Page 10

KAIRO

" M a'am, what business do you have with my husband?" Ayesha said from the side of me.

Had this not been a serious moment, I probably would've started laughing at her instigating ass. The jealousy on Cash's face is the only reason I let her have her moment and not correct her. Ayesha was Kaira's sister-in-law, and she was nothing more than a chick I fucked a couple times before.

"Go back to the truck with my mother. Tell her I'll be right there," I shooed her away. She knew I didn't have to answer her, and I wasn't going to pretend I did to make Cash mad. She turned with an attitude and stomped in the direction of the truck.

KJ was still hanging on to my neck, damn near suffocating me the same way I wanted to do his mother.

"Is this where you disappeared to?" I asked.

"No, I'm a state over in Kentucky. I'm just celebrating KJ's third birthday this weekend."

I clenched the muscles in my jaw. Just thinking about the fact that she chose to celebrate birthdays without me pissed me off.

"When is his birthday?" It was a question I should never have had to ask, and I kept willing myself to not People's Elbow her in this shop.

"Tomorrow," She answered.

"He was born on my mother's birthday."

"I'm sorry, Ro. I know I should've told you, but-"

"Give me your phone," I demanded.

"What? Why?" She countered, her face shifting from sadness to confusion.

"Open it and give it to me," I barked, and she did as I told her.

I dialed my number and waited for my phone to ring so that I could contact her.

My contact information was still saved in her phone; I had purposely kept the same number all these years, waiting for her to reach out to me, but that call had never come.

After I called myself, I shared her location with me from her phone.

"Where are you staying?" I grilled her.

"Dorado Beach." She answered.

"Let me get my people to the house and settled in. I shared your location with me. If you're not at the hotel in exactly one hour, we're going to have a major issue. Do you understand that?"

She blew out a breath of frustration as she looked at KJ. "Don't take him, please." She begged.

"I'm not taking him. We have a lot we need to figure out. I'll meet you at the resort in one hour. Sixty minutes, don't even test your luck and show up in sixty-one." I looked her in the eyes as I spoke.

Leaning over so she could take him, he went back to her as she put him down on the ground, straightened his clothes, and kissed his cheek.

"I'll see you in a second, okay? Tell Mommy to let you buy whatever you want." I said as I reached my hand out for him to slap, which he gladly did. Then I went into my pocket and gave him a stack of money.

"You going back to school?" He questioned, and my eyes snapped to his mother.

"Nah, I'm done with school," I assured him. "Fifty-eight minutes," I said to Cash as I turned to return to the truck, now parked at the curb waiting for me.

The last thing I wanted to do was leave KJ with his mother, especially after discovering he existed.

But I didn't want to add so many moving parts before I had shit figured out myself.

My entire family was here; my sisters would probably stand in line behind my mama to beat Cashmere's ass.

Right now, bullshit isn't what KJ needed.

He needed to know he had a father, and I needed to bond with my son.

I had matured a lot since she left me because she left me.

It was the first time in my life that I had a consequence for my actions that I gave a fuck about.

The threat of jail and prison didn't faze me.

But losing her had me sick as fuck. I'm not too tough to admit that I was down bad for at least a year.

Cash was the only woman I had ever loved, aside from the females in my family.

As much as I wanted to have hard feelings about how foul she moved, I couldn't bring myself to hate her.

I know I put her in a predicament to lose everything because I couldn't check my feelings, but I didn't think she'd take it this far.

“Everything okay Kai?” My mother asked, calling me by the name that only she used, as she sat in the seat and continued to sip her drink slowly.

"Yeah, just somebody I know from around the way." I brushed it off as Ayesha shot daggers my way.

"Some cougar whose face he was in. They had the audacity to stop talking when I walked up too Mama Roc," Ayesha said with an attitude.

"You haven't learned about older women after Cashmere had you crying for forty days and forty nights?" She joked as she laughed loudly. My mama was the only person I could vent to during that time. Nobody else would've ever believed it. The shit wasn't funny then, but we could laugh about it now.

"Ma, chill," I said as I chuckled at the thought. Cash's ass had me torn up.

I looked down at my GPS and saw we had fifteen minutes to make it to the house before I switched to Cash's location.

She was in a car now, and for her sake, she had better hope that the car was taking her to her reserve.

Despite how I felt about her, now that I knew my son existed, she would never reappear if she pulled another disappearing act.

We made it to the mansion that I had rented. Everyone was outside at the pool, and my brother was barbecuing. Grabbing my mom's and Ayesha's luggage from the back, I carried it inside and told the driver to wait for me.

I hugged my sisters and then dapped up their husbands and my brothers.

My little niece Kaiya ran up to me and finessed me out of a hundred-dollar bill after she reminded me that I forgot to bring her a beach ball a couple of months ago.

I had just found out about KJ's existence less than an hour ago, and I was already thinking that he should be right here with them playing in the water.

"Where are you going, Ro?" My younger brother Kaino asked me as I hastily walked back to the front of the house so I could leave.

"Yeah, where you going?" Ayesha asked as she came behind him and walked toward me.

"It's always business to handle," I answered him and disregarded her entirely. He nodded, and I continued to walk toward the truck.

"Ayesha, leave my brother alone! Stop hounding him. You already popped up at my mama's house so you could get on the jet with them." My sister Kaira came out the door with a pan of macaroni in her hand and yelled at her in-law. Her husband stood behind her, shaking his head at his sister.

"I'm manifesting not hounding beloved." She said as she laughed and turned to follow my sister back into the backyard.

Ayesha was cool, and she was fine as fuck.

But she was trying to force me into a relationship, which wasn't what I wanted from her.

At first, she said she was cool with it, but then she flipped.

I wasn't the type of nigga that could be pressured, so I fell back from her.

Jumping back into the truck, I clicked on Cash's location again. I had twenty-three minutes until I was going to get the answers from her that I had waited three years for.