I took off the rest of the way down the hall. I was ready to take out whoever managed to get past my security and bold enough to try getting inside. However, mid-stride, I slowed. Surprise set in when I saw Rai at the door, Quinton beside him. I was confused as hell!
I turned to Wayne, started laughing and walked the rest of the way. “Man! It was really about to be a situation!” I said, grabbing Rai and pulling him into a bear hug. “What happened? Why are you out early?!” I released him to grab my phone. “Did I miss a call from you?! Did you get in trouble?”
“No,” Rai responded, with a slight chuckle, as if he was holding back laughter.
“Well, what then?!” I yelled. “How the hell did this happen, Q? What’d you take him out for? You guys are killin’ me here. What the fuck am I missing?!” I asked, my temperature rising slowly, at the mind game they were playing.
“Hopefully, you were missing me . . .”
I looked from Rai and then back at Quinton, my eyes widening. When Rai’s face opened into a huge smile, I knew I wasn’t hearing shit. I stepped past him and pulled the door the rest of the way open, and there she stood. Chanel was right in my face. Right in my presence, looking as beautiful as ever.
Shock and surprise held me captive. I had so much shit to say, but the damn words were trapped, as I took her in. I was that fifth grader in school, way back when, preparing to speak to my crush. Only I was an adult, and my fucking manhood was stuck somewhere in some dimension!
“Hi, baby . . .” she said, stepping into the front door and into my arms.
“Oh my god! Baby!” I yelled, my voice with a light crack in it. “Baby!” I grabbed her up so quick into my arms and held on for dear goddamn life! The longer I held her, the more it felt like life was being breathed into me. Life that I’d lost over the course of two weeks. “I missed you so much, Chanel,” I whispered to her. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so fuckin’ sorry that I wasn’t there to protect you. I’m . . . sorry.”
CHAPTER 70
Detective Knight
San Francisco Police Department
San Francisco, CA
When Detective Knight walked into the office of his superior and wasn’t greeted, he knew that something was wrong. In fact, he was almost sure that he knew what it was that was wrong. He’d fucked up royally. He had felt himself getting too involved when it was happening, but because of the strong draw, was unable to pull himself back.
And now, he feared that it was going to cost him.
When he first viewed the surveillance, he couldn’t stop watching. It was horrific. Watching the woman being dragged into a van, kicking and screaming, her bags flying everywhere. It made him hate the state of the world. How people literally lived their lives to involve themselves in crimes. He wanted her found. He wanted her found safe. He found himself thinking about how afraid she must’ve been when she realized that she may or may not return home to her family. Those were the factors that made it difficult for Ralph to turn the other cheek.
But then, she came home . . .
And there still seemed to be missing pieces. How could it be a prank? Why would Dario Caivano’s friend do some shit like that? That’s just not the kind of prank normal people involve themselves in. And even the fact that he’d seen all of them together in one room, playing nice and like all was well, the tension in that big-ass room . . . in that expensive-ass house . . . was thick enough to cut through.
But instead of emotion, what Knight should’ve been operating off of was protocol. He hadn’t. Big mistake.
As Ralph Knight sat, waiting for the ball to drop, all he could think was, I should’ve just left it alone! Or at least kept a safe distance! Fuck!
“Do you want this closed?” he asked.
“No need. Just have a seat. We have somebody else joining us.”
“Oh, okay. Is there something wrong, Chief?”
The chief ignored the question, as he tapped a few keys on his computer’s keyboard.
“Sorry I’m late, Chief,” came a voice from the door. “We want this closed, right?”
“We do,” the chief responded.
Soon, a red-headed woman, dressed in a white suit and high heels, breezed in. Her boobs were big, and she had a nice, thick frame to complement. She adjusted her emerald-green-rimmed glasses, before taking the empty seat next to Detective Knight. She nodded his way, but didn’t speak. He hadn’t seen her around the precinct before and wondered who she was. He scanned her carefully, trying his best not to be too obvious. Even when the woman handed a folder to the chief, Knight kept a watchful eye on her.
