Damn it all to hell!
She sat there on the blanket, rubbing her eyes. Her hair was wild and tangled, and she was naked. She’d never looked so incredibly beautiful. “Did I just hear you yell? Did you see a bug or something?”
Her voice was deeper from being asleep. The sexy tones rolled through his being, setting him on fire. Fuck it, he was going to have her one more time tonight. Then he would let her rest.
“You were dreaming,” he lied.
He started toward her, but as soon as he reached the blanket, her cell phone rang. She grabbed it. “Damn, I forgot to tell Mama I might be out really late. What time is it anyway?”
Duke sank to the blanket in front of her but didn’t answer. He was near enough to see it wasn’t her mother calling but Ed. Jealousy rose in him. Did her ex-husband call her often at this time of night? Then he recalled her son was staying with Ed, and he tensed. Hopefully, everything was okay.
“Ed, what’s wrong?” she said. “What the hell do you mean you can’t find Keen?”
Her voice rose until it cracked, and Duke stabbed the speaker button so he could hear.
“He told me he was going to Jessica’s house to study,” Ed said. “That was at seven.”
“What’s Jessica’s number?”
“Uh…”
Takiyah surged to her feet and paced. “You mean to tell me you don’t have her number? Did you even meet her or her parents?”
“He’s a little old to be running behind him like that.”
“You’re his father, you idiot! Kids don’t always make good choices. You have to be the responsible one to help them, and Keen is only thirteen. I can’t believe you! Did he give you any other information?”
Ed whimpered like a child. Duke began getting dressed and turned on a light to help Takiyah find her clothes. While they dressed, she berated Ed for his lax parenting. Duke didn’t know much about raising kids, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t have let the kid go like that. Then again, he probably would have gone to the opposite extreme. Likely, he would have detected the lie Keen told him. Then he would have tailed him to find out the real story.
“Did he have any money?” Takiyah asked Ed.
“I gave him twenty dollars.”
She rubbed her forehead. “Okay, listen. I’m going to go look for him. You stay by the phone in case he calls or comes home. Let me tell you this, Ed. If anything happens to my baby, I will kill you!”
She dragged up the phone where she had set it on the low table. When it looked like instead of disconnecting the call she would throw it across the room, he nabbed it and did the deed himself.
“I’ll drive you,” he said.
“That’s not necessary. Just take me home.” Her voice was tight and filled with anger and fear.
“I said I’m taking you. Period.” He grabbed his keys. “Let’s go.”
They left his house, and Duke drove while casting glances her way. She sat in silence, her hands bunched in her lap. He had the feeling she was close to breaking, so he laid a hand over hers.
“It’ll work out.” He’d never felt so awkward. Encouraging people in such a straightforward way wasn’t his style. He usually joked around and insulted them until they came out of their funk. Something told him Takiyah wasn’t the type of woman to appreciate his humor at a time like this. “Any ideas about where we should start looking?”
She perked up. “Yeah, I’m thinking he didn’t go to any girlfriend’s house. He probably didn’t even stay in Ed’s neighborhood. Let’s go look around the area by my house and by his school.”
He nodded. “Good thinking.”
A short while later, they cruised the dark streets on the side of New Orleans where Duke wouldn’t just walk along at night. Even though he could handle himself, he had better sense. He hoped a scrawny innocent kid like Keen hadn’t been so stupid. Yet, he doubted the boy had that much sense. In a way, Takiyah had sheltered him, and Keen didn’t know the depths of trouble he was getting himself into.
Down one particular street, as Duke drove at a snail’s pace, he spotted a mural that was pretty good. He didn’t frequent these streets, so he had no idea if it had been there for a while. What caught his eye was the portrait of the woman in the center of the mural. Unless he missed his guess, that woman was Takiyah. The likeness was incredible.
Duke pulled to the side of the road and turned off the engine.
“What are you doing?” She scrambled to follow after him as he climbed out of the car. “Did you see him?”
