Chapter 16: Gang's Pledge
The air in the back room of La Perla Taqueria was thick with the smells of stale beer, cheap cigars, and the faint, acrid tang of gun oil. It was Nevaieh’s place, a unassuming storefront in a block she controlled, its back room a secret chapel of concrete and flickering fluorescent light. The long, scarred wooden table was surrounded by her crew—twenty-odd men and women whose faces ranged from hardened to youthful, all united under the red bandanas tied around arms, necks, or stuffed in pockets.
Anaijiah sat stiffly in a folding chair at the head of the table, feeling every pair of eyes on her. She wore a loose black hoodie, but her posture couldn’t hide the new, undeniable roundness of her stomach. It felt like a beacon in the room. She kept her chin up, her gaze level, channeling every ounce of the bold, tattooed artist from Miami who had walked into this city months ago unafraid. But this was different. This wasn’t about her art. This was about her body. Their child.
Nevaieh stood beside her, a hand resting on Anaijiah’s shoulder. Not gently. It was a claim, heavy and possessive. She wore her usual uniform—a black tank top, dark jeans, the red bandana a stark slash in her back pocket. The teardrop under her eye seemed darker in the low light.
“You all know why I called this,” Nevaieh’s voice cut through the low murmurs, silencing them instantly. It wasn’t loud. It was absolute. “Look at her.”
Every head turned. Anaijiah forced herself not to shrink.
“This is Anaijiah,” Nevaieh said, as if they didn’t already know. “She’s mine.” She let that hang, a simple, brutal fact. “And she’s carrying my heir.”
A ripple went through the room. A few exchanged glances. A man named Rico, old school and with scars running up his neck like vines, gave a slow, approving nod.
Nevaieh’s hand lifted from Anaijiah’s shoulder. In one fluid motion, she pulled a switchblade from her pocket, flicked it open with a sharp snick, and drove the point deep into the wood of the table right in front of Anaijiah’s place. The blade quivered, its handle standing upright like a grim monument.
The sound echoed in the silent room.
“This,” Nevaieh said, her palm slamming down on the tabletop, making the blade shudder, “is the only line that matters now. She is on this side of it. Everyone else is on the other.” She leaned forward, her voice dropping into a low, dangerous register that carried to the farthest corner. “You see her in the street, you see her at her shop, you see her buying fucking groceries… your job is to make sure nothing touches her. Not a stray bullet, not a harsh word, not a sideways glance. Nada.”
She straightened up, her eyes sweeping the crew. “If she gets a paper cut, I will know who gave her the paper. If the wind blows too hard and messes up that pretty hair,” she gestured loosely at Anaijiah’s curls, “I will find out why the wind was allowed to blow. You breathe near her wrong, you look at her too long, you even think a threat in her direction…” She paused, letting the implication sink into the stale air. “I will peel the skin from your bones inch by inch and feed it to the dogs on 63rd. Understood?”
A unified mutter of “Yes, Jefa,” rumbled around the table. There was no hesitation. Only a deep, ingrained recognition of the law being laid down.
Anaijiah watched them, her heart pounding against her ribs. She felt exposed, like a specimen under glass. A part of her wanted to scream, to overturn the table, to tell them all she wasn’t a porcelain doll to be guarded. She was a goddamn business owner. An artist. But the other part, the part that had felt that tiny kick and heard Nevaieh’s raw promises, understood the terrifying necessity of this spectacle. This wasn’t just protection. It was a declaration of war on any potential threat, preemptive and brutal. Her safety was now the crew’s paramount objective, under pain of death.
Under the table, hidden from view, she reached out. Her fingers found the solid muscle of Nevaieh’s thigh, clad in denim. She didn’t caress it. She gripped it, her nails digging in slightly, a silent transmission of her swirling anger, fear, and a reluctant, furious gratitude.
Nevaieh’s leg didn’t flinch. If anything, the muscle tightened under Anaijiah’s hand, a wordless acknowledgment. She kept speaking, laying out logistical details—rotations for watching the shop, protocols for her movements, code words. Anaijiah tuned most of it out, focusing on the feeling of the worn wood under her other palm, the quivering knife blade reflecting the sickly light.
When the meeting dissolved, the crew filtering out with respectful nods in her direction, Anaijiah finally let go of Nevaieh’s leg. The room felt emptier, colder.
