by Amarie Avant
The servant who caused Kmota to spill the rest of my tea before my weekend with Jagger so long ago is now in her right frame of mind as is Chinwa. Although, I can’t say that I allowed them to stay on.
“Do you need help with the dress?” Kmota asks. She, on the other hand, has continued to be my servant-slash-undercover bodyguard .
I start for the zipper on the back of the red, green, and gold sequined dress, and she moves with lightning speed across the lavish guest bedroom in Jagger’s home to help me.
“Thanks.” I smile at her then mockingly glare at my cousin Brittany. “Some of my other bridesmaids are too busy making sure they look good.”
“Hmmm,” Brittany says. “Kmota looks ten times better in that red skirt than I do. And you, Kayla, you are slaying it!”
I click my tongue. My cousin brought along three matching bachelorette outfits. The red skirts are pleather, though the shimmering sequined halters match one color—red, gold, or green—in the designer mini that she splurged on my behalf for, with hers being gold, of course. I glance back and forth from her, Kmota, and my college friend, Shanice. “You’re all wearing the same outfit, though I do love the color coordination.”
Brittany stands up, supporting her back. She bragged plenty of times about bargain shopping and “lucking out” when she found the tops in the complementing colors to my outfit. Her even semi-hides her pleasantly plump baby belly. “I begged for a beautiful winter wedding, but no, you couldn’t wait to have Jag all to yourself.”
“Oh, yeah, I recall just what you said. Picture this, cuz.” I chuckle. “Crystal and pearl snowflakes. Fur over your wedding dress and—”
“And don’t forget the white orchids.” She winks.
“How about the belly I would have?” I rub my own flat abdomen. My cousin found an artist who will paint a motorcycle club mural on her belly right before she pops for a photo op. She said the guy could do a series of glocks for me. Jagger had grunted and said he preferred Magnums while I jumped onto a different subject. “Do you know how many nights I’ve been on my knees, praying to Jesus that my belly stays nice and right for the next week?”
“Heh. You’re honeymooning for almost a month so keep praying, girl.” She sticks her tongue out at me in mock jealousy. “Now, hurry. Since there are no strip clubs in Nivean, and we were bullied out of the hotel down there,” she nudges her head to the picturesque window of the ocean where The Blue Cove is right below, “we have to make up time.”
I smile softly. How was Brittany to know that she made reservations at the very place my soon-to-be-husband abhors to the depths of his soul.
Shanice feathers her hand over her green shimmery top and sighs. “Hey, I did love the way he was extra alpha with it, Brit. Besides, we excelled from a five-star resort to our own yacht for the entire weekend.”
She fans herself, having told me many times how Jagger adamantly made calls to have our party moved, and it was something she dreamed her own husband would do. The three of us, Shanice, her husband, and I, met during junior year, completing a project that would ultimately square away better med school choices for us. We weren’t going to wear the bachelorette outfits until tomorrow night, but since we scored a limousine ride a few blocks down to the coast, Brittany couldn’t help herself.
“Black girl fabulous.” Brittany picks up the handle of her rollaway. “I’d usually recommend CP time.” She shrugs. “Just because. But I do believe our ride is out front, ladies.”
We exit the room and start down the stairs just as Jagger is opening the front door. Three men head into the house, each has a glint in his eyes. That glint comes from being a highly trained hitman
Javier, the Spanish one, is who Jagger is second “closest” to, after our mutual friend, Trick. And when I mean close, it’s loosely based off crossing paths for a few assignments across the world. Jagger had mentioned to me that he had chatted with Javier about Denise Everly. Javier stands a little shorter than Jagger, with beautiful dark skin and broad shoulders, and eyes the color of the ridiculously expensive amber liquor Jagger is listlessly holding.
