Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
CHAUNCEY
Fuck… I stared at the phone like it’s a damn time bomb, Simmy’s words still echoing in my head. If you want Rhy to stay… You gotta call her. My chest’s been tight since she walked out.
But now? Now it feels like I’m breathing through a fucking straw. This might be my last fucking shot. One call. One chance. One final prayer. My thumb hovers over her name for a full minute before I hit dial. I hope this is still her number.
It rings once.
Twice.
She answers on the third. No words. Just silence.
“Rhy…” I start, and my voice cracks on her name.
“Please don’t hang up.”
Still silence.
But she hasn’t hung up.
That’s something.
“I don’t know where to start,” I breathe. “I’m sorry. For real. Not that weak-ass, sorry I throw around when I wanna fix shit just to fuck it up again. I mean it this time.”
Nothing.
“I was wrong. About everything. About how I treated you. About how I disrespected you. About thinking you’d always be here no matter how many times I fucked up.”
I swallow hard.
“And calling that bitch? That was the dumbest shit I ever did. I was being petty as hell. Spiteful as fuck. I was hurt, Rhy… and I wanted you to hurt too. But all I did was push you further away.”
My hand presses against my chest like I can hold myself together.
“You don’t deserve that shit. You never did.”
Yeah, I had to catch a beat, because it’s true.
“Chauncey…” she finally says, voice low, shaky. “Why now?”
“Because it took almost losing my life… and then losing you… to realize I’d been fighting the wrong fucking battles. I was so busy controlling everything else that I never learned how to hold on to the one person who mattered, you.”
My throat burns.
“I don’t want to lose you, Rhy. I don’t want you going back to Texas hating me. I don’t want another nigga touching what I was too blind to protect. I don’t want to wake up knowing I had the love of my life… and let her slip through my fingers.”
I inhale, shaky.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me today. I’m not even asking you to stay. I’m just asking you… Don’t leave hating me.”
Silence stretches.
Heavy.
Fragile.
I can hear her breathing—soft, uneven—like she’s holding something back.
“Please, Rhy,” I whisper. “Don’t go.”
Silence.
Then—
“Chauncey.”
Her voice comes back colder than I’ve ever heard it. Steady. Sharp. Final.
“It’s way too late for this weak-ass apology.”
My chest drops.
“You wanna say sorry now?” she continues. “Now you wanna fix it?”
Rhy paused for a minute.
“After dragging me through hell… after embarrassing me… after calling a bitch to the same hospital I’ve been sitting in for you?”
Her voice doesn’t rise.
That’s what makes it worse.
“I ain’t even with that tit-for-tat shit… but I can be.”
I try to cut in, but she doesn’t let me—not this time.
“Chauncey, you can save your I’m sorry for a bitch who gives a fuck,” she snaps, her voice cold and final. “I ran out of fucks to give a few hours ago. I’m tired of you playing in my fucking face and thinking I’m just gonna eat it and come back smiling. I ain’t eating shit, nigga.
I meant what the fuck I said—action speaks louder than words, and all you ever do is talk. You swear you love me, but every move you fucking make screams otherwise.”
The silence on the other end feels heavier than anything we could’ve said to each other.
“I’m out, Chauncey,” she whispers finally, her voice steady—too steady. “Have a nice life.”
And just like that, she hangs up.
No hesitation.
No pause. Just finality...
The room is too damn quiet. Too sterile.
Too still. Too empty—just like this bed without her in it.
That phone call plays on a loop in my head—have a nice life.
She said it so calmly, like she was ordering a coffee…
like I was nothing more than a chapter she was done reading.
I stare at the IV-line snaking into my arm, every beep of the machine sounding like a countdown.
Five days until they release me. Five days to get my body back strong.
Five days to remind these streets who the fuck I am.
“Mr. Benyeir,” the nurse chirps as she walks in, but I barely register her words.
She checks my vitals. I check the clock.
Every second that ticks by, my anger builds—not just at the niggas who put these holes in me, not just at the version of Rhy I don’t recognize… but at me for letting it all happen.
The old me would’ve been out of that bed already, running the streets on adrenaline and vengeance.
But the new Chauncey? He’s playing chess.
Step one: get out of this hospital. Step two: put pressure on every nigga who even thought they could come for me.
Step three: remind Rhyan Benyeir exactly who the fuck she married.
