A/N: I know that it's been a while since I've posted a part of this. I had hit a block, hopefully that's done so I can dive back into this.
Previous Chapter
Damian laid in bed, Kizzie asleep on his chest. “Baby girl, you gonna nap all afternoon?” Damian laughed as he kissed her forehead. “Maybe if you didn't fuck me like that, I could stay awake.” Kizzie laughed, placing a kiss to the middle of his chest. She had climaxed 4 times since breakfast and was nestled into a blanket that covered the wet spot in her bed. “I had to make up for all those times I wanted to pull you into an empty space and fuck the shit out of you. All those times I had to see you with him, your eyes practically begging me to take you.” Damian laughed. “Well, I couldn't just come out and say it! Not in front of Jey. But saying it in front of Rhea…I knew you'd find out eventually.”
Kizzie rolled over and grabbed her phone. “I'm making you dinner. You can get dessert for us.” She smiled, kissing her way up his chest to his lips. “As far as I'm concerned, you're all the dessert I need. What are you cooking for me, pretty girl?” Damian smiled as he pulled her closer to him. “Braised oxtail and rice & peas. And my mac & cheese is a must.” Kizzie smiled as he kissed her forehead. “Ohhh…you like me real bad, huh? What would you make for Rhea?” Damian asked. “I made her Jerk chicken skewers with rice & peas the last time she was in Atlanta. I brought it to her at the arena. Jey was mad cuz I didn’t make it for him.” she shrugged. “Why didn’t I get a plate?” Damian asked. “You weren’t there. I think you were probably in PR eating mofongo with an ocean view with a baddie sitting on your lap.” Kizzie laughed as she grabbed her robe from the bedpost. “We got time while the groceries are delivered. Get back in this bed, Mami.” he growled. “I ordered groceries this morning and had them delivered. The oxtails have been marinating all day.” Kizzie giggled as he tugged at the robe. “You can still get back in this bed though.”
Jey sat watching Kizzie’s IG from his burner, she was cooking. She was laughing with someone in the background. Jey loved when she made Jamaican food. Her hips whined to some old school Dancehall while she washed her rice and peas and seared the oxtails. Jey was stuck with some Chipotle he picked up on his way home. “Damn, this shit looks so good. I should go get a plate and apologize.” he thought aloud. Kizzie was an amazing cook and would probably be a better chef than she was a wrestler. If she was making Jamaican food, he knew that she had made rum punch…she always did. His heart started to race as her last reel was a photo of two plates and two drinks at her coffee table with Netflix loading in the background. “Oh? She wanna play? Aight, bet.” He growled angrily.
“Best oxtail I've ever had in my life and I've been to Jamaica!” Damian smiled as Kizzie cuddled up to him on the couch. “You owe me dessert.” she laughed. “It’s on the way.” he smiled, showing her the Doordash tracker on his phone. “Cheesecake Factory? You trynna get fucked again?” Kizzie teased. “By you? Always.” Damian smiled as they scrolled on Netflix for something new to watch. As soon as Kizzie placed Damian’s phone back into his hand, it started ringing. “Aww fuck. I’m not trying to talk to him.” Damian groaned as he saw Jey’s name appear on the screen. “So don’t answer. He was lurking on my IG from his burner I’m not supposed to know about so I know he saw that I made dinner for two.” Kizzie giggled, her lips kissing his neck. “If you were a vampire…I’d let your fine ass bite me.” he laughed. “Maybe for Halloween. Ooh, can we go to Halloween Horror Nights?” Kizzie asked. “That might be you and Rhea’s thing. I’m too tall for a lot of the rides.” he pouted. “I’ll get you a mask and you can be the ride. How bout that papi?” Kizzie laughed as she straddled his lap.
The next day
Kizzie took plenty of pictures of Damian at the Georgia Aquarium being cute but didn’t post any. Damian took plenty of pictures of Kizzie enjoying the whale shark but only sent them to Rhea. He did however post pictures of the giant manta ray and the tiger shark to his IG. “Can you swim?” Damian asked as they sat down near one of the main tanks. “My parents are fresh off the island. Thick accent and everything. Grew up in Fort Lauderdale and went to Jamaica often as a child.” she laughed. “That explains quite a bit. Saw you and Jey out once and the way those hips were moving…definitely from an island.” Damian teased. “He saw you staring and didn’t like that one bit.” Kizzie teased. “He can’t whoop me, even on his best day.” Damian laughed. “I'd like to see him try. I could stay here all day. I keep trying to get in on the adult sleepovers they do sometimes but they fill up so quick and I'm usually on the road.” Kizzie pouted. Damian and Rhea would definitely have to make that happen for her birthday.
“You want wings from Magic City? It's a thing you do when in Atlanta.” Kizzie laughed as they walked back to the parking garage. “Isn't Magic City a strip club?” Damian asked. He had heard Jey and his brothers mention it often. “It is. Some of the best wings in the city. Mine are better but I don't really feel like frying chicken today.” Kizzie laughed. “Do I get a lap dance too? I've got cash.” He laughed, opening her car door. “If that's what you want. They got all kinds of girls there.” She shrugged as he got into the passenger seat. “I want one from you. Preferably in that green gear with the fishnets and thigh belts that push your ass up.” He laughed, stealing a kiss. “She likes that gear too.” Kizzie blushed, recalling getting felt up by Rhea in the locker room while an unsuspecting Jey waited for her to change. “I know. She told me all about it.” He laughed. “Maybe, I'll put that on for you. So…lemon pepper wet and fries?” She smiled, he nodded.
Kizzie placed an order and drove to the location. “Don't get pulled up on stage. Well…call me so I can come watch.” Damian laughed as she got out of the car. He watched her ass bounce as she walked. “Ay Dios mio. Praise the Lord for sundresses.” Damian sighed. Kizzie disappeared into the building and reappeared within minutes with a big bag. “It smells so good.” Kizzie smiled as she put the bag in the backseat. “This Durango is sweet, mami.” Damian smiled as he adjusted the mirror. “You driving my shit now? Not even Jey drove my truck.” Kizzie laughed. “It’s not often you get your hands on a Hellcat truck. I couldn’t resist and you make the prettiest passenger princess.” Damian smiled, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “What do you plan on doing with your “indefinite” suspension?” Damian laughed as he drove back to Kizzie’s condo. “Brood. Post some cryptic shots at Rhea. Work on the new character. The pretty girly, pretty deadly version of Kizzie West.” She laughed. “Oh? I didn’t know we were getting a new character.” Damian spoke. “Yeah, they’ve kinda given me free reign on the aesthetic as long as it's girly. Pink or purple?” Kizzie asked. “Teal is girly. There’s too many girls that are pink based. Purple is Judgement Day. But teal…nobody has that.” he smiled. “I like the way you think. I will show you the samples that my mom and I made.” Kizzie smiled. “Your mom makes your ring gear?” he asked. “She does make plenty of it, she’s teaching me. I made the dress I had on yesterday.” she smiled. “Make another one. I liked it.” he laughed. “I’ll see what I can do. I think I still have the pattern. Special requests on the color means that you’re buying fabric.” Kizzie smiled.
Monday Afternoon
Jacksonville, FL
Damian stood out in front of his hotel while the valet brought his car around. “Big Priest. What’s good, man?” a familiar voice called out from the doorway. Damian turned to see both Jimmy & Jey walking towards him. “Play nice.” he mentally reminded himself, dapping them up. “I didn’t know you drove a Corvette. That shit is dope.” Jey smiled. “Yeah, had to treat myself after winning the belt.” Damian smiled. “That’s what’s up. Hey man…have you or Rhea talked to Kizzie? She’s ignoring my calls. She trippin’ an shit.” Jey asked. “You do know that Rhea’s in Australia, right? I probably won’t hear from her until she’s back. And as far as Kizzie…we don’t really talk like that. I know how you get about her.” Damian laughed. “Sorry about that. I heard she was messing with someone on the roster, I know who it is now.” Jey shrugged. “Oh word? That’s messed up.” Damian shrugged, thankful that his red C8 had just pulled up. “Yeah, I’ll deal with my cousin when I see his ass. See you at the arena, bruh.” Jey spoke as Damian tipped the valet, put his bags in the trunk and drove off. “Call Kizzie.” Damian laughed as soon as he was out of hearing range.