He pointed. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
She spun to look where he pointed and gasped. “It is. Who?”
“Is your son an artist?”
She frowned. “This’s graffiti. I can’t stand the font those words are written in.”
“Kiyah.”
“All right. I don’t know. I can’t think straight. I’m so worried about him.”
Duke strode over to the wall and touched it. The woman’s face was dry, but a spot near the edge of the mural was still damp. The paint came off on his fingers, and he cleaned them on his jeans. “There’s no way he did all this tonight. He’s been sneaking out when you didn’t know. You live what a half mile from here?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “Less. I could have bought him drawing paper.”
Duke started down the alley past the mural. “My gut tells me a lot more than painting is going on tonight. Go get in the car.”
“Like hell I will.”
She followed him, and rather than fight her to go back, he let her tag along. They hadn’t moved more than a few steps down the dark passage before he picked up a few shouts and the unmistakable thuds of someone hitting someone else. His heart rate increased, and he broke into a run.
A group of boys came into view. They crowded near the crumbling wall of an abandoned building. The closer Duke drew, the more he could make out that one of the boys lay on the ground, and the others were kicking him—in the gut and in the head.
Takiyah screamed. “Keen!”
Tears flooded her face, and she tried to pass him, but he shoved her back. He reached the group first and began sending the boys in every direction. Sure enough the one being attacked was Keen, and Duke dragged him up off the ground. Takiyah threw herself at her son, sobbing and holding him. He weaved side to side, almost falling. She caught him, and the two of them sank to the ground.
“Stay out of this, man,” one of the boys ordered. “This has nothing to do with you. He has to get initiated.”
Duke rounded on him and grabbed his collar. “How about I initiate you—all of you?”
Takiyah looked up from her son, but she didn’t let him go. “No, Duke. They’re kids.”
“He’s starting this,” Duke bit out. “I’m finishing it.”
“Please,” she begged, and moonlight illuminated her sweet face, highlighting her tears and the vulnerability and pain in her eyes. “Let’s go to the hospital.”
He couldn’t ignore her. After he shoved the kid away from him, he turned to help Takiyah and Keen to their feet. Someone grabbed his arm from behind, a hold much stronger than the kid he had held before. A fist came flying at his head, and he deflected it.
“You think you’re big and bad, asshole?” This new guy wasn’t a child. Duke put him at eighteen or nineteen. A flash of steel caught the moonlight. “Let me show you what happens to old guys who think they can get in our way.”
He lunged at Duke, and Duke caught his wrist and threw a punch. The blow glanced off his opponent’s side. The guy wasn’t new at fighting after all. Duke needed to get serious. When the guy backed up a little, Duke followed. He had better sense than to get too far from Takiyah and Keen, or they might be used as leverage for his enemy. However, he needed a little fighting room.
Two of the kids came at him. He shook them off without any trouble. Four came at him, and then five. His frustration mounted because Takiyah didn’t want him to hurt them. She should have hated them so much for
hurting her son that she ordered him to kill the idiots. His guess was she feared the repercussions a lot more. If they were thrown in to jail, there would be no one to care for her son and mother. She was always thinking of others before herself.
All five assailants dog piled him. Duke figured they had gotten the message that he wasn’t going to do any permanent damage to them. Once they hung from his arms, dragging him down, the guy with the knife came at him again. He swung. Duke got his free and blocked the attack. An odd sensation started in the back of his forearm, but he ignored it. The group of kids jumped him again. His enemy moved in.
Duke raised his foot and kicked hard enough that the guy tumbled head over heels several feet away. The knife went skittering across the ground into the shadows. When the kids saw that their champion was down and wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon, they scattered.
Chapter Fourteen
Duke peeled Takiyah off Keen and raised the boy into his arms. He carried him back to the car with Takiyah at his side sniffling and moaning. A short while later, they arrived at the hospital. Takiyah rushed off with Keen on a stretcher and doctors and nurses at his side. Duke returned to his car for her purse, which she had left. He dug out her phone and dialed Ed.
