AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Like he what?”
“I can’t.”
“Joel, I asked you not to do that.”
“And I’m telling you that you’re on the edge.”
She stared at his face, her mind fragmenting. The boys would miss her, but they loved Joel. As they grew older, they would eventually see that she’d done right by them.
“You said this person isn’t someone I could have handled,” she said. “Is this man like you and the guys?”
He nodded.
“So, he’s on a team?”
He nodded again.
“Joel, can you get me a glass of water?”
“Of course.” He stood, and on his way to the kitchen, he grabbed both sets of car keys.
He did know her well.
Too well.
Still, she had two legs. So, while he got her a glass of water, she walked right through the front door. When her foot cleared the last front step, he grabbed her again.
“Uh, where are you going?”
“I need to walk,” she said.
“Then I’ll walk with you.”
“Alone.”
“No.”
“Joel, I need space. I need room to think and breathe, and I can’t do both inside that house. Don’t…don’t take it personally. Sometimes, a woman just needs time to herself when everything’s falling the fuck apart.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. “Ayesha, you asked me not to run.”
“I know.”
“And you’re running.”
“I’m not perfect.”
“Everything’s not falling apart. Baby, I promise you that it’s not.”
“See, here’s the thing,” she began. “This man terrorized my child. This man is also part of a team like yours. Adrían told you about this man. So, want to know what conclusion I came to? The reason Adrían knows who this man is, is because he’s part of Adrían’s unit. If Adrían’s unit is like yours, this man is highly skilled.” Her bottom lip trembled. “And Theo drew a picture of him in a grave next to Curtis.”
Joel scrubbed his face until his skin was mottled with splotches of red.
“This man told Theo he would kill him because he killed Curtis, right?” She tugged until he was forced to release her. “The man who terrorized my child killed his father, didn’t he? And I slept with his brother. I slept with the brother of the man who killed my husband.”
Joel, frowning, shook his head. “They’re not brothers. Their team’s nothing like ours. They’renothinglike us. If they were, Adrían wouldn’t have told me about Lavigne, and in what world do you think we’d tolerate a motherfucker like that in our unit? We would have killed him on day one.”
She continued to back away.
