"Love, let's talk about love
Is it anything and everything you hoped for?
Or do the feeling haunt you?
I know the feeling haunt you"

Kendrick Lamar Feat. SZA – "All The Stars"

It took Killmonger nearly eighteen months to lay physical eyes on Ulysses Klaue during a deranged scheme to provide security for a desert warlord in Mosul. The dark web had been his tool of choice to get next to the man who was next to the man. His name was Huntsman, a South African with a pinched face and settler roots. The man's grandfather was part of a coalition set to destroy the ANC and Nelson Mandela back in the day.

Klaue sent Huntsman to gather intel about damaged Assyrian artifacts. For years, the war-torn parts of Iraq were being stripped of their history and cultural artifacts. The world had been plagued with other concerns, namely the Atlanteans and Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, so tomb raiders took advantage. The so-called Middle East had the global reputation of being a problematic hotspot due in part to American interference, but now the world had turned its head toward other places, and thieves roamed freely in the scorching desert sands.

Tahir approached Killmonger with a computer tablet showing coordinates and pictures.

"Is this what you are looking for?" Tahir asked.

Killmonger tapped the screen and enlarged a picture of covert mercenaries leaving a popular watering hole for terrorists.

"That's him. The guy behind Huntsman. He's the one I saw in Turkey with Hadeer Mahmoud, the scalper."

"Nasty piece of work, Killmonger. Maybe we should wait until he isn't in the company of barbaric killers."

Killmonger rolled up his sleeves and Tahir glanced at the scars that covered every inch of flesh on his arms.

"You forget what I can do?" Killmonger said.

"My friend, you kill with a purpose. Hadeer Mahmoud kills simply for pleasure. Two very different mindsets in this business."

"All I know is, this dude Acker… he's working to set Klaue up. Mahmoud works with American intelligence and needs to score some brownie points to keep the U.S. military out of his business in these parts. If he can set up Klaue, he can buy a get-out-of-jail-free card. He's my in with Klaue."

"What do you plan to do?"

"Pretend to steal some coins like Klaue thinks he's about to do. I'll introduce myself, out his traitors, and slowly wiggle my way in."

"Takes a lot of work. That man doesn't let anyone inside his inner circle that fast."

"Of course not. This will just be my calling card. Two mercenary crews just happen to meet up in the middle of a desert when a big bad wolf shows up to pounce on them all. I'll air out his trash and then dip. He'll seek me out."

"You seem very confident."

Killmonger sneered at Tahir.

"When have I ever missed?"

"Never. That worries me. No man is that lucky. Not in this world of ours."

"Skill, son. Not luck," Killmonger teased.

The plan worked.

Killmonger rescued Klaue and let him watch his snitches get blown up as they flew off in a Mi-17 with RPGs launched on their asses. They dashed off into a starlit sky. He walked away from that initial set-up and continued working free-lance with an operation called DynCorp with Tahir. Good money. It afforded him to be selective about the jobs he took. During his off times in the field, he fucked a lot of women. Especially in London and Brazil.

Sex became a needed release after he finally accepted that Disa would never take him back. He stopped listening to his family and asked that they not mention her name ever again in his presence. She was another lifetime ago, and his mercenary work honed down his emotions until he was a perfectly compartmentalized machine. The meaner he was, the more pussy fell from the sky. The women he messed with liked his aggressive nature and the coarseness of his handling of their bodies. Pure roughneck with a stoic side. The scars turned them on as well as the dick. Whoever he wanted, he could have. Fucking two or three women at a time was not an uncommon occurrence. However, there were times when he would shut down the physical to cultivate the elaborate schemes he involved himself with to catch Klaue in his sticky web of revenge.

The final ping on his radar that let him know Klaue wanted to be in the Killmonger business was a Kabul job that elevated him in status over everyone, even Huntsman. All it took was a bit of lying and subterfuge and the use of vibranium that his father left behind in a California desert. He lured Klaue into ransacking a warlord's hideout and planted vibranium among a stash of stolen Stark-manufactured weapons. Klaue became ecstatic with the find and trusted Killmonger for life after that. That was when the formal invitation to join his team emerged. On top of that, an invitation to stay in St. Thomas was given to meet the entire newly collected crew of mercenaries.