Nevaieh pulled the knife from the table with a gritty wrench and closed it, slipping it back into her pocket. She pulled her chair around and sat facing Anaijiah, their knees almost touching. The performance was over. Now it was just them.
“You okay?” Nevaieh asked, her voice stripped of its commanding edge.
Anaijiah looked at her, at the worry lining the hardness of her eyes. “You just told two dozen armed people I’m a walking sacred cow,” she said flatly. “You plunged a knife into a table for dramatic effect. My heart is trying to escape through my throat. So, no. I’m not ‘okay.’”
A ghost of a smile touched Nevaieh’s lips. “Good. You shouldn’t be. This is the reality now.”
“The reality is I have clients who are scared of needles, Neva. Now I’ve got gang members posted by the door. How is my business supposed to function?”
“It functions because I say it functions,” Nevaieh said, no malice in it, just cold fact. “Nobody will mess with Sunset Ink. Your bookings will go up, if anything. People like to be associated with power. Even from a distance.”
Anaijiah looked away, out at the empty, grim room. “I don’t want that kind of power. I wanted to earn my reputation.”
“You did,” Nevaieh said, her hand coming up to cup Anaijiah’s cheek, turning her face back. Her touch was surprisingly gentle. “Your art earned it. This,” she gestured vaguely around, “just enforces it. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” Anaijiah searched her face. “It feels like you just tattooed your name across my forehead in ink everyone can see but me.”
Nevaieh’s thumb stroked her jawline. “It’s not my name, Ana. It’s ours. That thing inside you? It’s us. Mixed up together. And in my world, that makes you the most valuable thing there is. So yeah, I’m gonna make it clear. This is me building the fucking moat around the castle. You just focus on building the kid.”
The analogy was so stark, so medieval, it left Anaijiah speechless. She leaned into Nevaieh’s touch, the conflict still churning inside her. The baby chose that moment to move, a firm, rolling shift that made Anaijiah gasp softly and place a hand on her stomach.
Nevaieh’s eyes dropped, and the hardness in them melted into something awed and fiercely tender. She moved her hand from Anaijiah’s cheek to cover hers on the curve of her belly. She didn’t speak. She just waited, feeling for the movement.
There was a tentative knock on the door frame. Rico stood there, looking apologetic. “Jefa? The thing with the delivery from the South Side. They’re here early. Wants to talk terms.”
The shift in Nevaieh was instantaneous. The tenderness vanished, sealed away behind a wall of cool, focused authority. She gave Anaijiah’s stomach one last, almost imperceptible pat and stood up.
“Come with me to the office,” she said to Anaijiah, not a request. “You wait there. Malik will take you home after.”
Anaijiah followed her through a door into a small, windowless office dominated by a large desk and filing cabinets. It smelled of old paper and Nevaieh’s specific scent—sandalwood and gunpowder. Nevaieh guided her to a worn leather chair.
“Sit. Don’t come out until I come back for you.” She bent down, her face close. “It’s just business. But it’s not your business to see. Understand?”
Anaijiah nodded, the fatigue from the emotional whiplash finally settling in her bones.
Nevaieh left, closing the door softly behind her. Anaijiah sat in the quiet, the sounds of the arriving South Side crew—muffled voices, the scrape of chairs—filtering through the thin wall. She heard Nevaieh’s voice, calm and low, then another man’s, sharper, arguing about territory lines.
Her hand rested on her stomach. A moat, she thought. She looked around the sparse, functional room. And this is the keep.
She leaned back, closing her eyes, listening to the muted negotiation on the other side of the wall—a conversation about borders, money, and violence that now, irrevocably, defined the world her child would enter. The knife in the table, the promises in the moonlight, the silent assent of the crew—they were all stones in Nevaieh’s moat. And Anaijiah, whether she wanted to or not, was now inside the walls.
The voices through the wall were a dull rumble of masculine tension, punctuated by the sharp crack of Nevaieh’s voice slicing through. A chair scraped. Anaijiah flinched, her hand instinctively covering the subtle curve of her abdomen. Sixteen weeks. It still felt abstract sometimes, until a moment like this, when the world outside turned sharp and metallic. She traced the firmness under her hoodie, a secret hill growing in a warzone.
She counted the water stains on the acoustic tile ceiling, trying to breathe past the tightness in her chest. The knife in the table had been a symbol. The sounds through the wall were the reality. They were discussing territory, which meant money, which meant power, which meant violence was always a breath away. Her other life—the scented, sterile buzz of Sunset Ink—felt galaxies distant.
