𝘾𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙨
﹥━━━━━━━━━━﹤

10pm

Morgan and I wait in the parking lot, waiting for the others.

"You okay?" I ask my fiancé.

She assures me with a soft "yes."

I get another good look at her after finishing my blunt.

She looks so good, there isn't an English word in the dictionary to describe her.

"You're stunning." I settle for that compliment.

Morgan blushes, throwing her arms around my neck.

"Thank you, papa," she jokes, mocking Madi from earlier.

I laugh hard, watching as AJ approaches with his girlfriend as if we summoned her.

"Sup," AJ tries to act cool like always.

I dap him up and then acknowledge Madi.

They're followed by Andy and Jabari.

Everyone looks like they're dressed for different occasions. I have on all black to match Morgan's bodysuit but Andy looks like he's going to a white frat party, Adriel looks like a pimp at the casino, Jabari looks like he's going to a Lil' Baby concert, and Madi— well, Madi usually looks dirty and unkept like she's going to a rave so she's fine.

"Wait, are you two okay?" Morgan asks Madi and AJ. I noticed their awkwardly standoffish body language, too, like they don't want to be near each other.

"I found 'Clapper' on AJ's phone." Madi tells the group.

"'Clapper?'" I scratch my head.

"A dating app-" Andy tries to answer but gets cut off.

"A hookup app!" Madi exclaims, directing her anger at Adriel who looks too guilty to defend himself.

"Well, why'd you download the app if you have a girlfriend?" Jabari asks him. Fair question.

AJ shrugs, looking down at his cowboy boots. "I just wanted to see something," he mumbles.

Morgan shakes her head which gains a reaction from Adriel.

"Why are you judging, didn't you find your sugar daddy on Clapper?" He roars, displacing his energy.

Morgan, looking offended, opens her mouth to verbally lash Madi's boyfriend, but I get in between them.

"And she hasn't been on it since. Delete your account and shut the fuck up." I dead the conversation.

Silence falls. Morgan's choking Adriel in her head, I can tell by the way she's glaring at him. I don't need anymore bickering, we have shit to do.

"Let's go." I lead the way, taking Morgan by the hand.

The line is long. I hate lines.

I figure there's got to be another way to get inside sooner.

So, I ask Morgan to charm the bouncer which works, because why wouldn't it?

As soon as she gets us in, I stare the bouncer down and remember him for later.

"Shots!" Jabari shouts.

"Hell yeah!" Andy exclaims, high-giving JB.

I glare at them both.

"Hell no." I put my foot down.

Both of their giddy smiles fall.

"We aren't here to get fucked up, no one's taking any shots." I tell them sternly.

"Boring." Madi sneers.

"Good thing I got X!" AJ cheers.

"The fuck's the matter with you?" I ask him, squinting under the strobe lights.

Morgan hangs her head, ashamed.

Thank God for her. Useless, the rest of them.

"Without looking fucking suspicious, can y'all find an office or anything that could lead us to Malcolm?" I ask.

"Me and Madi will look in the kitchen." AJ affirms.

"I can go with you?" Andi asks J.

Jabari daps him up as a form of consent. Glad the two of them are bonding and not getting on my nerves.

"Let's start at the bar." Jabari says, raising my blood pressure.

"I'm joking," he claims, "we'll look around back."

I nod my head.

Then there's just Morgan and I.

"I guess we'll head upstairs?" I suggest.

Morgan, looking like she sees no other choice, agrees nonverbally.

Before splitting, I tell the group, "Meet back in the parking lot in thirty minutes."

✕

"Chris!" Morgan squeals as I push her panties to the side and feel her wetness.

"Want me to stop?" I ask, out of breath.

She bites her lower lip and shakes her head no.

"I didn't think so." I chuckle in her ear.

She spreads her legs further for me to my pleasure and I reward her, slipping my fingers inside of her.

Pulling my fingers out, I taste her and then do it again for her to taste.

She sucks my fingers so sensually, I could ruin my pants just from this.

Suddenly, my phone starts to ring.

At first, I ignore it.

Then, as it persists, I groan and snatch the phone from my pocket.

Morgan kisses down my neck, distracting me.

"Shit, it's Jabari." I mentally kick myself for forgetting.

"Oh my gosh! How long has it been?" Morgan asks, making herself decent.

"Twenty-eight minutes." I answer with a quick laugh, looking at the time.

That means we have two minutes to find what the hell we're looking for and get back to the meeting spot. Great.

Dead puppies. Gaza. Sabrina, I think of anything that might get rid of my situation.

Morgan pouts. "Later?"

I smirk, wrapping my arms around her. "You bet."

"Ugh, get off of me." She whines since we can't do what we want.

"I can't help it, you're driving me insane." I flirt back, kissing her neck, chest, and shoulder.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

A round of shots goes off in The Q downstairs followed by a series of screams and what sounds like a stampede of ravers exiting the building.

Please tell me that was fireworks, I think in my head.

All I can think about is if JB and the rest of the group made it out safely?

