Page 30 of A Capo’s Love: Featuring A Don’s Love

“I’m meeting with Balani about that today. Tomorrow I’m doing interviews with a couple of doulas,” I reassured her.

“What the fuck is a doula?”

“It’s like a nighttime nanny. They’ll handle nighttime feeding and changing the baby diaper while I get good rest. Balani suggested it. He said it’ll help since I was worried about postpartum.”

“You really like Balani, huh?”

“I do.” I smiled warmly.

“I’m happy you’re in a better headspace than before… I uhh…” she teetered over her words.

My stomach churned,. I could already sense Serenity getting ready to say something that I simply didn’t want to hear.

“I think you should reach out to⁠—”

I hung the phone up before she could utter his name. That was some coward punk shit on my behalf. An uneasy feeling hit me next, my intuition never told me no lies. Besides my daughter brewing in my stomach… something else was on the horizon.

CHAPTER 8

La’Nova

FIRE…

The first thing I saw when I stepped out my camper was muscle. Every last one of Balani’s men looked like they could fold grown men in half and still have the energy after doing it. I took one step forward with my hand resting comfortably on top of the swell of my stomach.

When my eyes landed on Troy, I lost it. He glared hard at me, placed his hand on his hip, and frowned.

“Hey, Tuckalicious.” I winked.

Troy rolled his eyes then looked over at Nookie. Both of them quickly became my favorites since we constantly went back and forth shooting insults at each other on the low. Troy and Nookie were both over six feet tall, chocolate, and nothing but muscle. One look at them you’d think they had deep masculine voices. Instead, their voices were as soft as mine.

There was no secret, all of Balani’s men were either openly gay or bi-sexual. Balani was a hoe, but Troy and Nookie were his main lovers. They also were best friends outside of Balani.

“Balani is waiting for you, Demon eyes.” Troy puckered his lips out.

“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered under my breath.

Nookie chuckled as I walked toward the both of them. The other guards got in formation behind us as I took in Troy’s neon green glitter eye shadow.

“That’s not your color, boo,” I stated lowly.

His eyes were bright as hell; he looked like a handsome clown today.

“Just like that dingy ass camper of yours⁠—”

“Don’t do her camper,” Nookie cut in.

The three of us fell in step together.

“I told Lani, I wanted a camper for Christmas.” Nookie continued.

“Chilee, I swear you just run out of shit for my man to buy you.” Troy rolled his eyes at Nookie.

Nookie was a couple inches taller than Troy. If I had to guess, Nookie was a top. He was more masculine than Troy. Nookie dressed in nice, tailored suits that didn’t hug every curve and muscle. Troy liked his butt poking out so all of his pants hugged him super tight.

They walked me toward the back entrance of Balani’s casino, moving like synchronized shadows on either side of me. It was crazy how I no longer saw this place as somewhere Lennox used to dwell at and run. Balani gave the casino a face lift inside out.

“Y’all got shit tucked today?” I joked lowly.