“Takiyah! Did you find him?” Ed said. Duke’s jaw tightened at the weakness he heard in the man’s voice. Asshole should have been out looking himself, not waiting by the phone, even if Takiyah told him to.
“We found him,” he snapped. “We’re at the hospital.”
A small sob escaped Ed. “Which—”
“She’ll call you when she knows something. Right now, neither of them need you the way you are now.” He disconnected the call. Maybe he was wrong in refusing to tell Ed where to find his son. No doubt he cared about Keen, but sniveling and not being a strong shoulder for Takiyah when she had so much on her was the wrong move.
“Sir!”
Duke spun on his heel at the strident call, and a wave of dizziness hit him. He tried shaking it off, but his mind had gone a little fuzzy. A nurse rushed over to him and grabbed hold of his arm. “Do you realize you’re bleeding?” she said.
He gazed down and noticed he’d left a trail of blood across the floor. “Damn.”
“Let’s go,” she ordered.
Duke was whisked through double doors to the examining area of the emergency room. All the way, the nurse held a towel against his arm to catch the blood. Duke winced in pain. Now that he realized he had been cut, he felt it. That bastard with the knife had gotten through his defenses, all because he had concentrated too much on what Takiyah wanted.
While he sat on a bed, refusing to lie down, he gazed around the area. He spotted Takiyah on the opposite side of the nurse’s station, and when she saw him, she rushed over. “Why are you here? Oh no, you’ve been cut. Duke, I’m so sorry.”
“Shh, hush,” he ordered. “I’ve had worse done to me.”
“I don’t want to think of that.”
He pointed with his chin to the area where he first saw her. “How is Keen?”
She swayed a little, and he put out his injured arm to catch her and grunted in pain. She shoved his hand away. “Keep still. I’m fine, and Keen might have a couple broken ribs. They’re doing x-rays. He protected his head with his hands, so no major damage. He has a couple black eyes and a busted lip. The doctor says he’s confident Keen looks far worse than he is.”
“Good.”
“We were fortunate, but it could have been much worse. If we didn’t get there in time to stop them—”
“But we did.”
A doctor walked over and introduced himself. Duke sat in silence with his jaw clenched while they stitched him up. Seventeen stitches surprised him, but as he told Takiyah, he had had much worse happen to him. The knife was nothing compared to being shot twice.
When Duke was all done, he walked over to where Takiyah and Keen were. He nodded with a bit of pride at the smile on Keen’s face when he saw him. Despite his battered appearance and obvious pain, Keen was putting on a brave face.
“Hey, Duke,” he said. “I was in a fight.”
“You don’t say?” Duke figured he didn’t recall him and his mother breaking up that fight and Duke carrying him to the car. “Looks like you didn’t do so well.”
Takiyah glared at him.
“Yeah.”
Keen blushed. His skin, paler than Takiyah’s because of his mixed heritage, showed bright red. Both eyes were almost swollen shut, but he apparently could see through the slits. Two small cuts split his bottom lip, and the top lip matched the eyes in swelling. Nothing broken there, Duke assessed. He was a strong kid.
“Duke, will you teach me now?” Keen asked.
Takiyah might be rich cocoa brown, but Duke saw the blood drain from her face. “You shut your mouth! No more fighting, ever!”
She glared at Duke as if he’d encouraged the boy’s folly. With Keen’s face a reminder of how Takiyah could have lost him, the last thing she wanted to hear was about him going back into senseless battle. Duke, who saw no reason not to handle things with his fists when necessary, got her point. This wasn’t the time.
“You concentrate on getting well, bud,” he said.
Duke reached out to touch Takiyah’s back with his good hand, meaning to give her a little comfort, but she moved to the other side of her son’s bed. She rejected him, but he put it down to the emotional trauma of the night. Tomorrow things would look better for her.
