Page 151 of Collateral Love
“We got Jared out,” I said. “But we’re still fighting for air. Channy’s bar license was hanging by a thread. My businesses are under a microscope. Cameron is still out there breathing and believing she’s right about all of us.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“It’s not fair,” I added.
He smirked without humor. “Since when have we ever used that word ?”
I sighed.
“Do you regret it?” I asked quietly.
He raised a brow. “Regret what?”
“Any of it,” I said. “Me. The empire. The way we built it. The way it made us targets.”
He stepped closer, crowding my space in that way that never felt like suffocation, only alignment.
“I regret not killing Alan Price myself,” he said. “I regret letting Sharon breathe long enough after the first time I heard her talk down to you. I regret not putting a bullet in Charles ten years ago when he and Channy got married, and I had an eerie feeling about the Nigga.”
He lifted my chin with two fingers.
“I have never regretted you,” he said. “Not one fucking day. You understand me?”
My throat burned.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
His phone buzzed again.
“Go,” I said. “Handle it.”
“You coming home?” he asked.
“In a minute,” I replied. “I wanna sit with this.”
He kissed my forehead, a soft press that still felt like we were twenty-somethings that fucked in the car for the first time, then he walked back to the truck.
Xavier was already in the passenger seat, profile hard against the windshield. War looked good on him and bad on him at the same time.
I watched them drive away.
For a few minutes, I sat on Daddy’s porch steps and just breathed.
For the first time, I had no plans, no maps, no contingencies.
By the time I got back to our house, the sun had started to sink, turning the sky that soft, bruised purple I always loved.
The twins were home now, laughter echoing faintly down the hall, their voices overlapping in that twin-speak that still sounded like music to me.
I paused at their door.
Amara was on the floor on TikTok. Aniya was on the bed, tablet in her lap, headphones around her neck, narrating some game out loud.
“Mommy!” Amara squealed when she saw me. “Pop Pop said Uncle Jared’s out of jail! Is he coming to my recital?”
“Yeah, baby,” I said, leaning against the frame. “He is.”
My niece Genesis looked up, eyes wide. “Is he really home? For real?”
