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“Honey, talk to me, please.”

Shaking my head, I reply, “Every time I close my eyes, the only thing that I see is my SUV going up in flames. He wasn’t even supposed to be with me that day, Bay. He was supposed to have the day off. I called him in at the last minute. That was supposed to be me in that car.”

A slight hand moves from my shoulder, and strong arms wrap themselves around me, pulling me closer.

“Don’t talk like that, honey. You’ve been saying that for the last couple of days. I’m sorry that Ghalen is no longer with us. I loved him like a big brother, but don’t talk like that.”

I drop my head into my hands.

“How the hell are Pam and the kids going to survive this? Who will take care of them?” My voice breaks.

Clearing my throat, I sit up in the chair, remove my hands from my eyes, and stare sightlessly ahead.

“You will provide for them. You have given them excellent insurance and benefits. They won’t want for anything.”

“They will want for their husband and their father! I can’t give them everything they need!”

Bayleigh jumps a little. It’s seldom that I raise my voice at her.

“I’m sorry, Bay. I’m so sorry.” I apologize. I reverse the hold and take her into my arms.

I kiss the top of her head. “It’s okay, babe. I know that you didn’t mean it.”

“I was walking out of the building, and it just happened. Right in front of my eyes.”

“I know, and I’m so sorry that you had to see that.”

We sit together silently in the seating room of our master suite. It’s been two days since my partner, my other best friend, lost his life. I haven’t left this bedroom since I arrived home around midnight after staying with the police and the fire investigators.

They didn’t suspect me of anything, but they damn sure had a lot of questions for me with everything else going on in my life.

A knock sounds at the door, and I look at Bayleigh and then clear my throat.

“Sit here. I’ve got it. It’s probably one of the boys.” She stands and presses her hands down her sides.

I watch as she walks into our bedroom, through the living area, and disappears to answer the door. I can hear soft voices at the doorway.

“Z, baby. Zech says your brother is here.”

Damn! I forgot all about Damascus wanting to meet with me. I stand up and head for the door.

“Are you okay?”

“I am. Thanks, baby.” I kiss her forehead. “Go check on your sister.”

“Okay,” she replies before she heads down the stairs.

I walk slowly behind her with Zechariah. Riley’s been feeling a bit sick lately, and Bayleigh’s been trying to keep a close eye on her. Too much stress could be harmful to both her and the baby.

“Dad, you gotta get it together, man,” Zechariah says as we walk down the steps together.

“I know, dude. I just needed a minute. Shit be too much for a G sometimes. When it gets like that, you gotta take a knee. Sometimes, even taking a knee won’t help; you gotta climb up into His arms. That’s what I’ve done the last couple of days since we lost him.”

“I know, Dad. It just doesn’t seem right without Uncle G around, hanging in the kitchen, eating up Mama’s food, and then lying to Aunt Pam that he ain’t ate all day.” Zechariah reminisces with a soft chuckle.

My kids were close to Ghalen. He was like an uncle to them, and truthfully, they were closer to him than they are to my siblings. That’s only because we have to keep a distance between us.

“I’m worried about her.”

“I know. Mama said she is too. She went with her to make the funeral arrangements this morning, and Mama had to do everything. She said Aunt Pam couldn’t remember simple things like his birth date.

It’s gotta be hard. Makes you not want to get married if loving hurts like that.

I see why you ain’t never marry Mama, and as much as I love Marika, I probably won’t ever marry her either.

Can’t stand the thought of losing someone like that. ”

We stop on the second-floor landing, and I grab my son by the shoulders, turning him toward me.

“Listen here. Maybe I fucked up, and I’ve sent you the wrong message. I didn’t avoid marrying your mama because I was scared to lose her. Hell yeah, I’m scared of losing her and y’all li’l asses too. But whether I marry her or not, one day, one of us is going to lose the other. That’s just a fact.

“I didn’t marry your mama because I never wanted her to get caught up in my shit.

When you live a life like I live, if I take on a wife, she’s now attached to me.

If anything goes wrong, they're coming after her too. In today’s superficial world, data is not your friend anymore, especially in my situation.

The best way to protect her is to be married to her in the spirit, but not on paper.

I’ve never not been married to your mama, just not according to society’s rules. You feel me?”

“Yeah, OG. My bad.”

Zechariah reaches his hands out and grips my shoulders.

“I love you, man.”

I pull my son closer and pound him on the back. “I love you too,” I mumble before I kiss the top of his head.

I clench my jaws to hold off the emotions that want to manifest in tears. I ain’t with that shit. We pull apart and head down the rest of the stairs.

“Where’s your uncle?”

“In your office.”

“A’ight. I’ll holler at you later.”

“I’m heading out. Call me if you need me, OG.” I watch my oldest disappear down the long hallway before I turn and head inside my office.

“Hope you don’t mind.” Damascus greets me with an upheld snifter in his hand.

“It’s all good, man. Sorry ‘bout the meeting the other night,” I apologize, walking to my desk and taking a seat.

He tosses the whiskey back and shakes his head. “Nah, it’s all good. As soon as I heard what happened on the police radio, I knew you wouldn’t be coming. I came to you, though.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“I started to come over to you, but I didn’t want to raise any suspicions. So, I stayed at the edge with the other officers.”

“You did well. We should keep shit on the low. We stick to the same plan. We’re safe as long as nobody knows that y’all are my siblings. It’s the only way we keep the power in the city the way that we do. The only way that we can maneuver and run the city the way that we do.”

“Except someone’s trying to cripple your ass from the inside.

Trying to bring down this entire empire.

You cut off the head of the snake, and you weaken the rest of the enemy.

I kept thinking about shit, and it didn’t make sense.

Small attacks to the Fab Five, but major attacks on you.

Only someone who knew about the Significant Six could go for the jugular the way they’ve been doing. ”

The Significant Six was what our mama had called us back in the day. Everyone wasn’t privy to that information; only those close to us were. When we were separated, I had taken to calling them the Fabulous Five.

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Z. Someone put Essence back into the running for the race, knowing that if she gets elected mayor, Savannah is out of the DA’s office.

Aspen and Denver’s business has come under scrutiny.

They were recently audited and fighting against people who wanted to cast aspersions on them about insider trading. ”

“Damn, that’s right, I’d forgotten about all that shit with my shit going on.”

“Right. Your hands were tied, trying to make it difficult for you to come to their rescue, but it was just talk. Luckily, no actions have been taken, but talk is all you need to take a hit in the stocks, and their stocks are down. Then you’ve got Cheyenne, who’s encountering blocks on every proposal that she puts before the council lately.

Taking the city planner out, the DA and the CEO of the largest construction and real estate companies in the southeast ain’t nothing to sneeze at. ”

“Then there’s you,” I say.

“Right. Then there’s me. That bullshit investigation they tried to start earlier this year into police harassment and corruption was all to get me tied up in my shit so that I couldn’t focus my attention where it needed to be. Other than our family, who knows about us? Who knows, we’re siblings.”

“Essence.”

Damascus sneers. “She didn’t remember all of us. Only you, Cheyenne, and I. Savannah wasn’t around when she was, and neither were the twins. So, that leaves who, big bro?”

My mind doesn’t want to turn over what he’s saying. The wind leaves my chest, and I feel like I can’t breathe. “He’ll fucking die!” I shout, throwing a glass paperweight from my desk at the wall, leaving a hole there.