“Hola, papi. Miss you.” she laughed. “So…got some tea for you, mama.” he laughed. “Oooh, spill.” Kizzie smiled as she sat at her desk. “Jey thinks you’re fucking his cousin.” Damian laughed. “Which one?! Roman or Jacob? I mean…I would but I’m happy right where I am.” she laughed. “He didn’t specify and I ain’t ask follow-up questions. I will tell you if I find out. Just thought you’d get a kick out of that. And…he asked if I had talked to you. Didn’t have the heart to tell him that we did a helluva lot more than talk.” Damian laughed, flashing his security badge to the man guarding the parking lot. “You talked me through it several times. It was…greatly appreciated and needed so badly.” she laughed. “And you returned the favor. I can’t wait to get you down to my palace of pleasure. You won’t have to be quiet so your nosy neighbors don’t hear you.” Damian laughed, remembering her next door neighbor banging on the wall at 3am. “Palace of pleasure? That sounds dangerous.” Kizzie spoke. “For you, yeah. Don’t worry, Goth Papi will take good care of you afterwards.” Damian growled. “You always do. Go have a good show. Call me later?” she smiled. “Of course, it’s a long drive back. Think you can keep me entertained for 2 hours?” he laughed. “Over the phone is gonna be difficult, but I think I can manage. We can plan our trip to Puerto Rico.” Kizzie laughed.
“It's a date…but it's already planned and it's a surprise. We just gotta sync calendars, which we can do at some point. Uh oh…gotta go, here come ya boy. Want me to tell him you said hi?” Damian laughed. “Boy, fuck you!” Kizzie laughed. “Oh…you did. If you were on him like you were on me…I can’t see no other woman but you.” Damian laughed. “We both know the reason.” Kizzie sighed. “If you can’t reach the bottom, get the fuck out of the pool!” Damian laughed. “You’re so crazy. Got me over here blushing. Go to work D. We’ll talk later.” she giggled. “Ok, querida. Enjoy the show.” Damian spoke before they hung up. Damian got out of his car as Jey & Jimmy were walking up. “Who got you smiling all big?” Jimmy teased. “This girl I met at the gym. She’s headed to Puerto Rico and was asking about some recommendations.” Damian lied. “You should pull up on her.” Jey suggested. “Not trying to come on too strong. She just got out of a relationship.” Damian explained as they approached security. “Hey Uce, one man’s loss in your win.” Jey spoke, smiling as Kizzie’s name popped up on his phone screen. “Yeah…she still love me.”
“If I have another baby, you won't be my baby anymore. You'd be my big girl and I'm not ready for that. Are you?” Orion asked, Phynix gasped. “I'm not ready! Dad…you can't kiss her anymore. I'm not ready to be a big girl yet!” Phynix pleaded. “You’re gonna have to teach me how to do that.” Joe laughed. “The ways of this Jedi are quite strong.” Orion smiled as they drove towards Joe’s house. “You’ve got nothing to worry about. Mommy’s not having any babies anytime soon. We still have the whole world to conquer, little one.” Orion smiled. “Promise, promise?” Phynix asked, swirling her drink around like she saw Orion doing. “I promise. And Daddy promises too…doesn’t he?” Orion smiled in Joe’s direction. “Oh…yeah. Promise, promise.” he laughed.
“All of this is your house? It’s huge!” Phynix asked as Joe turned down the winding driveway surrounded by lush greenery. “Mmm hmm. And now it’s gonna be your house too. And while you’re here…we can decorate your room however you want.” Joe smiled. “Does Mommy get to decorate her room too? Or does she have to share a room with you?” Phynix asked. “Mommy gets to do whatever she wants to do. She’s the Queen.” Joe smiled as he pulled into the garage. “You’ve done well for yourself, Tribal Chief.” Orion smiled. “Just trying to keep up with you, baby girl.” he smiled as he climbed out. “Oooh! He called you baby girl!” Phynix teased. “Silence, young Padawan.” Orion laughed. “You’re Padme and Daddy is Anakin! I’m Leia!” she giggled, Orion laughed too. “What’s so funny?” Joe asked as he opened the back door to get Phynix out. “Oh nothing. Master & Padawan business. About nothing you should worry.” Orion winked at Phynix. “Mmm hmm. I’m on to you two.”
Orion checked out the other cars in the garage: a white Rolls Royce Spectre and a matte black Escalade. “See something you like?” Joe asked. “Not really. We’ve always had differing tastes in cars though. A Rolls Royce was your dream, McLaren was mine. Now that I can finally fit in and afford a McLaren…don’t really want one. Besides, two seats aren’t conducive to a Mom's lifestyle.” Orion shrugged. “Maybe not as a primary car, but definitely for a secondary ride. What do you drive now?” Joe asked. “Lexus RX.” Orion shrugged, it was the perfect size for her and Phynix. “Really? I’ve seen you as a Range Rover girly. Like a deep purple with black rims.” Joe suggested. “If you buy it, I’ll drive it…as long as it’s a turbo.” Orion teased. “It’ll be here by the next time you visit.” Joe smiled. “You don’t have to do that.” Orion spoke. “You need something here that you like to drive…something to come back to.” Joe yawned as he put their bags in the hallway. “Seeing my baby with her daddy is my something to come back for.” Orion smiled.
“Wanna go pick your room?” Joe asked. “Yes! Let's go.” Phynix giggled as she pulled Joe towards the stairs. Joe grabbed Orion’s hand as they breezed past. “Now why am I in it?” Orion laughed. “I have a surprise for you.” He smiled. “For me? Don't do too much, we won't wanna leave.” Orion teased. “I know. My ultimate endgame.” Joe smiled, pulling Orion into a kiss. “No kissing!” Phynix groaned as she explored the first empty bedroom. “Yeah, no kissing!” Orion laughed. “You like this room, Munchkin? Or you wanna keep looking? I’ve got this many more” Joe asked as he held up 3 fingers. “Mama, you like this room?” Phynix asked, pulling Orion deeper into the room and away from Joe’s kisses. “I think this is a good room, Phy. There's built-in shelves for books and we can get some Funko Pops or some Lego flowers. And there's a window where you can sit and read to Daddy. Actually, if there is another room like this…I will take that one.” Orion laughed.
“Mommy, can we go to Beijing to that big mall with the furnitures like we did with Nana and Pop-pop for their new house?” Phynix asked. “You don't want to get furniture while we're here? I'm sure that Daddy knows some good spots.” Orion nodded. “Yeah, sure.” He smiled. South Florida had its own furniture mall but nothing like the one in Beijing. “Daddy, now that you have two belts, do you have a lot of monies?” Phynix asked. “Define a lot of monies? I have some monies but there are people with a lot more monies than Daddy and they don't even have any belts!” Joe laughed, scooping the little girl up into his arms. “Mommy has 20 million monies.” Phynix whispered to Joe but loud enough for Orion to hear her. “Really? That’s a lot of monies. I think she should give me some.” Joe laughed. “Are you two plotting against me?” Orion laughed. “Maybe. Come on Mama Wolf, time for your surprise.” Joe smiled as he led her to the master bedroom. “Oooh, this is where the magic happens.” Orion teased. The room was bigger than her first apartment. “There’s actually been no magic made here yet but I’m hopeful.” he winked. “I don’t see why not. Your wand’s big enough.” Orion grumbled. “I hope the giant nap pod is to your liking.” Joe smiled as he led Orion over to the space he had created just for her. There was a giant purple plush bean bag in the corner with a matching blanket, bonnet and cord for her to charge her phone.
