Page 23 of That Fire

I kissed her forehead. “Yeah. I needed to get past my ego. My soldiers march hard, but so does other niggas’ soldiers.”

“These are your babies, Royal. I don’t care what the DNA says. You are the only man I want to have that title, despite what my fucking libido was saying.”

I chuckled and kissed her head again. “Come on. Let’s go make these announcements to our parents. Yours first. I owe your dad that much, although he already knows me.”

She smiled as I picked her up again to take her down the stairs. As her feet swung, I realized they looked swollen. “You may need to elevate your feet. They look swollen. We gotta tell Bali about that Monday.”

“Yeah. They started swelling about a week or so ago.”

I walked down the stairs and when we got to the front, I saw Seven standing out there with a frown on his face. “Stay right here, Aaliyah.”

She stopped, then went to the couch and sat as I went to the door. I opened it, and I was pretty sure my frown was matching Seven’s. “What’s up?” I asked.

“Vegas just popped another agent. All those muthafuckas out here, like they trying to see who did it. They asking everybody to stay indoors. So I need to come in.”

I huffed, and he walked inside. “Those muthafuckas will arrest me first.”

“You right,” I cosigned.

When he walked in the front, he greeted Aaliyah, then sat across from her and turned on the TV like he lived here. “Where’s Iesha?”

“She’s in Beaumont. I told her to stay there. They looking for blood. The hunter is being hunted, and they don’t like that shit. I just hope those niggas know what they doing. I would hate for one of them?—”

He stopped mid-sentence and looked at Aaliyah. She wasn’t paying him the least bit of attention. She was playing a game on her phone. When she realized it had gotten quiet, she looked up and saw us watching her. “What? Did I do something?”

“Naw,” Seven said. “When you due?”

“August 30th. I’m beyond ready though.”

“Yeah. They say twins usually come early. My mama said she had the twins at thirty-seven weeks.”

Aaliyah nodded. “So we have to stay indoors?”

“Yeah, for right now. An FBI agent got killed, so they’re on the rampage. If they were to stop me, I wouldn’t bite my fucking tongue, so it’s best we stay here, at least until it cools off out there.”

Aaliyah nodded and went back to her game. Everyone in Nome knew that shit was hot because of what happened to PJ. It wasn’t a secret that they all went out there and fucked shit up. Most of them didn’t know that we were plucking those muthafuckas off one by one.

As we watched the news, they informed the public that there were no leads for either agent’s murder. As she reported, she got breaking news that they found two other bodies. Seven and I looked at each other with our eyebrows lifted. Those muthafuckas were efficient. I was willing to bet the cartel got ahold of their asses.

I kicked off my shoes and put my feet up on the ottoman. It looked like we would be chilling out here for the rest of the day and maybe tomorrow too.

“He said he didn’t sleep with her. He wanted to though. She told him no, because she considered him her cousin.”

I blew out a hard breath. Ali patted my shoulder and walked off. Aaliyah was telling the truth. However, I was gonna confront Ryder J as soon as I saw his young ass. I was sitting at the diner, watching black SUVs roll down Highway 90 to Liberty, where all the action was going down. I was glad that shit was out there and not on our home turf.

Saturday, they were crawling all over Nome and didn’t leave until Sunday evening. They’d questioned my dad, Uncle Storm, Uncle WJ, and Uncle Kenny about if they’d witnessed anything unusual. Of course, Uncle Storm asked them why would anyone see anything going on in Liberty. That was thirty minutes away. He knew why they were in Nome, but he was trying to get them to admit it. That never happened.

Kingsley sat next to me with his food. After saying his grace, he said, “What’s up, man?”

“Not too much. You cool?”

“Yeah.”

He wasn’t, but I also knew he wouldn’t say here in front of everyone. Crew had just walked in, and he had a frown on his face. Kane was right behind him with the same frown. I wanted to roll my eyes, but I stayed chill. They both sat and slapped our hands. I refused to ask what the fuck was wrong with them. We had enough shit going on. Honestly, Crew, Kane, and Ryder Jshould have been in their own fucking crew instead of with us. I had to leave in an hour to meet Aaliyah at the clinic anyway.

Out of the blue, that nigga Crew asked, “So, you just gon’ raise kids that ain’t yours?”

I frowned. I remained quiet, because I wasn’t tryna fuck my lil brother up in front of everyone. Kingsley spoke up though. “That ain’t cool, man.”