Speaking of shoulders, the next man has shoulders like a linebacker. I’m not sure if he’s African until he says “Hello” in an African American accent, by way of Chicago, maybe. Devonte Weir is equally impressive in a suit, and his smile is bright as if he can hear my cousin whisper in my ear, “Not sure if I prefer papi to speak Spanish or dark chocolate. Which one, Kayla?”
“Neither, Brit. You’re very happily pregnant and with a brotha in a leather jacket.”
“You forgot to mention high ranking patches,” she chuckles, waddling down the stairs, though her head is held high with the same confidence she had while flirting with the knuckleheads at Poly Technic in Long Beach.
Last to round off the list is Trick. He didn’t get the memo. He’s not suited and booted, but dressed all in black, wearing jeans and a tailored leather jacket that hugs his muscles. His eyes go straight to Kmota. She eyes him warily while Jagger makes introductions.
Javier kisses each of our hands then he holds out a bottle. “Dom, just for you, princess—excuse me—I call all the girls princess, but you, you are a queen in your own right.”
He kisses my hand again.
“You done kissing ass, Jav?” Devonte tilts his head to the side, glaring at him. Javier holds up his hands.
“Eh, give me a minute, cabron, I’m in the company of lovely ladies. Each one needs to be respected in—”
“I think all these ladies are spoken for.” Jagger pulls me against his chest.
“Are they?” Trick hasn’t removed his darkly exquisite gaze from Kmota. While the other women are a giggly bunch, talking to Devonte, Trick hardly addresses Brittany and Shanice when he says, “Hello, ladies.” Trick steps to Kmota like a lion to a . . . well it’s the norm that I’d provide a conflicting comparison. Lion to a lamb. Crocodile to a cat. You get my drift. Yet she meets him eye for eye, neither back down.
“Delighted to make the acquaintance of a warrior such as yourself.” Trick reaches out a hand, knuckles ready to stroke her cheek. Hmmm, Jagger told him about her.
She nods stiffly to his compliment.
“Sweetheart, I do bite, though only when begged to.”
“Begged.” Her teeth show, somewhere between a smile and a snarl. “Begging can be arranged. Remind me to pull out all of your teeth though.”
“That’s not how the game is played.”
Brittany cuts in. “While I’m loving the tension between the two of you, if I’m not getting any attention, then it’s time for us to go.”
Devonte takes her luggage from her, and she bats her lashes while he leads her out the door. Kmota follows, and Trick stares after her. Javier offers the same courtesy to Shanice, leaving me alone with my two favorite X Members.
“She’s off the market.” I tell Trick while patting his back.
“I see no ring on her finger, and I only require one night with her. It’ll be her begging for more, contrary to her statement.” The muscles beneath his jaw dance, and he’s considering what is his next plan of action in claiming Kmota.
“Can I see your phone?” I ask him while he’s distracted by war and sex tactics.
“Why?” Jagger fondly rubs the small of my back as I begin to look through Trick’s phone.
“Because I have a better proposal for our good friend,” I murmur.
“Kayla . . .” He peers over my shoulder as I go to the X-Member application.
“We’re happy, Jag. He needs to be happy. Not the happy that you mentioned while we were in London either.” I grumble under my breath, recalling how Jagger spoke of Trick and Ava Sinclair together.
Just as I’m finishing up my course of action, Trick groans. “Tosh! Mikayla, tell me the secret. I must have your warrior. I bet her threshold for pain is limitless. Bloody fucking limitless.”
I hand him the phone. “Trick, earlier today, did I not text that I have a gift of sorts for you for agreein
g to be Jag’s best man.”
He arches an eyebrow, asking, “Threesome?”
Just as he finishes the word, Jagger forces his magnum under his chin. “I don’t fucking share, bro.”
“I don’t fucking care, mate.”
Jagger chuckles softly, putting his gun down. “Look at your phone, idiot. You’ve just taken an assignment.”
Trick holds up his phone. “The ballerina?”
The black ballerina. At least that’s what I started calling her, Jagger got used to the nickname too.
