Page 9 of Nobody But You

“Ok, I didn’t know you’d taken on any jobs. I didn’t assign you any...” There was a long pause. She was waiting for me to tell her about it. Tayla grew up with me. Her family, much like mine, was into illegal activities. Her family consisted of her mother, Nina, who worked under my father. She’d since retired from the game, but Tayla picked up where she had left off. She didn’t handle the product like her mother had, but coordinated my gun hire contracts and occasionally took a few herself. Her money was made in espionage. I’d never met her father or even seen him. I’m not sure she had either. They didn’t talk about him; they never had. From what I understood, he wasn’t even there to sign her birth certificate. Tay wasn’t as deadly, but she knew the ins and outs of my lifestyle, my family's lifestyle, and what we did. She was the only person who knew everything my brother and I were into.

“It wasn’t a job per se, more like a personal undertaking,” I finally said.

“Jourdan, when will you let that go and come home?”

“I can’t. Something is telling me that I need to stay and that all the answers I’m looking for are here,” I rushed out.

“So, I’ve heard,” she sighed.

“Who is that? JoJo?” I heard my brother ask in the background. Then there was muffling before she came back clear on the line.

“When are you going to tell me about you and my brother? I really don’t give a damn who either of you are fucking even if it’s each other,” I said, exasperated with this conversation. Just as I thought now that the heat was on them, they didn’t have shit to say. So, I finally clicked on the drop-down menu and entered the ‘about us’page. There, he was pictured as the owner of Rockwell Security.

Stephon Rockwell.

“Hey, Tay, put my brother on the phone.” Before my brother spoke, I heard rustling.

“What’s the deal, JoJo?” He asked.

“Um, what’s your ‘business’ partner’s name again?” I knew his name; I’d heard it a million times. For some reason, I needed to listen to it again to confirm.

“It’s Stephon. You already know that, though, so why are you asking?”

“Brice, let me call youback.”

“Jourdan, think twice before you hang up on me!” He said right before I hung up, effectively ending the conversation. I knew he would call back, but I wouldn’t answer. Then, knowing my brother, he would be dropping in on me in the next few days because of it. Like I thought, my phone began to ring again before it stopped. Then, it rang again before my phone dinged, alerting me to a voicemail. We were all we had left and were as thick as thieves. Because of our lifestyle, my mother’s family had distanced themselves, and my father’s side, we didn’t know. I knew he wanted me back in California and would drag me back if he thought that I was risking my life out of his sight. I sat and let my fingers tap the desk rapidly before I stood and paced.

Of the two years my brother was named one of the tops by One, I’d never been around Stephon or Rock, as he was known in the underworld. I knew just enough information to help my brother out when needed, but never anything that would compromise my position there. I knew names and only a few faces by design.

Damnit, JoJo.

I’d been so consumed with the murder of my father that my inside line to everything Brice and the business hadn’t even been thought about since I left. I was supposed to be his secret right hand. I had taken on that role after my father died. According to my father, I wasn’t supposed to, but we had no one else. I made sure never to show my face because I was still the fucking Lioness.

Shit! I’m about to have a breakdown.

Regardless, I wouldn’t have known if I were around him because they were always masked. I’d only met the three brothers unmasked when one of them, Dorien, had gotten shot. The next was when Demitri called me here to handle one of his associates, who was a woman. The only way that I had seen them was because they wanted me to. Otherwise, I would have been just as in the dark about them. Their hidden alters would forever remain hidden; they were just that fucking good. I’d never been introduced to any of the proxies, one of whom was Rock. I stopped pacing and headed to the kitchen; I desperately needed a glass of wine, maybe two.

Standing inside the refrigerator door, I pulled out the chilled bottle of Taylor Port, uncorked it, and turned it up. I stood at the island looking at the marble counters and black stainless-steel appliances that drew me into buying the house, and sighed. Even admiring my pride and joy didn’t change how I felt. Finding out that Stephon Rockwell was the man in the private dining room made my stomach recoil. There was no way I could allow the attraction I felt for him to build. He couldn’t be trusted. How was I to know that one day, he wouldn’t try to take out my brother and me because he wanted sole control of the business? He was dangerous enough to do it, probably the most dangerous man I’d ever encountered. The stories of Rock around the underworld and what my brother had told me before confirmed that.

Those questions mirrored the same questions I needed answered concerning my father. A man like Rock, someone my family had trusted with unquestioned loyalty, had killed him sevenyears ago. Whoever they were had turned my fucking world upside down again and took him from me. I’d been searching for everyone involved ever since. Brice and Tayla had tried to convince me over the years that it wasn’t that type of murder. It was just a part of the game, they said. I knew what a hit looked like because my father had taught me how to conduct one. Tayla should have known too. My late father, Brian Washington, had taught us everything we knew.

CHAPTER 5

Jourdan

Past

Iknew how to shoot a gun, several of them, due to the profession my father had chosen. I’d been shooting since I was a pre-teen. He’d made sure of it. I was also trained in martial arts. My brother and I both were. Because I’d already conquered those skills, my father skipped the basics and refresher course, going straight to his master’s class on how to get away with murder.

This was the tenth day we’d followed Ahmad, one of my father’s transporters. I was eating up the fact that he was showing me the ropes. My mother hated that he was and that I was spending so much time around my father and Brice. She thought I would spend all my time with her while I was home from college over summer break. However, I was a daddy’s girl through and through. As we continued watching, I devoured the burger and fries from our favorite burger joint. We’d stopped because we knewwhere Ahmad was headed by now, so we had time. Every day I spent with my father, we’d sneak off to eat something greasy, hoping my mother wouldn’t find out. Because I loved to see my daddy sweat, I wouldn’t tell him about the ketchup he’d dropped on his shirt. I loved to watch their back-and-forth banter. I could only hope to have a relationship like theirs one day, filled with so much love.

In addition to being a loving father and husband, my father was the biggest drug dealer in LA, and Ahmad was skimming off the top. My job would be to eliminate him, but I had to learn how to first. I’d never killed anything before, let alone a person. I wasn’t even sure I could. For my family and father, I’d do it irrefutably.

My father wasn’t a loud show of force. He was calculating, wanting to catch you in the act and have unquestioned proof that you’d wronged him. He wanted me to be able to do the same.

“Do you know why we’ve been following this buster for this long, Baby Girl?” My father asked.

“I’m guessing to catch him in the act,” I replied.

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