Guarded Love

Chapter 40

Essence

"This is so beautiful," I gasped at the scenery. It did not feel real with how extravagant this island was. Sand white, water the clearest blue I've ever seen. I'm so glad I came for real. "What are we going to do first?"

"Unpack," Meechie said smartly. I mugged him before grabbing a bag of mines to carry. "But nah, you can do what you want. I'm about to go do this meeting right fast. You made our ass late."

"How the fuck?" I looked at him crazy. "Who started it?"

He smirked. "You." I blushed because that was sort of true. I don't know what it is about him but sometimes I can control myself around Demetrius. And he knows it too. Loves it as well. Fucker.

"Anyways, where are we going?"

"They said our house is just a mile that way." I nodded and helped load the car that was here for us up. I was so excited and was taking mad pictures. I've been to plenty of beaches and we used to do family trips to exotic islands but this was different. It was private and looked mostly untouched aside from trails and a few luxury houses. We pulled up to the house we were staying at and I smiled when I saw Crystal and Rhi sitting on the porch. "I'll be back," Meechie said when I stepped out of the car. "Y'all relax or something."

"Okay. See you when you get back." I gave him a quick kiss before going up the steps. "Hey you guys! Hi my god baby," I cooed to Rhi's stomach.

"Girl move. This big head ass baby just settled down and here you go trying to rile him up again."

"I do what I want," I said sitting down. "Girl I still can't believe in just two months you're about to be a mother. That's crazy."

"Right, I can't believe it myself sometimes either," she said smiling and rubbing her belly.

Sometime has passed since the kidnapping thing. About four or five months to be exact. Jermaine was tried and sentenced to almost eighty years in prison. They did an entire investigation and noticed how he'd patent other criminals files making them serve time they didn't deserve. It wasn't his first time tampering with evidence and witnesses so now the whole city has to go through every single criminal case he had a hand in. That also means a lot of people are possibly getting release early because of him.

Not only that, but for some odd reason he's been trying to reach out to me. I mostly ignored his calls but one time I answered and he was literally on the phone crying. Saying he didn't belong there and he was just trying to help and needed me to get him out. The way I cussed him to hell and back. After that I changed my number and haven't gotten any calls from him. I honestly don't know what's his deal. He really expects his kidnap victim to get him out of the mess he created? Must be smoking dick in that prison cell.

And the driver he hired to initiate the kidnapping slipped away from the police. I guess he left the state but Demetrius said he didn't get far. I'm assuming that means they handled that themselves. I guess since he couldn't get his hands on Jermaine personally he decided to handle the next best thing.

And after the initial shock of finding out Rhi and Bryson have a kid on the way and are married, we kind of all just shrugged it off. Bryson said he didn't want his son to grow up in a broken home like he did but I still find that hard to believe. Rhi told us, exclusively, her father and exe were pestering her so much she agreed to marry Bryson to get them off of her back. Plus they have some deal going on as well. I don't know the specifics and I admit, I had some reservations about her and Bryson being together. Bryson was an all time hoe once upon a time ago. But Demetrius assured me he's changed so I've given him the benefit of the doubt. It seems like things with them are going well.