THE BEGINNING
INTRODUCTION
Most brides probably spent their wedding day crying, throwing up, praying, pacing the floor, or doing whatever people did when they're about to walk down an aisle and promise somebody forever, but me? I'm sitting in a bridal suite trying to get this damn prosthetic leg attached while my family loses their minds downstairs. People had been arguing for the last twenty minutes, and my best friend Tasha is down there acting like she's head of security; knowing her, she's probably threatening somebody right now. The wedding didn’t even start, and I can already guarantee at least three people done got cussed out by her. Every time I heard her voice elevate, all I did was shake my head.
The crazy part is none of that is what's stressing me out. I reached down and adjusted the prosthetic leg before shaking my head. The first time I ever put this thing on, it took me almost an hour. I cried half the time, cussed the rest of the time, and almost threw it across the damn room twice. The physical therapist kept telling me to be patient while I sat there wanting to tell everybody in the room to kiss my black ass but back then I couldn't even look at the prosthetic leg without getting mad at life, at God, and at my damn self… hell, I was just angry ateverybody. However, these days I can get it on in less than ten minutes and be halfway dressed before most people figured out what shoes they're wearing. It’s funny how that works because the things you swear will break you forever eventually become part of your routine. It’s not even because you're okay with it, and not because it doesn't hurt anymore either, it’s just that you just learn how to keep living anyway.
Now I know how us females are, so before y'all get all emotional, don't even do that. Like seriously… don't because I don't need nobody feeling sorry for me. I only need y’all to ride with me through this crazy ass journey. Matter fact, the first thing y'all need to know about me is I hate pity and I always have unless it’s genuine. Trust me, I’ve had a lot of fucked up people around me who acted like they loved feeling sorry for somebody else's situation until it's time to actually help and then everybody is suddenly so busy, so I’m at a point where they could just save it. If you're reading this expecting some sad story about a poor girl who lost her leg and spent the rest of her life feeling sorry for herself, you're already reading the wrong book. Besides, if we're being honest, losing my leg isn’t even the craziest thing that happened to me; not by a long shot.
I glanced over at my twenty-thousand-dollar wedding dress hanging across the room and smiled despite myself. That dress was BEAUTIFUL! It was the kind of dress little girls dreamed about when they imagined their wedding day. It was the lace, the beading, and the long ass train dragging across the floor for me because it was like something out of a movie. Honestly, I stopped asking how much stuff cost halfway through planning this wedding because every time I tried bringing up a budget, E'Levyn would look at me like I was speaking another language and tell me to get whatever I wanted. After a while I stopped arguing because clearly that man wasn't listening anyway and one thing about my man E'Levyn 'Lev' Laurent, if he lovessomething, he isn’t bullshitting about it. Hell, half the people downstairs probably think I'm marrying a billionaire. Whether that man is or isn’t, I couldn't tell you because every time I asked about money he looked at me like I was asking the dumbest question on earth.
I looked back at myself in the mirror and laughed. I’m not even gonna lie to y'all, I looked good as hell. The makeup artist did her thing with my face. My hair was laid because I hired the best of the best for me and my bridesmaids and even with everything I'd been through, I could still look in the mirror and recognize myself. That might not sound important to some people, but trust me, there was a time when I couldn't. There was a time I didn't recognize nothing about the woman staring back at me. There was a time I spent more nights crying than sleeping and I thought my life was over. If somebody would've walked into a room back then and told me I'd eventually end up here, getting married to a man who loved me the right way, I would’ve laughed right in their face and it wasn’t because I didn't believe in love, it was because I didn't believe it was meant for me anymore. Nobody tells you about surviving hard shit, they only talk about getting through it instead of what happens after.
Whenever somebody finds out about my prosthetic leg, they immediately want to know what happened. That's always the first question every single time and it never fails. They don't ask who I am or what I do. They go straight to the leg, and I swear I've heard the same questions so many times I could answer them in my sleep. The crazy part is people always assume the wrong fucking thing. Some people think it was a car accident, some people think it was cancer, and others think I was born this way. I remember one cashier at Publix asked if I lost it in the military. I fell out laughing cause baby the only war I ever fought was with myself.
