Page 33 of Own It

“Do you have a gift for me?” Ayanna asked, making me laugh.

“I don’t, baby girl. I ain’t know you was coming, but I got you⁠—”

“Aye, you speak to your father first!” Ayan snapped officiously. “Hey!” He barked again, making his kids flip around promptly to look away from me. “Speak to me before anybody, do you understand?” he scolded, and they nodded, saying ‘yes, sir’ simultaneously.

I recognized their body language because it was the same shit my brothers and I experienced whenever my father would come home. I noticed LaMia had seized up a little bit, too, and judging by the fact that she didn’t speak up to correct or chide her nigga, I could see that she was afraid of his ass too.

“Relax, my nigga,” I told him, then looked down at Ayan Jr. and Ayanna. “Y’all just happy to see me because y’all see ya dad all the time, right?” I smiled down at them, hoping to ease the tension in their little shoulders.

Additionally, my brother was usually everywhere but home, so I knew they didn’t see his ass as much as they should’ve been.

“Mind yo’ fucking business, bruh.,” Ayan shot back, removing his boxing gloves like he was trying to do something. The sight made me chuckle subtly. “Them my kids—” He then pointed to LaMia—“and that’s my woman.”

I knew he was trying to fuck with a nigga, but LaMia being his was the last thing I gave a fuck about.

“You smart to use that tone while all the way over there, huh, nigga?” I smiled.

“Aye, y’all stop.” My pops jumped in. “Ayan, put them damn gloves back on and get to it,” he instructed as I started off toward the stairs.

As I passed LaMia, she gave me a small, subtle smile, so I bobbed my head to say what’s up and pressed on.

As soon as I got down into the lobby, I heard her express that she had to use the bathroom, and after witnessing the sound of her heels on the stairs, I smelled her perfume behind me, causing me to stop.

“Hey, Rah, I . . . how have you been?” She seemed edgy, her eyes darting away from mine as I stared down into her face.

“Straight.” I kept it short.

Nodding, she smiled brightly then replied, “I’ve been fine, though you didn’t even ask me.” She let out a giggle then continued. “The kids love you so much.”

“I love them too. They innocent.” I waited, wondering why the fuck she stopped me to talk, especially with Ayan’s tender ass upstairs.

“Of course.” She glanced off toward the receptionist, Chari, and I noticed some big ass finger marks on the side of her neck like she’d been choked roughly as fuck a few days prior.

“You better go back up there ’fore I have to lay yo’ nigga out,” I spoke when she opened her mouth to say more.

This conversation was pointless as fuck and wasn’t worth me having to break my foot off in Ayan’s ass over.

Agreeing with me, LaMia gave me one more closed-mouth smile, then turned away to head back up to the gym floor.

“If you willing to go for your brother’s woman, you should give me a chance then,” Chari joked.

“You married.” I smirked, shaking my head at her ass.

“And so is she, damn near.” She pointed upward, referencing LaMia. “You shouldn’t want your brother’s sloppy seconds no way.” She turned her nose up.

If she only knew. I didn’t care to correct her though. The less people that knew LaMia was mine first, the better.

Back when I was boxing, I wasn’t as open with my personal life as Ayan was, so it wasn’t odd that some people had no idea about LaMia being mine initially. Even when researching the murder I’d committed, you’d have to dig deep to find the woman at the center of my crime and even then the results weren’t promised. Because of the type of crime it was and who it involved, the prosecutors and my legal team made sure LaMia’s name and identity was concealed from the media in effort to prevent the backlash she might’ve received from fans and people who loved Judd Jenkins. They weren’t even allowed to film the trial.

“I don’t. Focus on work and not my conversations with yo’ nosy ass.” I pushed the door open and chuckled a bit when I saw her grinning flirtatiously.

Chari was cool, but she was another reason why I would never get back into no serious shit. The thought of my wife being on the job flirting with other niggas, whether jokingly or not, would have me shooting some shit up. Between her and LaMia, I would be on some single shit forever.

I stopped at the liquor store to get a soda and then made my way to the Godfrey Baking Co. to check on shit with Josias. He drove the trucks, the only one of us to procure his CDLs, so he did all deliveries to the grocers and liquor stores who carried our bread and, of course, the ones who also sold our other product.

I dealt with the drug dealers all over the city who had to come straight to me for their resupply. I dealt with no trap houses, no corner boys, or none of that shit. I was the boss’s boss.

As soon as I stepped foot into the back entrance of the bakery, I heard loud ass moans coming from the office area, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist for me to know it was Josias’s stupid ass and either one of his hos or his baby mama Tarin. His second baby mama, Kasia, had way more decorum, and therefore, I knew she wouldn’t be fucking that nigga in a spot where they’d most likely be caught the fuck up.