Page 158 of Shâhzâdeh

It was my turn to smirk because for him to be a professional athlete; he pulled that gun far too easy for him to be completely on the up and up. “I gathered as much when you didn’t seem bothered with the way Navi pulled a gun on you.”

He, my brother, perked up immediately at the word of Navi. “She’s fine as hell, by the way. I gotta see about her. But that can always wait until later on. Right now, I need to get to know you. To be real, you ain’t have much of a personality as a toddler.”

I couldn’t help but laugh seeing how another kid might think that of a baby. But having been around Skye, I knew that she had a full-blown personality since birth.

I thought about the parents that I would never know and the thing that always tugged at my mind. “Did she sing?”

“Say what?”

I was slightly nervous but I wanted to have my memory validated. “Did she sing?”

His laugh was quick but his eyes were dreamy like he’d sunken back in to a memory and I wished I could join him. “Mama, couldn’t carry a tune—”

That almost crushed me because the one memory that I felt was real wasn’t. “Oh, I’d always thought—”

He’d been rubbing his face as I spoke before he interrupted me. “But she would sing a song, hum it really. I didn’t know the words or even how to find it, but it sounded like this.” He started to hum the tune that I’d heard in my head for so long. Before I knew it, I was crying and humming along with him and he looked surprised but didn’t stop humming until the tune ended.

“I guess we didn’t need a DNA test after all.” His voice cracked slightly and I had to squeeze Xerxes’ hand to keep it together.

“We had to make sure you weren’t anozer brozerly weirdo.”

“Speaking of, we need to get up on that.” His face turned serious again while he and Xerxes silently plotted whatever actions were coming to fruition for the Kennedys.

Hearing about murder and mayhem wasn’t on my agenda. I was very much going to bask in the joy that having my husband and a blood relative would mean. “So no one looked for me because they declared me dead.”

“Yeah. Our people, and I use that term lightly, were real fucked up. They ain’t even follow any of the orders that they were supposed to with their funerals. They had the nerve to say they didn’t want to waste money on a casket for you because there was no body.”

“Zhe list seems to get longer, ziba.” Xerxes’ fingers started to rub circles on the back of my hand to keep himself calm.

“I just want to focus on joy for now, baby.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, who are the people that adopted you?” My brother was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees like he was processing all of this now.

“A white couple who moved here from Virginia. They had a bunch of—”

“Kids of all nations like they wanted to redo Noah’s Ark but with humans?” Ahmad was frowning like he was remembering something for the first time.

Xerxes sat up abruptly as he snapped his finger almost shifting me off the sofa before he caught me. “Zhat, Ziba! Zhat is zhe reference I was missing. And zhat is exactly how zhey behaved even zhough zhey were racist.”

“How do you know about them?”

“They’d stopped by the house like some Jehovah’s witness with a bunch of kids. I’d asked one boy to play basketball with me and he looked afraid of me. Mama said they were weird and wouldn’t let them in the house. They were gone within two weeks.”

His revelation left me speechless and now I had a thousand thoughts running through my head.

“I assume the guns we purchase are yours and not Quentin’s.” I was thankful that Ahmad had changed the subject because my brain would’ve blown up if I thought too much about this.

I felt tense not understanding if this was something that we could talk about. Xerxes didn’t hesitate to respond. “Your assumptions would be correct.”

“So, what do we do now? I understand this is your wife, but this is the only blood that means anything to me.”

“What happens now is up to Vanya. I’ll not keep her from anyzing zhat makes her happy. My only joy in life is hers. But I also am an extremely overprotective husband. I want whatever is best for her. If zhat’s not you, I’d prefer you leave her alone.” He was rubbing the back of my neck again and I felt comforted but damn I didn’t want my newly found brother to run away because he was acting like a maniac.

“Xerxes you can’t tell him that!”

Ahmad was wagging his finger and nodding his head like he more than agreed with Xerxes. “Nah, that’s exactly what he should be telling me. You need someone that’s going to come behind you like that. Vincent’s ass was really torn up telling me about the fine ass realtor that shot him down. I gotta go beat his ass just because now.”

Xerxes’ smile turned malevolent as Ahmad’s words. “Allow me to join you—”

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