Chapter 36 Choyce Mancinelli
Thirty-Six
Choyce Mancinelli
"Ma'am, how does it feel to be a free woman?" Emersyn asked as we walked outside of a property, I was thinking about buying.
Now that Talon was gone and Lucian was dead, I could finally focus on creating a life for Cherish and me. One that wasn't dictated by what Lucian wanted or felt like a lie because of my fake ass marriage to Talon.
"Ask me again in six months when it finally sinks in that I have my life back."
"Girl, six months from now you'll be on a whole different wave." She smiled, walking toward the small swing that sat on the front lawn. "Cherish is going to love this."
"Yeah, maybe," I mumbled. "What do you mean I'm going to be on a different wave?"
"With work."
"Emersyn," I chuckled, realizing just how little we really knew about each other, "I'm twenty-six."
"I'm twenty-eight," she responded with an about-look and completely missing the point.
"No, I don't think you understand. I'm twenty-six and only have a high school diploma. I've never worked a job in my life. What kind of work is gonna have me on a different wave?"
"The job you seduced and schemed your way into." She smiled.
"What are you talking about? Honor is taking over for Lucian."
Her brows pinched. "Is he, tho'?"
I stared at her, confused because Lucian's spot was rightfully his, and if I were being honest, he deserved it.
"Emersyn, can you just tell me what you know?"
"Boo, no fun." She pouted.
"Emersyn!"
"Okay! Okay, but you have to promise not to go off the deep end."
"Why would I… I promise. Now tell me."
"Okay, well, before you got to the mill that night, you made Honor promise to keep Cherish safe if something happened to you. Honor and Killian had a conversation."
"About?"
"Honor killing Lucian. Killian told him that if he wanted to kill him, then he had to get approval by the Sovereign Circle. No one man is above the program. To kill a member or make any moves that will taint the order of things, it first has to be sanctioned. They denied Honor's request."
"Okay, but he killed him," I said.
"Exactly," Emersyn nodded. "Honor went against the order of things, so he has to pay."
"Pay what? Retribution?"
"I guess you can look at it like that." She shrugged.
"What are you not telling me? Honor has money, so him paying retribution is light work. It doesn't explain how I'll take his spot unless—"
My eyes grew wide, and Emersyn confirmed my thoughts with a slight nod.
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"They can't."
"They can. Honor knew this, and he still agreed."
"Why?"
"For his family, for the woman he loves, and for your daughter."
"Cherish?"
"Yes. Lucian threatened your daughter as well as everyone else Honor loves. At some point, Lucian was going to make good on his threats, so Honor did the right thing by killing Lucian before Lucian killed everyone Honor cared about."
"Does Navy know? Maybe the Mancinelli Mafia can do something."
"Navy doesn't know, and there's nothing Lucian's little family mafia can do.
The Circle outranks them. Why do you think no one has shown up after Lucian's death?
From what I hear, they're not even having a funeral.
Navy and her mom declined a service and will cremate what's left of his bones and put them into the columbarium and divvy up the assets Lucian left behind. "
"Wow," I forced out, unsure of how I was supposed to feel.
It was one thing for me to let Honor go because I realized he wasn't meant for me but it was another to let him go because he wasn't going to be here anymore.
"I have to go," I told Emersyn.
"Choyce, leave it alone. Honor made his bed. You have to let him lie in it now."
"I can't. Not like this… not with him about to—" my tears stole my words. "I just need to see him."
"Fine. I'll drive you, but the second you start doing the most, I'm slapping the shit out of you. I know that sounds a little harsh, but I need you to understand Honor is not your man. He's not yours to save. Don't go over there embarrassing yourself behind a nigga who only cares about one woman."
"Okay," I whispered.
"I'm not playing with you, Choyce."
"I said okay. You act like I'm gonna get on bended knee and propose."
"Before I came into your life, you just might've."
"Whatever." I rolled my eyes and walked toward her car, trying to keep myself together.
I didn't want to be the side chick who showed up at the funeral trying to squeeze into the first pew with his family, but at the same time, I couldn't just walk away, as if none of it mattered to me.
I deserved an explanation. The man I came to know Honor to be, wasn't the type to let grown men decide it was his time to die.
That wasn't the who traced my scars with his fingers and helped to heal something in me another man broke.
So, either the Honor I knew was a lie, or he was really the broken boy Navy swore he was.
Emersyn killed the engine but didn't say a word. The afternoon sun hung heavy over the quiet street, making everything feel normal when nothing was in fact normal. My knee bounced as I stared out the windshield, looking for Honor's truck.
"Here he comes," Emersyn muttered under her breath.
Honor rolled down the block and pulled into his driveway like death wasn't waiting on him. His truck shifted into park, and the second his door cracked open, I was out of the car and storming across his driveway. He barely had one foot on the ground before I was in his face.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I snapped.
Honor blinked like he hadn't expected to see me standing in there.
"Choyce, fuck you doing here?" he grumbled.
"Nigga, are you forreal?"
