Page 28

Tayla

I may have joked around a lot tonight, but I knew that Ice was pissed.

He came right in, throwing our captors in a room before nodding for me to follow him.

I followed him down the hall into another room where he closed the door and lifted his mask.

His locs fell framing his face, which was overly calm and unfaltering.

He stood just at the door, studying and not saying a word.

The atmosphere in the room felt charged as we surveyed each other.

In my defense, he wasn’t supposed to be here.

I also hadn’t said a word to him about how he snuck out of the house like a thief in the night.

The moment he shifted me from his lap, I awakened.

I waited to see if he would lift me and carry me to bed.

However, I was covered with a blanket, and within five minutes, he was gone.

I wasn’t sure whether to be upset that he’d left or elated that I could carry out my little plan without him knowing .

I chanced walking over to him and placing my hand on his arm. His hand twitched under my touch. I quickly snatched it back because I knew what that meant. The last time I’d seen his hand twitching like that, I was pinned to the wall.

Shit!

“Baby, I’m highly fucking turned on. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you, but I love seeing you as the Lynx. I could break your back in right now!” He said, continuing to run his eyes up and down my body.

“Aside from that, we have shit to discuss, just don’t touch me while you’re doing it,” he laughed and shook his head. After getting that off his chest, he jumped right into what he wanted to know.

“Tell me everything,” he said with the same calmness as his anger. We didn’t scream at each other or yell, which had never been our vibe. But the tone in which he spoke to me let me know that it was Brice I was talking to. I sighed and began to speak.

“The day at the hospital, I was one hundred percent sure that it was Ivy who had been drugging me. I remember having this raging headache and you telling me that I needed to pull through because you’d done everything you needed to.

I heard you, but I couldn’t open my eyes.

I tried with everything I had, but they wouldn’t budge.

Then you left the room, and someone came in right after you.

I thought you had returned, but it was a woman.

She carried a sweet floral scent that I would never forget.

It was faint, but with the rest of my senses down, it overpowered me with the impression of her touch when she lifted my hand.

Then I was out, everything went black, and I woke up in the guest bedroom.

I knew it wasn’t Ivy when you introduced me to Charise Newton.

She had the same smell and touch. Wait. The day I got shot, Nina was talking to Sin about a link that could be used as leverage against both sides.

I wonder if Charise is that leverage. No, that doesn’t make sense because what does Charise have to do with Costa?

” I huffed a breath as I explained. Then I saw the anger flash across his face in the fluorescent lighting.

After that, he grew so quiet that I wanted to ask him what was on his mind before he started to speak again.

“I snuck out tonight because, as your man, I just want to fix all your problems. Nina and everybody who she associates with is a fucking problem. I’m scared for you, Tay,” he said with anguish, then inhaled a deep breath.

“I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you, Baby.

How we were tonight though, doing shit behind each other’s backs, I don’t want to move like that anymore.

We either move together or not at all. And that goes for shit you have going on with Jourdan too,” he said reaching over to pinch my chin as he looked into my eyes before letting go.

“I agree, we do it together, all of us,” I said. Brice had this pained expression on his face.

“Damn. It sounded like the right thing to say before you repeated it to me. ”

“Tsk, working with us is not that damn bad. You’re putting on, now!” I said and laughed. We were acting up tonight, but I couldn’t tell him he was right.

Nope!

“Brice, I didn’t tell you what I was up to because I didn’t want you to try to stop me.

I should have known how that would have affected you, considering how it made you feel when your sister did the exact same thing.

I’m sorry. The last few years have been rough for all of us, and instead of leaning on each other, we’ve been…

I don’t know what the hell we’ve been doing,” I said, shaking my head and huffing out a breath.

“In all seriousness, vengeance is blinding like a motherfucker, Tay! I try to stay on this side of it, because I know what I’ll become if I don’t.

Tay, when you were on that table fighting for your life.

I was fighting not to step over that line.

I promise, if something happens to any of you again, no one will be able to stop me from crossing it,” he said.

