Page 23 of Divine II

“I might have to send a messenger over with some of the tapes in my possession. Someone at the Four Seasons was nice enough to sell me tapes of your bodyguard beating Sherrod in a restaurant. He told me what happened when I saw his busted lip, but seeing that video gave me all the ammunition I need to further push the idea that you set one of your dogs on him just like you did that night.”

“Are we done here? Suddenly, I’ve lost my appetite,” I said, standing from my seat.

“From now on, you will smile. I don’t care how you’re feeling or what’s going on in your life behind the scenes. When you’re in my presence, I need to see that pretty smile. Niggas need to know that you’re happy to be among greatness.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I rolled my eyes.

He shook his head. “I swear I’m going to have fun wiping that smug ass look off your face. This can be good for both of us, beautiful. I’ll even let you set a few ground rules yourself. Don’t rush, though. You can sleep on it and give me your list of demands on Sunday. I’ll let you know which of your terms I accept.”

I narrowed my eyes realizing that this muthafucka just might be crazy. I wouldn’t have even given anything he had to say a second thought if the guys hadn’t made this arrangement with him. If they felt like making this deal was the only way to fix the problem that apparently Liam and I had created, then I knew that there had to be some merit to it. Otherwise, I would have slapped the shit out of him as soon as he criticized my outfit.

“Is that all?” I asked again.

“Oh, yeah. You’re dismissed. See you Sunday,” he said, waving his hand as if he was shooing me.

See? That was another missed opportunity to smack the shit out of him. I had no idea who Zane thought he was, but I was about to show him who he wasn’t. As soon as I figured out a way to get out of this fucking deal, he was history.

I stormed out of the restaurant with a clear mission in mind. I had to figure out a way out of this deal and fast. It might be smart to play Zane close until I figured out what he had on me. I needed that video. I had to talk to Psalm to see what he could do. I had the feeling that he’d tried everything he could before they came to me with the deal in the first place. This was crazy.

I needed to talk to Liam. I missed him so much. He had no idea that more than half of the reason that I had accepted this stupid arrangement was to save him. I had to buy my family some time to figure out a way out of this shit. Maybe I should have told him what was going on, but I didn’t want to put the burden on him.

Liam had enough problems dealing with me in general. He had just lost his mother. He tried to put up a good front when I visited him, but I knew he was in pain. All I wanted to do was lay in his arms and hear him tell me that everything would be OK.

As long as he was around, I always knew things would be OK. Now that he wasn’t speaking to me and hadn’t made it clear if he was returning or not, I didn’t know what to do or think. For now, all I could do was play along with Bishop’s plan.

Six

Liam

I felt like the biggest simp ever as I pulled out of the parking lot and followed Divine home in my truck. Half the reason that I hadn’t wanted to accept her gift was because of the one that I’d bought myself. My Dodge Ram 1500 was perfect for my size and navigating the streets with ease.

I’d been considering getting a truck for a while. I loved my Challenger,but everybody had one. Not that I gave a damn about that, but I was ready for something new. That didn’t mean I wanted or needed Divine to buy it for me.

I didn’t need her money or extravagant gifts. I needed her to get it through her thick skull that all I really wanted was her. My love for her was the sole reason that I was back at work. Syre had given me four weeks off for bereavement. I planned to take all four of them until Divine’s little feisty ass came storming up to my parents’ door and reminding me that I’d left my heart four hours away.

I needed to be near her. I needed to make sure she was good. More than anything, I needed to make sure this arrangementwas as fake as she proclaimed it to be. Seeing how she’d came stomping out of the restaurant after less than thirty minutes almost made me a believer. That didn’t mean that I was going to fold. I wasn’t about to let her keep playing with me. I had to play my position from afar.

I hadn’t even told her that I was back in town. I wasn’t even sure that I was coming until I was here. I’d left a lot of unfinished business behind to be here with her. In the years that I’d been gone, my parents had made a lot of changes to their business.

With my dad incapacitated, my mom became the face of the company. According to the extensive paperwork she left for me, they had pivoted to a business model where they solely focused on providing loans at high interest rates. Their biggest clients were people looking to make large purchases without proof of income like drug dealers and strippers.

The business seemed to be fairly lucrative, but I wasn’t sure if it was something I wanted to dedicate my time to. As my dad explained, I wouldn’t have to go down to physically collect as I had in the past. I was now the owner of the business. My mom had a team of guys who served as the muscle for the company.

All I had to do was interview perspective clients and decide if I wanted to give them the money they were requesting. Her business model was easy to follow. In the past year since she’d been setting her retirement in motion, she’d left me a step-by-step guide to ensure that I could continue to run the business.

As my dad had already told me, my mom left everything to me. That everything included the businessandthe house. I had to wonder if that was the reason for my dad being his version of nice to me.

“You’re not going to kick me out on the street, are you?” he quizzed, looking up from his beer.

“What does that mean?” I asked, unsure of where that line of questioning even came from.

“This is your house now. Your mother and I made sure of that. Neither of us expected for me to outlive her. Lord knows I never wanted to. Now that she’s no longer with us, everything is yours—the house, the company, the money in her account, and our joint account. It’s all yours, son.”

“What if I don’t want it?” I asked.

“You would be a fool not to. Even if you don’t want to run the company, even if you never want to live in this house you once called a prison, even if you still hate the ground I used to walk on, it’s good for you to have. Even if you decide to dissolve the company, I ask that you hold off on selling the house until I die. I’m sure I don’t have much time left.”

I scoffed at my dad’s statement, but in reality, I had no idea how to feel about it. I hadn’t even absorbed his words yet, and he was asking me to let him continue to live in comfort. There was a time when that was all I wanted from him. Now, I didn’t know what to think.

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