I pull the therapy schedule closer, scanning it with a smirk. “Five days,” I mumble. “That’s all I need.” Simmy, Coop, and True slide in just as the nurse leaves, but I don’t even give them a chance to speak.
“Aye, do me a favor and line them niggas up,” I say, eyes locked on the ceiling. “The ones who did this shit. I want names, addresses, family trees—I don’t give a fuck if they are hiding in a church basement or a damn doghouse. I want them niggas today.”
True whistles low. “You ain’t even out of bed yet.”
“I’m breathing, nigga ain’t I?” I snap. “That’s all I need.”
Simmy folds his arms. “What about Rhy?”
I close my eyes and exhale slowly. “She’s not gone. She’s mad. There’s a difference.”
“Shit, she sounded pretty fucking gone to me,” Coop mutters. “She gave us the fucking business.”
“Then I’ll make her un-gone,” I say, voice low, certain.
“Ain’t no nigga alive gon’ take what’s mine and think he safe.
And she gon’ remember that no matter how mad she is at me…
I’m still her husband. I still built this life with her.
And I’m about to fight for it like my life fucking depends on it. ”
I pause, jaw tightening. “But first… I’m gon’ remind these streets who the fuck Chauncey Benyeir is. Once that’s handled… I’m coming for my wife.”
Five days. That’s all I’ve been telling myself. Five days and I’ll be back on my feet. Five days and I’ll remind everybody in this city who the fuck I am. Simmy slides a burner phone under my blanket before the night nurse makes her rounds.
“You didn’t get this from me,” he says.
“I ain’t seen shit,” I reply.
The second the door closes, I dial the first number that matters.
“Yo.”
“Boss Man?”
“Talk to me.”
“Word on the street is the hit wasn’t random. It was a setup from the inside.”
I clench my jaw. “Inside where?”
“Inside your circle.”
The silence that follows is heavier than the air in this damn hospital room. I grip the phone tighter.
“Who?”
The voice hesitates. “You remember that girl? Kori?”
My stomach turns to ice.
“Kori Johnson. The one who used to brag about being your side bitch in the streets and at the office. Word, she called her cousins—said she just wanted them to rough up the hoe you were with. But them young niggas went rogue. Attempted to carjack the ride, pulled the trigger, damn near left you for dead.”
I lean back against the pillow, the monitors around me spiking. “So, this whole time… a bitch with a bruised ego put a hit on me?”
“Yeah,” he says. “And get this—she’s been ducked off ever since. Rumor is there’s a bounty on her cousins now, so they’re hiding too. But we know where she is.”
I rub my face slowly, trying to cage the storm building in my chest. “Were.”
“South side nigga. Little apartment off Ophelia Court. She’s terrified, boss. Won’t even come out unless it’s to hit the corner store.”
“Good,” I growl. “Terrified is a start.”
Simmy, Coop, and True reappear like they can smell the shift in my energy.
“What’s the word?” True asks.
“Word is Kori signed the order on my life.”
Simmy’s eyes widen. “You serious?”
“Dead serious. And them little niggas that pulled the trigger? Her cousins.”
“Say the word,” Coop says, already cracking his knuckles. “We’ll snatch her up tonight.”
“Nah.” My voice drops—low, cold, final. “Not yet. I want her to sweat. I want every minute she breathes to feel like her fucking last. And when I’m back on my feet, I’m looking her dead in her eyes before I decide if she walks out alive.”
The room goes quiet. All eyes on me.
“From now on, no moves get made without my say-so. Lock the city down. I want eyes on every alley, every trap house, every back block. If her cousins so much as peek out a window, I want to know before they fucking blink.”
Simmy nods. “Already on it.”
“And one more thing,” I add. “I don’t care what she told herself—I want the streets to know Kori Johnson is a dead bitch walking. Make it loud. Make it ugly. I want that bitch’s name ringing in every conversation.”
True smirks. “This shit is about to get messy.”
“It’s already messy,” I say. “Now it’s just time to mop the floor with the motherfuckas who forgot who they were playing with.”
I close my eyes, feeling the fire settle into something colder… sharper.
Rhy might hate me right now. She might be halfway to Texas by tomorrow. But before this is over, I’m fixing my name—in the streets and at home.
This city tried to bury me. Kori tried to end me.
Now I’m about to return the favor… and build something bigger from what they tried to destroy.