Planning to fly solo down in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Killmonger had no intuitive realization that he was about to change his life's trajectory once again. He expected to walk into a protected compound feeling smug and prepared to unleash his trojan horse approach to getting into Wakanda. It would've been easy to kill Klaue outright and go to the home of his father, but one thing he didn't have and needed was for Klaue to tell him how he entered the kingdom a second time. His father's journals had only revealed the inside help for the first time Klaue went in. Killmonger needed to know how he slipped in the second time without setting off Wakanda's border protectors. Until he knew that for certain, he had to keep the man close and alive for as long as possible. There would be plenty of time for Killmonger to end him. He wanted to know all the man's secrets first.

###

Sunlight fell across his face in a hotel outside of D.C. and Killmonger raised up the lid of one eye. Soft breath touched his left earlobe that came from the sultry lips of a woman. Another pair of lips pressed against the right side of his neck.

He sat up and brushed away the arms of the two women who clutched onto his body. All three of them were naked.

"Y'all gotta get up and get out," he declared, smacking asses and waking the women up.

Both groaned and clutched limbs around his body tighter.

"I'm serious. I got thigs to do," he groaned.

He stood and walked into the bathroom to piss. When he returned to the bed, both women were still there, legs open, pussies still swollen with arousal from their last fuckfest. The woman with the slick bob and equally slick mouth rose first, and her cohort, a butterfly locs wearing cutie with a big booty, left the bed slowly with a glint in her eye.

"When can we see you again?" Slick bob said.

What was her name again? Denise. The other woman was Nikole.

Killmonger eyed Denise with a sly smile.

"I'll see you when I see you."

She pouted, and he spanked her ass. Nikole wrapped her arms around his thick neck.

"I didn't get enough dick," Nikole whined.

"I gave you enough," he said.

She pouted, and he palmed her lush behind. He fucked her in her ass twice, but he got inside her pussy for a long time after he finished with Denise. They were two freaks who satisfied him whenever he had to check in with DynCorp headquarters for new gigs. He reached for the open box of condoms on the dresser and shook it.

"Too bad," he said.

He showed Nikole the empty box. She twisted her lips in another pout.

The women dressed in slinky outfits as he turned on his travel laptop and rolled a joint. He smoked and scrolled flight information. He needed to book a flight to St. Thomas in a few months. Being hemmed up with a bunch of rough mercenaries for the summer didn't sound conducive to scoring a lot of tail, so he called up Nikole and Denise to satisfy him with two nights of straight-up debauchery before he went on an imposed celibacy kick to gear up for his next leg of treachery against Klaue.

Killmonger booked his ticket one way and hopped in the shower. He was dressed and ready to leave while the women ordered room service and tried to entice him for another threesome. A tired sigh left his lips. Women bored him nowadays. The physical pleasure doused his high sex drive, but it didn't fill up the hole that Disa had left in his chest. Every time he returned to the states, some thought about her drifted into his head and he'd have an itch to peek at her social media. But he hadn't seen her for two years and actively avoided anything that reminded him of her. Sex without love was just killing time until the next piece of ass was needed to satisfy simple lust.

Pushing away from the thought of her, he stuffed the last of his personal items in his duffle and headed toward the door. The women were used to him not making any grand gestures with his departures. They knew what it was. Smash and dash.

###

Three months after a well-deserved vacation right before his trip to the island, Killmonger went to visit his Uncle Bakari and Aunt Shavonne. They had a surprise waiting for him in their dining room. Grandpop. Dante ruined that smooth St. Thomas departure with a memory detour he wasn't ready to take.

During the family dinner, Dante leaned over in his seat and whispered three words in Killmonger's ear.

"Go see her."

"See who?" Killmonger said, already knowing who the man meant.

Disa.

Dante picked at his dessert plate. They spent the afternoon visiting the home of his grandfather's third cousin on his father's side, who stayed in Maryland. Too many family members had been passing away, and it made Killmonger vigilant to visit as many relatives as possible before he went to Klaue's compounded and disappeared off the map for the next year.