"We have to hide." I whisper to Morgan, pulling her to the other side of the room.

The building has gone dead silent apart from the stomping sounds growing near.

"There's no where to hide," Morgan frets, looking all around.

She's right, there isn't. The office is open, with only a desk dead in the center but it doesn't go to the floor so if we hid under there and the lights came on we'd easily be busted.

Before I can think of our next move, someone busts in.

Fuck.

"Well, well, well..." a man's voice appears.

It's dark, I can hardly see anything but the outline of his body.

I'd be nervous if I didn't know what I was capable of. I'm not Mike Tyson or Superman, but I have yet to let someone take me down and I'll be damned if I lose trying to defend Morgan especially.

I push her behind me but she knows what to do at this point. Hell, by now she probably fights as good as me. Still, I don't even want her breaking a nail or standing by in fear. Besides, this mother fucker has a gun.

I remain still, not bothering to make a move until this bold stranger does.

He steps into the light, cackling like some sort of twist villain doing a grand reveal in the third act of a movie.

It's Monty.

Somehow, I wasn't expecting this.

Accepting this for what it is, I nod my head up and down slowly with my tongue in my cheek.

"Back already?" I humor him.

"Like I never left." He divulges, circling our bodies in the middle of the office.

I watch Monty, the doctor, loosen his tie and crack his neck like he's about to get active. I dare him.

"He said you'd be back." Monty plays the pronoun game.

"Who's that?" I ask.

"You know who, and you know him very well." He laughs.

Malcolm, I assume.

"You two go way back?" I have to ask.

"Of course." He smirks, standing several feet away from us.

Of course. . .

"Why don't you tell me what you're doing with that portrait, huh? Where'd you get it, Malcolm give away his collection?"

Monty laughs harder. "Malcolm? No, no, no, but you're close. Morgan is in high demand."

High demand?

The cocky way he's moving, that sneer, the way he's talking about my wife makes me ball my fists.

"According to who?" I bark.

"My colleagues." He remains cryptic.

"Yeah? Who would they be?"

"You're so smart, Vaughn, but so stupid. You know more than you do think you, and you're closer to us than you want to admit."

He sounds like Tate and Beck Jordan, all trying to rope me into their flashy, rich, sinful lifestyles.

"You talk too much." I tell him, growing fed up.

"Don't worry, you won't have to listen to me much longer." Monty says, lunging towards me in one fluid movement.

Before he gets to me, though, he falls to the ground with a blow to the head.

"Dammnnnnn!" Jabari brings comedic relief.

It's him and Andy.

"Way to go, Andy." Morgan cheers when she notices the weapon in his hand.

"I hope I didn't kill him." Andy winces.

"I hope you did." I snarl, stepping over the limp body.

"No, we need him alive for answers." Morgan thinks rationally. One of us has to.

I roll my eyes, not caring if this motherfucker makes it or not.

"I would've been in here sooner, but I ran into the redhead from earlier and you know how I do." Jabari brags but I stop listening.

"You okay?" I ask Morgan although I know that she is.

She nods, tucking the hair behind her ear as she leans over Monty's unconscious body.

"What now?" Jabari asks the group.

"Call the police." I suggest, earning surprised looks from everyone.

"You hate the police." Morgan reminds me.

"So do I," Jabari adds.

"I know, I know," I tell them. "I have an idea."

I'm pacing outside of the police station. If you ask Morgan, this is making her more nervous. She wants me to sit and relax but I can't.

It's like watching paint dry! We've been here for two hours.

"Why exactly did you have this bright idea?" Jabari asks me. He's slumped over a bench, pissed we're anywhere near the police.
Jabari's never had any problems with the law except since the Malcolm thing. Before then he had a squeaky clean record so I don't buy his whole "I can't be around the cops" bit, he's just trying to act hard as if he has any warrants. Parking tickets, maybe.

I groan at his question and hesitate to answer.

"You think he was going to answer our questions after you knocked him out?" I respond.

"No," I answer my own question while they sit and look stupid.

Jabari smacks his lips. "Still, this too much like snitching to me."

"What did you want me to do? Tie him up and beat the shit out oh him?" My question is rhetorical.

Everyone kind of silently wishes I would've went that route.

"Trust me, I wish I did," I verbalize, "but we need answers - the legal way."

"I don't know about legal, but this is definitely better than you having to beat anyone else up." Morgan hums, alluding to Penshaw's dirty law enforcement.

We haven't been here for a couple of years since the Malcolm thing so I hope the police cleaned up. At one point, they all worked for him, and the ones who didn't might as well have.
AJ did say the streets have gotten cleaner, cops are actually doing their jobs, so it's a start.

"It's taking forever." Andy subtly complains.

I agree silently and take a seat. Just as I do, though, Hanks exits the station and approaches us.

Standing, I ask, "So? What he say?"

Officer Mike Hanks clears his throat, acknowledging Morgan with a short look and respectful tilt of his hat.