“Sybil, thank you for coming,” the chief stated. “I don’t plan to keep you long. We’ve already discussed the situation, at length. However, I needed you here to make sure that I was following the guidelines in a way that wouldn’t cross any lines.”
“Here for as long as you need,” she said, briefly glancing at Ralph.
“Knight . . .” the chief began. “This isn’t our first rodeo. This isn’t our second, third, or even fourth.”
“Chief, I already—”
“I’m not opening the floor for discussions with this, Knight. It’s why I’ve included Sybil. She’s the union representative and we’ve already finalized the details.”
“What details?” Ralph asked.
“The details of your dismissal. I’m giving you the opportunity to transfer, or make this your last day. I’ve worked behind the scenes to find a precinct that would give you a fair shot, since I know you to be a good cop. That was hard. I won’t lie. I found you somewhere, but if you turn that down, then this is your last day.”
“Wait . . . what? Chief! Come on, now! It doesn’t even have to come to this.”
The chief leaned forward in his seat. “It absolutely did have to come to this, Ralph. Because unlike your past shenanigans, this one hit my department. There was the threat of a lawsuit. I’ve tried to accommodate you because I felt that you were hungry and just very passionate about what you did. But with this last mishap, you really crossed the line. You spent SFPD resources to travel your ass across the Bay to harass people attached to a goddamn closed case! And I don’t give a shit how great of a cop you are. When you get to the point where you’re thinking with your dick and not with your head, I bow out of the shitshow.”
“Thinking with my dick, how?”
“You know exactly how. And I have documented accounts of how. Not just that, I’ve received a few phone calls from both Dario Caivano, and his fiancée, as well as the woman who works for his fiancée! Apparently, you made her very uncomfortable. To the point she wanted to press charges. I talked her down from that ledge! You do know I have a whole damn department to run, right?! That I don’t have time to be on phone calls, trying to convince somebody that you’re a good guy and that you would no longer be an issue. Caivano seems to think you have some kind of hard-on for his soon-to-be wife. That you accosted her at a restaurant recently? Is that true? Because according to her, it is.”
“It’s not really what it sounds like.”
“Detective Knight,” the lady, Sybil, spoke up. “Bottom line is we’ve made negotiations on your behalf. This isn’t up for debate. As the chief stated, you either take the offer, or—”
Ralph held up his hand. “Look, I get it.” He stood from his chair and looked down at the chief, and then over to Sybil. He knew that there was no talking the chief out of his decision. He also knew that being a cop was his life and he wasn’t ready to give it up.
“Well?” Sybil asked. “What’s it gonna be?”
“Get the paperwork together. I’ll take the transfer.”
After that, Ralph Knight walked out of his chief’s office, not once turning back.
CHAPTER 71
Dario
Chanel walked out of the master bathroom with a towel tucked at her breasts, and situating her hair into a ponytail on top of her head. I was leaned against the wall next to the en suite, staring at her, almost in a daze, as sh
e moved about. I watched everything she did. From the way she walked, to the way her hands moved in her hair, to the way her lips moved when she talked, to the way her eyes searched her surroundings. I even wondered what she was thinking, during the times where she was quiet for longer than a minute. I felt as though I’d missed her entire life. There were two weeks of her life that none of us would ever be able to get back. It hurt like hell. I was trying my best to be strong, no matter how weak I felt.
“You see how quick they took off on us, baby?” Chanel said, approaching me where I was leaned against the wall. “They tried to play it off,” she laughed. “Talking about they were going to get ice cream. I knew exactly what it was. They were trying to leave us to make up for lost time.”
While she talked, I just listened, watched, not wanting to look away. Not even for a second.
“Yeah, we lost a lot of time,” I said, quietly.
