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  A Dangerous Love 7

  Lock Down Publications

  Presents

  A Dangerous Love 7

  A Novel by J Peach

  Acknowledgement

  Da’Jah & Da’Vion, my heart, my two babies. If it wasn’t for you two, I swear I would not have the determination to continue to beat these keys as hard as I am. You two are my motivation!!

  I LOVE Y’ALL SO MUCH!!

  I want to dedicate this finale to all my readers/supporters. Thank you all so much for sticking with me through this all. To all my readers who are still with me from 2013 when this story was first created, Thank You All For Rocking With Me On This Journey!!

  You all truly don’t understand how much your constant support means to me! I promise words can’t begin to describe this feeling!!

  Thank You All So Much!

  Lock Down Publications

  P.O. Box 1482

  Pine Lake, Ga 30072-1482

  Visit our website at www.lockdownpublications.com

  Copyright 2015 by J Peach A Dangerous Love 7

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in review.

  First Edition October 2015

  Printed in the United States of America

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Lock Down Publications

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  Facebook: Peaches Johnson

  Email: [email protected]

  Cover design and layout by: Dynasty’s Cover Me

  Book interior design by: Shawn Walker

  Edited by: Shawn Walker

  Prologue

  Peaches

  “Peaches, come on, baby girl. Get up.” I heard Blaze over the loud car alarms.

  My eyes blinked rapidly as I felt the immediate throb from my head when I hit it on the ground. Once my vision cleared, I looked up at my burning house and cried. I bawled harder as I imaged what would’ve happened had Blaze not have called us out of the garage.

  Even after the beating I received from Le’Ron, I realized those fatal threats were never going to end. They were really trying to kill me, us. I clung to the front of Blaze’s shirt crying, as I silently thanked God that we were alright.

  Blaze made it to the truck and thrusted me into the backseat where Blake sat screaming. Hearing his cries caused me to cry harder from the fear I knew he felt. I grabbed and pull him into my chest.

  “Peaches, is he good?” Blaze asked once he hopped into the front seat.

  I didn’t answer him because I didn’t know. I was so shaken from the explosion that all I could do was rock my baby and cry.

  “Peaches!” Blaze yelled, causing me to jump hard and Blake to cry even harder.

  I could tell from his tone of voice that he was pissed.

  “Peaches, I need you to calm down and check to make sho he’s good.” Blaze yelled once more as he jumped a curve.

  With shaky hands, I sat Blake on the seat and began to look him over. His face was dirty and blood ran from the right side of his head.

  I had to pull myself together, my hands frantically wiped at my tears before I pulled up his shirt to inspect his small body. There was a big bruise on the right side of his shoulder. Besides that, I didn’t see any other marks.

  I reached in the hatchback and grabbed the duffle bag. Opening it, I pulled out the wipes and then cleaned around the cut on his forehead to see if it was deep.

  It was.

  “Blaze, he has a split on the side of his head and a bruise on his shoulder. He needs to go to the hospital,” I told him over Blake’s screams.

  “Fuck!” Blaze yelled, hitting the steering wheel before he ran a red light.

  “Blake, baby, you’re going to be okay. I promise. Shhh,” I pulled him back into my lap. I held him tightly against my chest. His body bounced fast from my legs moving frantically. I was trying to calm myself down for him but that didn’t change the fact I was terrified.

  “Aye, King, meet me at my crib and call the twins over. I’ll be there in about ten minutes and I need y’all there,” Blaze ordered.

  I could tell from the way his hands squeezed around the steering wheel that he was having a hard time controlling himself.

  “The mothafucka just blew up Peaches house!—Yo, shut the fuck up and just meet us at the crib.” Blaze threw his phone into the passenger seat as he continued to speed all the way to his apartment.

  ***

  When we made it to Blaze’s place, King and the twins were waiting on us. Blaze had Khyree stitch the side of Blake’s head. I wanted to protest but Khyree was gentle with him. Blake fought at first until Khyree numbed the area. Once he finished, he gave Blake medicine to put him to sleep.

  “If I fuckin’ knew who did the shit, I wouldn’t be fuckin’ sitting here!” Blaze yelled at King before he punched the wall. “Yo, that mothafucka called me and said I better enjoy our time because it wasn’t gon’ last long. This mothafucka just tried to kill my son and Peaches. And I don’t know who the fuck it is. How the fuck am I supposed to do shit?”

  Blaze flipped over the glass table in the living room, causing the glass to fall onto the floor and shatter.

  His action caused Blake to jump. I held him tighter to me and shushed him. I continued to rock him back and forth, trying to calm him.

  Blaze noticed and glared at me. “Get him the fuck outda here. Go put him in the room.”

  I didn’t say anything smart to him. Instead, I got up and took Blake into the spare room.

  Blaze had lost all his cool once we walked through the door, he flipped and couldn’t control his anger. He wanted to know who was behind the attack but anyone who could have given us answer were dead.

  We couldn’t bring Le’Ron back to ask him anything and Blaze was pissed because he didn’t know where to start looking. What he did know was that someone knew a lot about us and he didn’t like it. For them to be able to get to us so easily wasn’t sitting well with him.

