TRUTH #5
“This is my house.” I felt my whole body go tight with the refusal before I even finished the sentence. “I found it. I paid for it myself. I am not just packing a bag because somebody left a—” I couldn’t finish it. My throat closed around the word.
“Truth.” Saroya’s voice came from behind me, quieter than I expected. When I turned, she wasn’t backing me up the way I’d assumed she would. “He’s right.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not saying it because I like it.” Saroya crossed her arms, and there was something in her face—old, tired, the look of the sister who’d carried the weight of being oldest for longer than any of us had understood at the time.
“I’m saying it because if you want to be with this man, if you want this life, you don’t get to pick and choose which parts of the danger you take seriously.
This is one of them. You play by his rules when it comes to keeping yourself safe.
That’s not him controlling you. That’s just what it costs. ”
“This isn’t the time to be stubborn, Truth,” Honor added, and even Honor—Honor, who found humor in everything, who’d have a joke ready for anything short of a funeral—had nothing funny to say now. “Not with somebody’s ear on your porch.”
I looked at Amai. I wanted to argue anyway, some part of me needing to fight for the ground I’d claimed here, needing this to still be mine, even as the world proved it wasn’t safe.
“They’re not going to knock next time,” Amai said quietly, watching me like he understood exactly what I was losing in this moment and hated that he was the one taking it.
“Victor. Rahsaan. Whoever sent that box—they don’t ask permission.
They don’t wait for an invitation. Next time, it’s not a warning on your porch.
It’s a bullet through that window while you’re standing in your kitchen.
” He nodded toward the front room, toward the exact spot where I’d been that morning with my sisters laughing around me.
“I’m not telling you to leave because I want to control you.
I’m telling you because I can’t protect what I can’t see coming. ”
The house went silent except for the hum of the refrigerator, and somewhere outside, one of his men’s radios crackling low.
“Fine,” I said finally. “I’ll go. But not without terms.”
Something flickered across his face—surprise, maybe, or the beginning of understanding that I wasn’t going to simply fold into whatever he decided. “Terms.”
“I choose where. Not you.” I held his gaze.
“You buy a new bed because I’m not sleeping in the one I know you had hoes in.
My sisters can come and go as they please, no clearance, no waiting for permission.
Nobody makes a single medical decision about me or these babies without my say.
I want the names of every guard assigned to me and their schedule in writing, so I know exactly who’s watching my house, and if/when you change out these two. ”
He was quiet for a long moment, studying me the way he did sometimes, like he was recalculating something he’d already thought he understood.
“My bed was customized and cost twenty grand, Truth, but agreed,” he said. “On one condition of mine.”
“What.”
“You don’t leave without telling security first. Not because I’m keeping you somewhere.
Because I need to know where you are if something happens.
” His voice softened, just slightly at the edges.
“That’s not a rule to throw around my weight.
That’s the only way I can actually keep my end of the deal. ”
I thought about it—really thought about it, weighing what it would cost me against what I’d already lost that afternoon on my own front porch—and nodded once. “Fine.”
“You can put your gun away, killa.” Priest smiled at Raven.
Aww, shit.
“I ain’t no killa but don’t push me.” She giggled. “I’m Raven.”
“I’m Priest.” He extended his hand.
“Nice to meet you. I need to get your number so I can call and confess all my sins.” She bit her bottom lip.
“Not now, Raven.” I rolled my eyes.
“I can multi-task. Your man here now, you good.” She turned back to Priest. “Here’s my business card. Call me.”
“I most definitely will.” He smiled and walked off.
Priest was already directing two of the men toward the box.
Gloved hands, an evidence bag, the quiet efficiency of people who’d cleaned up worse than this before.
My sisters moved through the house behind me, gathering what I’d need for a few nights away, their voices low, their movements quick, none of the earlier banter left in them.
I stood in the doorway one last time before we left, looking back at the brick two-story I’d claimed with my own money, my own signature, my own stubborn refusal to be anyone’s dependent—the house that was supposed to be proof that I could build a life on my own terms.
It still was. That hadn’t changed. But safety had a different shape now, and I understood, standing there with the smell of copper still caught somewhere in the back of my throat, that the war I’d been watching from a careful distance had just walked up my steps and knocked.
It wasn’t going to wait for an invitation again.