Page 10

Nyoka

I sat like a true passenger seat princess while Adonis drove the entire ten hours to Lima.

I had woken up the day after Christmas with an entirely new outlook on my relationship.

I loved Adonis and was ready to move into the next chapter in our lives.

When he mentioned he wanted to take the trip to meet his family, I was already pre-planning outfits and thinking of what hairstyle I wanted to wear.

He had repeatedly expressed how small of a town it was so I wouldn't be caught dead not looking my best.

Because the winter months in Ohio could be so frigged, we had waited for the weather to break to make the trip.

He had suggested flying, but wherever I went, so did my arsenal.

I was glad as hell that when my car had gotten broken into.

The thief wasn't smart enough to check where the spare tire went.

Under that cover, I had knives, guns, the whole nine.

"Make a right, and then your destination is on the right…"

The nerves in my stomach started to bubble once Siri gave us our end destination.

Adonis had told me to cut off the GPS about two hours back, but I wanted to keep it on so that I could see exactly where we were going.

I loved him, but I was still a guarded person.

It was seven in the morning, and I suggested going straight to the hotel, but Adonis said he had wanted to go see his family first.

I could tell he had missed his family over these months and was excited to see them.

I was glad that we were actually taking this trip and getting away because we had fallen into a terrible, repetitive schedule in the months after Christmas and moving in with one another.

Adonis would spend his days out tending to yards and later added a roofing service to his business.

While he was out handling his business, I would spend my days finding a room to decorate inside the house, and when that became too boring, Talia would drag me with her to stage some houses.

With every house she closed on, she would slide me some money for helping her decorate.

Some nights, Adonis would come in too tired to pay me any attention.

I was big on keeping the peace under our roof.

I had noticed that he had started paying less attention to me and more to his phone, but I wouldn't do more than make little side remarks here and there.

Adonis would assure me that I was good with him. It's funny how he would give the reassurance that I needed, but it wasn't in the most romantic way that I would have preferred but it was done, nonetheless.

He pulled my Jeep over the gravel-filled driveway and tossed it in park.

"Are you ready to meet my family, babe?"

Adonis was smiling, and that alone caused me to smile. He was excited as fuck, and I was nervous.

"Yup…"

Hand in hand, we walked toward the front door. He pulled it open. Seeing it was unlocked, I figured he must have told someone to keep the door open for us.

"Baby, is that you?" I knew Joy's voice from the numerous FaceTime calls the two shared.

Adonis walked us through the living room, dining room, and straight into the kitchen.

I could see him holding a short, slim chestnut-colored woman.

Her arms wrapped around him, and then she looked over his body and made eye contact with me.

"Hey, pretty girl, come get in on this hug," she instructed me.

I walked over and then joined in on the love.

"It's nice to meet you," she added at the end of our hug.

"Where the rest of the niggas in this house, Joy?" Adonis asked as he looked around the kitchen.

"Your sister will be over a little later, and Javier is upstairs in his room with that girl." Joy rolled the shit out of her eyes with her statement.

"As he should be. Fix ya face, old lady."

"I will not. Y'all be trying to turn my home into a whore house so bad."

Adonis laughed, and I chuckled a bit, but then my little hehe moment left when I realized he used to live under this roof, too.

"That's what you were on, huh, babe?" I asked with a laugh.

"Yeah, was… the girls in this city know you getting cracked if you pull up over here."

"Just nasty," Joy chimed in as she threw the kitchen towel over her shoulder at him.

It was nice that Adonis could talk freely around the woman who had raised him.

I thought that because he didn't use curse words around the woman, he would have had more of a reserved demeanor around her, but nope, he was still himself.

That's something that I loved about him.

He wasn't going to change who he was around anybody, not around my family or his.

By the time his little brother had woken up Joy had finished breakfast.

We spent the early afternoon in the living room, laughing and engaging in conversation.

Adonis and I had sat next to each other on the sofa.

Every once in a while, he would check his phone and place it face down on the arm of the chair.

I took my phone off my lap and then placed it on top of his, hoping that he would get the hint to leave his phone alone because the time that we were having was solely for family.

However, when the arm of the chair vibrated again, Adonis moved my phone out of the way to get to his.

I decided to leave what was bothering me alone because I was having a good time overall.

His sister came over with her kids, which made the house even more lively.

"You can't remember some stuff like that.

You were just a little kid," Adira said as Javier went on about a memory of theirs.

"On Joy, I remember that… Aye, Joy, you don't remember when Adonis got suspended for throwing that hot honey bun at the science teacher?"