I took a moment to digest what he’d just told me.

Unlike JoJo and me, he’d been caging the Lion his father taught him to be.

“I found something else out that day at the sandwich bar,” I said, pausing. He nodded, urging me to continue.

“Ivy Smith is Costa’s daughter.”

“Yeah?” He asked as he looked at me questioningly.

“Yeah, the day we were in the sandwich bar, I heard Costa arguing with someone. They were speaking in Italian. I understood most of it. They were arguing about how he wants to keep her hidden and that’s it’s not her fault that he was a lying, cheating asshole who got her black mother pregnant.

I didn’t know it was Ivy until she rounded the corner.

I ducked behind the menu until I was sure she was gone, then we got the hell out of there.

” I said and stared off, thinking about the information I told him.

We could all speak several languages, but I was the best of us with Italian.

I only wish I could have picked up on more of the conversation, but it happened so quickly.

“We can definitely use that information later,” he said, stroking his beard.

“I love you, Tay, with everything in me. I always have. You and Bryson are my world. I’ll tell you, like I told Steph.

I’m not taking any more losses. So I need for you to be one of the deadliest motherfuckers walking this earth.

‘We’ put bullets in bodies, Baby. Never let them touch yours again.

Wakanda Forever,” he yelled, and our laughter filled the room.

“I love you too, but I promise you if I hear you or Steph say anything else about my head, I’m kicking both of y’all’s ass.”

“I love your hair, though, Baby. I rock with it. I might cut mine off, too,” he said as he opened the door for me to step out. When we did, his demeanor shifted. Ice was back as soon as we entered the hallway.

Brice

I headed back to the room where they were held.

I entered, observing what Rock had me working with.

Two stainless steel tables sat in the center of the room.

Tonight, they would become part of my operating room.

Lioness and Lynx stood at the door, but did not fully enter.

I wasn’t used to Ice having an audience, but I would perform for them.

I wanted answers, and I was going to get them.

“Rock, did you get the things I needed?” I asked as I ensured everything was in place before we walked around to pick our guests up from the floor.

I laid Charise at one table, and Rock had laid Sin on the other side, right beside her.

The table had leather straps affixed, and we used them to secure their arms and legs.

“Yeah, I got it. It’s on the counter behind you.

” I glanced behind, finding their location.

Yesterday, I asked him to get me an IV pole, bag, administration set, and also vials of morphine and potassium nitrate.

There was also a fully stocked surgical instrument tray.

I could have easily taken what I needed from the hospital, but for one, I didn’t steal; secondly, I didn’t want to blur the lines there.

However, I was about to become Dr. Ice at that moment.

I checked the time on my watch to see that the ketamine would soon wear off and that they would wake up any minute. I held my watch up and tapped the face, letting them know it was almost time. I slid my mask back down, and they all did the same as I slid mine back over my face.

Right on time, Sin came to first wrestling with his restraints.

“What the fuck! Where am I?” He yelled and fought for release until he grew tired, and his breathing became labored. His chest rose and fell rapidly. Finally, he’d calmed down enough to look around the room, and that’s when his anger diminished, and his fear showed through.

“Ice, man,” he said, with his head thumping back onto the table. I sighed.

“Here we go with this shit. What did I tell you?” I asked and waited. I wanted an answer because he needed to understand that I didn’t want to hear the shit again.

“Answer me.”

“That you hated begging.” After I was satisfied that he understood, I walked over to Charise, who was coming to because her dosage of ketamine came minutes after Sin’s.

Instead of fighting, she immediately looked around.

The same fear that had taken Sin a minute to arrive at showed immediately in hers.

As her head rotated to see around the room, her eyes landed on Sin.

“Sincere?” She asked. Finally, her calling his name caused him to look towards the table where she lay.

“What are you going to do to her? She had nothing to do with this. Let her go, man,” Sin pleaded. Charise turned her head back towards me. Her eyes met mine; she studied me before she began to speak.

“I know those eyes and that voice,” she said quietly as if unsure.

This is a first!