A Dangerous Way to Love (Dangerous Bonds Book 3) Read online

  While Jayne was the spirited soul of us two, she put up with the most from men. I was the type to quietly give my all, but once I felt unappreciated, I checked out of the relationship emotionally. After that, it wouldn’t be long before I was gone physically.

  Take Lamont. I loved that man through and through. Instead of reciprocating that love, he put me down at every turn. I would tell him about a lively studio session, and he would say I was wasting my time on a stupid hobby when I had a good career as a teacher. He didn’t believe in me, and it showed in the way he talked to me.

  One day, without warning, I moved all of my belongings out of his apartment and packed up all of his things from mine and shipped them to him. I changed the locks, my number, and refused to speak to him again. When he caught up with me at one of my performances, I had the bouncer put him out. My events were only for those who believed in me.

  Lamont wasn’t the man who taught me how to let go, though. That title went to my first love, Wayne. The way Wayne used to look at me, the way we looked at each other, it was a masterpiece in itself. I really thought we had the real thing, and we did. But once we became an item, I quickly realized he had a harem of other women with whom he shared the “real thing.”

  Walking away from Wayne shattered everything I thought I could feel for a man. The man I had trusted for years didn’t love me the way I thought he did. Every man that came behind him immediately got profiled as being insincere.

  Jayne’s call sparked some deep thoughts about love and inspired a new song. I drove over to the studio with the lyrics playing in my head.

  “Men always want it all. Even as they make the tears fall. They don’t treat us like the queens we are. We travel the world for them, near and far. But they don’t appreciate the diamond in the rough. They never do, and it’s so hard, so tough. He wants the diamond in the rough every time. But won’t do what it takes to make her shine. Never going the extra mile that it takes to be mine…”

  The song flowed from my mind to the track an hour later, and I stood there humming the tune, thinking about how love has an expiration date. Parental, romantic, platonic friends, in every type of love someone either walks away or dies. There is always a fitting time to say, ‘the end.’

  At this point in my life, I had mastered this art, and I hoped Jayne would find the wherewithal to come to this place with Ned, and soon.

  Chapter Three

  Bruiser

  Family Ties

  “Hey, Bruise, thanks for coming over to do this for me. Your mother’s been on me all morning,” my pops said, then kneeled down beside me with his cane still in his hand.

  At the ripe age of sixty-one, my father still looked good. Lately, though, he wasn’t as fast as he used to be. I was there to change Mom’s flat tire, a chore that used to take him mere minutes. Now, he had to have assistance.

  “It’s nothing, old man. How have you been doing? Looks like you’re walking a little slower than usual. Plus, I can hear your bones cracking.” I made light of his physical changes, but it was humbling to watch my father grow old.

  “Ah, you see, that’s the privilege of becoming a senior citizen, young man. Keep living, and you’ll get that privilege too.” The fine lines of his forehead showed off his years as he frowned as if a pain had hit him. “Just enjoy being young, Bruise, that’s all I can tell you. Ah—”

  He growled as he attempted to stand up. Once again, his back, or whatever other bones affected, started screeching as if they needed oil.

  I tossed Mom’s damaged tire to the side and wiped a sheen of sweat from my forehead. Ever since my father had back surgery last year, I had been helping out with odd jobs he could no longer do. We were a tight-knit family, and I loved being there for my parents. So, this was nothing. It did my heart good to be able to help out.

  However, there was a time when things were fucked. At nine years old, my whole world changed for the worse when the police snatched my father out of our home and locked him up. He had been the type of father that was there for everything. He took care of his family. He protected us.

  Then, one day, he came home from work bloodied and bruised. I would never forget that day that left me curious and terrified at once. All I wanted to do was help my father.

  “What happened, Rowe?” my mother screamed, and from the horrid tremble of her voice, I knew this couldn’t be good.

  “Daddy, what’s wrong?” I chimed in.

  “Go up to your room, Bruiser.” I got the nickname Bruiser for the strength that I always possessed. Even when I was five years old, I would rough up the younger kids in my class without even trying. My cousins, who came over to spend the night, had no chance. I sent every one of them home bruised up. My real name was the same as my father’s, Rowland Cunningham, Jr., but he started calling me Bruiser.

  “But Mom,” I complained. I wanted to stay downstairs so that I could hear what happened to my father. I was afraid for him.

  “Bruiser, you heard what your mother said. Go to your room,” my father’s bark was so vicious that my feet immediately started moving down the hall and up the stairs toward my bedroom. At the top of the stairs, I peeked my head through the rails and listened as he explained to my mother why he was covered in blood.

  “Nelly, this little kid came into the store today. He had to be about sixteen years old. He was trying to steal a soda and some candy, and—”

  He paused his speech. His next words hung in the air in suspense. I thought something else had caught his attention. But that wasn’t it. He was staring far off into the room, remembering.

  My mother sat expectantly, waiting for him to tell the rest of the story. I crouched down lower so that I wouldn’t be seen. I, too, waited on bated breath for him to continue.

  “What happened, Rowe? Are you bloody because he attacked you? Are you hurt?” Mom prodded him gently, in a comforting tone that only she possessed.