"Boy, don't play with me. I stay in touch with her from time to time," Dante said.

"I do too," Shavonne added.

Uncle Bakari kept quiet. He knew Disa was a sore topic of discussion for Killmonger. His family stayed quiet as he focused his attention on drinking water and washing down the thick vanilla frosting still coating his teeth from the marble cake they ate.

"I don't want to see her."

Dante took out his cell phone and swiped a picture on his screen.

"She won an award last year for one of her designs—"

Killmonger pushed the phone away without looking at the screen.

"No."

His tone came out terse and mean. Shavonne and Bakari watched him closely. He reached over and touched his grandfather's hand.

"I know you mean well. That chapter is over."

"But you still love Disa. I see it in your face."

He cut his eyes away from Dante and the others, choosing to stare at his hands on the table. Hearing Disa's name out loud broke open a section of his heart that would always be for her, one that he couldn't completely shut down because that was his baby. She was going to be his wife until he fucked it up. He still loved her from afar, and that was supposed to suffice. Disa made her intentions clear years ago. He accepted her refusal to keep him and bowed out before he made a bigger fool of himself begging. When a woman was done, she was done.

"She still wears your ring," Dante said.

Killmonger closed his eyes and tossed his napkin on his plate.

"See?"

Dante slid his phone next to Killmonger's hand again. He turned and stared at Shavonne but she only stood up and collected empty dessert plates and left the dining room. Bakari sipped on some dark rum and simply listened.

Killmonger felt trapped and didn't want to cuss out his grandfather for pushing the issue. He centered his emotions and turned away from the phone, but the ancient eyes behind his eyes came into sharp focus and Ogum's energy lifted the cell phone in his hand to take a quick peek.

The photo was copied from an internet website. Disa stood holding a fancy silver plaque with two of her design partners. She wore a black headband that swept back sleek black hair. Her face was heavily made up for the awards event and she was still fine as frog hairs. He saw the ring sparkling on her finger as it draped across the front of the plaque. The engagement ring he gave her twice. Once at his Navy officer's graduation, and once more in the middle of an Egyptian desert. A sad smile lifted the corners of his lips. She lived well and made a full life without him. Good for her.

Killmonger glanced at his grandfather's face. Dante had thick tears in his eyes. Uncle Bakari slinked away from the table when he noticed Grandpop crying and stopped Shavonne from coming back into the room to give them privacy.

"What is it, Grandpop?" Killmonger said.

"I know you're up to something again and it ain't nothin' good. Bakari told me about you making a preliminary will for this next job—"

"Aw, damn. He wasn't supposed to say anything—"

"He knows something bad is going to happen to you. Look at the scars on your body! You don't live right and you had a good woman who loved your hardheaded behind, but you threw her away. Now you're about to get into some shit with this new reckless life of yours… wasted her time and good years waiting for you to grow up!"

Dante pounded the table and Killmonger grabbed his hand to keep him from knocking his glass of water over.

"I know you loved her, Grandpop. But people break up. I don't mind if you keep in contact with her. Just respect that I don't want to know anything about her anymore. It just stirs up pain for me. Be glad she is happy and successful."

"This new job… will it be off the grid? Rough?"

"Yeah."

"You survive, boy. You come back and see me when you're through."

"I'll survive. I promise."

"You can't promise nothin' boy. Your Mama told me the same thing when she got extradited to Brazil. You stubborn like her and I'm afraid…"

Dante lowered his head, and his heavy sobs shook his frail body.

"I love you, baby boy. May God have mercy on your soul," Dante said.

Grandpop planted a bad seed. Doubt troubled Killmonger's mind. Could he continue to fool Klaue? Would he survive Wakanda? He contacted his inside support through the one kimoyo bead Sizani gave him back at M.I.T. when he knew there were Wakandans watching him. He mistakenly thought it was King T'Chaka. It was actually one of his father's supporters from way back.

Sizani prepped followers of N'Jobu in Wakanda and spread the word that the true king would return soon. She began enlisting War Dogs in the major world cities that were ready for Prince N'Jadaka to equip them with homeland weapons. Killmonger stayed five steps ahead of everything. The murderer of his father wouldn't know what hit him the moment his nephew stepped on the motherland. A powerful ready-made army sat primed for his orders. It would be a glorious, rude awakening to the aging monarch.

