Page 2 of Own It

“Tell me, baby.” I spoke softly against her lips, feeling her relax against me just as I wanted her to. She needed to know she was safe.

As expected, LaMia nodded, surrendering.

“You remember when I went to the bathroom?” She nibbled on her lip, darting her eyes off nervously since I was staring a hole through her.

My heart began to thunder in my chest as I felt the heat rise within my blood.

While I was a rather laid-back ass nigga, I had a temper, too, but only certain shit could bring out that monster. The number one way was to fuck with my girl, my mama, or my brothers. And judging by the glassy look in LaMia’s eyes, some poor muthafucka would endure my fucking wrath tonight.

“I do.”

I kept my voice cool, palming the side of the truck for some leverage because I was unsure if I’d be able to continue to stand up straight after what LaMia told a nigga. The look in her eyes said a lot more than what her mouth had so far.

“Well when I came out, I ran into Judd . . . Judd Jenkins, and he . . . like tried to flirt with me, and when I tried to move around him, he pinned me to the wall outside of the bathroom and gripped me . . . down there,” LaMia explained, skeptical of how things would go.

I stepped back from her coolly before asking, “You aight? He do anything else?” I took her hands in mine, bringing them to my mouth to kiss and savor because I knew it’d be a minute before I could do the shit again.

“No, that was . . . all. Rakim, what are you doing?” She frowned as I opened the back door to the truck and retrieved my gun as soon as I’d let her soft ass hands go.

While I strived to be known as simply the greatest boxer alive, I couldn’t completely leave behind that other side of me. The side that knew guns better than my own reflection or had to fight my own father to stop him from choking the life from my fucking mother.

I’d been disrespected a lot coming up—especially by Nate Godfrey—and therefore, I didn’t tolerate it all anymore. That mixed with my well-hidden but prevalent temper was a recipe for disaster at certain times, like now.

“Aye, you good?” Mylo had mirrored LaMia’s expression, seeing me grab my heat as if I planned to use it right now at this important ass event. I did. “Rah.”

“Take her home.” I kissed LaMia, ignoring her wide, pleading eyes as I helped her into the back seat.

“Rah, just come on. All he did was grab me and that’s it.” She begged verbally and telepathically through her eyes. “He’s stupid and⁠—”

“Mia, leave it alone,” Mylo instructed her, gathering enough from what she’d just said to know I wasn’t about to just shrug off my woman being groped. Mylo was like me and wouldn’t respect a nigga if I did.

I kissed LaMia once more before backing up from the vehicle and shutting the door.

Concealing my gun under my tuxedo jacket just enough to make it past security—who weren’t even planning to check me because of who the fuck I was—I slipped inside, ignoring the party attendees’ wide ass smiles as they low-key fanned out.

My eyes scoured the ballroom until they landed on Judd smiling down into some woman’s face that, too, looked slightly uncomfortable, and that didn’t do anything to help the feeling that had overcome me.

I hated a creep ass nigga, especially one who was too muthafuckin’ big to be exerting his power over women—like my father. I’d smiled and posed for pictures with the nigga, calling him my inspiration which was partially true, but he was a monster my entire childhood, especially to my mother.

With all that shit swarming my head, a nigga was seeing red as I barged through the fancy dressed partygoers, paying them no mind as they happily acknowledged me in return.

“Excuse me,” I said as politely as I fucking could, offering an almost inconspicuous closed-mouth smile down to the woman being hit on by this nigga Judd.

She stepped back abruptly and with no argument, giving me the vibe that she wanted to get away from the handsy and overly confident ass nigga probably fifteen minutes ago.

“Man, what the fuck—” Judd began, brows bundled together in irritation.

“You touched my woman,” I stated more than asked.

I knew LaMia wasn’t lying, but on the off chance that she was, it would make no muthafuckin’ difference. I would die before I believed a random muthafucka over my love.

“Look—” Judd sucked his teeth—“she⁠—”

Gunshots rang out as soon as I pulled that shit off my hip, firing off in haste and intercepting Judd’s explanation plus every current ongoing conversation.

The nigga saying he hadn’t touched LaMia wouldn’t have made a difference to a nigga, but the fact that he’d said anything but that was enough for me to further solidify an already made decision on taking his fucking life.

A slither of silence hung in the air, Judd’s heavy body dropping to the carpeted floor being the only sound, before high-pitched screams blared.