  “I—I thought…” My father’s voice drifted away into the echoes bouncing off the walls. “…he was go-gonna kill me. So, I—I killed him first.”

  A solemnness filled the room. All of my senses were on high alert. I couldn’t think of my dad killing someone.

  “My God.” Mom covered her mouth and let out a loud gasp. “Well, what happened, Rowe? He had to have attacked you first,” she said, expressing the same feeling I had. For my father to kill a man, that man must have been about to hurt him badly.

  “When I confronted him about stealing a soda and chips, he tried to run. I ran him down. I—I caught ahold of his shirt to keep him in the store so that I could call the police. He swung at me and struck me in my face with so much force that I thought I was going to need medical help.”

  A look of sorrow entered my father’s eyes. I will never forget the way he looked when he explained what he did next. Seeing the man, who I considered invincible, cry his heart out, and hurt real pain, did something to me. It showed me that he, my father, was able to lose at something. He never lost.

  “He hit me again and knocked me back. Then, he came charging at me, and that’s when I shot him.” The strength remaining in my father’s voice evaporated with the utterance of that truth. Weakness entered his tone along with tears and loud sobs as he said, “I shot him, Nelly. He’s in critical condition, and he could die.”

  Where his sobs ended, my mother’s began. She asked no more questions. She just embraced him. They sat in each other’s arms for what seemed like an eternity.

  Later that night, my father came into my room to read me a bedtime story. He did this every night since I could remember. After he finished the story, he told me he loved me. He promised to always be there to protect me and my mother before he walked out.

  As he was leaving my room, there was a knock at the door. My father quickly tracked down the stairs to open the door. It was the police. The officer, who had been a family friend, went on to explain that the community had pressured the department into pressing charges against my father. Since the young man
didn’t have a weapon on him, and my father carried one on him at all times, it appeared that my father was a vigilante with a preference toward profiling blacks who came into his store. Some people even surmised the young man was about to pay for the things he had in his pocket but that my father didn’t give him a chance to.

  There were a lot of stories swirling around town, but I had no reason to believe my father didn’t fear for his life. He was a good man. He was good to others. He let people, black or white, run tabs at his store to get them through to payday. He gave back during the holidays. He tried to serve the community. But attempted murder was the charge.

  The only saving grace was that the young man had pulled through surgery and pulled through the night. What didn’t help my father’s case was that he was friendly with the older Holloway men who were known racists in the community. Once the black people got their minds wrapped around that fact, there was nothing else anyone could say that would make them see that my father maybe, just maybe, defended himself during an attack that could have ended his life. They didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt of not being a racist, violence-prone attempted murderer. And that’s how it played out in court.

  My friendship with Jeb and Channing Holloway began right after the shooting. It was during the six years my father was in prison for attempted murder that I ascribed to the idea that black people were inferior thinkers. In my opinion, they had to be if they would look at a man who had been stolen from, pummeled repeatedly and in fear of his life, and then want to see him hang for defending himself. I was bitter because of the way my father was treated in the media and crucified in the community, and I didn’t give a fuck who knew it.

  After he went to prison, his mini-mart closed. My dad’s legal fees had mounted, and Mom had to go work in the mill just to keep our lights on. There wasn’t money for much more than sandwiches and hotdogs, and that was if we were lucky. Ramen noodles were a five-course meal at our house. No more family dinners filled with laughing, talking, and questions from dad about how school was. Work stressed my mother out, so I became accustomed to quick meals and spending little time with her. I missed our little family that was torn apart because of racism.

  With everything going on during that time, it was easy to turn to the brotherhood to get the support I needed. My father was wrongfully imprisoned, and they resented it as much as I did. Rowland Cunningham’s name was infamous all over the country. His arrest ramped up the mission of the brothers, to not only be there for each other but to be there for my father.

  Perfect strangers offered to help mama, though she wasn’t receptive to their gifts. I remember the men telling me things like, “If you need anything, little Rowe, don’t hesitate to give me a call,” while handing me a business card. When everyone else turned their backs on our family, the brotherhood was right there.

  The first time I went to one of their meetings, I was ten. Chad Holloway had invited me to dinner. I went and had the best time hanging with his sons and nephew. I was back home before my mother got there, so she never knew I went. She would have scolded me for hanging out with them, but I snuck out and attended every meeting after that. They fed me well, but also their message of white unity resonated in me. I felt it in every part of me, and soon I started living it. By the time my father got out of prison, I was all in with the brotherhood. They had been my family. They were there for me when it counted.

  All done.

  I threw the wrench to the ground after I tightened the last bolt on Mom’s tire. I got up to put all the tools back in their place so that Dad and I could go inside and have a beer before I had to go. I was looking forward to talking to the old man for a little while.

  “So, old Jeb is really tying the knot, huh?” my father asked as I fetched the toolbox and started packing everything away.

  “Looks that way.”

  “Well, both of them went and got themselves a wife, huh?” he asked curiously.

  “Yep.” He was hinting at the women being black, but I wasn’t going to comment on it unless he came straight out and said it.

  “They both have, uh, black women, eh?”