“Oh my God, Joe. This is perfect. I can’t believe that you remembered.” She smiled, hugging him. Orion had always talked about how her perfect house had a giant bean bag chair near a window for naps. “Of course I remembered, baby. You get cozy and take a nap. Me and Munchkin will try not to make too much noise.” Joe smiled, nudging Orion towards the cushion. “Thanks. You two have fun. Phynix Okoye James…good girl behavior only.” Orion warned. “Always, mama.” Phynix smiled, kissing Orion’s forehead before they left. Joe closed the door behind them. “Ok, little lady…whatcha wanna do?” Joe asked. “Have you ever seen Harry Potter?” Phynix asked. “Not all the way through. Your brother and his mom love Harry Potter. Is it good?” Joe asked. “Mommy read me the books. The movies aren’t bad.” Phynix smiled as he turned the TV on. While Joe got immersed in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Orion had a good cry and then took a much needed nap.
The screen was transitioning into the 2nd movie when Joe noticed Phynix pouting. “What’s wrong, Munchkin?” he asked. “I miss Mommy. She’s been sleeping for so long.” she pouted. “Let’s go check on her.” Joe said as he raced up to the bedroom with Phynix on his back. “Ok, we go in quiet. Mommy doesn’t like being woken up from her naps.” Joe laughed, Phynix nodded. The door eased open before they snuck in. Phynix made a silent beeline over to the giant pillow. Like a tiny ninja, she crawled up next to Orion. “You’ve gotten lighter on your feet, little one.” Orion grumbled. “My mommy taught me the ways of the Jedi.” Phynix giggled, crawling under the blanket. “And has your father taught you the ways of the Sith?” Orion laughed as Phynix wiggled into her arms. “I think you can turn him. Strong in the force, you are.” Phynix whispered. “You think?” Orion asked, her daughter nodded.
“What do you nerds want for dinner?” Joe asked. “Sushi!” Phynix spoke. “You’re going to turn into a tuna. Then you'll have to go live in the ocean and they don't have Pop-pop’s brisket in the ocean.” Joe teased. He had seen firsthand his child possibly eating her weight in spicy tuna rolls. “And…they don't have your mom in the ocean. You want to leave her on land to be a tuna?” Joe asked, crawling onto the pouf with Orion. There was plenty of space for both of them. “I'll never leave you, mama!” Phynix smiled, wrapping her arms around Orion. “I was thinking pizza. Ri, do you still like Italian sausage and onion?” Joe asked, pulling out his phone. “How do you remember all these small things?” Orion sighed, turning to watch his response. “Simple. I remember things about the people I love.” Joe shrugged. “Oh, so you love me?” Orion smiled. His cheeks reddened slightly.
“Be serious, Ri. I don't know how many times I have to tell you that I'm crazy about you. Or how many times that I have to show you.” Joe shrugged, pulling her into a kiss. He pulled away, pointing to Phynix who was now asleep in the space between them. “I’m gonna put her on the bed, she’ll get lost in this thing.” Joe laughed, grabbing the bonnet from Orion’s head and putting it on Phynix’s curls before scooping her up. “I ordered her one of her very own from Etsy but it hasn’t come yet.” Joe whispered as he put a blanket over her. “I can only imagine you scrolling on Etsy for bonnets for little girls. It’s some cutesy print isn’t it?” Orion teased. “Of course! How someone had Roman Reigns satin I have no idea but I got her one of those and…there’s one with some of those little lizards she likes on them..the cute ones.” Joe laughed. He was talking about Axolotls. “The Etsy girlies are mad creative. I helped mom set her nail shop up.” Orion laughed. “Speaking of nails…let’s see ‘em.” Joe grumbled as he followed her down the stairs. Orion was rocking her natural nails. “Why are you like this? Just begging for me to mark you up and make you mine.” Orion laughed. “I’m already yours, girl. You know this. Only this time, I don’t have to hide my scratches.” he growled, pulling her close until their lips almost touched. “You’re already mine? I don’t know what I did to have you all hung up on lil’ ol me.” she giggled, kissing his chin. “I fell prey to The Call of the Wolff from the moment we met. Like you said, you touched me and activated me like a sleeper agent. Then that whole building me as an instrument of your pleasure shit? Crosses my mind every time I beat my meat.” Joe laughed.
“Funny, I don't recall getting a video with the sound on.” Orion spoke, walking away towards the window overlooking the water. “Huh? A video?” Joe asked, what she meant finally hitting him as he followed behind her. “Ohhh, you nasty, nasty.” He laughed. “Damn right! You'll love it over here. They always do.” Orion winked. “I already do. Let's say that I airdrop this video right now…what's in it for me?” Joe asked, boxing her into the corner of the room. “What would you like?” Orion asked, pulling him in closer by his waist. “You don't want to know the answer to that.” He smiled. “I already know the answer.” Orion smiled before crushing her lips to his. Joe quickly grabbed her hips and lifted her up until her legs wrapped around his waist. “I need you.” He growled between kisses. He swallowed a moan as her tongue slid across his sweat stained neck. Joe rushed them to his office, locking the door behind them. “Take your clothes off.” Joe commanded as he pulled his shorts down and sat down on the couch. “It's still so beautiful.” Orion laughed as she moved closer. “It's not gonna ride itself, Ri.” He laughed darkly.
Orion stripped and straddled his lap. “Hold on, I think I've got a Magnum in my desk. I already know that I'm not going to be able to pull out.” Joe grumbled, getting up and rushing to the desk drawer. “You be getting down like that?” Orion asked. “You've had sex since the last time I have.” He laughed, his smile fading when the drawer was empty. “Fucking fuck. Ok, missionary and I'll pull out, I promise.” He groaned. “I've got an implant. It's fine for right now. Unless you want to Instacart some?” Orion laughed, they both frowned. She pushed him back to the couch and straddled him again. Orion swallowed a moan as her body stretched around his size. “I'm yours.” Joe moaned as her hips started rolling. “I know, baby. I know.” She moaned. His hands gripped her waist. “Orion, I've missed you.” He moaned before pulling her back into a kiss. It was less passionate yet more needy. Orion pulled at his man bun until his hair fell in wild waves around his face.
They both fought to muffle moans, the last thing they needed was an inquisitive 6 year old knocking on the door. Orion’s lips kissed across his neck. One his hands smacked her ass before finding its way to her breast. “I promised that I wasn’t doing this with you.” Orion groaned as she rocked him against her g-spot. “You wanna stop? I can feel you barely hanging on for me.” Joe growled softly, his other hand pulling her face to his. “Fuck no I don’t wanna stop!” she laughed before a moan burst from her throat. “Good. Promise me that it won’t be the only time this happens. Bounce on it like you used to.” Joe spoke into her neck. His eyes widened as she started bouncing softly on top of him. “Shit…just like that, baby. I’m about to fill you up.” Joe moaned. “Oh my god, Joe. Don’t do too much.” Orion teased. “You’re the one bouncing up and down on me like a fuckin’ porn star! I already said I was buying you a car. You want a house too?” he panted, his orgasm tingling in his core. “I already got that. You’re holding onto me like you aren’t gonna let me leave.” Orion laughed, kissing his lips. “Cuz I’m not. You’re all mine now.” Joe moaned as his climax burst from him. “Sorry, baby. I was supposed to make sure you came first but…you feel too damn good.” he sighed in defeat. Orion wanted to tell him that he still had time but her orgasm shredded her as his arms squeezed her tighter against his sweaty chest. She melted into him as she rode through her aftershocks, her moans muffled into his chest. “That was…very much needed.” Joe sighed.
