“I apologize, but I really didn’t mean to lead you on.”
“You let that nigga get in our way. What’s so good about him other than being Jada’s daddy? I been here a whole year, and all of a sudden, he shows up.”
“That doesn’t matter. There is nothing between us for him to get in the way of.”
“Don’t fucking—” He closed the space between us, backing me into the house. OK, now I was genuinely afraid. I had never seen this side of him, and I wasn’t a fan.
“Jasper, can you please leave? I have to go pick my daughter up from school.” Since my other requests fell on deaf ears, I pulled my phone out of my pocket. This time, I wasn’t calling Reed; I was calling the cops. I hit the buttons on the side of my phone five times to activate emergency services. I wasn’t sure where this was going, but I knew better than to spend too much time trying to figure it out. We had gone back and forth long enough.
Jasper’s eyes fell to my phone. “Oh, you calling your man on me? He can come over here and get fucked up too.”
Before I knew it, he had a firm grip on my hand and the phone.
“Stop!” I screamed, tussling with him for the phone. My phone went clattering across the floor, but he didn’t let me go. “Jasper, stop!” Pain shot through me as he wrestled me into a bear hug. “Let me go.”
“Relax. You know nobody is trying to hurt you.”
“Well let me go!” I demanded, kicking, twisting, and fighting to get out of his grasp.
“It didn’t have to come to this, but you’re such a stubborn bitch,” he snarled as one of his biceps moved up to crush my esophagus.
There was no way I was going to die like this. I continued to fight, stomping his feet and clawing at his arms to free myself. Out of all days, I picked this one to not wear heels. Who would have thought moving would turn into a violent attack from a trusted neighbor? This was definitely not on my bingo card.
Eventually, I could no longer scream. I couldn’t even breathe. Tears burned my eyes and streamed down my face as I continued to struggle. I didn’t have much fight left in me. The room was going dark. With nothing left to do, I still had the wherewithal to pray.
Lord, please don’t let this man take me away from my baby.
For the past few days, I spent my time in the office scanning through videos and collecting everyone who had been working with Paula. So far, we’d found two ghosts working the tables. Of course, Paula used my name to push them through the hiring process without much background information.
I was still trying to figure out what to do with human resources. It didn’t matter that they thought they were working on my orders. Since the dealers wanted to be ghosts so bad, Sawyer and Nicholas made sure they were the real deal. I was sure they had sense enough not to come back and haunt Cashville, or I would kill them again personally.
As I loaded up the next video, my phone rang. I was hoping that it was Faith again. I turned my phone off during our weeklymeeting and noticed that I had a voicemail from her. I had only been in my office for a few minutes before I noticed that she’d called. I couldn’t even imagine what she was saying for three whole minutes, but I was sure it had something to do with me being unreachable.
I wanted to give her a minute to cool off before calling back. I picked my phone up and frowned at the unfamiliar number. Something was wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something felt off. I swiped the screen to answer before putting the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Hey, have you heard from Faith?”
My stomach dropped when I heard the voice on the other end of the line. It was her sister Grace.
“No. She was doing her final walk-through at the old house today.”
“She never picked Jada up from school. You know that’s not like her.”
I jumped up from my desk and grabbed my keys. The mama bear I knew would never leave her baby at school.With my keys in hand, I headed out the door. It had been way too long since Faith called me. Anything could have happened by now.
“When was she supposed to pick her up?”
“Pickup ended fifteen minutes ago. I’m on my way to get her. The school called me.”
“Get my baby and keep her safe. I’m going to find your sister, Grace. Don’t worry.”
Everything that happened between me ending the call with Grace and pulling up to Faith’s house was a blur. By the grace of God, I made it to my destination unharmed and without leading every police in the city on a high-speed chase, because I wasn’t stopping for shit. By the time I pulled up in her driveway, I was no longer thinking rationally.
Faith’s door was cracked, instantly sending alarm bells sounding in my head. I didn’t bother to turn off my car before jumping out and running to the door. The house was eerily silent when I pushed the door open.
“Faith!” I shouted, calling her.