The room outside erupted with laughter once again, followed immediately by Tasha's voice getting louder than everybody else's. I couldn't hear exactly what she was saying, but I knew that tone. Somebody was getting checked again and I smiled. That girl has threatened to fight more people on my behalf than anybody I know since the playground and truth be told, if it wasn't for Tasha, I probably wouldn't even be sitting in this bridal suite right now. Matter fact, there are a few people in this story that deserve trophies for putting up with my situations because I was hardheaded and not regular hardheaded either. I'm talking about the kind of hardheaded that'll ask for advice and ignore every bit of it to do the exact opposite but that’s what I get for giving the wrong motherfuckers grace.
The biggest lesson I learned was to stop believing tomorrow was gonna be different than today when it comes to certain shit. I was a registered nurse, I had my own career, my own money, my own goals and I wasn't sitting around waiting for a man to save me. Matter fact, the last thing I was looking for was a man during all that bullshit I was dealing with. Then life did what life always does and that’s whatever the fuck it wants to do because this story didn't start with a wedding and it damn sure didn’t start with a prosthetic.
Now before y'all start getting ahead of yourselves, no, I'm not talking about the man waiting downstairs for me right now. If I was about to marry the same man who turned my life upside down, this book would be filed under crime instead of romance. I'm laughing but I’m serious too. The man waiting at that altar earned his place there although he could’ve killed my ass if he wanted to, and the other one? Well, y'all will meet him soon enough and trust me when I tell you that man is a story all by himself.
If I keep talking, I'll be telling y'all the middle before I tell y'all the beginning, and that's exactly how my mouth gets me introuble now. So let me slow down and start where I'm supposed to start. Let me tell y'all how a bad-ass registered nurse from Miami ended up with a prosthetic leg, enough damn trauma to keep a therapist employed for the next twenty years, and a fine ass, ex-convict, gangsta ass businessman named Lev changing her life when she least expected it in the most unimaginable ways… because baby, this story right here? It's a lot.
CHAPTER 1
Navy ‘Nay’ Prescott
Ihad been moving my stuff out this house piece by piece for the past two weeks, just enough at a time so it wouldn’t look obvious. It was really only a bag here, a few pairs of shoes there, some of my favorite wigs, a couple boxes of uniforms, and things I knew Rome wouldn’t notice missing right away because that man only paid attention to what he wanted to pay attention to but tonight wasn’t about being careful anymore. Tonight I was grabbing whatever I could get my hands on and getting gone for real, because after everything that had happened, I was done playing house in a place that had started feeling more like a trap than a home.
The house was beautiful, and that was the part that used to mess with my head. Anybody walking through that front door would’ve thought I had it made with a big open kitchen, marble countertops, high ceilings, glass staircase, and a master bedroom big enough to fit a whole damn apartment inside of it. Rome loved that part, because he was a showoff and loved when people walked in and looked around like we was really livingsome perfect life. He loved the compliments, the pictures, and the way women side-eyed me like I had won something because I had a man who could put me in a house like this. They just didn’t know half the nights I spent in that same pretty ass house crying in the shower with the water running so he wouldn’t hear me. They didn’t know pretty didn’t mean peaceful, and a big house don’t mean shit when you feel small inside of it.
My closet didn’t even look like mine no more. Half of it was empty with hangers spaced out and for once, I wasn’t putting shit back in place to make it look right. I had spent too much time fixing things that wasn’t mine to fix, straightening up messes I didn’t make, and pretending me and Rome was better than we really were. After the last time he put his hands on me, something in me changed in a way I couldn’t talk myself out of. It wasn’t the first argument, and it wasn’t the first time he called me out my name, threw something across the room, or stood too close all up in my face while I tried to explain myself like I was on trial. However, it was the first time I looked at him after it happened and didn’t see a man that could one day change. I saw a man who had gotten too comfortable thinking I was going to keep taking whatever he gave me.
