“Your husband?” I repeated, not expecting that response.
“Mistro. I believe you knew my father… Arrow,” he announced, making my ears ring in disbelief.
Did this mothafucka just say what I thought he did?Arrow’s son? I didn’t even know he had a fucking son. Nothing made sense, but it was starting to slowly weave into a twisted ass web. I grilled the fuck out of Ivana while she remained taut beside him. His hand gripped the back of her neck, not like a massage, more like he was trying to make a point. Reaching for her other hand, he brought it up in the air so that I could see the blinding ass diamond sitting on her ring finger.
“Do we have your attention now?” Mistro lifted one of his thick brows.
“Is this what I wouldn’t understand?” I fired her way, and her eyes dropped guiltily to the table. “Eyes up, Ivana.”
“First of all, you don’t address my woman.” Mistro’s playful glare turned malicious as if someone had flicked a switch inside of him.
He leaned forward with his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together.
“How about I address you?” I gritted my teeth, placed one hand on the table and got in his face.
The temperature rose about ten more degrees from the heat passing between our stares. This time, I did bring my gun to his leg, swift, barely even noticeable. Mistro didn’t flinch. Instead, he eased himself back into the leather material of the booth. That cold glare that he struck me with suddenly made all the sense in the fucking world. This was Arrow’s son, one of his best kept secrets. His shifty eyes resembled everything that his father stood for, corruption.
“If my father taught you anything, it was never pull a gun on a man unless you plan to use it.” He was careful with his words.
The patrons who were witnessing the scene started to cautiously clear out. Everyone’s cell buzzed, including my own, which meant that some kind of statewide alert was going off. Right now, it didn’t matter to me.
“Free, you need to leave.” Ivana sighed. “I don’t have to explain my relationship to you. We’ve moved past that, remember? You all but said so yourself. Go home, to your woman, andourdaughter. She has a birthday coming up soon, and she told me Saint Harbor is putting together a party. Did she even think to invite me, her mother? Or is that too much like right for her?”
“You might want to go check on your girl instead of trying to regulate mine.” Mistro was having too much fun deriding me.
This was all a fucking game to him. Blood felt scorching hot, like it was going to sear right through my flesh, I shot daggers at him. All this time, I’d been grieving this woman, and she was offmarried to my fucking enemy’s offspring. How do you come back from that? She had me questioning and doubting everything I thought I fucking knew based strictly off her reappearance in my life. Did she deserve any kind of empathy from me? I brought my eyes up, scoping the restaurant, which was about empty now. Even the staff had cleared out and onto the street. I backed off, knowing I couldn’t take it where I wanted while all these people were around. It wouldn’t take shit for them to ID me, and I had managed to keep my nose clean for a long time. A nigga had to hold back the beast inside as I drew my shoulders back.
“You fucked up.” Mistro chuckled and swiped his beard.
Ivana had this apprehensive look on her face. Whatever the fuck this was, there was more to it. Tucking my gun, I thought it would be best to handle Mistro like I did everybody else. I had to do my homework on this mothafucka.
“Nah, you did. Ask your father how I deal with shit.” I hinted, backing off with a cold glint in my eyes. “If you find the hole that he dug himself in.” This time, I did the taunting, wiping that smug grin that stretched across his face off. His coal-colored eyes stabbed me, and I buttoned my blazer before giving them both a nod.
“Have a good evening. This shit is far from over,” I forewarned, cutting through the middle floor of the restaurant and out the front doors.
Deviance stood with Harbor while she puffed one of those Black cigarettes that she didn’t think I knew she smoked. She had recently picked up the habit, only since Ivana had returned, which I figured wasn’t a coincidence. I let her get it off because I figured stress was piling up on top of her with the kids and everything. Approaching them both, I stopped right at Harbor’s side, and her eyes rolled back into her head. She wasn’t feeling me right now. The crazy shit was, it felt like everyone around us was watching things unfold between us like we were on somereality show or something. Flicking her cigarette into the wind, she brought herself off the wall and looked me over with her head angled to one side.
“All caught up with your baby mama?” Angry sarcasm dripped from her words.
“Harbor—”
“You just blew me off to go talk to her about her business.” She got in my face. “We don’t have shit else to talk about. I’m ready to get home to my babies.” She tried stepping around me, but I blocked her, stretching my arm in front of her.
“That’s not how this shit works.”
“Oh, you still giving ultimatums now?” She got in my face with an irritated glower. “At this point, fuck you, Frequency! There ain’t shit else that you can do to me that you haven’t already done. Does that shit make you feel good!” She belted, eyes bucking wildly as she kept her hands at her side. “You really deserve an Oscar for this performance.”
“Harb—”
“No!” She shook her head adamantly and took a step back. “I don’t want to talk. I want to go home and see my kids. Deviance, take me home,” she instructed, but her eyes didn’t waver from mine.
She was broken. The pressure of her icy stare weighed down on me. I couldn’t do anything but take what she had dished out to me. Distress flashed across her fine ass face, and she went to step past me. I couldn’t let her walk away like that. The sudden caving in my chest, right near my heart, was heavy, and I could feel my shit tightening at the thought of her slipping away from me.
“Baby, don’t?—”
“Free—”
“You think this shit is easy for me!” I pressed my palm against my chest as it heaved outside of my control.
