feel a contentment I didn’t even realize existed. I need this, I needed them.
Jabarri
“So, did Josh threaten to kill you,” Jaasiel asks.
“Yep,” I reply. “And I believe him, she is his stepdaughter so hurting her would hurt Savvy and we all know that man is crazier now about her than he was before.”
“Yeah,” we all say.
“But she’s worth it,” I say and we all agree again each of referring to our own woman.
“You waited a long time for Skai, Jabby. How does it feel to finally have the woman you have loved for almost a decade?” Atlas asks.
“Pretty damn good,” I say, grinning. “But I know I had a lot of growing to do. Skai was the first thing in my life that I wanted, and I couldn’t just have. I have always just asked for something and got it or set my mind to something and mastered it. Skai wasn’t easy at all, she wasn’t easy to get, wasn’t easy to figure out, she wasn’t even easy to pursue, but it built character in me and patience. Made me dig deeper than the shallow level I always operated in, and when I was finally ready, I was truly ready to go after her.” I say to my brothers, talking to them in a way I couldn’t talk to anyone else. We are upstairs in Bree’s club while the women are in Asher’s restaurant. Our protection detail will be in effect until we find out if Skai is in danger.
“Well now, that the Dr. Phil session is over can we talk about how we are going to eliminate this new threat?” Atlas says. “We have kids to consider keeping safe now and our wives, although I am not sure how much protection they actually need.”
“We have trained them to handle almost any situation they could possibly run into. I mean, look at how Skai handled that car and shooting while calling for help. I couldn’t be prouder,” Joseph says.
“I was definitely impressed and grateful. Can you imagine how Savvy would’ve handled losing another child, not to mention Josh and the rest of us. Then we would have lost a brother because I don’t think you would have survived losing her,” Asher surmises.
“I mean, how would any of us respond?” Anson asks.
“Well, you destroyed an entire island over Megan and she didn’t die. I think the satellite photo saw a single blade of grass finally growing,” Aryan tells us.
“And would do it again,” Anson says with absolutely no remorse.
“I have the computer cleaning up the video, she didn’t intentionally video them, so the quality isn’t that great or clear. It is going to take a second to clean up the image, and then I can see who all was out there with Art. If that is really Art in the first place, True said he was a low man on the totem pole, and it has been twenty years or more since she last saw him.”
“Well, put a rush on that shit,” Jaasiel implores.
“Trust me, I am. I don’t like her potentially being in danger from an unknown threat,”
“We’ll get it figured out, and handle whoever it is,” Joseph says, and I have no doubt about it. My only question is how long it will take.
CHAPTER 18
