Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 36597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
“Why do I get feeling something bad happened?”
“Cause you’re fuckin’ smart?” He scrubbed a hand over his face, reaching for Millie and pulling her on top of him. With a swift movement, he aimed his cock at her pussy and pushed her down on top of him. She gasped but just lay forward on top of him so she could kiss him.
“Tell me. We get this out now, Shadow.”
“Derrick,” he said, looking off to the side, not wanting her to see the emotion in his eyes.
“What?”
“Derrick Brown. My name.”
“Oh. OK. My last name is Volkov. Venus’s too. Katya’s is Zaitsev. Do you want me to call you Derrick?”
“Nah. Left that name behind after…” He gave her a small smile. “After.” Taking a breath, he continued. “Just thought you should know what my name was since you ain’t leavin’ me.”
She smiled. “Just so. Now. Continue.”
“Anyway, after the baby was born, we went through the usual court battle. I wanted visitation at the very least. With the domestic violence charge against me, and having drawn a judge who wasn’t overly sympathetic to fathers in general but Black fathers in particular, all I was able to get was supervised visits once a month, provided it didn’t inconvenience Carrianne.”
“Wow. Harsh.”
“Yeah. Oh. And a hefty child support payment. I honestly didn’t mind that. If nothing else, I figured I owed Carrianne because I’d lied to her in the first place. Because, I had to face it, there was no way that woman slept with me unless there was money involved for her. Ain’t sayin’ she was a whore. She was looking to cash in on the rich mercenary who was gone all the time.”
“I see. Kind of like having your cake and eating it too?”
“Exactly like that. She got my money, but, since I was gone more months than I was home, she could have all the men she wanted, and I’d never be the wiser. Or to be able to blame her, really. While some of the men I served with had faithful spouses, a couple of them had an arrangement where, if they were gone more than a couple of weeks, their spouses were free to hook up as long as they used protection against pregnancy.” He shrugged. “I could respect that, even if I didn’t want it for myself.”
“So what happened next?”
“I took my visitation every chance I could get. As my son got older, he got to be too much trouble for Carrianne. Her parents kept him most of the time. Believe it or not, they sympathized with me. Probably because I kept up with my child support payments and called every week to check on him. By the time he was five, Facetime was in use. Trey was with Carrianne’s parents most of the time, so I bought them a cell phone specifically for Facetime with Trey. I called almost every day.
“I think that, because I did this, they saw how much Trey meant to me. Saw that, not only did I want to be in his life, I was trying my best to be a good father. They invited me to their house at least once a week when they knew Carrianne wouldn’t be there so I could spend time with Trey without her drama.”
“Sounds like you won over her parents.”
“I guess I did. Which kind of surprised me. Her father tried to kill me right after he found out she was pregnant. I’d only met the man once in the six months we dated, and he hadn’t been impressed.”
“Wait. He tried to kill you?”
“Well, yeah.” Shadow said this matter-of-factly. Like he fully expected it from the beginning. “I was a roughneck mercenary, not to mention a Black man in the deep South. Her daddy was livid with both of us. Since he couldn’t very well stay mad at his daughter, he took out his anger and aggression on me.” He shrugged like it was really no big deal.
“That’s so wrong! Can’t you see how wrong that is?”
“Of course, I can, sugar. But, from a male perspective, had she been my daughter, I’d have been livid too. Probably would have killed the bastard and never looked back. Not because of race or anything like that. Because the fucker had hit my daughter. Remember, I’d been charged. At the time, I hadn’t been to court but the charges were there, and Carrianne told everyone who would listen how I’d hit her. I wasn’t as big then as I am now, but I was still twice her size. Naturally, her daddy would believe her. And it was my neighbors who called the cops.”
“I see. I suppose when you look at it that way.” She cocked her head to the side. “How can you be so patient with something like that? You sound as if it’s all a matter of course.”