Page 60 of His Favorite Felon

“Tried.” I interrupted her. “You only set the front on fire.”

She laughed softly. “I gotta up my arson game.”

She continued, “Anyway, I’m scared of my reactions to things that I deem harmful to myself. I don’t wanna go back to jail. How would I look being pregnant in jail? They would take my baby and…”

“Pregnant?” I cut her off. “Why would you be pregnant in jail, Trouble?”

“Right… That’s why I called you here in the first place. I’m pregnant. My period hadn’t shown its face this month, and my last cycle was a week before the studio session,” she admitted.

“I’m about to be a Daddy.” I smiled so fucking big, I felt it stretch ear to ear. “You making me Daddy, Trouble?”

She rolled her eyes. “I guess, but I need a few things in return. I’m not trying to be bamboozled and then find out next year that y’all are triplets.”

I kissed my teeth. “Ard, go ‘head with all that. Ain’t know triplets unless you wanna consider Chyanne ass. What you need from me?”

“I want your complete honesty, even if you think I won’t be happy with it. I want my own career. Yes, I will still swipe your AMEX like there’s no tomorrow, but I want my own. I want everything that comes with having a baby. A marriage, a push gift, a sexy mom truck, and your word that if something happens that could cause me to go back to jail, that you won’t abandon me or… even better, you’d take the charge.”

“You got it. Neither of us will ever have to worry about jail, but if it comes down to you or me. Then it’s me; I put that on my unborn. You can get anything you want from me, if that means you forgive me.”

“Let’s take it one day, but for now I do forgive you.”

“Music to my ears.” I placed kisses all over her face. “Speaking of music, let’s get you back in the studio so that you can get signed and start making your own money. Even though you won’t be spending it. I guess you can put your funds aside for all the babies we gon’ have.”

“All what babies?” she asked.

“Oh, this is just the start. I intend to have only one wife who will raise a small football league of children with me.”

We kept talking about everything and anything relevant to Chase and this mess we were all tangled up in. By the next morning, I was checking us out of the hotel and taking my babies home.

CHAPTER 25

Chance

MAY 28TH

The smell of gunpowder hit my nose as soon as I walked into Last Chance shooting range. As I walked through the front door, I could almost hear rounds being fired farther in the range. The shooting area was padded to reduce noise, but being packed as tightly as we were, you were bound to hear a few shots.

Either way, whether in the room or from a distance, that was music to my fucking ears.

I stood on the main floor, taking it all in. Shit was really jumping today. People lined up to complete their gun license applications. They were waiting to go down to the range, and many folks were browsing my gun inventory, which was one reason I was here today. A few days after I brought Trouble home, we discussed purchasing a gun. She wanted a custom orange 22, so I had planned to pick that up today while I also checked on business.

Last Chance was my first baby, and I couldn’t wait to open my second location. I didn’t need to open these locations, but I’d always been obsessed with guns, so it was a given when I needed a legit company to clean my money. I built this shit from the ground up. Once I had earned enough to buy the building in cash, I did. Jail was never in my future, so I always made sure to move smarter than your average drug dealer.

The name was clever and a no-brainer. It was the only acceptable name. It was a little play on words, but there was truth behind it, too. In my world, everybody eventually got a last chance. What they did with it determined what happened next. It also happened to be a play on my name, so it was a win-win for me.

“Yo, Boss,” I heard my on-site manager, Andrew, call out to me as he approached me to dap me up.

“What’s good, man? How’s operation going today? Shit looking busy.”

He nodded. “Everything is smooth as butter. Ventilation was serviced this morning. Lane ten automatic target line was replaced and is now working. Oh, new inventory has been received, and all the invoices have been posted for your review whenever you need them.

“Good shit. Appreciate you, as always.” I turned to continue my rounds.

Andrew had been working for me for a few years and always showed promise. I never wanted to run the day-to-day operations. It was easier to let Andrew send me weekly reports. That involved checking inventory, employees, cameras, and financial records. Sometimes, I’d pop up unexpectedly, like today, to see how shit was running.

Different staff members spoke to me as I made my rounds. Some whispered as if I was Jesus or Lucifer, depending on who was doing the whispering. I nodded and only stopped to dap up those who got my attention. I completed my rounds by going into the shooting range; before entering, I put on my noise-canceling headphones. A class of security guards was in session.

A young wild nigga in there was going off.