Page 51 of Maceo

She giggled. “Girl, I can do anything. It’s gonna take a little time, but I’ll find it.”

“Okay. Jae, please don’t say anything to your brother. We aren’t on the same page when it comes to this. I need cold, hard evidence when I bring it to him again.”

She sighed. “I hear you, Shar. I don’t like this, but I love you, and I trust you. If this is a potential threat, I wanna get ahead of it.”

“Thanks, Jaeda. I could almost kiss you again.”

She laughed. “Spare me, please.”

I playfully kissed my teeth. “You know you like these soft ass lips.”

“They were soft, and the kiss was nice. But I know what you and my brother do behind closed doors, so no more kisses.”

“That’s fair. I’m about to go home and wake him up to some wet ass mouth right now.”

She pretended to gag. “That’s disgusting.”

“Girl, if you ever want a man, you better get over that and learn to suck a mean dick. I mean, I could teach you.” I laughed. “I have this cousin, Iridessa. She was trying to teach her girlfriend how to suck their boyfriend’s dick?—”

“Wait. She has a girlfriend, and they have a boyfriend?”

“Yes, girl. They are a whole throuple and happy as hell. Anyway, she put on this strap-on and damn near made the girl choke.”

“Oh, no, ma’am. I’m not a violent person, but that would be the day I beat your ass, Sharina.”

I laughed. “I wouldn’t do you like that. We can practice on a banana or something. Hell, Salima and Mia can join us.”

“And what if my brothers walk in? You know they don’t know anything about knocking on doors.”

“Then I guess they will get an eye full.”

She palmed her face. “Good night, Shar.”

I giggled as I went to hug her. “Good night, girl. I’ll lock up on my way out.”

I kissed her cheek before leaving her office and the house to head home. Part of me wanted to be right about Charity. But the other part… that part wanted to be wrong so bad. If she wasn’t who she said she was, that was a whole other problem. A problem we’d potentially brought to Maceo’s family.

That, I wasn’t prepared for.

“As you can see,profits are up after running the cleaning special I suggested,” Kelly said, pointing at the computer screen.

Today was my usual day for making rounds to check on all my businesses. I liked to think of myself as a cool boss. My employees fucked with me. I was fair, and I paid them above average.

“You can thank me now.”

She held out her hand, and it made me laugh. She begged me for a little more power around here as my manager. I gave it to her on a trial basis. I told her if she could hit a certain sales number in a month that I would give her a little more decision-making power in addition to a bonus. She’d exceeded profits by 70 percent.

“I gave you my word, didn’t I?”

“You sure did. Cough it up.”

“It’ll be on your next check.”

“Nah, big money. I need that in cash. They already eat my ass up with taxes because I don’t have any dependents. By the time they tax it, there is no bonus. I know you’ve got it.”

I shook my head as I dug in my pocket for my money clip. Peeling off fifteen crisp hundred-dollar bills, I handed them to her.

“Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

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