A few hours later, they were released from the hospital, and Duke wheeled Keen out to his car. Duke locked the wheelchair. “Wait a sec. Let me lift you in there.”
“I’m a man. I can do it myself.”
Takiyah tried to help her son anyway, but Duke held her back. She tried to pry his fingers off her arm. “Let me go, Duke.”
“He can do it. Even if it hurts, let him try. You’ll hurt his pride if you help him.”
“I don’t give a damn about his pride. He’s my baby.”
He got the door open and watched as she insisted on helping her son. Nothing he could say would make her listen. Then he thought of the truth she might not have realized yet. When she started to climb in to the front seat, he grabbed hold of her wrist. “Hang on.”
She glared at him while he shut both doors, sealing Keen off from hearing what he had to say. Takiyah folded her arms over her chest. She tried to look strong, but he saw how she trembled a little and the weariness around her eyes.
“You can be pissed at me all you want,” he said, “but you need to know the truth.”
“What truth? That I’m too soft on my son? That’s not your business.”
“No, that he’s been initiated into a gang.”
She looked sick. “What are you talking about?”
“The beating. Blood has to be spilled to get into it, and blood will be spilled to get out. He did this of his own accord. He wanted to join.”
“No, I won’t believe that. He’s been bullied, but I’m going to handle it.”
He ignored the twinge in his arm and dragged her closer by both shoulders. “Listen to me, damn it! You can’t handle it. The next thing you know, he’s going to be pressed into committing a crime. I won’t go into detail about what that might be.”
Her knees gave, and he tugged her into his embrace. She fought him, and when he realized she would keep on until she wore herself out, he let her go. Her head hung down, and she shook all over.
“So what’s your solution, huh? More fighting? My son is already looking at you as the one who will fix it for him.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “All I want is for him to be safe. That’s it. Nothing else.”
“Kiyah.”
“No, Duke. Please, just take me home.”
He sighed and opened the door for her. Whether she liked it or not, he helped her into the car and slammed the door a little too hard. Once they were on the road, he did everything he could to keep his mouth shut. Arguing with her would do nothing. He gazed into the rearv
iew mirror to find Keen had dozed off. Takiyah sat rigid in her seat, but her eyes held a haunted expression. He kicked himself for being too honest with her about the gang. She couldn’t handle it.
The sun had risen by the time they pulled in front of Takiyah’s house, and Duke looked on in shock at the damage done to the property. All the windows were broken out. The front door hung by one hinge. Curses had been spray-painted all across the walls, and someone had upended trashcans on the small front porch and the patch of lawn. Duke didn’t have to go inside to know the same or worse had been done there.
“Mama!” Takiyah screamed and ran for the house. Duke moved at top speed to catch her and forced her back into the car.
“Wait there while I check it out.” His voice was rough enough to make her obey. From the backseat, Keen sat with his face pressed close to the glass. Duke caught sight of the guilty tears streaming, and he turned away quickly.
A quick survey of the property inside proved his assessment. All furniture in the house and a computer were destroyed. Dishes were broken, and the refrigerator had been left open for the food to rot. He found no trace of Takiyah’s mother and hoped it meant she had fled or never been home in the first place. What the hell had the neighbors been doing while all this was going on? Someone had to have heard, and yet, he knew they were all too afraid to do anything.
“She’s not here,” Duke said when he walked back outside.
Takiyah jumped on her phone to make a call. While she did that, Duke walked over to the next-door neighbor’s house. He banged on the door and shouted. An older gentleman peeked out the front window, looking fearful. When he spotted Duke, he shrank even more, but Duke pointed to the street. The old man saw Takiyah pacing and unlocked the door.
“Did you see anything?” Duke demanded, not bothering to explain what he meant.
“Those terrible kids?” the old guy grumped. “Of course I did, but I won’t go on record about it, if that’s what you’re expecting. I’ve lived here almost fifty-eight years, and I’ll die in this house. I’m not stirring up any trouble. So you just go on.”
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