The door opened with a soft click. Nevaieh stepped inside, the sharp angles of her face softened by a fatigue Anaijiah rarely saw. She closed the door, muting the contentious voices to a murmur. For a long moment, she just leaned against it, studying Anaijiah in the cheap office light.
“Hey,” Nevaieh said, her voice stripped of its command.
“Hey,” Anaijiah echoed, her own voice small.
Nevaieh pushed off the door and crossed the room. She didn’t sit in the desk chair. Instead, she knelt on the worn carpet in front of Anaijiah, her knees settling on either side of Anaijiah’s feet. She looked up, the teardrop tattoo level with Anaijiah’s navel. The posture was one of supplication, but the intensity in her eyes was pure possession.
“I’m sorry,” Nevaieh said, the words gritty, as if unaccustomed to the shape of them. “For scaring you. In there.” She gestured with her chin toward the main room.
“You didn’t scare me,” Anaijiah lied, her chin lifting a fraction.
“Yes, I did.” Nevaieh’s hands came up, resting lightly on Anaijiah’s knees. “I saw your face when the blade went in. I needed them to see it, too. The finality. But I’m sorry you had to be the prop.”
“I’m not a prop.”
“You’re the centerpiece.” Nevaieh corrected, her thumbs stroking the inside of Anaijiah’s knees. “There’s a difference. A prop gets put away. The centerpiece… everything else is arranged around it.” She leaned forward, her forehead pressing against Anaijiah’s belly, right over the curve. “I live in a world of promises written in blood, Ana. That’s the ink that matters out here. Tonight was just making it official.”
Anaijiah’s fingers found their way into Nevaieh’s dark hair. The strands were coarse, thick. She breathed out, the fear slowly being displaced by a weary, complicated ache. “It’s a lot,” she whispered.
“I know.” Nevaieh turned her head, her ear pressing to the fabric. Listening. “How many weeks now?”
“Sixteen,” Anaijiah said, the number feeling monumental.
Nevaieh nodded against her. Her hands slid up from Anaijiah’s knees, over the swell of her thighs, coming to rest on the rounded firmness of her lower stomach. Her touch was deliberate, mapping the territory. “Getting bigger,” she murmured, her voice vibrating through Anaijiah’s skin.
“That’s generally how it works,” Anaijiah said, a weak attempt at her old humor.
Nevaieh ignored the quip. She shifted back just enough to look at the shape under the black hoodie. Her gaze was clinical and reverent all at once. She pushed the fabric up gently, exposing the smooth, dark skin of Anaijiah’s belly. The phoenix tattoo on her thigh was partially visible, its vibrant tail feathers stretching upward.
With a touch so light it was almost a whisper, Nevaieh spread her palm over the curve. Her hand was warm, its calluses a familiar texture. “Hey in there,” she said, her voice dropping to that private, rough register Anaijiah had only heard in the moonlight. “You gave your mom a scare. Don’t do that.”
A laugh, surprised and wet, escaped Anaijiah’s throat. “They’re fine. I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Nevaieh said, still looking at her stomach. “But you will be.” She leaned down and pressed her lips to Anaijiah’s skin, just below her navel. The kiss was warm, dry, and lasted several heartbeats. It was a seal. A quiet, physical promise to counter the violent one made in the other room. “My fault,” she whispered against the skin.
Then she rubbed her cheek against the spot, a strangely feline gesture. Her eyes closed. “Sixteen weeks,” she repeated, as if committing it to a different kind of ledger.
A sudden, fierce kick jolted against the exact spot where Nevaieh’s lips had been.
Nevaieh’s eyes flew open. She stared at Anaijiah’s stomach, then up at her face, her expression one of pure, unguarded shock. “Was that…”
“Yeah,” Anaijiah breathed, her own shock mirrored. “That was new. Stronger.”
A slow, real smile broke across Nevaieh’s face, transforming it completely. It was a rare, uncalculated sight. “See?” she said, her voice thick. “Told you. A fighter.” She leaned in again, speaking directly to the spot. “That’s it. Let ‘em know.”
The voices from the other room rose in a sudden, heated volley. A name was shouted—"Lobo"—and a threat hung, uncompleted, in the air. Nevaieh’s smile vanished. The mask of the Jefa slid back into place, but her hands remained on Anaijiah’s belly, a bridge between two worlds.
“I have to finish this,” she said, not moving.
