I must admit, Kenny and my egg donor did an amazing job working with the event planner. They managed to bring Paris to the Four Seasons for my Yasmin. She turned and looked at me with a look of wonder on her beautiful face. And I knew then it was all worth it. I opened my arms and she ran into them. I could feel her shaking a bit.
“Oh my God Gabriel! Oh my God! I can’t breathe!” I chuckled rubbing her back.
“Calm down sweetheart, just take slow gentle breaths.”
“Who are all these people?” She cried. I shrugged.
“Your guess is better than mine.”
“Happy birthday mija!” My egg donor called before holding her arms out for Yasmin. I’ll be lying if I said it didn’t bother me that my wife went to her, trusting her so completely. The two of them had grown quite close over the months since we’ve been married. And yeah! That bothered the sh*t out of me.
“Good job man!” I told Kenny who came to stand by me. He nodded his head toward my mother.
“Thank her. She did most of the work. The only thing I did was flirt with the event planner so we can get a better deal.”
I grunted. Bury me or smother me in sh*t before I thank my egg donor for anything.
“Where is Mac?” I asked him instead, changing the subject. Kenny was beginning to sound like Yasmin, trying to get me to communicate better with my mother.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I saw him leave out of here earlier. He probably spotted somebody asking for loose change in the alley. You know that is a breach of his national security law to protect Yasmin.”
I chuckled. Ever since Yasmin’s attempted kidnap, Mac had doubled down on her security detail. She didn’t know it, but he now had five men following her at all times. She still thought Jerome was her only bodyguard.
“Hey, that’s Mac for you.” I told him. He nodded.
“Got to love em’!”
By the time we got through all the well wishes and greetings, I was ready to do bodily harm to someone. There were several things irritating me. My main irritation was the fact that my wife’s beauty was attracting most of the men and several of the women in this joint. They couldn’t take their eyes off her.
Hell, a couple times I had to physically remove some man’s hand from her arm or shoulder. I barely tolerated a handshake. Another thing that was irritating the sh*t out of me, or shall I say another somebody, was the king himself—Solomon.
Apparently, this arrogant bastard came from a promoted family and was quite well known amongst the elite.
“Yo, you know who that is over there talking to the Mayor?” Kenny asked enthusiastically, nudging my arm. I bit down on my teeth to keep from punching him. However, I nudged him back, sending him stumbling a couple of feet.
“Stop nudging me chump!” I growled. He looked at me, holding out his hands.
“Okay big boy, calm down.” I bit down on my teeth again. By this point I was extremely irritated. Yasmin stood to the right of me chatting away with my mother, Stacy, and several other women I did not know. When she felt me nudge Kenny, she turned to look at me before putting her hand on my chest. She smiled up at me, and for just a moment my irritation fled.
“Wow, I’m amazed every time I see her do that!” Kenny said from my left. “She has the ability to calm the beast with just a tou—"
“Who is he Kenny?” I said interrupting him in no mood to listen to his sentimental bullsh*t.
He blinked up at me confused. “Who is who?” My irritation came back full force. Yasmin who was laughing at something Stacy said, let her hand rub down my arm until our fingers were intertwined. My baby was multitasking, I exhaled.
“The man talking to the mayor, Kenny!”
“Oh, yeah!” He turned to look toward them. “That’s Solomon, son of the ‘Black Wolf’, who by the way name was also Solomon. Man, his dad was a vicious attorney in his day. My father tried to hire the Black Wolf several times, but they say he had some kind of humanity breakdown before he died and would no longer represent the elites. Instead, he would only represent poor ghetto youths or something of the like.” I looked at him.
“What the hell is a humanity breakdown?”
“You know, that’s when you get to looking within and you decide to be a good person and give to the world instead of take.” He shivered as if the idea was terrifying.
“Anyway, Solomon Jr. must have had the same breakdown. Something happened to him between the time he graduated and was due to take over his grandfather’s law firm. He went from being on his way to becoming one of the youngest managing partners of a prestige law firm to opening up some non-for-profit joint in the Chi where he does legal aid for folks.” Kenny shook his head. “What a waste.”
My gaze fell back to the old king, who surprisingly damn near knew every rich snobby bastard in the room. It was more to him than what I initially thought. Who passes up an opportunity to earn a six-figure salary or more to instead give away their services for free? Right then his gaze came to mine. And with a grin on his face, he slightly nodded as if he knew we were talking about him. I frowned.
Then again, maybe not.
“Where the hell is Mac!” I growled, which was the other thing that was irritating me. We’ve been here for over an hour and he has yet to make an appearance. I was starting to get a bad feeling. Something was off. I just couldn’t put my hand on what it was.
* * * * *
Yasmin
I was ready to
