Page 127 of Diamond In The Rough

“Ipo!” Roscoe’s deep, powerful voice taps at the back of my skull. That word, at least, I know by heart. But I don’t particularly want to stop and chat with him, either. So I stalk toward the elevator and smack the call button. “Tiia!” He runs the distance from the boardroom to where I stand, his feet slapping the linoleum. “Ipo! I know you heard me.”

“I heard you.” I look up when the elevator opens, and step in when I find the interior blissfully empty. “I just don’t want to spend time with you right now.”

He grabs my arm and yanks me to a stop on the threshold. His fingers painfully wrapped around my wrist. And his eyes, when he pulls me around, fiery and serious. “I know you’re going to him.”

“I can’t leave him hanging.” I shake my arm free and back up to rest against the railing on the wall. “I won’t leave him to die.”

“He will slit your throat if you go to him.” He follows me into the elevator, allowing the doors to shut at his back. “He’s not playing around, Ipo. You’re lucky he let you live last time.”

“He’s lucky I didn’t hurt him back.”’ The longer I go without Micah Malone in my life, the easier it is for me to move from heartsick to simply pissed off. “He’s a prick, Roscoe. And if anyone should be worried about retribution at our next meeting, it’s him. I can slit a throat, too. I might even enjoy it.”

He scoffs. “You’ll lose your job.”

“I don’t want it anyway! The pay is shit, the conditions are dangerous, my direct supervisor is a narcissistic bitch baby who has his title because of his father, and the situations he places us in are not safe or suitable. I’d rather work for Jakeline—at least she owns the fact that she’s a bitch. She doesn’t pretend otherwise.”

“You’re gonna undo everything, Ipo!” The doors open at his back to the underground parking garage, but when I start forward to pass him, he grabs my wrist again. Right where Micah’s leather bonds bruised my flesh. “We worked so hard to be here, Tiia. Together.”

“This was your dream. I just came along for the ride because of you and Jazzy.”

“We promised to stick together,” he pleads. “The three of us.”

“We’re still together.” I shake my hand free, but to soften the blow of my rejection, I place my palm on his pounding chest and smile. “We’ll always be together, Roscoe. But maybe the future will look a little different, that’s all.”

“If you go to him…” he rasps. “If you want to be with him, you complicate our relationship beyond repair.”

“Because you’re my brother and you get possessive and jealous?” I tease. “Or because you’re a badge, and he’s a criminal?”

“Both?” He places his hand over mine and sighs. “He’s gonna get you killed, Ipo. And a future where you no longer exist scares the shit out of me.”

“Funny. Because I feel safe when he’s around, and yet, incredibly vulnerable when I’m near Dickerson. The world has been tossed on its head and up is no longer up.” I wiggle my hand from beneath his and duck under his arm to escape the elevator. “Micah Malone wants me dead, Roscoe.” I glance back and smile. “And he’d like to be the one holding the blade. But don’t worry, he’ll protect me from anyone else who tries.”

“Not comforting, Ipo!” He turns and follows me out. “Dammit, woman. You don’t even know which club he’ll be at.”

“That part is easy.” I continue walking, relieved knowing my big brother—by seven minutes and twelve inches—will support me no matter my choices. “Felix will be at CeCe’s.”

“How do you know?” He grabs my arm and yanks me around. “How, Tiia? How could you possibly know that?”

“Because Felix’s heart beats for Christabelle Cannon. He loves her more than life itself. Of course he’ll be at the club he named for her.”

28

MICAH

I DON’T NEED A FUCKING HERO

Music thunders from the club’s speakers. The bass, a vibration through the floor. Money transfers from palm to palm, and little bags of white powder sometimes go with it.

We’re not here to deal, but we don’t stop it either. Humans will do what humans do, and cocaine has been a tried-and-true party aphrodisiac for a millennium.

Gregory mans his bar with fast, smooth movements, commanding his team the way a drill sergeant does his soldiers. And dancers work the crowd, making men salivate and spend more money and women question their sexuality, sidling up closer to anyone who dares look their way twice.

CeCe’s is a club that sells sex.

We don’t sell women, and no one here works under duress. But the club, in and of itself, sells the promise of a steamy tryst between the sheets. Of strangers living a fantasy together. Orgasms that shatter a soul, and then of tomorrows where they don’t wake up regretting their choices.

CeCe’s is classy and sexy—just like the woman she was named after.

“Ah, shit.”

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