I laughed as I looked at Adonis. I needed the explanation behind it.

"She was a Virgo. I don't like them for real," Adonis commented with a shrug.

Joy was too engaged with her phone to pay us any mind. She stood up from the chair she was sitting in and then went to the front porch. She was so focused on the phone in her hand that she almost bumped into my leg on the way out.

She seemed bothered, and a piece of me wanted to follow her out on the porch to see if she was okay, but I wanted to give her the privacy she must have left the room to get.

"So, did the honey bun stick to her skin?" I asked, engaging back in the conversation.

"Didddd itttt…" Javier dragged as he went on and on about the story.

I didn't realize I was sleepy until I yawned for a third time.

"We gone leave in a minute, okay? We need rest after that long drive. We can go check into the hotel and then catch a nap before dinner later," Adonis whispered.

I just shook my head to let him know I had heard him. I hoped that he would have us say goodbye soon because I couldn't wait to get him back to that hotel room to do a bunch of nasty shit to him.

Joy Loving

My feet weren't moving fast enough outside.

I had read the text message from Jolene seven times before rushing to the porch.

I'm outside.

I didn't know why my daughter decided to pop up now, but I was going to get to the bottom of it.

We would speak once a week, and during our talk this week, when I mentioned Adonis coming into town, she told me that she needed to see him.

She hadn't seen him since he was a boy, so I didn't understand the sudden interest.

She told me she would explain when she saw me, and she sure did have to do a lot of explaining.

When I made it to the porch, I closed the house door behind me.

"Jolene, this had better be damn good."

"Well, hello, Ma."

"Don't you Ma me. What are you doing here, Jolene, knowing the kids are here?"

My little mini-me stood to her feet, and when she did, I was able to see that she had put on a couple of pounds. Chasing behind the money must have caught up to her.

"I came because I think Adonis is in trouble."

Instantly, my ears had opened a little wider.

"What brought you to this conclusion?" I asked.

"I have it so that whenever one of us is looked up, I get an alert, and someone looked up Adonis a couple of months back."

Knowing what Jolene did for a living let me know that whoever was looking for my baby didn't have any good intent behind it.

"Okay, and who was the person who did the search?"

"It doesn't matter now. She's gone."

"Well, if she is taken care of, then what makes you think Adonis is still in trouble?"

Jolene stood in front of me, chewing on her bottom lip.

"I know she wasn't looking him up for herself. Before I cut her eyelids off, I could see in her eyes that she was trying to protect someone else."

The gory details weren't necessarily needed, but I understood that being gruesome was mandatory when defending family.

"I think he is okay. Now, you need to go before he comes out—"

I stopped speaking when I heard both the front and the screen door open behind me.

Jolene looked over my shoulder, and there was a softness to her glare that let me know that one of her children was behind me.

"Joy, I know this ain't who I think it is…" Adonis' tone had a coldness to it.

He was old enough to remember exactly who his mother was, but neither child remembered who I was to them because I was never around until Jolene decided to leave them to replace me.

"Baby, this is your mother…"

Adonis

I wasn't like Adira.

She yearned for a relationship with our biological mother, and personally, I couldn't give two fucks.

Everybody knows that a boy's first love is their mother, and I feel like I didn't have one.

That woman lost the title of mother when she allowed me and my sister to enter the system.

Joy always saw that her reasoning for it was valid and that I should at least try to have some kind of relationship with the woman, but I wasn't going for that.

Joy's voice broke me from my thoughts as I looked into the eyes of the woman who had abandoned me.

"Baby, did you hear me?" Joy asked.

"Ny… let's go."

I heard Nyoka's sweet tone saying goodbye inside to the family I had just introduced her to. While Nyoka was giving one of my nieces a hug, I snatched her hand and pulled her past both Joy and Jolene and down the steps. As Nyoka and I walked toward the car, I could hear Adira and Javier coming outside.

"Mom?" I heard Adira say. She sounded shocked, but I could tell that there was a slight glimmer of happiness in her tone.

"Adonis…"

I kept walking as I ignored the stranger's voice calling after me. As a boy, my mother was my heart. She was so beautiful to me, and her voice was one that I could never forget. Her raspy tone used to be the sweetest thing to me, and now I was disgusted with the sound of the shit.

"Donny…" I paused with Nyoka's small hand filling mine. I stood in my tracks.

Memories of my mother calling me that as a little boy came right to me. We used to play hide-and-seek, and her raspy tone would lightly say my name throughout our small apartment.