  I watched Blake for a second longer before I left out of the room. My fingers swiped at my eyes not believing what just happened. We all could’ve been dead.

  As I walked back into the living room, there was a knock on his door.

  Blaze was the first to grab his gun. He cocked it and so did everyone else.

  “B, it’s me.” Bellow’s voice came from the other side of the door.

  Blaze waved his gun and Khalil opened the door for him.

  “I done talked to everybody on that block and nobody saw shit. They said nobody came or left that house after y’all bounced. But the garage was rigged to blow once the door closed so somebody had to get inside that house to set it up.” Bellow flopped down on the couch. His hand ran over his face before he loosened his tie. “We still blind to whoever did this. This mothafucka got full control over everything. Even so, I don’t think they’ll make a move just yet, especially after this. But B, you have to capitalize on this. They don’t know the outcome of the bomb, so you gotda get lil’ man and Peaches out of here. If those mothafuckas ain’t scared to rig her place, those mothafuckas ain’t fuck’d up about you, period.” Bellow told him before his eyes glanced up at me.

  King let out a heavy breath. His frustrations showed on his face but he was
doing a good job holding it in. His head shook, “B, Bell is right. They can’t stay here. They know where yo heart at now, so they not gon’ come for you no more. They gon’ try everything to get at her and if they find out you got a kid, they gon’ come for the both of them. They got to get the fuck up outda here tonight. We can’t sit on this. We need to move now.”

  “Fuck!” Blaze snapped again. He looked at me, I saw it in his eyes that he knew they were right. “We’ll leave out and go to The City tonight and I’ll figure something out in the morning.” Blaze rubbed a hand over his head.

  “B, you can’t go with them. Wherever you go, they gon’ follow.” Bellow head shook. “It’s obvious you’re not hard to get at for them. They’ll be quick to find you and once they do, Peaches and lil’ man gon’ be pulled right back into this shit.”

  “I ain’t letting them go by themselves. Hell n’all! Fuck that bullshit. Where they go I go—” Blaze started to go off once again.

  King cut him off. “Blaze, you ain’t got no choice. Don’t let yo stubbornness overcloud what you know is right. B, the mothafucka put a bomb in Peaches’ garage. This mothafucka ain’t gon’ stop and we don’t have time to sit around here going back and forth about this bullshit when you know we right.” King was pissed off.

  Blaze punched the wall again. “Fuck!”

  “The City ain’t a good place to go. That’s right next door, half the mothafuckas in Gary is from Chicago. Everybody knew everybody so that wasn’t a smart move,” Khyree chimed in.

  “They not going far. They not leaving Indiana, if that’s what y’all hinting at.” Blaze told them.

  “They don’t have too. Indiana got a lot of cities. Matter of fact, I got a friend out in Lafayette and ain’t too much of shit happens out there. That’s nothing but a two hour drive but the decision is all yours.” Khalil sat on the couch next to Bellow.

  “What you gon’ do?” Khyree asked him.

  Blaze said nothing else to them as he walked out. He grabbed a hold of my arm as he did and pulled me into the room and then closed the door. “Peaches, I’m sorry about all of this shit.” He took a deep breath.

  I couldn’t blame him. To me, it wasn’t his fault. “Blaze, you don’t have to apologize.” I sat on the bed, thinking about what the boys were just saying but after what just happened, I didn’t want to leave his side.

  “Peaches, they right. As long as the two of you are around me, shit like this is going to continue to happen until I end this bullshit.”

  I grabbed his hand and pulled him next to me. “Blaze, I don’t want to leave you—”

  “You don’t have a choice. It’s what’s best for you and Blake. Peaches, it’s not gon’ change shit between us besides location. I’mma set y’all up at a hotel until we find y’all a house out there—”

  I started to cut him off but he waved his hand at me and my mouth shut.

  “I don’t need you to disagree with me, just know I’m making the best decision for y’all.” Blaze pulled away from me. “Go pack what clothes y’all have here and get ready to leave out in a half hour.” Blaze didn’t say anything else as he walked out of the room, slamming the door shut. He ended our conversation and made the final decision he thought was best for us.

  Present

  Five Years Later

  My eyes tore away from the photo of Blake, Cherry, Blaze and I at the park five years ago. Tears filled my eyes as I stared at Cherry, my first baby, knowing I would never be able to hold her again.

  I placed the picture back on the banister. It was five years to the day that I lost my Cherry from my house blowing up.

  Every year, this day would hit me hard, so I tried every year to do something special with my son knowing I could have lost him behind some bullshit. It was now a tradition that on this particular day we lived it to the fullest.

  “Ma, you ready to go?” Blake asked as he came into the living room where I stood.

  “Yeah, let’s go.”

  Blake came and stood next to me. He looked at the picture I had just been staring at.

  My eyes glanced to the scar on the right side of his head.

  “Ma, come on. You do this every year. We good, now let’s go. I can’t wait to play laser tag.” Blake squeaked out excitedly.

