Promises: The Next Generation (Bounty Hunters 5)

Had he lived in his father’s village in Kenya, Ty would’ve been preparing to take a wife at sixteen, well past puberty and already considered a man—to marry his first wife, that is. Polygamy was another common practice where his father came from but he had abandoned some of the common Islamic principles when he’d become a U.S. citizen, instead, choosing to marry only one woman and having never felt he needed more. She was everything to him and for him.

Ty was tired of the rhetoric that there were slim-pickings in their city. There were plenty of good ’brothas in the hood who made an honest living and only needed a strong partner to help him build his empire All men weren’t out to just hit it and quit it. Ty was one of the good ones who believed in the serenity of monogamy. He had very strong principles on that issue and he knew they’d never change. They’d been ingrained in him since he could understand his father’s language. The language of righteous men.

Ty put the dog tag around his neck and tucked the precious metal inside his shirt, symbolically keeping his father close to his heart. He listened for several minutes before leaving and walking down the short hallway. He was almost to the stairwell when the last apartment door at the end of the hall cracked open, revealing a woman dressed in a midriff and skintight skirt that stopped just below her ass cheeks. She even had on spiked heels at eight in the morning. To an unsuspecting man, she’d nearly materialized out of thin air, a sexy vixen sent by the devil himself. What man could resist? Not many did.

Ty could, and he always would.

“I see you’re up early, Ty,” she purred through pretty plump lips that were void of any enhancement or gloss.

Ty blinked, clearing the lust that tried to invade his mind as the fragrance of her obvious attraction messed with his head. The aroma of her Hispanic-inspired breakfast attacked his senses.

“I thought I heard your door. Would you mind helping me by putting my smoke alarm back up on the wall? I had to knock it off with the broom when it wouldn’t stop blaring this morning and now I can’t get it back up.”

Ty slowed his pace.

“Be kind to the neighbor who is related to you and the neighbor who is not.”

Ty believed in doing what was right, and his unmarried neighbor needed him to lend a helping hand. If she’d had a husband, there was nothing she could’ve said to make him enter another’s man’s home without his permission. As the situation stood, he knew he couldn’t refuse when she was asking so little. However, he’d seen many men go inside her den of passion under misconceptions. Some came out happy, most did not. Either way, they never left in the same mindset as when they’d arrived. She was a con-woman of the highest magnitude. The halls in Ty’s apartment building were littered with ballers, hustlers and street pharmacists, regularly coming and going. There was a lot of money floating through these corridors. Alejandra had a system that’d worked for her for years. She reminded Ty of a black widow.

His father had warned him about those females. Just as a black widow’s web was her best hunting tool, Alejandra’s apartment was where she trapped her game. As men moved up and down her hallway, she could sense the ones who would make a potentially delicious meal. Meaning lucrative. Once she had her fresh catch inside her sanctum, she’d treat him like a king, lessening his defenses, slithering past his guard, only to sting and liquefy him after. All men ever wanted was to be revered and respected. Once her prey was comfortable, relaxed, sleeping off her good loving, that’s when she’d drink up the fruits of her labor. Men were always released from her clutches, but when they got home they realized their wallets were a lot thinner than when they’d arrived, sometimes even a piece of jewelry or two lighter as well.

Ty checked around and behind him when he entered her home, making sure they were alone. It was exceptionally clean, and nicely decorated. She was a woman who knew how to keep house. There wasn’t any dust on the black, glass coffee table or a purple, furry throw pillow out of place. Nothing inside her home indicated that a man resided there. Some decorative pieces—strategically placed in her web—looked designer, expensive, maybe even imported. It was a woman’s palace paid for by men’s labor.

Ty hurriedly made his way to her small, eat-in dining room, not wanting to linger, hell, not even wanting to be seen coming in or out of her place. When two single individuals were in a room alone, there was always a third lurking presence. Temptation. Her high heels clacked behind him on the linoleum floor. While she watched him boldly, he didn’t stare at her body although she struck as many poses as a Victoria Secret model trying to get him to do so. Not speaking, he picked up the battered smoke alarm from her glass-top dining table and made fast work reattaching it to the wall, giving it a quick test.