Page 129 of Collateral Love
“And if I don’t?” I asked.
Zayden’s voice was steady. “Then we kill your daughter by Talia. They’re so peaceful without you over in West Crestwood.”
I sighed. Talia was a good girl. I brought her into the life and could never want her the way I wanted Kenya. I took so much from Talia. I couldn’t take our baby girl Alexis from her.
I nodded slowly. “Understood.”
As I turned to leave, Kenya spoke again.
“You loved me,” she said. Not a question.
“Yes,” I replied.
“You were always invisible to me.”
That was the cruelest thing she could’ve said.
I left knowing two things.
One: I was already dead.
Two: Cameron would never forgive me for being caught.
And somewhere in that narrowing space between exposure and execution, I finally understood the cost of collateral love.
It doesn’t just destroy enemies.
It consumes everyone who confuses proximity with belonging.
Miles said Cameron is close.
That’s how he framed it—casual, almost helpful, like he’d pointed out a coffee shop we missed on the way to somewhere important.
I sat back, hands folded, breathing even. The war room hummed around us—screens blinking, data refreshing, phonesvibrating and going quiet again. This was the calm part of the storm. The part where you decide who you’re willing to lose.
“Define close,” I said.
Miles shifted his weight.
“She’s been moving through intermediaries,” he said. “Short hops. Third-party vehicles. Temporary leases. But she’s circling a familiar axis.”
“Which is?” Xavier asked, voice flat.
Miles glances at him, then back at me. “Charles.”
“So Cameron’s using Charles as cover,” I say.
Miles nods. “Or leverage.”
“Or bait,” Chanel added from the corner, arms crossed, eyes sharp. She’s been watching Miles longer than I have. Different kind of watching. She’d learned to read men who think they’re smarter than women.
Miles smiles at her. It doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Exactly,” he said. “Which is why we should move fast.”
There it was.
The nudge.