"Donny…" she would say with a raspy giggle as she pulled back curtains and tablecloths just to find me.

"Can I talk to you, please?"

I felt a tap on my shoulder, quickly dropped it, and turned around with the mean mug plastered on my face.

"Bruh, leave me the fuck alone."

"Adonis!" I heard Joy yelling from the front porch. I never cursed around her. None of us did. "She is still your mother."

I looked deep into the eyes of the woman standing before me. Looking at eyes that mirrored mine in shape and in color pissed me off even more.

"Joy, fuck this lady. You're my mother."

"Actually… I'm your grandmother."

Memories of Joy for years defending the woman standing before me flashed in my mind, and now it was all starting to make sense. One day, Adira and I were with my mother, and then the next, this lady came along and said that she had adopted us. I remember other kids having nanas, and I never had one. I had a Joy. I broke the deep stare with my mother to give Joy my undivided attention.

"What?"

"Baby, come inside! We're doing all this fussing in the street!" Joy yelled from the porch.

As I shifted sights between Joy and my surrogate, I started to see the resemblance between the two. My sight became blurry as my eyes watered. I loved Joy the very first time I laid eyes on her because of how similar she looked to my mother.

"Bullshit!" At this point, I was hollering.

Two squeezes in the palm of my hand made me look down to see that Nyoka was still standing beside me.

Calm down is what the two squeezes signaled, and I knew it, but I just couldn't.

We stood on the curb hand in hand as my life, or what I knew to be my life, was turning upside down.

Nyoka was witnessing a real nigga out on the curb crying like a little ass boy. The tears were flowing, and I didn't even give a damn to wipe them.

"Donny…"

"Stop muthafucking calling me that!" I yelled as I slapped my mother's hand away from me.

"Let's go…" I heard Nyoka say as she pulled me closer to her Jeep.

"Nah, stop muthafucking calling me that!"

I was pulling away from Nyoka because badly I wanted to kill the woman standing before me.

"Baby, just go."

"Joy, shut yo' ass up. You're a liar!" I snapped.

"Aye, bruh, don't talk to Joy like that." Javier stood from his seat on the porch to defend the woman who had raised us.

"Jay, you shut the fuck up too! She ain't ever lie to you."

Joy put her head down as she muthafucking should have.

Adira just stood on the sideline, calmly watching as things played out.

I didn't get why she wasn't as angry as me.

I chalked her emotionless glare up to her for still having availability in her heart for the woman who had birthed us.

I didn't have that shit in me because growing up without a mother hit a little harder for me.

If nobody else knew, Joy did.

She knew more than anything how hard I had it coming up.

She knew more than anybody how many times I had gotten into trouble, and I had cried for my mother. Before her giving us up, I was a mama's boy to the core.

Nyoka's small frame was pulling me with all her might.

I finally stopped standing my ground when I saw Joy was crying.

Although all of this was hurting my heart, it was breaking my shit to see her cry.

"Baby, I'm sorry," her voice cried out, but she didn't have shit to be sorry about.

If anybody should be sorry, it should have been my mother.

After getting in the car, I watched as everyone became small in size as Nyoka drove away.

Joy

Adira was the easiest of all the kids I had raised, and Adonis was the roughest for sure.

He was so much like his mother, so much like what I used to be.

He was her twin physically, and their attitudes were mirrored in every way.

I watched as the Jeep sped down the block, and pieces of my heart fell onto the floorboard of my soul with each second passing.

I took a deep breath and controlled my emotions because I knew Baby would come around after he took the time to process everything.

For the first time in a long time, I saw my daughter do something that I thought she was no longer capable of — cry.

"Girl, come inside.

How else did you expect that to go?"

I had been telling Jolene for years that springing things on Baby wasn't the way to go about things.

Now Adira was the kid that you could just spring things on.

I knew she would take to the reunion more smoothly than Adonis.

Adira had the natural instinct to forgive and forget, while Adonis, on the other hand, held grudges as the day was long.

I watched as my daughter walked with her shoulder's hug.

"I done told you that this wouldn't smooth over well."

Jolene ignored me as she went into the house.

Adira and Javier had both followed us in.

"So Joy you have been lying to my brother his whole life?" Javier asked me once we all gathered in the living room.

"Not right now, child."

"So when? You ever lied to me?"

I let his question linger because I hadn't, and I started to let the guilt eat at me for lying to Baby and Adira.

"And you… Adira, how are you even cool with any of this?" The last thing that I wanted was for any more of my kids to turn on each other.

