Page 79 of Love & Vendettas

Zayn and Shana both look stupidly at each other. I want to bang their heads together. Shaking my head, I say, “Lord help us now.”

“We want to keep our baby, Mom,” Zayn confesses.

Widening my eyes, I ask, “Did you think that you had any other option?”

He looks guilty and ashamed as he shakes his head.

“We’re going to work hard to make things right, Mom,” Zayn promises.

“I need you two to work together to make things right for this baby,” I demand.

They both nod, and Zayn moves to where Shana sits and sits on the arm of her chair. He links his fingers with hers and agrees. “We will. We really love each other, Mom.”

“Your mother’s upset right now, but she knows that you two will need us. We’ll be here for you, but you’re both about to learn a lesson about growing up,” Zaire warns.

Zayn and Shana shake their heads eagerly, smiling at Zaire and then looking at me hesitantly.

I stand up and hug them both. I whisper a little prayer over their heads before I kiss the tops of them.

I glance at Zaire, and strangely enough, I see him and me in Zayn and Shana.

36 – ZAIRE – TRAITOR IN OUR MIDST

“The hell was li’l G thinking?”

“I don’t know, Parker. This shit couldn’t have come at a worse time. With the police on my back, somebody fucking up my business and taking a hit on our income the way we have, not to mention all the shit his mother and aunt have been going through, this was the last thing we needed.”

“You gotta knock some sense into that boy’s head. He can’t be out here having babies that he can’t take care of.”

“I know.”

“Li’l spoiled ass nigga assuming his daddy’s gonna come through for him. That’s what it is.”

“Nah, that’s Bayleigh’s show.”

“Nah, the way I hear it, Bayleigh ‘bout kicked both their asses.”

Frowning, I stare at him and ask, “How do you know that?”

Shrugging, he answers, “Think I heard Zech say something ‘bout it this morning when I came over, and we were kicking it.”

I recall that he was talking to Zechariah when I came outside to meet him this morning before we left. We had some business to handle out of town, and he rolled over to my place to ride out with Ghalen and me.

We stopped back at my place around one when we got back in town this afternoon so that he could pick up his car. Then, we rolled to my building to meet with the team.

“Yeah, she was pissed as hell. But she’ll get over it in time. Her ass will be the one spoiling the hell out of this kid. Shayna and Zayn might not even get to see their baby by the time Bay lays her hands on the kid.”

Parker laughs with me.

“You gon’ make him quit school? Get a job?”

“Nah, that li’l nigga gon’ finish school and then get a job.”

“He still got three more years of that, though.”

“I know, man. But this is why I hustled hard all those years. So that my kids wouldn’t have to struggle the way we did, and they wouldn’t have to worry about their pops getting taken away from them. Not just the drugs, but the legit businesses made that shit happen.”

“You did have it rough growing up.”

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