Despite that support, Killmonger unintentionally invited misgivings and fear of failure into his mind by listening to Grandpop. Making a will only confirmed his qualms.

"Let's watch a movie and relax, okay?" he encouraged his grandfather.

Grandpop nodded, and they joined Bakari and Shavonne in the living room for a pleasant memory before he vanished on the new job.

###

On the first-class flight to St. Thomas, he accepted a call from Klaue before he took off down the runway to join him.

"Plans are in place, Killmonger. When you get here, we'll strategize and I'll fill you in on Agent Ross," Klaue said.

"We'll talk about Wakanda too? I'm ready to get that mother lode like you promised."

"In due time. In due time. We have a lot of work to do in a brief window of time. The new crew will be here a few days after you arrive. It's a crack team and I'll have Huntsman brief you on their stats."

"Cool. I'm ready."

"Be prepared to make a lot of money," Klaue said.

The glee in the man's voice made Killmonger grin. The man had no clue what was coming for him on a one-way flight. His doom and the ascension of a new king. Killmonger manipulated Klaue so well that it was difficult to hide his open animosity and disdain. He hoped to Bast and Ogum that he could contain his rage once he was in proximity to the man for the duration of his stay there.

"I'll see you this afternoon," Killmonger said, swiping his phone screen and then pulling the cell apart.

His destiny was in his hand. It cost him an exceptional woman and a chance at a regular life. He sipped the onboard free wine and closed his eyes during take-off. The fact was, he could never fool himself into thinking he'd ever have a regular life. He was an extraordinary man who came from extraordinary parents. His fate was pre-ordained to go this way. Love be damned.

He stroked his father's ring on the chain around his neck. One day, he would wear it on his finger after he made Wakanda bow down to him. As the plane lifted higher, carrying him to his future, he glanced out of the window. Florida grew into a tiny speck behind him.

"Goodbye, Grandpop. Goodbye, Disa," he whispered.

###

[Seven years later…]

Disa ran into her kitchen and pulled out a small casserole that she had forgotten about. Luckily, it hadn't burned, but the smoke billowing out of her oven made it seem like she had burned it. She noticed that some of the casserole had bubbled over onto the rack beneath it and burned there instead of in the glass casserole dish. Sitting it on top of the oven, she waved her hand around to drive the smoke away and heard a knock on her front door.

She hustled herself out of the kitchen, and her forehead creased. There were no expected guests unless Yamilet was too lazy to cook for herself and came over to mooch another meal. Peeking through the keyhole, her mouth grew lax. She opened the door and stared at a stunning Black man draped in the most expensive-looking clothes she'd seen in a minute. His tall dark looks held her spellbound and her heart raced. Deep in her spirit, she knew this day had to come.

The King of Wakanda stood face-to-face with her.

T'Challa Udaku. Erik's first cousin.

"Are you Disa Abdullah-Woods?" he asked with a clipped tone.

"You... you're the King of Wakanda," she said.

"I am indeed King T'Challa Udaku. I am here on an urgent matter."

"Is he dead?"

"Who?"

"Erik."

The King of Wakanda was about to answer, but a noise behind her made his eyes grow wide with wonder.

"My Bast," he uttered.

Disa closed her eyes. Yes, indeed, the day she dreaded had finally come to her doorstep. The King of Wakanda had arrived to tell her what became of her greatest love and she had a secret to share as well.

She opened her front door wide for the king and prayed to Allah that she could survive the rest of that night with whatever he had to tell her.

###

A.N.:

Another volume is done! Let me tell you what to read next so you won't get lost in the series. After "Black Boys Bloom Thorns First: Volume 3" you need to read "Wet Sugar" which takes place in ST. Thomas and breaks down everything that happened to Killmonger right on through his arrival to Wakanda. After "Wet Sugar", jump right on into "Black Boys Bloom Thorns First: Volume 4" AKA "Wet Sugar 2"!

Thank you for reading.