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car with Samad. What Samad didn’t know was that A’shai had a marksman’s aim and was a killer at heart. Samad reached for his waistline, but A’shai fired a shot so close to his head that it halted Samad instantly.

Samad’s hands shot into the air. “Calm down, A’shai. This . . . we can work this out.”

“Put your keys on the ground,” A’shai stated.

Samad did as he was told and then said, “You are going to ruin your father over one bitch?” he asked.

“Get on the ground,” A’shai said.

Samad smirked and then put both knees in the dirt. “It doesn’t matter where you take her. I’m going to find her . . . I’m going to find you both and when I do, you’ll wish that you never saw her pretty face,” Samad threatened. As A’shai walked up on Samad he wanted to put a bullet through his brain, but he thought of the backlash that he would get from Baron.

“You’re going to die for some pussy, A’shai,” Samad stated.

A’shai hit him forcefully with the gun, knocking him out cold and then grabbed the keys to the Audi. He opened the door for Liberty and instructed her to buckle up, then ran to his side of the car and drove away, leaving one of the West Coast’s biggest drug bosses bleeding in the dirt.

A’shai and Liberty drove to the nearest bus station and caught a long ride back to Detroit. As the bus pulled away from the station Liberty began to bawl silently, putting her face in her hands to muffle her cries. A’shai reached over and wiped away her tears as he leaned into her ear.

“I love you, Liberty. Nobody is ever going to harm you again. I promise you on my life. I will die before that happens,” A’shai stated.

“What did you do?!” Baron barked as he stood before A’shai. He had never raised his voice at his son before, and Willow looked on in shock but didn’t interrupt. “Do you know what this has done? What you have done? All over a girl.”

“She’s not just some girl,” A’shai responded calmly as he stood before his father.

“Do you know the danger you have put yourself in? She has to go back! You will not be affiliated with her,” Baron demanded. He was so furious with A’shai that he couldn’t control the tone of his voice. This was by far the stupidest thing that A’shai had ever done.

Willow tried to peer out of the windows of her home to view the young girl that had made her son act so uncharacteristically. She couldn’t make out the figure in A’shai’s car. It was too dark outside, and the night time concealed her identity.

“She cannot stay here!” Baron hollered. “You went into that man’s home, murdered his workers, stole his woman! Did you not expect him to retaliate?! This is interfering with business, A’shai. She goes back.”

“She’s not going back,” A’shai said maintaining his position. “I thought you would help her the way you helped me.”

“No, you didn’t think at all! I will not go to war over a whore,” Baron charged. “She is not welcome here.”

“Then I guess neither am I,” A’shai stated. “She’s not going back to him. She’s with me now.” His arrogance enraged Baron, and as A’shai walked away Willow tried to intervene.

“Baby, think about what you’re doing,” she reasoned.

A’shai stopped and kissed his mother on the cheek. “I have thought about it, ma. She was all I thought of since the day you brought me here. I love you,” he said.

His statement floored Willow and revealed the depth of his attachment to Liberty.

A’shai turned his back on his mother and walked out as Willow called after him.

“Let him go!” Baron bellowed. “But if you walk out of those doors with that girl . . . you’re cut off! You hear me, Shai?! He’s the connect and your actions were disrespectful! He could have killed you!”

A’shai turned and rubbed the scar on the side of his face. “He should have . . . because now I’m gonna murk him.”

FIFTEEN

A’SHAI REACHED OVER AND GRABBED LIBERTY’S HAND. His tires screeched against the stone driveway as he pulled off Baron’s property. He was torn and his disloyalty plagued him as he thought of how he was turning his back on the only family he knew. But as Liberty intertwined her fingers with his, he remembered that he was the only family she knew and he could never leave her out