“How long has it been?” Orion asked. Joe thought about it hard, his fingers lazily tracing the outline of her tattoo. “Over a year. I know it hasn't been that long for you.” Joe spoke, his heart still thumping against his chest. “It hasn’t but he wasn’t…nevermind. It’s not important.” she sighed. “If it’s on your mind, it’s important.” he sighed, pressing a kiss into her temple. “I don’t talk about my dealings in bed with other men. Cuz they ain’t important if I’m sitting here with your dick still in me.” she laughed. “Facts. Better get used to it cuz I ain’t going nowhere.” Joe sighed, tilting her face up towards his. “I mean it. I’m not letting you go again.” he smiled, kissing her lips softly. “We should probably put our pants back on.” Orion laughed. “I know you’ve lost all this weight and you look amazing. But I’m soo glad all this ass stayed. I miss holding it in my hands. Still thicker than zoo glass, girl. Damn!” Joe laughed. “You so crazy! The gift and curse of training with your Special Forces father to drop the 100 pounds of baby weight. Then Lucha Underground was brutal. I had to bulk up a little bit for durability. Then in CMLL I leaned out a bit, hence why the ass is still bouncy. New Japan cares the most about my in-ring ability. I could be as big as Rikishi and they wouldn’t care as long as I moved like someone half that size.” She laughed as she shifted until he eased from her warmth. “Well, your in-ring ability has never been a problem. You’re so goddamn good…better than I could’ve predicted. Technically better than me.” Joe spoke as he watched her cleaning up in the bathroom.
“I’m your favorite wrestler’s favorite wrestler.” she laughed as she pulled her clothes back on. “I love when you talk your shit, mama. It’s sexy.” Joe smiled as he took his turn getting cleaned up. “One thing I learned from my time working with WWE.” Orion laughed. “You ain’t learn that shit from the PC. Unless you were cheating on me and getting mentored by someone else.” Joe pouted. “I had to when you were on the road. And my dad knows Steve so I learned from him how to cut a scathing promo.” she giggled. “Ah. There it is. Not mad at it. Steve is amazing on the mic. As is Dwayne. As is Booker. Took me a while to get there. I’ve watched your old stuff, you’ve always had it. And when you do it in Spanish or Japanese…chef’s kiss.” Joe shrugged as they emerged from his office. The house was still silent. “You want a drink? I might need one.” Joe laughed as he showed Orion the rest of her new home away from home. “I re-signed with New Japan.” Orion spoke shyly. “Good. I’m happy for you, baby. Don’t know how my family’s gonna feel about not being able to see Munchkin on the regular. They’re gonna love her. Shit…they’re gonna love you!” he teased. “Well, Japan is open for everyone to visit. Honestly, I don’t want to wrestle forever, this contract is only 2 years. Wanna know the best part?” Orion winked. “What’s the best part, beautiful?” Joe asked. “I get to do some AEW work, so I’ll be over here occasionally. Typically my parents or my brother come to Japan to stay with Munch while I travel but…as long as she completes her schoolwork, she can travel with me...sometimes.” she smiled. “Really?! That’s great. Just let me know and I’ll fly out to meet you.” Joe beamed. “I said sometimes! Not all the time. Don’t want to disrupt her routine just yet.” Orion smiled. “I know, I know. Just trying to maximize my time with my girls.” he smiled.
“All I ask is that I have you both in this house permanently at the end of that contract.” Joe smiled as he flopped down on the couch, pulling Orion down with him. “Oh really? What if I don’t wanna?” she laughed. “Orion, how are we gonna be married living on different continents?” Joe laughed. “Married?” she asked. “Yeah, I’m gonna change your last name and Phy’s last name to Anoa’i and then…we can kiss.” Joe laughed, he saw Phynix’s reflection in the TV. “No kissing my mama!” Phynix giggled as she ran and jumped on the couch between them. “Ok…then I’ll just kiss you!” Joe laughed, smothering her face in kisses. Her little laugh was music to Joe’s ears. This was the life he wanted with them. “But what if I kiss Daddy?” Orion teased. “You can’t! I’m the baby.” Phynix laughed. “But he’s so cute! He’s got big ears just like my baby girl. You don’t think he’s cute?” Orion asked. “I mean…he’s cuter than your other boyfriends.” Phynix giggled, hugging Joe’s neck. “Her other boyfriends? Munchkin…you’re gonna have to tell me about those other boyfriends.” Joe laughed.
Please have a moment of silence for the people who were killed instead of freed when news of emancipation finally reached the furthest corners of the american south.
have another moment for the ledgers, catalogs, and records that were burned and the homes that were destroyed to hide the presence of very much alive and still enslaved people on dozens of plantations and homesteads across the south for decades after emancipation.
and have a third moment for those who were hunted and killed while fleeing the south to find safety across the border, overseas, in the north and to the west.
black people. light a candle, write a note to those who have passed telling them what you have achieved in spite of the racist and intolerant conditions of this world, feel the warmth of the flame under your hand, say a prayer of rememberance if you are religious, place the note under the candle, and then blow it out.
if you have children, sit them down and tell them anything you know about the life of oldest black person you've ever met. it doesn't have to be your own family. tell them what you know about what life was like for us in the days, years, decades after emancipation. if you don't know much, look it up and learn about it together.
This is Juneteenth.
white people CAN interact with this post. share it, spread it.
*It's me again...posting late. Sorry, I've been in a funk here lately. But we're about to wrap this one up!*
Catch up here: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9
The blinding, pale morning sun cresting over the lake was merciless. It flooded through the floor-to-ceiling glass of the house, offering no shadows to hide in.
When Tama woke, the right side of the bed was empty. For a fraction of a second, the old, violent panic flared in his chest, the instinct of someone who expected to wake up to a blade. But then, a scent drifted upstairs.
Coffee. And the soft sizzle of butter in a pan.
He pushed himself out of bed, his battered body aching in a dozen different places. He didn't reach for the gun on the nightstand. He pulled on a pair of clean sweatpants from the dresser and walked out of the bedroom barefoot, following the smell.
He stopped at the edge of the sunken living room.
Cameron was in the open kitchen. She had raided his go-bag and found one of his sweatshirt, the sleeves pushed up past her elbows, the hem hitting mid-thigh over her bare legs. She was standing at the sleek marble island, methodically moving eggs in a skillet, a steaming mug of black coffee resting on the counter beside her.
In the brutal, sterile architecture of the glass cage, she looked like a solitary pulse of warmth. The sheer, unapologetic domesticity of the scene was so profoundly jarring after the blood and chaos of the past forty-eight hours that it physically pinned Tama to the slate floorboards.
He stood there in silence, just watching her. Watching the way the harsh morning light caught the dark, messy knot of her hair. Watching the steady, capable movements of her hands.
Cameron felt his gaze before she heard him. She paused, the spatula resting on the edge of the pan, and turned her head.
When she saw him standing there, his chest bare, the sprawling tribal tattoos stark against his skin, his eyes heavy with sleep and an unspoken, devastating awe, her shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. The tense line of her jaw softened into a grounded, private smile.
"There was half a pound of coffee in the freezer and some bacon that technically expires today," Cameron said, her voice a quiet, normal cadence that felt like a lifeline thrown into a stormy sea. "I figured we should eat before we figure out how to survive the end of the world."
Tama finally moved. He crossed the room, the space between them closing until he was standing right behind her. He didn't say a word. He just reached around her waist, his large hands settling flat against her stomach, pulling her back flush against his chest as he buried his face in the crook of her neck.
He let out a long, shuddering breath, breathing in the scent of her hair, coffee, and the quiet resilience of the woman who had kept him from drowning in the dark.
His voice, when it surfaced, was gruff but shaved thin with surprise. “Never had a woman cook for me before.” The words landed with the weight of an accidental confession, unsanded and earnest.