  I laughed at my little man and his excitement. “Come on, boy. And yo black butt bet not shoot me.” I grabbed my purse off of the table and then headed to the front door.

  Blake was right on my heels following me out of the house. “How you gon’ say don’t shoot you? What’s the point of going, then? We should’ve went paintballing.”

  I looked at him like he was crazy. “If you ever shoot me with a paintball, I’m gon’ beat you.”

  He started laughing. “No you won’t, you love me too much.”

  “Boy, shut up and put on your seatbelt.” I laughed at him as I pulled out of the driveway and headed to Steradian in West Lafayette for a day of outdoor fun.

  Chapter 1

  Peaches

  “Rashad, get your little butt back here!” He stopped in his tracks and glanced back at me. Blake let out a heavy, irritable breath. At eight years old, he looked even more like his father with the attitude to match. It seemed like the older be got the more like Blaze he became.

  “Little boy…” My tone warned him not to play with me.

  Blake straightened up and slowly made his way to me. “Ma, I was just ‘bout to run and get some Cookie Crisp. We ain’t got no mo,” he replied, sounding just like his daddy.

  “It’s, we don’t have any more.” I corrected him.

  Blake’s eyes rolled at my correction and I slapped him upside his head, making him laugh. “Ma, stop, I just got my hair cut.”

  Laughing at him, I pushed my little man away from me. “I’m going in that aisle once I leave out of this one.”

  Blake shrugged before grabbing his blue basket with his junk food in it. “Then I can meet you over there, hurry up.” After that, he took off running into the next aisle.

  “Rashad!”

  “Ma, I can hear you. Stop yelling, ghetto ass!” He yelled back over to me.

  I dropped the bread into the buggy and left out of the aisle to go find him. He done lost his mind. Once I made it to him, Blake started laughing.

  “I was only playin’, you know how we do.” Taking in my hard glare, he straightened up. “Mommy, I love you.”

  Laughing at him, I shook my head. “I don’t know nothing but what I do know is you better watch yo mouth before I pour dishwashing liquid down yo throat—”

  “Your mouth, your throat.” He suddenly said after putting his basket back in my buggy.

  “What?” I asked confused by his reply.

  “The word is your, you said yo—”

  “Little boy…” My voice broke as I laughed. “Yo little butt gon’ make me hurt you. Now I dare you to correct me again.”

  Blake gave me a cheeky smile. Only a handful of us really got to see his playful side. Other times, he was serious about everything and quiet, just like his dad. Blaze done cursed my poor baby. He was most definitely his father’s child.

  Blaze and my relationship was pretty much non-existent, which was crazy seeing as we had Lil B. After the explosion at my house, we kind of drifted apart.

  That same day, Blaze moved both me and Blake from Gary to Lafayette, Indiana, which was only two hours away, but it was far enough away from Blaze and we couldn’t build our relationship.

  I understood Blaze didn’t want to risk putting Blake and I in anymore danger, so the move was necessary. A part of me now saw the move was a big mistake because here it was five years later and nothing had happened that would harm us. Only thing that really ended was our relationship.

  I could also blame myself for our distance because in order to not think about our situation, I registered for school at Purdue University in West Lafayette before I got a job at the hospital. And once I got into routine, I began to drown myself with my studies on top of ta
king care of Blake.

  I missed Blaze. I’m not going to lie. I missed how we were after we stopped dating, our late night conversations and the crazy sex. Hell, everything that was him.

  “Bae, what do you want to get your dad for his birthday?” Leaving out the cereal aisle, he turned toward me shrugging.

  “Shid, I don’t know—”

  “Rashad, watch your mouth.”

  Sighing, he started his sentence over again. “I don’t know. I asked him and he just said whatever I get him. Uncle King said I should just get him two hundred ones.”

  My brows rose at that. “Why?” The word slowly left my mouth, as confusion set in my body.

  His duh facial expression messed me up. “Why you think? They ass taking him to a strip joint with them big booty girls.” Before I could stop myself or think, my hand shot out, slapping him hard in the mouth. “Why you hit me? That’s what Unc told me. Damn, hit him not me.”

  “Oh, I’mma hit him but what I tell you about your mouth? Rashad, it’s not cute. I don’t care how yo daddy talk it’s not cute or cool.” I chastised him.

  I sometimes hated for Blake to be alone with his dad and uncle for that reason right there.

  “It was something. You had a baby by him.” He shot back.

  My mouth opened and then closed before a glare covered my face. My lips pursed tightly together as I bit my tongue. “Give me yo phone.”

  “Look, I’m sorry—” He began to say, sounding so much like Blaze.

  “Blake, don’t play with me give me yo phone.” I glared hard at him.

  He reached in his pocket and gave it to me.

  I snatched it from him and put it in my purse. “Don’t think for a second you got a slide either. You just wait until I get you home.”

  “Man, fo’real?” he questioned with a pleading expression. “Ma.” Taking in my facial expression, he shut up.

  This damn boy done lost his mind talking to me like he crazy. If we wasn’t in this store, I would’ve whooped his little ass.