Biting my lip, an awkwardness begins to consume me. I hadn’t thought it out. He stares at the screen, shock on his face.
“Trick, hear me out. I just want you to be happy. Take the assignment. Maybe you’ll fall in love like Jagger and I did.” I lean against my fiancé’s beefy arm, confidence resurrected. “Maybe you won’t, but it’ll give you a chance to meet a woman who has a story like yours.”
Now, I expected this to go one of two ways. Him snap at me. Tell me I can’t begin to fathom the hell he went through. Then I can explain that she was the first African American female to tour with her company, and that her parents died shortly thereafter. That . . . that and who knows what else because I got this all from Google. Oh, and that someone wants her dead. “You can be the one to at least see to it that she’s erased from X-Member.”
“All right,” is all he says.
I head toward the door while the other guys begin to walk inside. Then I look back. “You won’t kill her, will you . . . best friend?”
Trick hardly shakes his head. “I’m your best friend, Kayla.”
I’m just outside, and my girls are chanting from the sunroof for me to move my ass. The music is vibrating against the pitch-black windows. Jagger hugs me from behind.
“Enjoy yourself, sweetheart.”
“He won’t?” I begin, the words topple off because intuition warns that my actions were senseless. I have an entire nation that I’m always worried about. I told myself, what’s one more? Putting Denise in Trick’s hands is the same as placing her in Jagger’s hands. He has humanity. He has a sister and a niece that he loves.
“Leave. Or I won’t let you go.” Jagger smacks my ass.
Yelping, I hustle toward the back door and climb inside. Jagger stands there as the limo coasts back down the hill.
“Girl, your nose is so wide open, we were about to drag you away from him.” Brittany shakes her head.
“I have a good man.” I grin sloppily as the last year drifts through my mind. There were a few haters when it came to my verbally declaring my love for Jagger, but with Elder Chumi and the rest of my team, Denso too, I believe I will make it.
56
Extended Epilogue
Jagger
Fuck. I shove a hand through my hair and head back into my home. I have no problem looking into the eyes of a person that I’ll soon expire. Though, I’ve only been placed in the predicament to give a damn one time.
“I have a couple more guys heading over before we leave,” I tell them as they pass around the bourbon. “This fuck here.” I nudge my jaw to Trick who’s tossing back my expensive shit like it’s water. “Has just taken that assignment nobody wants.”
Devonte’s eyebrows furrow. “What the pres—”
“Nah.” I shake my head.
“La bonita bailarina nigra.” Javier sips at his drink, sighing. “I couldn’t do it. She’s too fucking pretty, mi amigo. Tell me you’ll just chalk it up as ‘can’t find the girl’ like . . .”
Trick and Javier know I didn’t officially pull the assignment. A damn rule.
“Like those newbies that can’t get it done,” Javier finishes. “Shit just keeps popping up. And while I like to see her face, it makes me pray,” he quickly does a cross at his heart, before downing his drink, “pray she’s finished soon.”
“You know me.” Trick takes the refill Devonte just offered and lifts his drink. “Soon as I leave South Africa, she’s dead. I always complete my assignment.”
“You’re an asshole, Trick.” Devonte tight fists the bottle, not refreshing his drink this time. He reaches over and hands it to Javier.
“He is.” Javier agrees, nodding.
“I am.” Trick rubs his hands together. “You all know I’m too refined not to complete my mission. If that beautiful ballerina prefers it, I’ll send her to heaven before I do the deed. Now, no more talk about death, mates. I have some fun scheduled for my brother.”
The bad thing about being a hitman who has a moral code is that he’s prone to hold a few regrets. I should’ve taken the phone away from Kayla. She’s just too naïve. I sink down across from Trick, taking the bottle from Javier and grip the bottle, guzzling it straight down.
“Don’t kill it.” Devonte chuckles. “That’s some good shit.”
“I have more.” I gesture to the wet bar.