"Javier, just leave this alone for right now, got dammit. Let the dusk settle for a bit."

"This some bullshit," I heard him mumble before he walked out and let the door slam behind him.

I was able to breathe a little once he was out of the door.

"Sit ya ass up and hold your head up. You don't get the right to pout."

I was pissed with Jolene.

"Ma—"

"Ma, nothing! You could have handled whatever without showing ya damn face."

"Don't act like you don't understand this life."

Jolene's words lingered.

I made eye contact with Adira, who was seated in a chair on the far right of the room.

It was obvious she was just processing everything.

Jolene was right.

I knew exactly what that lifestyle was like because I often dropped her on my mama's steps because I had a contract to fulfill.

I would be gone for months at a time, but I always made it back home because I had been missing my child.

After my mama passed, I started bringing her along with me.

Jolene knew more than anybody that I understood her lifestyle.

What I didn't respect was her popping up this time.

Over the years, she would check in with me before popping in.

Most years, the kids would be down for bed, and she would come and kiss their foreheads before disappearing into the night.

So yes, I understood life, but that didn't mean I liked it.

Before I threw the towel in and sat my ass down to raise her children, I was one of the top assassins in the Midwest.

When I sat on the bench, I gave Jolene the torch, and she replaced me.

I had told her that if she were going to do this, then I would adopt them, and I wouldn't be called grandma because I didn't deserve that title for not being there for them during their early years.

When I first got these kids, they didn't know me from a hole in a wall.

All they knew was that I was the woman that had adopted them.

When Adonis hit thirteen, I had gone and adopted another little boy because I realized I loved having and raising children.

I took to it naturally, like the stone-cold killer part of me didn't even exist.

"It's either you're gonna come clean to these kids about what you do or retire, one or the other.

I needed Jolene to see that she couldn't have both.

There was no way that I could still be the ruthless murderer that I used to be and still have as much love in my body as I do now.

"Who was Donny with?"

Her random question threw me off.

"Jolene, are you done with this shit or not?"

"Adira, who was your brother with?" she ignored me.

"That's his girlfriend, Nyoka."

"Mmm…"

I knew what kind of mmm that was.

"What, Jolene?" I had to ask.

"I know her."

"What?" I questioned.

"I know her," Jolene repeated.

From what Baby had told me, Nyoka was a good girl from the city.

"How?" I had to ask. I didn't see where in the two lifestyles they would have crossed. Jolene was a ruthless killer, and Nyoka was a sweetheart.

"She's like us, and now whoever looked him up makes sense."

Now that I wasn't expecting.

Nyoka seemed like a sweet girl with no edge at all to her.

Only I knew how happy Baby was with this woman.

In the short amount of months of them being together, I saw that she had brought out the good in him. She had grounded him, and I'd be damned if my daughter got in between that.

"Let him be. He's happy."

"There's a price on her head."

"Jolene, leave it alone."

"She's a Supreme…"

I let what Jolene just said linger because then I knew just how skilled Nyoka was.

Not everyone was gifted the necklace I once wore around my neck.

The same necklace that Jolene wore around hers.

I knew my daughter, and more than the money, she would be chasing the thrill with this one.

Just like me when I was her age, I would chase the highest paying or most thrilling contract.

Money excited me, and the lifestyle was exhilarating.

I could see my daughter's mental knobs churning rapidly, and before she made up a plan in her head to make good on the contract that was out on Nyoka, it was something that I had to try first.

"Let me make a call," I said before walking off.

I knew only one man in the world who could interfere with such a contract. I just hope that he still had love in his heart for me.

Nyoka

I could barely focus while I drove Adonis and me to the hotel to finally check-in.

We had spent the greater part of the day at Joy's house.

I was enjoying myself until I laid eyes on a blast from my past that caused the bones in my body to quiver.

I hadn't seen Onyx since my graduation ceremony.

I had tuned Adonis out, but he was talking a mile a minute in the passenger seat.

"How could they do this shit to me?"

Knowing who his mother now was, I knew exactly how she could have.

The life I lived was the reason that I was thirty-four with no kids.

The type of woman Onyx was, I never could imagine her as a mother. She was a drill sergeant when it came to training classes. She was the reason that my shot was so precise.

"By the time you leave here in twenty-nine weeks, you will be able to make a headshot with your eyes closed." Her raspy voice remained in the back of my mind.

"How could they do this to me, Ny?"