Cameron arched an eyebrow but didn’t release the spatula, her own surprise hidden behind a crooked, sideways smile. “Guess you kidnapped the right one,” she said, letting the joke hang in the air long enough to see if he’d catch it, then passing him the cup with a deliberate brush of her knuckles against his. The playfulness was a deflection, but the look in her eyes was sober, searching for fractures in his armor.
He blinked at the steam curling from the mug, then at her, as if recalibrating his understanding of the universe to allow for such an ordinary, unguarded gesture. She half expected him to retreat behind his usual deflections, the grunted one-liner, the sarcastic quip, but instead he just stood there, mug in hand, gaze fixed on her with an intensity that felt almost ceremonial.
She tried to keep her energy light, as if this were the kind of morning that happened to them all the time, as if neither of them had spent the previous night clutching at each other like castaways. “I make a mean eggs-and-bacon,” she said. “But if you ever want pancakes, you’re out of luck. My pancakes are a war crime.”
He snorted, the sound rusty, and set the mug down so he could lean against the kitchen island, his arms crossed on its surface. “This is good. The coffee. Not poisoned.” He took another cautious sip, eyes never leaving her face.
“Maybe I’m just softening you up,” she teased, spinning a strip of bacon in the skillet. “Poison’s too quick, anyway. Death by cholesterol is my preferred method.”
Something shifted in his posture, a microscopic loosening of the muscles at the nape of his neck. He watched her with the same kind of reverence he’d had for the coffee, as if the small, domestic rituals of cooking and banter were more dangerous than any weapon. His hands found her waist again, this time not in desperation but in something like gratitude, and he held her as if he might lose her to the next violent gust of wind off the lake.
Cameron kept the tone breezy. “Careful, if you get used to this you’ll be spoiled for all future kidnappings.” But the words felt hollow, brittle, and she wondered if he picked up on it.
He did. She could tell by the way his hands tightened around her, and by the raw, naked look he gave her, a look that said the joke wasn’t enough to cover the thing rising in him, the thing he couldn’t name. She wondered if he was about to say something reckless, something honest, and for a moment she was scared of what it would do to her.
She didn’t have to wait long.
He put the mug down and, with a gentleness she hadn’t believed him capable of, pressed his lips to the top of her head. “You’re not what I expected,” he murmured, his voice a sandpaper whisper. “You’re…better.”
Cameron felt his arms wrapped around her tighten, a trembling line running through his forearms. She turned off the stove and spun in his arms, studying the face of the man who, less than a few months ago, would have killed for the certainty of solitude. Now he looked at her like she was the sun crawling over the horizon for the first time.
So pressed her face to his chest, listening to the erratic thunder of his heart, and for the first time in years, let herself believe in the possibility of an ordinary morning. She tried to keep things light, but when she looked up, she saw the way his eyes shone, raw, unguarded, and she had the sudden, unshakeable sense that Tama’s entire universe had shifted by a single, irrevocable degree.
They sat together at the long, cold slab of the kitchen table, both of them turned toward the lake, which was already radiating heat and light from the cresting morning sun. The surface of the water was a strobe; restless, white-blue fragments that danced across Cameron’s face, refracting through her empty coffee mug and spilling onto Tama’s rough knuckles. He caught her gaze in the glass’s reflection and, for a minute, neither of them looked away.
Breakfast, such as it was, consisted of eggs weaponized by black pepper and the entire package of bacon, which they ate with their fingers. Sometimes she handed him a piece, and sometimes he stole a bite from her plate. The easy silence was so absolute it hummed over the soft ticking of the wall clock and the distant, lazy drone of a fishing boat. For a while, all Tama could think about was the taste of salt and grease on her lips.
He leaned back in the chair, his bare feet propped against the rung beneath hers, and her knees pressed up against his in an accidental triangle of warmth. He liked the way she managed to take up space, no apology or hesitation, just a steady, gravitational presence. If he closed his eyes, he could almost make himself believe this morning was an artifact salvaged from another life, a place before trauma or blood, before he learned to sleep with one hand on a weapon.
“I could stay here forever,” he said, so quietly it disappeared into the hum of the refrigerator.
Cameron didn’t answer at first. She picked at the last strip of bacon and considered him from under her brow, as if weighing whether he meant it. “So stay,” she said finally, her voice so matter-of-fact it made him smile in spite of himself.
He wanted her to know that he meant it, or something close to it, but the words stuck in his throat. He wasn’t a man accustomed to want, he’d built an entire life on not wanting, on relinquishing the illusion of permanence. Still, he looked at her, the wild possibility that someone like him could be allowed to want anything at all.
Tama’s heart sank. Part of him was relieved that she didn’t shy away from his weighty words, yet another part felt the sharp chill of reality nipping at the edges of their fleeting peace. “It’s not that easy, sweetheart,” he mumbled, but his voice caught slightly, punctuated by the weight of memories that clung to him like a shroud.
Her response was immediate; the lift of her brow, the slight tightening of her mouth as she studied him, weighing something intangible, just out of reach. He wondered if she could see through the center of him, the raw edges where uncertainty lingered. Or if she sensed the snare his life had become, one fashioned from guilt and choices he couldn’t take back.
“What’s stopping you?” she asked, her voice low but steady, a challenge wrapped in curiosity.
The question hung between them like a thread, and Tama felt it tighten with each breath. He glanced down at the table, fingers tracing the surface, the cold marble cool under his skin. Stopping? The concept felt foreign, almost laughable. His entire life had been about motion; building walls, fortifying the empire he’d inherited, punishing weakness, securing power. But it had left him hollow, and the very foundations felt unsteady. His empire rested on the weight of so many decisions that he couldn’t even start to sift through them. He felt the swell of expectation in Cameron’s gaze. It used to be easy to hide behind bravado, to fill the silence with threats and laughter, but now her question became a door he didn’t know how to open.
He took a deep breath, the scent of grease and coffee mingling with the warm air, and looked up to meet her steady gaze. Her brows were slightly furrowed, as if she were trying to untangle him with her eyes alone. “It’s not just about me,” he said, the gravel in his voice rough like the road he’d traveled to get here.
Her expression didn’t waver. She was still there, waiting. “Then what about us?” She leaned forward, the motion drawing his attention. The way her fingers danced on the table, unafraid to occupy the space between them, made something inside him ache.
He let out a rough chuckle, almost bitter. “Us? Name one person who gets to have a life in this world. It’s all blood and chains.”
“But that doesn’t mean it has to be.” There was an urgency in her voice, insistent yet soft.“You’ve survived everything else, haven’t you?” she replied, “That’s got to count for something.”
“You’ve only seen the surface of my life,” Tama confessed, his voice ironed flat, as if afraid a crease would betray him. He didn’t meet her eyes. Instead, he let his gaze drift to the window, the lake pulsing and glittering beyond the glass. The silence that followed wasn’t heavy or awkward, just a stillness so total it seemed almost conspiratorial, like the kitchen itself was holding its breath to see what he’d say next.
He licked his lips, fingers drumming once against the marble before going still. “What you see right now—this—” He gestured vaguely at the table, the cooling eggs, the sunlight limning her cheekbones. “Is not what came before. I wasn’t built for mornings, or… breakfast tables or… The rest of it, the parts I kept buried, that’s what built me.” There was no self-pity in it, just a careful mapping of shame, a surveyor’s dispassion.
Cameron leaned in, elbows braced and chin tipped forward, waiting for the rest. It was clear she had no intention of letting him sidestep the confession.
He hesitated, a faint tremor running up his jaw as if the words themselves had a physical cost. “I’ve done things that—” He stopped himself, jaw tensing. “Not just the jobs. Not just the shit you read about in the papers. I mean things I can’t explain away… things I’d give anything to forget.”
He looked down at his hands, the knuckles bruised but steady, and then up at her. “It’s not just the violence,” he said, quieter now. “It’s what comes after. The way it sits in your bones. You can survive anything if you promise yourself you won’t feel it, not really. But it doesn’t just go away.”