I ran my hand down the softness of her shoulder. Two weeks ago, she wouldn’t have made it one minute with that towel still on her. I would’ve already had it off, and on my way to making love to her. But there she stood, her beautiful body concealed from me. I felt out of body. Not like myself at all. Having her back home was the happiest moment of my life, but I didn’t know what to do with that happiness. I was anxious as hell. Scared was right up there on the list, as well.
Chanel reached down and grabbed my hand into hers. “Come here, babe,” she said, leading me over to the bed. When I sat down, she sat on my lap. “I know what’s going on with you.”
“I’m good, baby. Just glad to see you.”
“Of course you are. If you weren’t, we’d have a problem, sir.”
“Absolutely,” I said, caressing her back.
“Earlier when you picked me up into those beautiful arms, you kept saying that you were sorry.”
“Yeah . . .” I inhaled a deep breath and then released it. I felt ashamed.
“Baby, you have nothing to be sorry for. You hear me? You have nothing to be sorry for.”
I shook my head in denial. “That’s not true, Chanel. I have everything to be sorry for. It’s because of me that all this shit happened in the first place. I should’ve protected you better. It was only me for so long. The moment you and Rai entered my life, I should’ve gotten security. The moment that—”
“Dario, stop that. I’m not going to let you do that to yourself. I’m just not.”
“You don’t have to. It’s already done. Baby, you have to understand how less of a man I feel like not being able to protect my woman. That’s the worst feeling in the fuckin’ world.”
“What are you talking about?” she shot. “If you’d been there, don’t you know . . . that I know you would’ve done some real damage! You are more than capable of protecting me! This situation—”
“Shouldn’t have happened!” I interjected, with a level of anger I didn’t mean to transfer onto her.
“Dario, and guess what?”
“What?”
She stood up, and stood in front of me, taking my face into her hands. “You get to beat the brakes, and the clutch, off his ass on Saturday in that ring, right? You get to show him exactly who he came for, right?”
I smiled and nodded my head, in affirmation. “I do. And I’m ready. Never been so ready in all my life.”
“And how ‘bout this?” she asked, unhooking the top of her towel and letting it fall to the floor. “You ready for this?”
My gaze lay on her eyes for seconds on end, before traveling to the softness of her neck, to her shoulder blades. And I stopped there. The guilt was too much; it was stabbing. I didn’t feel like I had the right to take her in the way that I wanted. I wanted her, but afraid to be with her the way I wanted to. So beautiful. It was her soft shoulders that I’d kissed a thousand times. The perfection of her chest. Her breasts standing perfectly and ripe for sucking. Her waist and the curve of her hips. They were slimmer than when she left, which told me that she hadn’t been eating that much. Stress. Distress. Fear. Didn’t know what it was, but . . . it made me feel . . . wrong. Some kind of fucked up.
“I can’t, baby.” I shook my head and got up from the bed. “Let’s get your stuff packed for Vegas.”
Chanel reached out and grabbed my hand, then moved in front of me, closing up any space that stood between us.
“Dario, listen to me . . .”
But my ego was shattered. I couldn’t look at Chanel without feelings of inadequacy. Feeling that I didn’t deserve her. Not only did I fail to protect her, I wasn’t even the one to bring her back home.
“I need to get through to you,” she pleaded.
There was so much sadness and desperation in her voice that I just couldn’t take it anymore.
“Can you imagine how all this has been, Chanel? Baby, I’m in the most peaceful state I’ve ever been in, with you being safe at home. Where you belong. But they took you . . . on my watch! Rai was hurt . . . on my watch! How much pain can you both go through and I’m not there to intercept the threat?! Lucas! All of it . . . on my watch! All people that I love . . . that I’d die for.”
The silence that separated us, in the moments after I laid it all out, was definitely felt. The weight that it carried with it was lead-heavy. It was a lot. I knew it was for me, and I was sure that it was for Chanel. I didn’t mean to unload as much as I did. My main goal was to be as strong as I could be for her. I didn’t want her to see that I had changed from the person I was when she left. I didn’t want her to know that I had dark thoughts every night since she’d left. I didn’t want her to know any of that because I didn’t want her to feel anything that caused her burden. She had been through enough.