"Not much. All I know is he's been unfaithful to his wife, that's not a crime, though." Hanks reports.

"What else, man? There's gotta be something..."

Hanks scrapes his beard with his fingernails, thinking.
"He said Morgan's pictures can be found on Clapper - that's where he got them."

All eyes shoot to my fiancé.

I look at her, waiting for an explanation.

"What?!" She barks at us for the interrogating eye contact.

When my eyebrow raises, she scoffs. "You said yourself I deleted the app years ago. I didn't even know it still existed until Madi said AJ was on it."

"How'd you access it?" Hanks asks Adriel.

AJ, in an even bigger hole now, tries to shrink to look smaller and hide.

"It took a lot. There was an extensive sign-up process, background check, a crazy fee to join." Adriel explains.

"I did see your profile on there, Morgan..." Adriel confesses, sending me a quick pity look.

My jaw clenched, I look at Morgan and she stares back at me, helplessly confused.

"I'm telling you I have no idea how my pictures got on there." She claims. I believe her.

"Well, people Catfish all the time." Andy speaks up for Morgan.

I agree with him on that, so does Hanks and Jabari.

"AJ, let us see the profile." I demand, holding my hand out for his phone.

He quickly pats himself down to find his phone and then hands it over.

"Madiisbae14." Adriel tells me his password so I can unlock the phone.

I roll my eyes, typing it but it works.

Everyone gathers around as I swipe for the 'Clapper' application on the homescreen and launch it.

"I have no idea what I'm doing." I say under my breath, thumb aimlessly hovering over the screen.

Morgan snatches the phone from my hands and takes over.
It's not long before she pulls up her image on a profile that's run by someone else apparently.

"AJ, why are you subscribed?" I ask when I notice he's a gold member.

He turtles again, blushing. "I-I—" he stammers.

I cut my eyes from him. "We'll talk later."

He gulps hard.

Jabari and Andy look at the photos until I side eye them too and they back the fuck up. Both of them clear their throats and start a nonsense conversation.

"Wait," Morgan says, looking up at me.

"What?" I bellow.

"This person isn't pretending to be me..." she suddenly realizes.

Of course, I think in my head as I look further.

"This page is for you." Hanks determines.

"Someone's been using your pictures and selling them to these guys like Monty." He adds.

"And Beck." I comment.

It all makes sense now.

"Girls don't really sign up for the app." Madi says lowly, almost like she doesn't want anyone to hear her.

"What do you mean? I did." Morgan says.

Madi shakes her head, holding her elbows. "Because you didn't know any better, a lot of them didn't. They can't stop regular people from signing up or else it will raise suspicion. It's advertised like a sugar-daddy site, but it's not. Err, it is, but not how you think."

"Madi you better start talking real fucking quick-" I get impatient.

She gulps hard and says, "If a girl is known enough, someone will post a profile to advertise her, ratings go up if a gold member verifies his interactions with the girl. He can then rate her and others will be able to place an offer if she's not already taken, or sold."

"What the fuck?" Morgan curses, walking away from the group to pace while she grasps this information.

"Morgan, your profile's been up for a while. You're kind of, like, the poster child for the app." Madi reveals.

Officer Hanks nods his head. "It's true. We've been trying to figure if it's some sort of escort service, which we do believe. Myself and a few other officers have brought in a dozen local users on the app —all rich types like Monty and Malcolm— who have all followed your profile. We haven't been successful because the messages delete every twelve hours and there's no payment information connected to the accounts."

"How do you know all of this?" AJ questions Madison.

She chews her lower chapped lip. "I had a profile."

"When?!" Adriel erupts.

"When you were with Malcolm and those guys. Tawny." Morgan recalls, looking Madi (AKA Tawny) up and down.

"You've known since then that this profile existed? This whole time, you knew people were using my pictures and fucking auctioning them off?!" Morgan gets worked up and charges towards Madi but I grab her before she can swing.

"Let me go," Morgan rages, "I'll fucking kill her, that is so disgusting." Her calmness scares me more than anything.

Hanks stands in the center of the circle we've formed and tries to bring tensions down.

"Aye, lemme see that." I hear JB say to Andy who's had the phone after Morgan's search.

"—If we have any leads we'll let you know." Hanks talks in his gruff voice.

I don't pay him any mind as my attention is on Jabari who's parallel to me, eyes glued to the phone screen.

He stumbles back like his hearts stopped and he'll collapse.

"Jabari!" Andy shouts, springing into action.

I run across the sidewalk to help Andy keep Jabari on his feet.

He's let the phone fall out of his hands but it doesn't break somehow, falling on the rocks.

Once Jabari's stable, I pick up the phone to see what's caused such a strong reaction from my brother.

"Oh shit." I suck in a sharp breath of air.

That wasn't what I was expecting. . .

"What? What is it?" Asks Morgan.

I'm hesitant to let her see what I've seen. She doesn't need to witness that, she's already disturbed by her own profile, this will break her.

I shake my head but she yanks the phone from my hands anyway.

Immediately, she gasps.