“I know.”
Nevaieh stood up in one fluid motion. She gently tugged Anaijiah’s hoodie back down, covering her. The gesture was profoundly intimate, a tender reversal of the violent claim she’d staked earlier. “Malik will be at the back door in ten minutes. Go straight to the car. Don’t look at anyone.”
“Nevaieh.”
“Hmm?”
“The knife in the table thing?” Anaijiah said, standing up to face her. “A little dramatic.”
Nevaieh’s mouth quirked. “It got the point across.” She leaned in, kissing Anaijiah hard on the mouth, a brand of a different sort. “Wait for me at home. This won’t take long.”
She turned and opened the door. The argumentative voices swelled, then cut off as she stepped through and closed it behind her. Anaijiah was alone again, the ghost of Nevaieh’s lips on her stomach, the echo of the baby’s kick still humming in her nerves. She placed a protective hand over the spot, feeling the vibration of raised voices through the wall.
She was inside the walls. And for the first time, feeling that assertive life within her, she wondered if she was also the fortress itself.
The drive back to her apartment above Sunset Ink was a silent, armored procession. Malik navigated the night streets with a quiet efficiency, his eyes constantly scanning mirrors and intersections. Anaijiah watched the city blur past, her hand a permanent fixture over the place where the baby had kicked so insistently against Nevaieh’s lips. The phantom sensation pulsed there, a tiny, defiant echo in the quiet car. Her other life, the one of ink and artistry, waited upstairs. It felt distant, like a movie she’d watched once.
“You need anything from the car?” Malik’s voice was a low rumble as he pulled into the alley behind the shop. He was already out, opening her door before she could answer, his body subtly positioned between her and the empty alley mouth.
“No. I’m good, Malik. Thanks.” She slid out, the cool Chicago air a shock after the claustrophobic heat of the taqueria’s back room.
“Jefa said to wait up. She won’t be long.” He didn’t look at her, his gaze sweeping the rooftops. “I’ll be downstairs.”
“You don’t have to…”
“I do,” he said, finality in the tone. He gave her a single nod and turned to lean against the black SUV, a silent, immovable shadow in the dim light.
Anaijiah climbed the exterior stairs, her limbs heavy. The key felt strange in her hand. She let herself into the loft, the familiar scent of citrus cleaning solution and her own vanilla candle greeting her. It was her sanctuary. But tonight, the walls didn’t feel like they sealed the world out. They felt like they were holding her in.
She tossed her keys into a ceramic bowl. They clattered too loudly in the stillness. She stood in the middle of the open space, the meeting replaying behind her eyes—the knife quivering in wood, the unified, grim assent of the crew, Nevaieh’s hand heavy on her shoulder. A prop. A centerpiece. The fortress.
Her stomach growled, a deep, empty ache. She realized she hadn’t eaten since a protein bar that afternoon. The thought of cooking felt monumental. She wandered to the kitchen, opening the fridge. The light was too bright. She settled for shaking cereal into a bowl, eating it dry, standing over the sink while staring at her distorted reflection in the dark window.
A small, sharp movement flickered inside her. She stopped chewing, spoon halfway to her mouth. She waited. Another flutter, lighter this time, a fish-tail brush against her inner wall. She set the bowl down, her cereal forgotten. She pressed a hand low on her belly, just above her pubic bone. The roundness was firm, undeniable now. Sixteen weeks. She was showing. Anyone who looked would know.
The sound of a key in the downstairs door lock echoed up the stairwell. Footsteps, familiar in their weight and rhythm, climbed the steps. Not rushed. Deliberate. Anaijiah didn’t move from the sink.
Nevaieh entered the loft, closing the door softly behind her. The tension from the taqueria still hung around her like a cloak, but it was looser now, fraying at the edges. She scanned the room, her eyes finding Anaijiah by the kitchen window. She shed her leather jacket, dropping it over the back of the couch.
“You’re standing in the dark,” Nevaieh said, her voice rough from talking.
“The light was too much.”
Nevaieh walked over, her boots soft on the polished concrete. She stopped beside her, looking out at the same dark window. Her arm brushed Anaijiah’s. “You eat?”
“Some cereal.”
“That’s not eating.” Nevaieh turned, leaning back against the counter to face her. The neon sign from the bodega across the street painted her face in intermittent washes of red and blue. “You need real food. For her.”
“You don’t know it’s a her.”
“I know.”
