Page 11 of Love on the Run

“Yeah,” she mumbles, already drifting.

“I love you” she whispers, her voice sounding sad. Kissing the spot she’s closest to right over my heart.

“I love you too. You and Asa are my world.” I say into her hair that’s come loose from the ponytails she’d plaited them into. “We’ll fix this.”

Her whispering, “I’m sorry.” is the last thing I hear. I struggle to respond, but the heaviness of exhaustion claims me.

She never said she was mine.

“Akchiro.”

The first thing I realize is my name is being shouted. The second is— Ryu and Tikashi are standing on either side of my bed with their hard ass hands shaking me awake.

“What the fuck?” My head feels full of wool. I scrub my hands over my face a moment before panic seizes me. “Where is Flower?” I look around, searching. A dead feeling settles over me. There is no way they would have gotten this far into our marital suite if she were here.

Silence. I look from one twin to the other. Identical in every way, down to the matching grim expression on their faces.

“Where are my wife and son?”

“She left this.” Ryu hands me a heavy vellum envelope with my name scrawled across the front.

I tear it open. There are two sentences.

“I can’t do this anymore. Just let us live in peace.”

Flower

Crushing it in my fist, I stand, asking, “How long have I been out?” The stale smell of sex and my overly full bladder is answer enough.

“She told mother you had a flu.” Ryu says as if that is a good enough explanation when he knows I’m never sick. Their failure will be addressed later.

“Takashi?”

“Three days. There’s no trace of her or Asa.”

Eight

RUNAWAY

Flower (undisclosed location in Dubai)

DiDi: He came here. He and FADE had it out and then FADE and I had it out. Don’t worry about none of that BS just take care of you and Asa.

Me: Why was it worse than the other 3xs he came?

DiDi: Girl, idk maybe he’s getting more desperate. He’s gone to Shelby-Love, Birmingham, everywhere. He looked like he was ready to kill me last night. That’s when FADE stepped to him to him to calm TF down that you are not safe around him now and he needs to get his head on straight before someone lays him down.

Me: OMG. What did he say??

DiDi: Said he was already dead. He’s lost weight too making him look even more dangerous than before. All that ice has melted into just a sharp blade.

Me: Then why is FADE mad with you when he obviously can see Akchiro is unhinged?! He’s acting like a maniac.

DiDi: FADE said what you did was immature, and you could have just come to us and not keep Asa from his daddy. He’s mad at me because he said I shouldn’t have kept things from him annnnd he thinks I know where you are. All the guys think the girls know. Ghadi called us the “Undergound Railroad” and he, Hasan and Marchellis are all taking bets on who we are going to help “free” next. He says he thinks Krie…s always got jokes. I can’t wait till someone has them on their knees.

Me: I’m sorry I got you in this, but that’s funny though.

DiDi: Gir,l please. All you did was send me this phone so you could let your family know you’re ok. I did that & we support you. We don’t need all the details of what went down but we trust you. You love him too much to leave him without good cause. Is it another bitch bc? We can ride at dawn.

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