Page 36 of Collateral Love
“And get Xavier on a secure line.”
My phone buzzed before the sentence finished.
Xavier always had timing.
“You moving?” he asked.
“I never stopped,” I said. “You got eyes?”
“Already pulling feeds,” he replied. “Charles got help. This wasn’t careless.”
Of course it wasn’t.
“He touched my wife,” I said.
X exhaled slowly, the kind of exhale that carried memory in it. “He hurt my Angel for over a decade. This shit is beyond personal.”
My chest caved in and reinforced itself at the same time. He took my wife, my partner, the woman who helped me build this whole world brick by brick. The mother of my children.
Miles brought her up on one of the city cameras a shot of her sitting in the backseat of an all black Yukon with handcuffs on.
She didn’t look scared.
She looked furious.
Good.
Rage like that survived.
“She’s alive,” the tech said carefully.
I didn’t answer because I already knew.
Charles wanted me frantic. He wanted me to run in the shadows and to chase the way men chased when they were afraid.
But Kenya and I stopped being reactive in 2003.
“We move in circles,” I said. “Not lines.”
I pointed at the screen.
“He took her to make a point. So we hit everything he loves while we find her.”
“Yes, sir,” Joel said, like it was automatic.
Because this wasn’t just about getting my wife back.
It was about reminding the world why the King brothers were never supposed to be tested.
My father-in-law pickedup the twins. I sent four guards with him.
I needed them out of our home. They couldn’t see the monster I was about to become.
The mansion didn’t feel like home without YaYa.
That’s how I knew I was already too far gone.
I pulled through the iron gates after midnight. They sealed behind me with a quiet hydraulic sound that cost more than most people’s houses. The driveway curved as if it were designed to slow the world down—Kenya had it custom-made from marble.