Before he could answer, my hand came across his face, hurting me more than him.
"You pussy as fuck!" I yelled, shoving both my hands into his chest. "How could you? How fucking could you?"
My fists started pounding against his chest. "You just gon' let them niggas kill you?"
Honor's jaw tightened. The muscles in his face flexed like he was swallowing every reaction, trying to rise. His eyes looked past me toward the car I had jumped out of. Emersyn was leaning against the passenger door, watching everything unfold.
"Fuck, Syn!" he gritted under his breath.
"Don't talk to her!" I snapped, shoving him again. "Talk to me! Explain this dumb shit to me!"
My hands kept hitting his chest harder than a drum.
Every punch was fueled with panic and anger, mixing in my veins.
Honor grabbed my wrist before the next punches could land, and in one sharp movement, he spun me around and pressed my back against the side of his truck.
The breath rushed out of my lungs as his arms caged me in.
"Calm the fuck down," he lowly commanded, but my chest was already shaking, and tears weren't too far behind.
"Calm down?" I choked out, shoving at his chest. "How am I supposed to calm down when you're rolling over for niggas to kill you?"
"You don't understand," he stressed.
"Oh, I understand. I guess Navy was right. You are fucking broken."
His face flinched, and I knew the word hit him somewhere deep because with me… before now, the word didn't exist.
Honor glared down at me, his chest rising slowly like he was forcing himself to breathe through it.
"You promised you'd protect Cherish if something ever happened to me." My voice started to shake, tears blurring my vision. "How you gon' protect her if you're fucking dead, Honor?" I demanded. "How can you protect anybody from a grave?"
Honor let out a heavy breath that sounded like it had been sitting in his lungs for years.
"She's already protected," he quietly answered.
I frowned through my tears. "What?"
"Killing Lucian protected everyone."
I shook my head.
"No," I said, grabbing the sides of his open coat. "Don't do that shit! Don't make this sound honorable because it's not." My voice broke. "Don't do this."
For the first time since he pulled up, something soft crossed his face, something tired. He pulled my hands off his coat and dragged me into his chest. His arms wrapped around me, feeling too tight.
"I already made peace with it," he murmured against my hair.
"No," I whispered. "You don't get to decide you're done."
Tires screeched against the curb. Both of us turned around at the sound of a car door slamming shut. Navy's eyes were locked on Honor as if nothing else in the world existed. The gun in her hand caught the afternoon sunlight, flashing just long enough to make my stomach drop.
"How… how many times are you going to hurt me?" Her voice shook with every step she took.
"Choyce, it's time to go," Emersyn called out to me.
"Not until I—"
"Until you what?" Navy snapped, whipping her bloodshot red eyes toward me. "Huh? What's left for you to do, Choyce?"
Her laugh came out jagged and hollow. "You've already made my life hell. You fucked my man at the worst possible time and now look at me." She pointed toward herself with the gun. "I'm losing my fucking mind."
I looked at Navy with soft, empathetic eyes. She stood there with a gun aimed at me, looking deranged, but I knew what I was really looking at — a woman whose heart had been broken one too many times and was still breaking.
"You took the only thing that ever made me feel safe and tainted it," she continued, her voice cracking. "Do you even understand that?"
The gun wavered in her hand.
"I gave him every piece of me and spoke life into him. I literally saved his life." Her eyes flickered toward Honor. "And he still chose to hurt me."
For a split second, the anger drained from her face, and something raw took its place.
"I loved you," she whispered to him.
The words sounded like they physically hurt her to say. Then her eyes snapped back to me.
"And you—" her grip tightened around the gun.
"You knew that. You fucking knew and didn't care. Why?"
Her question hung heavy between us.
"It doesn't matter," I mumbled, stepping away from Honor.
I slowly walked toward Emersyn, keeping my hands raised so Navy could see I wasn't on no funny shit. When I reached the sidewalk where Emersyn stood, I looked back at Navy. "I'm sorry."
"Fuck your sorry, bitch!" Navy screamed, the fragile moment shattering. "This is what you wanted, right? My life?" she yelled. "Well, look at it! Look how fucking crazy he made me!"
She waved the gun between Honor and me.
"Ask yourself if this is really what you want. Because loving a man like Honor only ends in two ways… dead or heartbroken." Her voice cracked again. "I suggest you take the latter."
I nodded and slid into the passenger seat of Emersyn's car. Emersyn rounded the front and dropped into the driver's seat.
"You know I almost slapped you, right?"
"Not now, Emersyn." I sighed.
"Yes, now. Let Honor be the last man you ever act that damn ditzy behind. What Honor did was noble. Take the blessing he gave you and step into your power. Don't let this new leaf he turned over for you go to waste."
"I hear you," I mumbled.
I turned toward the window, my chest heavy with grief I had no business claiming because I wasn't losing Honor.
Navy was. The last thing I saw before Emersyn pulled away was Navy standing there, gun in her hand, and the man she loved, the man who sacrificed his life for hers, standing right in front of it.