Page 49 of Steel

“Every day.”

“I just knew you two were going to be a couple after KJ was born.” He chuckled. “I bet your brothers it would only bea couple of months before you were ready to pop the question. Shit, you already had the family.”

“Donna never wanted to get married.”

“I know, but people change. Look at your old man.”

I paused in my cleaning and looked up at him.

“Nigga, who you gon’ marry? Maddie? ’Cause Mama Steph ain’t having your ass.”

“First of all, fuck you. If Steph would have waited a little longer, I was gonna ask.”

“You had a lifetime to ask, Pop. Grams always said you won’t miss your water ’til your well runs dry. I guess your ass is parched, huh?”

He chuckled. “I’m happy for her. I like Aaron, but if he ever fucks up or dies, I’m in there.”

I shook my head. “You hell.”

“Seriously, though. Of all my boys, I know you were the one that wanted marriage and a family the most. I still want that to happen for you.”

I sighed. “Yeah, well, I think that ship has sailed.”

“Why? You’re as young and handsome as your old man. Any woman would be lucky to have you and Fat Man.”

“There’s only ever been one woman I wanted to marry, Pop. She ain’t an option.”

“Stranger things have happened. I’m surprised you never asked Jaeda to look for her.”

“Why should I have done that? She told me she couldn’t love me. I couldn’t chase her after that.”

He sighed. “That was a tough time for you. I thought we were gonna have to sit you down for a minute there.”

I remembered the months after my and Neha’s breakup. I was dealing with heartbreak and crashing out on missions. During that time, a gun was of no use to me. Ineededto hit something, and the perps we caught also caught my rage.There’d been a few times where I’d beaten predators to death with my bare hands, much like the other night.

Pops told me I was either gonna have to chill out or fight him. I chose my battles wisely. If he made me fight him, there was no way I could ever hit that man back or hit harder than he could. So I took up boxing and martial arts. I was already good with hand-to-hand combat, but this was different.

Both helped me learn to calm my racing thoughts. Training for my father’s organization was all about survival. We were told and taught we had to protect and make it out by any means necessary. It was embedded in me. Sometimes I forgot that other people weren’t raised like us.

“I got it together,” I reminded him. “Channeled that energy into something good, and my defense academy was one of the best things to come out of that.”

“It was.”

I fell back on the couch with a deep sigh. “Pop?”

“What?”

I knew I needed to tell him about Nayelli. He was the only person I knew that would understand how I was feeling. It had been too long since I found out about her, and my headspace was horrible. After beating that man to death during our mission, I hadn’t been feeling right. My anger about this whole situation was festering.

“I saw her.”

“Who?”

“Neha.”

“Oh, shit. Here?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Apparently, she lives here now. I was dropping Jaiden off at school, and she almost backed into me.”