“So that’s why y’all was locked up in that house playing bootcamp,” Nel said with a chicken wing hanging from his mouth. “You done stumbled upon some untouched coochie. No wonder you walked in that bitch ready to die.”
“How the fuck this nigga be the last man standing to get married and get the virgin?” Vello said, almost sounding as if he was really mad about it.
Ezio snickered. “’Cause my nigga is God’s favorite… Get off his nuts.”
Leaving them to bicker, I stood, feeling Solana’s eyes on me. She hadn’t folded in battle, but my sentiments remained. These niggas could glorify her pureness all they fucking wanted. Her being a virgin didn’t hold any merit when she was strung the fuck out.
Opening the door, Bahati was resting against the sink with a tissue pressed against her nose. I closed the door behind us, shutting us in.
“Shio. What is going on?”
“Let me see your arm.”
She shook her head, keeping it pressed against her chest. She wouldn’t be able to sit through the flight for four hours with a broken arm. If there were no strong enough pain meds on board, she would have to load up on liquor to at least put her to sleep.
She reached up and grabbed my diamond chain. “Who are you now?”
“Bahati.”
“No. I was snatched from my bed. My daughter and I! Then, I was in a shootout! Now I’m on a jet, being whisked off to God knows where, and you have a bitch touching my daughter as if she is hers! She’s been touched enough by strangers during this whole ordeal! You won’t even look at her. You won’t even touch her!”
“Bahati…” I rubbed my hand down my face. “I just killed over two dozen men. I just walked in a situation that I didn’t know if I was going to make it out of just to get y’all. I literally have blood on my fuckin’ hands.” I held my hands out, dried blood coating my fingers. “I’m trying to process this shit and plan accordingly. You didn’t want to get her, so she did.”
“Don’t do that! Don’t make it seem like I’m a bad mother. I’ve been the one raising her.”
“I’m not making it seem like nothing, Bahati. But did you come find me? You knew I would have taken care of mine.”
“Did you forget that you tried to kill me the last time I was in your presence?!”
“If I wanted you dead, Bahati, you wouldn’t be standing here.”
“I wasn’t about to come after someone who looked me in the eyes while his dick was still inside of me and squeezed the life out of me. My vocal cords were damaged for a month! When I found out I was pregnant, I attempted to abort four times but could never do it. I cried my entire pregnancy! I was perfectly fine with raising her and never seeing you again. I looked at you as a monster. And with us being kidnapped, it seems my assumptions were right!”
“Solana—”
“Bahati! My fucking name is Bahati!” She pushed against my chest with her good shoulder. “As a matter of fact, let me get my baby from that bitch!”
I blocked her path. “Aye. What the fuck I say? When we touch down, you’ll get looked over, and then we will figure this shit out. But all that rah rah shit? Nah. You can dead it. I ain’t the Shio you once knew.”
She tried to step around me again, but I blocked her advancement, raising my brows.
“Shio, I’m not going to bother your girlfriend,” she finally said after a brief stare-off. “I’m about to see if the stewardess has something me and my bebe can change into. We are both wet and dirty.”
The way Bahati said “baby” sounded like baybay; that much hadn’t changed. Waiting a beat, I moved out of the way and opened the door. Don appeared again, standing in a doorway of what appeared to be a conference room.
“Shio. Come talk to me.”
Not in the mood for his bullshit, I entered the room.
He shut the door and sat at the table. “Beautiful daughter.”
“Don, what is it?”
“Straight to business? Aite, cool.” He pulled on his suit jacket, grinning.
We were all wet and dirty, and had neared death, and he was looking as if he stepped out of a GQ magazine shoot.
“Good job today.”
