Page 1 of Unlucky You

PROLOGUE

Grand Sinclair.

“Who are you texting?”

“Your mother.” I smirked and kissed Aleah’s shoulder. I loved the way she loved our son but she needed this break and I wanted my girl to enjoy every second of our time tonight. Her priority was being a mother to our son but she deserved to enjoy one night of being selfish.

“Baby, stop worrying. He’s straight. You know my mother doesn’t play about her grandbaby.”

“I know but that doesn’t mean I can’t check on him.” She ignored me and continued staring at her phone, waiting for a response from my mother. A picture of Raiden illuminated thescreen seconds after she sent the text—out cold, curled up in my mother’s lap.

“See, I told you he was cool.”

Aleah smiled, brushing her finger over the screen before she loved the picture and locked her phone. “I’m not worried. I miss him.”

“I know. Let him be spoiled by someone else for a change. You keep that boy up under you like you don’t have to share him with the rest of us.”

“I don’t. He’s mine,” she teased. I chuckled and kissed her shoulder again.

“Your clingy ass believes that if you spend enough time with him, it will change the fact that he looks and acts just like me.”

Our son was my twin inside and out. At only eight months, he already had my personality. He was mean as fuck and didn’t deal with too many people. I loved that about him because I didn’t have to worry about the wrong people getting too close.

Not that it would ever be an issue with the way my girl and my mother kept him under them all the time. I didn’t complain, at least not now. But the older he got, I was going to have to pull him away from his mother and teach him about life.

He was loved and spoiled by all of us, hell even me. Raiden had my ass soft when it came to him but I also needed him to learn that life wasn’t fair, and as a young Black man, his journey would be different. No matter who or what I was, and most days I wasn’t shit, I would raise our son to be a better man than I ever imagined possible. That was the promise I made the day Aleah showed me the pregnancy test.

She thought I would be upset. Back then, I was running the streets heavy. Still did a little now but I slowed down a lot. I didn’t want either of them to have to figure shit out without me, so I was cautious about how I moved. Got a job working for anold head who had his own construction company. It was decent money and on the job training.

He mostly used me for framing and drywall but I was cool with that because I could work on my own and it was a consistent check. The money came slowly so I toed the line between the world I was trying to leave and the one I was trying to build for my family. I had never been the type to get my hands dirty in the streets, but being my father’s son, I learned a different type of hustle. Greiland Sinclair boxed when he was younger, and although he was never formally trained, my father’s hands were lethal.

No one outside of the community that raised him knew his name but on the South Side of Diamond Falls, my father was a legend. With a solid left hook and uppercut that ended the ambitions of a lot of hopefuls, my father became a hood legend.

I followed in his footsteps but my legendary status was solidified in the basements of abandoned buildings as opposed to community gyms. My hands were just as lethal but unlike his gloved hands, my bare knuckles made me a lot of money.

“It’s not about him looking like you…” She angled her head back and I narrowed my eyes, which had her pretty ass smiling again before she clarified. “Okay maybe it is about that,a little,but can you blame me? I did all the work and you receive all the glory.”

“I don’t blame you. My genes are strong as fuck. Not much you could have done about changing the inevitable. Our son looking like a miniature replica of me was destined.” I gripped her chin and landed a kiss—soft, slow, and teasing. I allowed my tongue to explore her mouth and my dick came alive. This woman right here had me enraptured, wholly and completely. She knew it too.

“We’ll try again when he’s older and if he or she doesn’t look like me, then…”

“Then we’ll keep trying and you’ll keep getting your feelings crushed while you’re loving me and our kids because no other option is acceptable. We’re locked in, Lay. That’s the only way this goes.”

“What makes you think I’m down for a life with you and more kids?”

“I don’t think, Iknow. That’s how real our love is.” I winked and turned my attention to Moses, who stood in the doorway trying to get my attention. I wasn’t feeling whatever he was about to hit me with but I knew I didn’t have the luxury of ignoring him. He was my connection to the extra money I needed to set my family up right. Because of the risk involved, the fights that cleared the most were invitation only. The organizers were very selective about who they communicated with.

“Stop overestimating your worth in my life.” She smiled in a way that contradicted her words. I was everything in her life, same as she was in mine.

“What the fuck ever.” After Moses motioned for me to head his way, I turned my focus to Aleah. “Let me go holler at him for a minute and then we can dip out so I can show you just how much you’re underestimating my worth in your life.”

I kissed her one last time, and before I could step away, she fisted my shirt and pulled me into her.

“You said no more fights, Grand. You’re working with Walt now. You don’t need it.”

“I’m not fighting.”

“We lying to each other now?”

---