“Juggernaut, I’m to assume the blokes you’re waiting on aren’t mutual associates?”
I shake my head.
“Up for a challenge before they arrive?”
I glance at my phone. Denso, Eadric, and a few others that I invited should be here in an hour. I mention as much.
“All right, since this wanker can buy himself anything he wants, I did a little recon on that enemy of yours down the yard.”
“What?” I ask while everyone else rubs their hands together in anticipation.
“Pierce.” Trick’s eyes are alight with mischief. “Bugger me, you look shocked, Jag. You mentioned the bastard while drunk one time. To my surprise, the wanker is still kicking. Let’s get rid of him.”
I rub a hand over the back of my neck. “C’mon, I’ve got a place in my heart for the bastard, same as I have for you. Can’t best you, can’t best him.”
“The two of you?” Javier wags a finger back and forth. “Was it during Jagger’s kill-head?”
“Nah, mate.” Trick shakes his head. “I don’t play games.”
Devonte chortles. “No, you don’t. But I can see you two bumping heads on occasion.”
I sigh. “Like bulls. But nothing, even fighting with Trick, brings me greater pleasure than telling Pierce no each time he wants something. Air rights. Hotel expansion. I bought everything around him from seven ways to hades. The bitch can’t move unless I say so.”
Trick lifts his drink. “Hey, I’m all for a power play—in bed—with women.”
I roll my eyes. “Fuck you.”
“So,” Javier pats my shoulder, “mi amigo, which one you want more? Kill ‘em? Or keep a vise grip on his cajones? In my familia, we can hate a person until our dying death. But Trick just mentioned blood. I also like the feel of that too.”
Devonte nods in agreement.
“What he has coming, won’t be something I prefer to finish off in an hour.”
“Tosh.” Trick waves me away. “Big ass estate you have here, brother. We can do something different. Not even hurt him.”
“Oh,” Devonte pushes his drink away. “Not hurt him? Says the man who I’m just waiting to have a kill-head over his head, so that, mind you, I can steal the Sheik account.”
They begin to argue for a moment. I rub at my jaw, contemplating how I’ve hated my grandfather’s weakness. How greed has consumed me.
“Trick, what are you talking about, no pain?”
Devonte chimes in. “That’s what we do.”
Trick smiles brightly, gesturing as if he’s had the most profound epiphany. “Starve him. I for one would like to see the sequence of him starving to death firsthand.”
“No shit, Dr. Firth,” I reply.
“You don’t understand the beauty of it. We can begin with a bottle of water a day, shave off a few ounces a week. I won’t know until we’ve—”
Javier leans over in his chair laughing, though there’s a dark hunger in Trick’s eyes as he speaks. I can just about see it now. The seed of humanity that is slowly blossoming to fruition inside of me the more Mikayla and I talk about doing good de
eds. I’ve agreed to decrease my assignments even further.
I say this will tip the scales back toward my normal—not my new normal that includes Mikayla—but the one that’s had its claws in me for over a decade. I reply, “I like that idea.”
Having her, my beautiful Mikayla, as mine and the child growing in her belly, that’s all the humanity that I need.
The end . . .
Author’s Note
I hope you enjoyed catching up with Jag and Kayla. I had fun with this story because they’re my kind of crazy. Now, many of you who are in my Facebook Group know that I’ve been MIA for a while. I’d long forgotten what it felt like to start a new pseudonym and this one is kicking off with writing, more research than usual, and a great heaping of hope. Alright, enough about that . . .
would you like more Trick and the Black Ballerina??
That answer should be yes, because, between the two of us, Trick became my favorite the instant I wrote his first sentence in Black Queen book 1! So I’ve a little something, something for you. Just turn that page.
P.S.
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Black Ballerina Dark Knight
Click the cover to read about TRICK and Denise. I loved writing him so much that I had to tell myself not to let Trick steal the story in BQ II.
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Make Me Stay II
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