I watched Chanel, as she reached down on the floor and picked up the towel. She walked into the restroom, then emerged a few minutes later and spent a few seconds at the nightstand drawer next to her side of the bed. She came out of the drawer with a pair of her pajama shorts and a thin t-shirt.
“Baby, you gotta under—”
“Come here, fiancé,” she told me, as she sat down on the bed. She patted the space next to her.
After I sat down, she got up on her knees and situated herself behind me, wrapping her legs around the sides of my thighs. There, she lay her face against my back, then brought her hands around to cover my chest.
“I love you, Dario.”
“I love you, baby.”
“I can feel your heartbeat racing,” she whispered. “I’m sorry that they took us through this. I’m sorry that you had to carry this. It’s time for you to relax now, baby. I’m sitting right here and holding you until I feel you let go . . .”
CHAPTER 72
Chanel
How my baby managed to fall asleep in an upright position, I didn’t know. But I knew that he was out cold, when I felt the weight of his head jerk to the side. He was exhausted. And judging by how tired he was, I could tell that he hadn’t had much sleep at all. Dario was always full of energy. Not just that, he had a fight in two days. It was clear that he would’ve been participating in that fight off pure adrenaline, had I not been there. He was so out of it, that I was able to lay him back, and move from under him, without him so much as stirring, or opening an eye.
Being back in all the grand space of the Caivano Manor felt so freeing. I hadn’t been to my own house yet. That, in and of itself, said a lot. It brought home the fact that, “home” was wherever Dario was. Initially, I was dead set in my decision not to move into the big house until marriage. A change of heart cancelled that plan all the way out. Rai, in all his maturity, had eloquently stated on several occasions that we spent more time here. He was right. So, I didn’t even have to wonder what his reaction would be when I told him about my decision.
I didn’t know how much time had passed with me holding the refrigerator doors open, but Lennox’s barking snapped me out of my trance. I quickly closed the compartment and took off running out of the kitchen, and down the corridor toward the front of the house, where
I saw him with Quinton and Rai. Lennox either realized my scent, or saw me, and that radar went up! He came charging full speed, causing me to stop in my spot. No need for us to go running into each other; that could be catastrophic. It brought tears to my eyes, seeing how excited he was, as he sounded off in part whimper, part bark. I knew that when he reached me, the impact of his weight would be felt, but I didn’t care!
“Lennoxxx!” I cried, when he leapt up and was at height with me. “I missed you, big boy! Sooo much!”
Judging by all the licks, and his heavy breaths, he had missed me too.
“Dang, Lennox, you don’t even get like that when you see me!” Rai said, laughing, from right beside us, trying to calm Lennox down.
“Lennox!” Dario yelled. “Come on, boy!” In that same second, I felt the weight of Lennox’s body pulling away. “Baby, I’m taking him to his house, so he can simmer down,” Dario announced, heading outside, Quinton following along with him.
“But whyyy?” I whined. “He’s fiiine.”
When they walked off, Rai was in full mode, laughing hysterically. I stuck my tongue out at him, and made the trip back to the kitchen. Of course, the kid was on my heels.
“What are you laughin’ at, hater?”
“You, Ma! And I’m not a hater!” he shouted, his laughing not dying down even a little bit. “He was going to tackle you, and then what?”
“No, he wasn’t. He was fine. You and Dario are just in your feelings because he don’t love on y’all like that. Too bad!” I proclaimed, heading over to the fridge, again, to continue looking for something that caught my eye. “Can’t believe you and Quinton were gone all that time and didn’t bring me anything back.” I closed the refrigerator for the second time. “What’d you eat?” I went and sat on the benches in the nook near the large windows that I loved so much. There, I could look out over the courtyard.
“We didn’t,” Rai replied, sitting across from me on the other bench.
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