He closed his eyes, a shudder rippling across his features. “You think you want to know, but you don’t. You’ll regret it.”
Cameron could see the tension in his jaw as he spoke, the way his hands curled into fists on the table like they were trying to hold his emotions in place. She leaned closer, heart thudding against her ribs, aware of the weight of every word that hung between them. The air felt heavy, charged with the electricity of unspoken truths and choices made in the dark.
He swallowed hard, and she noticed how the muscle in his throat worked as he fought against whatever memory lurked beneath the surface. His eyes were so dark, so intense, as if he bore the weight of every ghost that shadowed him. “There are things I can never take back.”
Something deep in her twisted, a raw sympathy mixing with the primal urge to reach out, to bridge the chasm yawning wide between them. “You said that it ended with you… how are you going to do that if you can’t walk away?”
Tama brushed a hand through his hair, feeling the tension cling to the back of his neck like a vice. The question hung in the air, heavy and exacting, demanding answers he wasn’t ready to give. He could almost hear the echoes of regret crashing around him, dark waves threatening to pull him under.
“Walk away?” he murmured, barely above a whisper, the words tasting bitter on his tongue. His gaze swept back to the swirling lake outside, where the sunlight danced mockingly on the surface, as if reminding him that beauty could exist even amidst chaos. “No one walks away.” Each inflection was heavy with the weight of unspoken truths, a shroud that wrapped tighter around him with every admission.
Cameron’s eyes searched his, her brow furrowed in a way that made it feel like she could peer into the very core of him, past the walls and facades he had built to safeguard his heart. Her fingers fidgeted, an unconscious flicker of anxiety, and it took everything in him not to reach for her again, to pull her back into that space of warmth, where the world beyond them faded into insignificance.
“There is a council of elders that I report to. Everything is voted on, every policy, every retribution, every big move.” He said it flat and low, like the words were lifeless stones that he could lay between them, a barrier and a confession at once. “Democracy, at least in theory. The old men, smoking at the long table, pretending it isn’t all rigged from the beginning.” He rolled the heel of his palm over the cold marble, feeling the friction, the drag. “It’s not just about muscle or tradition. There’s a theater to it, we have to keep up the appearance of order so the chaos doesn’t swallow us whole.”
He paused, and for a moment she thought he might stop there. But the air had thickened, weighted by the inevitability of his disclosure. “After the vote comes the execution. Not just the—” he caught himself, as if realizing his own word choice, but pushed ahead, “—not just the violence. Enforcement. The follow-through is what matters.” He looked at her, something both pleading and resigned in his face. “That’s my job. I carry out the sentences. I’m the one who makes sure there’s no daylight between what they say and what happens.”
He shrugged, but there was a tremor in it. “You see what I’m saying? Even in the places where it looks like I could walk away, I’m still the one holding the fuse.”
She reached across the table, fingers grazing the back of his hand, trying to bridge the distance, to anchor him. “You have a choice, Tama. You don’t have to go back to that.”
He caught her gaze again, the storm in his eyes battling against something softer, something that felt almost fragile between them. “Do you think I enjoy it?” His voice was low, layered with an intensity she hadn’t encountered before. “The things I do… they’re necessary in my world. I move money, drugs, weapons…I run a fucking strip club for God’s sake.”
Tama swallowed against the lump rising in his throat. How was he supposed to explain this to her? He dared to hope, just for a moment, that perhaps he didn’t need to shoulder everything alone. But the demons whispered behind his eyes, shadows of a life lived in violence. The memories flickered unbidden: faces of those he’d hurt, those who had been left alive or dead at his hand. The line between right and wrong had blurred long ago; now it felt like a stain too deep to wash away.
“Every choice has consequences,” he said finally, his voice stark against the quiet of the room. “Sending my son away will have consequences. Being with you will have consequences.”
He clenched his jaw, feeling the familiar thrum of tension pooling low in his belly. How could she not see what was at stake? The weight of the empire he bore hung heavily on his shoulders, its history woven intricately into his very being. No backing out. No choice.
He reached across the table, his rough, warm hand covering hers, “We need to get back to town soon."
– – –
The heavy, wrought-iron gates of the estate felt less like a sanctuary and more like a closing trap as the G-Wagon rolled through them.
For nearly the entire drive down the mountain, Cameron and Tama had existed in a heavy, charged silence. Whatever fragile peace they had found was gone, left behind the moment the city skyline had bled into view. By the time the tires came to a halt on the pristine stone of the driveway, the man sitting beside her wasn't the one she shared breakfast with
The Warlord was back. And he looked like a man standing on the edge of a jagged cliff.
When Tama pushed the heavy mahogany doors open, the atmosphere in the grand foyer instantly shifted. The sprawling estate was crawling with armed enforcers. Loa was standing near the entrance to the war room, reviewing a tablet, one hand resting casually on the tactical vest strapped over his chest.
As soon as the doors yawned open and Tama stepped in, the estate’s interior rearranged itself around him like a living organism sensing the return of its absent heart. Loa’s head snapped up, the movement quick and feline, his gaze slicing through the ambient tension as he took stock of the new arrivals. The man’s eyes, so dark they almost seemed to drink in light, fixed on Tama first, then flicked to Cameron, assessing her role and proximity as if recalibrating a threat axis. It was a habit born of endless vigilance, but on this day it wore a sharpened edge.
“You’ve been off the grid,” Loa stated, his voice a slow, predatory drawl that carried easily through the soaring chamber. Each syllable landed like a drop of oil on water, slick and impossible to ignore. There was no reverence in Loa’s address, only a transactional kind of respect, the type that acknowledged power without ever yielding to it. He set the tablet down with ceremonial care, a deliberate display for the satellite cluster of bodyguards and lieutenants orbiting the war room threshold.
Loa didn’t wait for Tama’s reply. He closed the distance, footsteps measured and unhurried, as if to signal that all business here would proceed on his timetable, not Tama’s. “The Italians hit two of our shipping hubs while you were gone…doing whatever it is you were doing.” he continued, voice pitched low enough to carry weight but high enough to let the accusation float above plausible deniability. Not an outright challenge, but not not a challenge either. He let it hang, a poisonous little fruit, and Tama could feel the eyes of every man in the room tracking the exchange, looking for signs of weakness or fracture.
Cameron, for her part, felt the tremor of the moment, the way the air seemed to solidify around the two men. She hovered just behind Tama’s shoulder, unwilling to insert herself but unable to look away, as if bearing witness might somehow shape the outcome. The tension here was fundamentally different than at the lake house. There, intimacy had been a risky, private wager; here, it was a commodity, weaponized or denied according to the rules of engagement.
Loa’s words were followed by an expectant silence, the kind that had its own gravitational pull. Even the armed guards, hands resting on the polymer grips of their sidearms, seemed to lean in for resolution. Tama let the pause stretch, his own silence a move in the game, and his body language; loose, almost uncaring, was itself an assertion of dominance. His face betrayed nothing, the scars along his jawline catching the harsh foyer light and throwing into sharp relief the mask he wore for the world.
Loa, undeterred, pressed on. “The elders are restless, Tama,” he said, and this time the words were edged with something sharper than concern. “They want a council tonight. They say there’s talk of a formal vote. Some of them are saying—“ He paused, eyes narrowing to flint, “—that if you can’t keep the peace, they’ll find someone who can.”
There it was. The shot across the bow.
A ripple ran through the room. Cameron’s pulse spiked, and she caught herself wondering, absurdly, whether the other men could hear it. The loyalists who had flanked Tama for years watched him with a mixture of expectation and fear. Would he lash out, would he capitulate, would he simply vaporize the tension with a joke? None of them could predict it, and that unpredictability was its own kind of terror.
