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I stay out while my mom has my son.”
    “I’m not taking you home,” she said. “Just driving around to see where the girls are. See if I spot Honey or Valentino.”
    Gently, I placed my hand on Onyx’s thigh. “I’m so sorry to hear about your friend.”
    Onyx’s leg trembled. She spoke as though she hadn’t heard me. “Honey could’ve left us in Vegas but she didn’t. She gave us airline tickets. All of us came right away, except Girl Six.” Onyx’s eyes widened. She picked up her cell, placed a call, then said, “Girl Six, get your ass to the house. Now.”
    Eyes shifting to Onyx, bottom lip tucked between my teeth, I asked, “You think Girl Six set Honey up?”
    “Don’t know. The prostitution business made us hard-core. You’re a bad bitch yourself the way you stumped your spiked heel into that man’s wife’s pussy,” she said, giving me props.
    Tolliver’s wife came to Stilettos the night Honey and Onyx were there. My mom had asked Honey to show up at Stillettos to convince me to quit stripping. Tolliver’s wife wanted him to stop fucking me. She had the right idea, wrong approach. When his wife tried to stab me in my back with a knife during my on-stage performance, Honey grabbed her. Onyx hit Tolliver in the head with her stiletto. And I stomped Tolliver’s wife in her clit with my spiked heel.
    “Self-preservation,” I said, glad I’d given up stripping. “You ever been married?”
    “I am married.”
    “Were you married while you were an escort?”
    “Yes,” she said, driving by Victoria’s Secret at Atlantic Station. “He was abusive. Either I left or I was going to kill him. He lucked out. Me too. I love my life now.” Onyx picked up her cellular. “Girl Six didn’t answer her phone. But I’m definitely going to find out if she’s involved in Honey’s disappearance. If she is, she’s dead. No questions asked.”
    Onyx and Honey had my back that night but did that make me obligated to both of them? I had my son and my mother to protect. “On second thought, take me home.”
    “I need you to stay with me until we find Honey,” she said, heading back toward downtown. “And you’ve got to pay attention to details. You forgot about the client you took into the conference room. I intentionally locked her in the office so she wouldn’t go home. We have to go back to the office, then to the house.”
    “I didn’t forget. I assumed you wanted her to stay there,” I lied.
    Onyx slammed on her breaks. “Stop lying! This situation is serious!”
    Could she get charged with vehicular manslaughter if she had caused my neck to break? Thank God I had on my seat belt. At the peak of my career, I questioned my existence.

CHAPTER 4
Grant
    Meanwhile…in Washington, D.C.
    A n honorable man sacrificed for family, for success, for love. The second Onyx phoned and told me Honey was in trouble, I was on my way. I never got out of my car in front my parents’ home in D.C. I backed out of their driveway and headed to the nearest airport with the most direct flights to Hartsfield.
    “Yes! Finally, I have a legitimate reason to go get my baby back.” I hadn’t called Honey since we’d parted in Vegas. The possibility of her rejection bothered me. No way was I going to call Honey and confess, “Baby, I love you. I want you to be my lady,” and give her the chance to tell me, “Grant, you’re not man enough for me.”
    Two women in my life were worth dying for, my mother and Honey. My mother knew how much I loved her; Honey had no idea. My mom loved me unconditionally. Mom made loving her easy. Made being myself comfortable, acceptable. Mom consistently wanted the best for me. My wife didn’t have to be my mom, but she had to have my mother’s qualities. Mom supported my indoor grasshopper farm when I was six, my riding dirt bikes when I was twelve, and my decision to sell the house my dad bought me for graduation to invest in my first apartment complex when I was eighteen.
    I