Anaijiah finally looked at her. The hard lines of Nevaieh’s face were softened by the unreliable light, but her eyes were sharp, searching. “How’d it go? With the South Side?”
“It went.” Nevaieh shrugged, a minute lift of one shoulder. “They understand the new borders. They understand the consequences.” Her gaze dropped to Anaijiah’s stomach, then back to her face. “You’re still pissed about the knife.”
“I’m not pissed. I’m… acclimating.” Anaijiah turned to face her, bracing her hands on the counter behind her. “It’s a lot, Neva. All of it. The crew looking at me like I’m a sacred relic. The invisible shields. Knowing that every move I make is being watched, even if it’s for protection. It’s smothering.”
Nevaieh listened, her expression unreadable. She reached out and took the half-empty bowl of cereal from the counter, setting it in the sink. Then she stepped closer, invading Anaijiah’s space. She didn’t touch her yet. “You think I like it?” she asked, her voice low. “Knowing that my world, the dirt and the blood of it, is now your air? That every enemy I’ve ever made is a shadow on your doorstep?”
“You don’t act like you hate it.”
“Because it’s the cost,” Nevaieh said, her hand finally coming up to cradle the side of Anaijiah’s face. Her thumb brushed over Anaijiah’s cheekbone. “The price of you. Of her. I pay it. Gladly. But I’m not blind to the weight of it.” Her eyes were dark pools in the colored light. “You want to be free in a world that isn’t. I’m just… reshaping the world around you. Best I can.”
It was the most vulnerable confession she’d ever offered. Anaijiah saw the strain in it, the burden of leadership now compounded by the terrifying vulnerability of love. She leaned into Nevaieh’s hand, closing her eyes. “I know.”
Nevaieh’s other hand came up, so both were framing Anaijiah’s face. She kissed her forehead, a lingering press of lips. Then she smoothed her hands down Anaijiah’s shoulders, her arms, coming to rest at her hips. She turned Anaijiah gently away from her, so Anaijiah was facing the window again.
Anaijiah felt Nevaieh’s chest press against her back, her warmth solid and real through their clothes. Nevaieh’s chin hooked over Anaijiah’s shoulder, her breath warm against her neck. Slowly, Nevaieh’s hands slid around her waist, settling over the curve of her stomach. She splayed her fingers wide, covering the subtle swell.
They stood like that for a long moment, watching their faint reflections in the dark glass. Nevaieh’s hands began to move, rubbing slow, gentle circles over Anaijiah’s belly. It wasn’t sensual. It was possessive, reverent, and full of a quiet, aching wonder.
“You ate your cereal,” Nevaieh murmured into her neck, her voice a soft rasp. “That’s good.”
Anaijiah covered Nevaieh’s hands with her own, lacing their fingers together over her stomach. She leaned back into the solid wall of Nevaieh’s body, letting her head rest against her shoulder. The events of the night—the fear, the anger, the shock—began to dissolve, replaced by the simple, profound reality of this: the warmth of another person, the shared anticipation cradled between them.
Nevaieh’s lips brushed the shell of Anaijiah’s ear. “I can’t wait,” she whispered, the words breathed into her skin like a secret.
“For what?” Anaijiah asked, though she knew.
“To see who she looks like.” Nevaieh’s hands stilled, pressing firmly. “To see if she has your eyes. Or your mouth.” She nuzzled into Anaijiah’s hair. “To hear what her voice sounds like. To know if she’s gonna be a little hellion who talks back like her mother.”
A small, wet laugh escaped Anaijiah. “She’ll have your stubbornness.”
“Good,” Nevaieh said, a smile in her voice. “She’ll need it.” She tightened her embrace, just for a second, a convulsive, almost painful squeeze. “I can’t wait to meet her,” she repeated, the words raw and stripped bare. “It feels like forever.”
Outside, a siren wailed in the distance, a fading echo. In the loft, held in the circle of Nevaieh’s arms, with the ghost of a future person moving softly beneath their joined hands, Anaijiah understood. This was it. This was the choice. Not between freedom and a cage, but between two kinds of strength: hers, which was bold and independent, and theirs, which was tangled, fierce, and fortified by a love that built moats and whispered promises to a child not yet born.
She turned her head, seeking Nevaieh’s lips. The kiss was slow, deep, and tasted of resolution. When they broke apart, Anaijiah kept her forehead pressed to Nevaieh’s.
“Then we wait together,” she said.