Tama didn’t offer an explanation, and he didn’t lower his guard. He marched straight into the center of the room, forcing Loa and the surrounding enforcers to pivot toward him.
"The estate is bleeding," Tama announced, his voice a low, gravelly boom that commanded absolute silence. "We have a leak. Until I find out how the Italians knew the coordinates for Kalina's convoy, this house is on absolute lockdown. No one leaves. No one communicates with the outside."
Loa’s jaw tightened, a flash of irritation crossing his features. "We are already locked down. The perimeter is tight."
"Not tight enough," Tama snapped, his eyes burning with a dark, paranoid intensity. He looked like a King who was finally cracking under the weight of his collapsing empire. He turned his massive frame, pointing a heavy, uncompromising finger at the marble floor. "They got to Kalina. They almost got to Kiko. I will not give them another fucking target."
Tama turned sharply, his gaze locking onto Cameron. She stood perfectly still near the doorway, her hands tucked into the pockets of her oversized coat, her face a mask of careful neutrality.
"Pack your things," Tama ordered her, his voice devoid of the warmth he had shown her just hours before. It was cold, transactional, and brutally loud.
Cameron blinked, her heart giving a violent thud. "What?"
"You're too exposed here," Tama continued, pacing a tight circle, acting every bit the part of a man driven mad by grief and paranoia. "The Italians know you saved my son. They know you're in this house. I am not waiting for them to breach the gates."
Loa stepped forward, his brow furrowing. "Where are you sending her? If the house isn't safe, the streets are a death wish."
"She isn't staying on the goddamn streets," Tama countered, his eyes snapping back to his brother. He stepped into Loa's space, his sheer size and dominance forcing Loa to tilt his chin up. "I've secured the Penthouse on the top floor of Bankhead Towers. It’s a fortress. Private elevators, electronic lockdown protocols, and my men holding the floor. She stays there until the threat is eradicated."
A heavy silence fell over the foyer. Cameron kept her eyes trained on the floor, her chest tight. To anyone watching, she looked like a pawn being abruptly swept off the board.
"Moving her requires a convoy," Loa argued, his tone carefully reasonable, though his eyes were sharp with calculation. "A convoy is a target, Tama. You're risking a lot of men for a nurse."
"I am moving her tonight. At 0200 hours," Tama stated with absolute, terrifying finality. He didn't lower his voice. He made sure the order carried across the echo of the marble, washing over the heavily armed men standing guard. "Three armored SUVs. Route 4, down the industrial corridor to avoid the highway cameras. No stops."
Tama turned his back on his brother, dismissing the argument entirely. He looked at Cameron one last time, his expression completely closed off, a masterclass in emotional detachment.
"Be ready by midnight," he told her coldly. "You're done playing house."
Without waiting for a response Tama turned and stalked down the hallway toward the war room, leaving Cameron standing in the center of the lions' den, completely surrounded.
Cameron’s heart hammered against her ribs as she stood in the foyer with Tama later that night, but her nurse’s training; the ability to compartmentalize and operate in a crisis locked her focus entirely on him.
"I'm not a piece of furniture you can just put in storage, Tama," Cameron fired back, her voice echoing sharply off the polished marble. She took a step toward him, closing the distance, refusing to shrink under the weight of the heavily armed room.
Tama stopped his retreat and pivoted slowly. His massive frame seemed to absorb the ambient light. When he looked at her, the light she had seen in his eyes that morning was completely extinguished, replaced by a cold, dead stare.
"You don’t belong here," Tama rumbled, his voice dropping into a dangerous, warning register that made two of the nearby enforcers shift uncomfortably. "And worse, you’re a distraction. I don't have the time or the manpower to keep you alive while my world is burning."
"A distraction?" Cameron let out a harsh, disbelieving laugh. She channeled every ounce of frustration she’d felt since being dragged into his underground world, weaponizing it for the audience. "I stitched you back together. I kept your son from bleeding out! You think locking me in a tower makes any of this disappear?"
"It removes you from my board," Tama stated brutally. He stepped into her space, looming over her, a captor putting a defiant captive back in her place. "You think because you survived a few months in this house, you understand how this works? You don't.”
Loa watched the exchange with rapt, silent attention. His dark eyes flicked between his brother's furious, paranoid posture and Cameron’s flushed, defiant face. He was watching the Warlord's armor crack, watching Tama forcibly sever his own anchor to stay afloat.
"So that’s it," Cameron spat, her voice shaking with perfectly calibrated, righteous anger. She looked up at him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears of betrayal. "You drag me out of my life, keep me prisoner, and the second you feel like you're losing control, you just ship me off with an armed guard and call it a day. What was this weekend, Tama? Just deciding what to do with your collateral?"
Tama’s face hardened into granite. “This is what survival looks like.” His hands remained at his sides, fingers curling into fists rather than reaching for her. “All that talk about wanting to go back to the real world? There it is. Get ready, or my men will escort you out by whatever means necessary.”
Cameron stared at him for a long, agonizing beat. The silence in the foyer was absolute, "You're a coward," she whispered. The insult was soft, but in the echoing hall, it carried like a gunshot.
Tama’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle feathered in his cheek. He looked like he wanted to shatter something, or perhaps drag her into a room and lock the door. Instead, he simply turned his back on her. "0200," he repeated to the room, walking away. "Talla, coordinate the transport detail with the West Wing guard. I want Route 4 swept and locked down."
As Tama’s heavy footsteps echoed away, the foyer became a tomb. Cameron hovered for a moment where he’d left her, arms cinched so tight around herself she could feel her own pulse in the crook of each elbow. Even the light seemed to withdraw in his absence, draining the room of its prior indifference. The guards on either side of the great staircase had begun moving again, with the unconcerned professionalism of men who spent their lives as furniture with guns. She felt all of them watching her, even as their faces remained studiously blank, as if her own humiliation was a kind of entertainment, a break from routine.
She pressed back into the shadow of the staircase, trying to collect herself. Her mind was a confusion of anger and embarrassment, edged now with a merciless clarity. Tama had not only ended things, he’d made her an exhibit. A lesson for the room. This is what happens to anyone who gets too close. She wanted to scream, to shatter the vases or hurl a lamp into the glass doors, but she was nothing here. She couldn’t even make herself cry; the tears burned in her sinuses but refused to give him, or anyone else, the satisfaction.
She thought about the clinic, about the life she’d tried to salvage with Tama. She remembered the way he’d looked at her, as if she alone could anchor him in the storm. That was gone now. All that remained was the protocol and the paranoia, and the feeling that loyalty in this house was just another kind of transaction.
Cameron shut her eyes and counted to ten, waiting for the shaking in her legs to subside. When she opened them, she saw Loa standing across the foyer, regarding her with an expression that was not quite pity and not quite hunger. He stepped forward, unhurried, and met her at the edge of the light.
Loa watched Cameron collect herself in the darkened fringe of the foyer before stepping forward, his movements so measured that she barely registered his approach until he was within arm’s reach. The guards resumed their silent watch, but in this pocket of shadow it was as if they were alone. He waited until her breathing returned to something like normal before breaking the silence.
“Most people don’t last a week in this house,” Loa said, the words slipping from him in a voice pitched so low it was meant for her ears alone. He didn’t say it with the sneer she expected, but with a species of tired candor, like a man offering a cigarette to someone shell-shocked in a trench. He leaned a shoulder against the banister, arms crossed, and regarded her with an expression that hovered somewhere between admiration and regret.
Cameron braced herself for another volley of threats or a reminder of her status as a liability. Instead, Loa’s eyes went to the distant ceiling, as if searching for some invisible point of reference. “I’ve seen every type. They all come through here thinking they can handle it. None of them made it past four days. Not one. They break, or Tama breaks them.” He studied her face, letting the history of the house sink in, the legacy of its revolving door of ghosts who tried and failed to outlast the man at its center.
