“So wire me up. Either way, I’m going in there. Call Gas, tell him to suit up. I’m heading to the house to grab my suit and shit.”
“What’s the plan, Brick?” I probed.
“The fuck you mean? Six is in there. My only goal is getting her out. I don’t give a fuck what it takes!”
“We can’t just go in there guns blazing. We don’t know what we up against.” Ivo put his two cents in.
“And I don’t give a fuck!” Brick yelled. “You need a plan, fine. Wire me up with a mic and camera if you need to. I’ll give y’all the signal when it’s time to move, you cause a diversion somehow to disrupt everything, and I get her the fuck out of there.”
Ivo and I glimpsed each other across the room. There was no talking Brick down on this. Six was his only priority. The shit kind of made me proud because aside from family, Brick didn’t give a lot of people his time or energy. The social media shit wasn’t who he really was. Maybe part of it was, the comedy and confidence for sure, but he could also be very introverted too.
“Aight,” Ivo agreed, shrugging.
“Yeah, that works. I’ll hit Gas.” I dug my phone from my pocket and Brick strolled past us to the door.
“Be ready when I get back!”
“That’s your brother,” Ivo said, taking his phone out and tapping away at the screen.
His phone rang but his heavy sigh told me he wasn’t in the mood. He rejected the call before going back to his text thread. It rang again, and this time he reluctantly picked up and brought the phone to his ear.
“What’s up, Jay?” He paused then frowned. “You tripping, mama. I’m in the middle of some real-life shit. You need to calm down. I don’t know when I’ll be home because this shit ain’t got no time stamp, aight. I ain’t got time for that shit right now. I’ll talk to you later.” He quickly hung up, and stress lines wrinkled his forehead.
“Trouble in ya little paradise over there?” I chuckled, going into my pocket for my weed and blunts so I could roll up again.
“Fuck you.” Ivo’s eyes drifted back into his phone. “You don’t know shit about me or my wife.”
“I know you defensive and she uptight as fuck. And . . . you ain’t ever escaping Justus’s shadow if you don’t start figuring out what the fuck you want.” My words got his full attention, and his eyes lifted to mine.
“You don’t know shit about me or what I want.”
“I know you ain’t happy with your wife.”
“The fuck that got to do with anything?” Ivo sneered.
“Shit, you tell me. You got married because you thought it’s what you should do, it was also a knee jerk reaction to Emerald leaving all those years ago.” The mention of his teenage crush sent something flickering behind his gaze. “Yeah, I know you better than you fucking think.”
Flicking the tip of his nose, Ivo bobbed his head and backed up to lean into the counter behind him. He crossed his arms over his legs and stared at me.
“Did you know she was back?”
“Who? Emerald?” I checked, cocking a brow and dumping the guts from the wood I was rolling.
Ivo nodded. “Been back for months, and I didn’t know shit about it until the day she walked into the surrogacy clinic as a candidate for me and Jordan.”
I froze, not ready for that revelation as my hands slowly lowered to the table. Ivo swiped his beard and pensively studiedthe ground. He’d never been open to sharing how he felt or what he was going through. Usually, he kept it bottled up until everything spilled over in some emotional ass rant.
“I didn’t realize y’all was having problems having a baby. I just thought y’all wasn’t ready yet.”
“Jordan’s had like three miscarriages. The last one did so much damage she had to have a hysterectomy,” Ivo admitted. “Her eggs aren’t viable. So we also need a donor. We’ve been using this agency and went through all kinds of tests, they even had to make sure I wasn’t the problem. We considered adoption, but Pops made it clear I have to have an heir. So surrogacy was our next step.”
“And Emerald just happens to be a candidate?”
“Crazy.” Ivo blew out a harsh breath. “What’s even crazier is since that first day she showed up, I’ve been fucking with her,” he confessed. “It was like I saw her, and everything made fucking sense again.”
“And what about Jordan?”
“I love Jordan. I married her. It’s just not the same.”