  “Yeah, dad, they’re both black. And before you ask, I don’t know why they did it, so you would have to ask them.”

  I had the same questions not long ago. Channing and Jeb once followed the creed of whites sticking together. How they went from that to marrying a black woman was a mystery.

  Alise’s beautiful face entered my mind. Gorgeous dimples double-set on both the corners of her mouth and her cheeks. A beautiful smile with a tiny gap that steals a person’s breath. Caramel colored skin that even looks soft to the touch. Big oval eyes accented by carved dark brows. Add in her long, flowing natural hair, and yeah, those things would make a man break his creed. And that was just Alise’s exterior. She oozed of a gentle, giant spirit that loved passionately and tenderly, but also possessed the ability to be a badass that could defend her turf.

  Even with all the beauty Alise possessed, I still believed our races needed to stick together, but I no longer held any hatred against anyone. Don’t get me wrong. It’s hard to remember the way my family was treated. The way Dad was crucified by every black person in town before he even had a chance to tell his story. Sometimes, it still made my blood boil. I just had come to accept the systemic reasons blacks react to racial issues. Bad race relations didn’t begin with my father, and they wouldn’t end with him.

  “I was going to ask that,” my father admitted with a busted look on his aging face.

  “I guess that’s who they love,” I said, humping my shoulders. “I try not to question it even though they’re probably related to some of the people that threw stones at us back in the day. The ones that didn’t even give you a chance to tell your story before they demanded the police take you away.”

  I stopped and looked at my father, who quickly deflated. In all the years he had been a free man, I never brought up his arrest.

  “I’m just being honest, dad. That changed me a lot.”

  “I know, son. I know,” he said. “It changed all of us.”

  That was the most he was going to say about the way the justice system had handled his case. He turned and shuffled slowly into the house. I followed him into the living room, and he grimaced as he sat down in his chair. The same one he sat in so many years ago and wept about shooting a man.

  “Have a seat, son.”

  “Dad, I didn’t mean to upset you. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

  “No, no. You’re fine, Bruiser.”

  A long, slow silence sounded off in the room. We were both in our own thoughts about the past twenty-four years, yet neither of us dared to elaborate.

  “What are you about to watch?” I asked when he started turning the channels with the remote.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Anything will be better than these shows your mom has been watching. Seems these days all she’s watching is programs about little kids. It’s like she’s trying to channel some grandkids into our lives through the TV.” He looked from the TV and over to me. “You know what I mean?”

  This was my cue to leave.

  “I do. But look old man, I have got to get going. I have some work to do at the office.”

  “No, no, son. I know that you’re busy with your agency, but you got to start thinking about this. Your mom and I are getting older by the moment. We would love to have grandchildren; three or four of them is plenty.”

  “Three or four? Dad, you should have had more kids if you wanted that many grandchildren.”

  He chuckled.

  I had to get out of there. If I let this conversation go on any longer, soon mom would join him, and an all-out push to make me get a wife and kids would ensue. A woman and kids. Two things I didn’t have time for.

  Mom came strolling into the room. “Bruiser, your dad is right.”

  Damn it. Too late to escape.

  I walked over and towered over her. I pulled her into my arms and hugged he
r tightly. This was a guaranteed way to change the conversation with her.

  “Boy, are you trying to break my back?” she asked and swatted at me as soon as I let her go. “I told you to stop squeezing me like that. You know you have the strength of Grendel. Whew!” She pushed her shoulders back as if to realign her vertebra. “Trying to kill me,” she huffed.

  “Grendel, Mom? Really.” I faked outrage. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but it’s just that you’re my favorite girl, and I get carried away when I see you.”

  “Awe, that’s really sweet, son. I missed you too,” she said, grabbing both sides of my face and kissing my cheek. “Now, go out there and pour all of that love into a young girl of childbearing age, and bring me back a daughter in law and some cute little kids.”

  “Listen, I told Xander I was going to meet him at the office to go over some things, and well, I’m late.” I grabbed my keys off the coffee table and stood up. I loathed the wife and kids discussion. I put all my time and energy into my security agency, and I wasn’t ready for a family. My phone buzzed with an incoming call, saving me from the talk.

  Son of a bitch. It was Xander calling. I must have talked him up.

  “What’s up, Xan?” I said, holding a finger up to my mom as I walked out of the room.

  “Just climbing out of some good pussy, trying to see what you’re doing this evening.”

  “Damn sure not giving you any pussy,” I replied.

  “Ha. Ha. If you are slanging boy pussy, at least have a coming-out party first.”

  “Good grief, what do you want, Xan?” I asked, agitated with him already. Winning a war of wits with him wasn’t easy. I would give him that, then shove him around to show him that he had the words, and I had the ass-whipping.

  I met him at a brotherhood meeting years ago. His father was a member, but he never took the shit seriously. He was a jokester, always making jokes about the older brother’s appearance and the things they said or did.

  “I’m coming by the club tonight to talk to you about the plans for the bachelor party, and to see what ladies I can find in the crowd. Make sure your big buff ass security guards don’t try to grab my dick while they’re searching me. I’m going to knock one of your play cops out if they touch me. Fair warning.”