Loa’s lips twitched, the ghost of dark humor passing over his face. “You made it three months, if anyone’s paying attention. Which is probably why he hates you so much tonight. You’re a survivor and survivors are liabilities.” He uncrossed his arms, hands open and empty, inviting her to recognize a fellow prisoner, even if he was the jailer’s blood.
He gestured toward the vast drawing room, deserted and eerily pristine, its stained-glass windows reduced to dead colors by the night. “Come on,” he said, the tone a strange mixture of command and camaraderie. “You look like you could use a drink before you go.”
Cameron felt the sharp chill of the drink all the way down her throat, though it did nothing to blunt the confusion or the ache blooming in her chest. She set the glass back on the tray with more force than necessary, and for a moment, she could almost convince herself she was back at the bar after work, exchanging stories with the other night-shift nurses, instead of cloistered in a gangster’s mausoleum. But then she remembered Tama’s voice; flat, implacable, the same voice he’d used when telling her about casualties, except this time she was the one being written off.
She wanted to ask Loa if this was how it always happened, if Tama made people feel like they belonged, only to exile them when they started to believe it, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. Not out loud. She lifted the glass again, stalling for composure, and finally managed, “I don’t understand, I thought he and I—” but her voice caught before she could finish.
Loa watched her, his face unreadable, and waited until the silence became unbearable. “You thought you were in love?” he said softly, taking the words right from her mouth. “Tama doesn’t do love.”
Loa shrugged, the slight movement tightening the tension in his shoulders, as if the shifts in their conversation were all too familiar to him. “You think you’re special?” He held her gaze, a flicker of something like sympathy in his eyes. “He may have kept you around longer than the others, but that just means he trusts you to do your job.”
“Then what is all of this?” she said, waving a hand toward nothing and everything. The flickering lights, the sterile coldness, the overwhelming weight of silence felt absurd. It felt like the whole house held its breath, waiting for damage to spill over.
Loa shrugged, the gesture fluid, almost inviting. “It’s what he knows how to do. Control, power, chaos. Love is messy; it exposes weaknesses. You think you can survive here with a heart? Doesn’t work that way.”
Tama’s voice cracked through the air like a whip. “We’re leaving now. Cameron—car. Loa—stay put and keep your eyes on the grounds.”
The clock in the estate’s cavernous underground garage read 0145 hours. The air was thick with the smell of high-octane exhaust, cold concrete, and the electric tension of a syndicate bracing for an impact.
Three heavily armored SUVs idled in the center lane, their massive engines rumbling like caged beasts.
Tama marched Cameron across the damp concrete, his hand wrapped around her wrist in a vice grip. To the enforcers loading weapons into the vehicles Tama was the picture of a paranoid Warlord forcefully exiling his biggest liability.
Tama’s grip was cold and implacable as he steered Cameron through the last stretch of the garage, toward the line of black SUVs. Her shoes slipped and skidded on the thin glaze of oil and water on the concrete, and in that split second, she felt a surge of humiliation; there was no dignity in how she was being handled, no room for words or negotiations, only the brute, inevitable machinery of extraction.
Tama didn’t look at her once. He opened the back passenger door with a knifelike, mechanical gesture, then all but shoved her into the shadowed interior, letting her collide with the butter-soft leather. For a half-second, she thought he’d get in after her, that there would be a final argument or at least a parting shot, but Tama only slammed the door shut and stepped back. The locks engaged with a synchronized chorus of gunmetal, the sound echoing in her chest, more final than any sentence he could have pronounced.
The windows were tinted so dark that the white glare of the overhead lights came through only as a faint, bruised glow. Cameron pressed her fingers to the glass, half-expecting to see Tama standing outside, but his broad silhouette had already receded into the shadow of the garage. She sat in a world of silence, interrupted only by the ragged thrum of her own pulse and the clockwork efficiency of the men outside. From her vantage point, she saw only fragments: the glint of a rifle barrel, the slice of a black suit moving past, the quick, nervous hands of a bodyguard double-checking his holster. Somewhere in the front, a radio crackled, transmitting the kind of staccato code that always meant imminent violence.
“Route 4,” Tama’s voice ricocheted off the garage walls and through the car’s soundproofing, as if the vehicle itself was complicit in his orders. She could hear him as clearly as if he were whispering in her ear. “No deviations. If the Italians so much as look at the convoy, you burn them to the ground.”
“Yes, Boss,” came the reply, clipped and rigid. Cameron made out the voice as belonging to Talla, whose eyes hadn’t met hers since the day she arrived. She wondered if he was afraid of her, or if he simply saw her as another grenade with the pin already pulled.
The other cars were filling with shadows, another nurse in scrubs, two of Tama’s inside legal counsel, and a his trusted men. Cameron recognized the protocol: flood the field with decoys, overload the threat matrix, make it impossible for anyone to know which target was the real one. She wondered if she should feel grateful for being deemed important enough to warrant this degree of attention, but all she felt was the sick, hollow lurch of movement as the convoy shifted into gear.
The main garage doors stuttered, then began to rise, the rubber seals on the bottom groaning in protest against the morning’s cold. As the first SUV rolled forward, Cameron felt the car’s suspension tense beneath her like an animal testing its leash. The driver, a blank-faced young man with the hollowed-out affect of a sociopath, checked the rearview mirror once, twice, and then merged with the line of vehicles. The convoy moved as a single organism, coordinated, silent, every step anticipated and rehearsed.
She watched Tama watch them go. He stood under the awning, head slightly bowed, hands folded behind his back, the posture of a man already writing off the losses, refusing to look at her directly through the windshield. Even at this remove, Cameron could see the way his jaw ticked, the way his shoulders refused to slump. She realized, with a kind of gruesome clarity, that he would mourn her only as a failed asset. Not as a lover, not as a confessor in the haunted hours, but as a piece of the game that had to be sacrificed for the play to go on.
The SUVs punched out into the night, their headlights drilling through the rain. The sound of the engines built and layered until it became a single, bone-deep vibration. For a moment, Cameron closed her eyes and let the darkness absorb her. She opened them just in time to see the iron gates swing shut behind them. The estate; her prison, her hospital, her home, receded in the mirrors until it was nothing but a shadow, indistinct and unreachable.
Three floors up, the estate was suffocatingly quiet.
Loa stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows of his private suite, a glass of amber whiskey in his hand. He watched the rain lash against the glass, his dark eyes tracking the headlights of the three armored SUVs as they snaked down the winding driveway and breached the main gates.
They were turning east. Heading straight for Route 4.
A slow, chilling smile touched the corner of Loa’s mouth. His brother, the great King of the Tongan Syndicate, had finally let his heart blind his tactical brilliance. Tama was so desperate to protect Cameron that he had effectively tied her to a post and painted a target on her back.
Loa turned away from the window and set his whiskey on the heavy mahogany desk. He walked to the bookshelf, his fingers tracing the spine of a leather-bound encyclopedia before he pulled it forward. Behind it sat a small, biometric wall safe.
He pressed his thumb to the scanner. The safe hissed open, revealing a single, untraceable burner phone.
He picked it up, the harsh white light of the screen illuminating the sharp, calculated lines of his face. He didn't make a call. Voices could be recorded; voices could be recognized. He simply opened the encrypted messaging app.
He stared at the screen for a fraction of a second. This was the point of no return. Once he hit send, the Italians would slaughter the entire convoy, the nurse would be eliminated, and Tama would be left broken, fractured, and unfit to rule. The elders would look to the only brother left with a clear head. The throne would finally be his.
Loa’s thumb tapped the screen.
Target is moving. Three armored vehicles. Route 4. Center car. Leave nothing but ash.
The message switched from Sent to Read.
Loa powered the burner phone down, snapped it in half with a sharp crack, and tossed the pieces into the roaring fireplace. He watched the plastic melt and curl in the flames.
