Page 1 of K.I.N.: Karma Is Near

PROLOGUE

XAVIER

Halloween night in Irvington was already loud as hell and it wasn’t even seven yet. Kids in costumes were running up and down the block, damn near knocking each other over trying to get to the next house. Music leaked out open windows and front doors, mixing with people yelling from stoops and car horns every couple minutes. Niggas stood outside with cups in their hands and masks either covering they faces or pushed up on top of they heads. Somebody a few houses down had fake spiderwebs wrapped all around they gate with orange lights blinking underneath them, and every few seconds another group of kids came running past screaming about who gave out the big candy bars.

Inside my house wasn’t no quieter.

“Michael, put that down before you break it.”

“I didn’t do nothing!”

“You doing something right now!”

“That was Zion!”

“Boy, Zion ain’t even by you.”

I shook my head, listening to Samantha go back and forth with our three-year-old while I stood near the dining room table scrolling through my phone. Zion, our oldest at eight, was already dressed and ready to go back outside even though his candy bucket was damn near halfway full from whatever little Halloween shit they did at school. Amari was six and had been walking around in her costume since she got home, refusing to take any part of it off because according to her, if she took it off before trick-or-treating officially started, she wasn’t going to be the character anymore.

I didn’t ask how the fuck that worked.

Then there was Michael, three, who didn’t give a damn about none of that and had spent the last twenty minutes touching everything Samantha told him not to touch.

And Serenity, our youngest, was four months old and currently asleep against Avery’s chest like she hadn’t been screaming her little lungs out fifteen minutes ago.

Four kids.

Nine years with Samantha.

Married for four.

And somehow tonight we were finally getting the fuck out this house without any of them.

We had been talking about this date night for weeks. It had gotten to the point where Sam put it in both our phones because according to her, if she didn’t, I was going to suddenly have something to do.

She might’ve been right.

Life had been kicking our ass lately.

I worked construction, which meant most mornings I was out the house early and came back dirty, hungry and feeling like every muscle in my body had been used up. Samantha was an ICU nurse, and them twelve-hour shifts were no joke either. Some weeks it felt like one of us was leaving while the other one was coming in. Add four kids to that shit and half the time we weren’t husband and wife anymore.

We were just two tired-ass people passing babies and responsibilities back and forth.

At least that’s what I told myself.

Samantha had another opinion.

Earlier that morning, around ten something, the older kids had been downstairs and Serenity had finally gone back to sleep. I was stretched across the bed watching something on my phone when Samantha climbed over me.

I already knew what she was doing.

“Sam.”

“What?”

She kissed the side of my neck.

“Chill.”