I yanked another drawer open and started stuffing my scrubs into my bag, not even bothering to fold them this time. I had worked too many twelve-hour shifts, and wiped too many grown people asses, standing on my feet until my back felt like it was breaking to let a man with good dick and a controlling, cocky ass attitude make me feel like I didn’t have nothing without him. I had a good career and my own money and somewhere along the way Rome had made me forget that because he had more than me.
My phone kept lighting up on the dresser behind me, and I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was, and that alone made me madder because he wasn’t even supposed to becalling me like that. He was supposed to be out of town, doing whatever business he claimed was so important, which really meant running around with whoever he wanted, while pushing dope and thinking I was home waiting like a damn fool. At first, I had been grateful he was gone because it gave me space to move the rest of my stuff without having to worry about him walking in and causing drama. Now the way he kept calling had my nerves jumping because Rome didn’t call back-to-back unless he wanted something, knew something, or was trying to make sure I wasn’t doing something.
“Boy, please,” I mumbled, snatching a stack of leggings off the shelf and shoving them into the bag with my scrubs. “Now you wanna act like you care where I’m at. You should’ve cared when your little pregnant bitch was calling my phone like she was giving me an appointment reminder, the fuck.”
That was the part that still had me hot and I had to laugh because if I didn’t laugh, I probably would’ve lost my whole mind and everything I worked hard for. Out of everything Rome had done with all the lying, sneaking, gaslighting, and disappearing, that phone call from his other bitch had been the final straw and it wasn’t because I thought Rome was faithful, because I wasn’t slow, it was because the girl had called me too comfortable and too damn bold like she had been waiting for her little moment to let me know she existed. She had the nerve to tell me she was pregnant in this soft little voice, like she expected me to break down or beg her for details. Then she followed it up by saying all the bills in the house were in Rome’s name, like that was supposed to hurt my feelings or scare me.
I almost laughed in her ear because she messed up by telling me all of that. Her silly ass managed to give up the address thinking she and I would have a real face-to-face, woman to woman talk. Like bitch please, you are not Shirley and I am not Barbara, I thought to myself the second she suggested it.Since everything was in his name and she wanted to remind me so bad, I got off that phone and made a few calls of my own. I called FPL and cut the lights off. I then called Miami-Dade Water and Sewer and cut the water off too. Xfinity was next, and I cut it off as well, bitch didn’t need WI-FI anyway, she needed a fucking life with some morals. I didn’t care if the lights blinked off mid-shower, mid-Netflix, mid-pregnancy craving, or mid-lie. Congratulations, hoe, since you wanted him and everything attached to him, enjoy sitting in that big pretty house with no Wi-Fi, no water, and no power. The joke was on both of them because I already had my storage unit, my important documents, and enough sense to stop letting that man use me as his peace in his world full of chaos.
My phone lit up again, and this time I snatched it off the dresser. Rome’s name flashed across the screen, and underneath all those missed calls were messages I already knew were going to piss me off. I didn’t open them right away, I just stood there holding the phone, trying to remind myself that I didn’t have time to argue with him. I needed to finish packing, get this last load to the storage, check into whatever hotel had availability, and figure out the next step after I got away from this house. I didn’t have the whole perfect plan, but I had enough of one to move and sometimes that had to be enough. Before I could talk myself out of it, I called my best friend and Tasha answered on the second ring like she had been waiting for me to call anyway.
“Pleaseeee tell me you on the way to my house and not still in that damn mansion of misery,” she said, not even bothering with hello.
I rolled my eyes and held the phone between my ear and shoulder while I zipped one bag and reached for another. “I’m not coming to your house, Tash. I already told you I’m not bringing this shit to your door.”
“Navy, I don’t give a fuck about that, it’s little but you can come here. My couch is open, my guest room open, hell, my bed open if you need me to sleep on the floor. I don’t like you over there by yourself, especially after what he did.”
“I’m not by myself for long because I’m leaving. I just gotta get the rest of my stuff out before he get back.”
“He supposed to be gone until tomorrow, right?”
“That’s what he said, but you know Rome lie like it’s second nature. I don’t trust nothing that come out that man mouth unless it’s attached to a receipt, and even then I’m checking the date.”
Tasha made this muffled sound like she was trying not to laugh, but I could hear the worry all in it. “You still mad about that girl calling?”