Adonis' voice sounded like a little boy begging me for answers I didn't have. As I pulled into a park, he wiped his face clean with his strong, tatted hands. I pushed my glasses up on the bridge of my nose before trying to console him.

"Everybody lives their lives a certain way. Maybe her way of living isn't what was best for you, but it probably was the best decision for her."

"You sound like Joy with all that bullshit."

I wondered if Joy knew of Onyx's extracurricular activities.

She had to if she agreed to raise her children.

Suddenly, I felt sick to my stomach when I thought about the bounty on my head.

If anybody could erase me from the map, it was Onyx.

She was precise, accurate as hell, and she had taught me everything I knew, so she already knew how I moved.

"Does Joy know which hotel we are staying in?"

Adonis looked at me with this confused look.

I knew my questioning was off, but I had to prepare myself just in case.

I had offered to book the hotel and to drive my Jeep because I needed my arsenal of weaponry.

There was no being lax while on vacation, especially with a bounty on my head.

"No, she doesn't."

I sighed because at least I knew I could sleep a little easier for the night.

"You good, gang?"

Adonis' whole life just got flipped upside down, and he was worrying about me.

"Yeah, come on."

When we made it inside our hotel room, I listened to all the stories he had that he could remember with his mother in them.

Adonis had a huge heart, which showed how much love he still harbored in his being for the woman who had abandoned him.

I smiled when he smiled and laughed when he laughed.

Hell, I even cried because at least if only for a brief moment in his life, he was able to feel and remember love from his mother.

The memories of my mother that I had were all the ones of her hating me because of what my father had done to her.

She had issued years of emotional and physical abuse upon me all because a man couldn't stay faithful to her and treat her right.

That's where my assassin name, "Snake Eyes" had come from.

My own damn mother named me Nyoka because, in my father's culture, it meant snake, and that's exactly what my father was to her.

For hours, I let Adonis talk my head off about his mother and Joy.

My stomach started rumbling, and that's when I remembered why we had even gone straight to Joy's house to begin with so that we could get some food.

Adonis, Adira, and Joy had been making fun of me for the past few weeks because I had never had homemade Rotel dip before.

It was obviously a country thing that my city-ass knew nothing about.

"You hungry?" Adonis asked once my stomach had growled for the third time.

"Starving."

"Come on, let's eat."

I really wanted some of that Rotel that they had been talking about, but I knew going back to Joy's house wasn't an option at the moment.

"You like hibachi?"

My mouth watered at the thought of some steak with zucchini and yum-yum sauce.

"Yes."

"Okay, I know a spot. Let me get one of these first."

He held his arms out, and I fell into his embrace.

I loved it when he said that shit.

Considering the circumstances, I knew he needed a little more love than usual.

Naturally, Adonis was affectionate.

There was a point where he seemed slightly closed off after I had ghosted him, but we got past that.

I don't know when I broke through his icy heart, but I was glad I did.

I rubbed his back gently as we embraced.

He kissed my forehead like he always did before we made our departure.

As Adonis drove around his city, I felt out of place in the passenger seat.

Abandoned houses and empty lots had passed us by as he maneuvered my vehicle like it was his.

There was something about the way a man maneuvered through his city that made my mouth water.

With one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the shift gear, I badly wanted to place my face into his lap and blow him off.

Of course, I held my composure because the room I had booked for us had a Jacuzzi and a balcony.

I didn't care that this was a place he had called home for years.

I wasn't from Lima, so I didn't give a damn about having my tits hanging over the railing while he drilled me from behind.

Those people didn't know me.

I watched as the veins in his forearm flexed with turning the wheel to park into the parking spot.

I sat patiently as he killed the engine and walked around to open my door.

We walked hand in hand to an establishment called Yamato's.

Adonis held the front door open for me, and we waited in line to request a seat for two.

"This table has two seats left.

You guys can join this party," the server informed us as she ushered us toward a table in the back.

When we reached our destination, Adonis pulled out my chair before taking his own.

He had his hand placed on my lap, and I smiled as I looked at him.

He seemed to be in better spirits, and I was sure it was from venting and getting all of that backed up hurt off his chest.

Those warm dessert-colored eyes went dark, and the color looked like it started to drain from his face.

I turned around and looked at the other end of the table to see what had suddenly changed his mood.

When I looked to the other end of the table, a Spanish woman with curly hair was wiggling her fingers in a wave at him.

I turned back around to face him.

I wasn't the jealous type at all, but seeing that whoever this woman was, was getting the best of him got under my skin.

I leaned into him.

"Who is that?" I quietly asked.