CHAPTER 21 #2
I couldn't even listen to the response. The room was spinning, the ceiling fan above mimicking the horrific, rhythmic rotation of the ghosts inside my own memory.
Malik. The name echoed in my head like a curse.
I knew he was a hothead—I knew his fragile, street-hardened ego was an unstable bomb waiting to go off—but I had been so wrapped up in my own corporate ambition, so blinded by the flashing lights of E-Tech, that I had left Terra unprotected in the wild.
He couldn't accept it. He couldn't handle the fact that she had left his toxic grasp, that she had chosen the soft, real love of another woman over his pathetic control.
And to nurse his bruised, monstrous pride, he had taken her life.
"Miley," Ciara said, her voice turning completely pale as she lowered the phone, looking at Helisa with an expression of pure horror. "We need to move. Right now. Terra’s been shot. She’s en route to St. Luke’s emergency room. Kelly says she’s unresponsive."
Helisa didn't ask a single further question.
The billionaire CEO, the woman who commanded thousands of employees with a single nod, completely threw away her entire schedule in a fraction of a second.
She grabbed her designer blazer from the rack, her eyes blazing with an intense, protective loyalty.
"Ciara, freeze the penthouse," Helisa barked, her fingers already flying across her personal device, speed-dialing her security detail. "Call Marcus. Tell him to bring the luxury Patrol Jeep around to the private lower entrance immediately. No delays. Tell him to clear the path."
"On it," Ciara replied, her voice crisp, turning toward the desk phone. "Sarah! Freeze all incoming lines to the executive suite. Lock the doors. We have an extreme family emergency. Helisa will be entirely unreachable until further notice. Do not contact her unless the building is on fire."
Within two minutes, we were sprinting down the secure, private hallway toward the executive elevator.
I could barely keep my feet under me; my knees felt like water, my breath hitching in my throat as the tears continued to stream down my face, ruining the expensive makeup I had put on for the signing.
Ciara kept her arm tightly locked around my waist, literally anchoring my weight against her side to keep me from collapsing onto the polished marble floor.
The elevator descended to the subterranean garage in a silent, nauseating drop.
The moment the steel doors slid open, the massive, obsidian-black Nissan Patrol Jeep was already waiting, its engine humming with a low, menacing rumble that echoed through the concrete space.
Marcus, the middle-aged black driver, was already standing outside the rear door, his face solemn and alert as he held the heavy door open.
"St. Luke’s Hospital, Marcus! Use the emergency lights, bypass the traffic, go!" Helisa ordered as she literally pushed me into the plush leather interior of the backseat, sliding in right after me while Ciara scrambled into the far side.
The heavy door clicked shut with a hydraulic seal, cutting off the world, and the massive SUV tore out of the garage with a violent, screeching sound of tires biting into the concrete, heading straight into the congested Manhattan traffic.
I sat in the center of the leather bench, my face buried in my hands as the tears soaked through my fingers, my shoulders shaking violently.
The luxury of the vehicle—the soft leather, the tinted glass, the smooth ride—felt like a grotesque mockery of the bloody sidewalk where my girl had just bled out.
"Miley... drink this, please," Ciara murmured softly, pressing a cold bottle of water into my hand, her eyes filled with an intense, quiet empathy. She looked at me for a long, hesitant moment before speaking. "Miley... who is Terra? Kelly said she was your roommate, but... the way you reacted..."
I let out a harsh, broken laugh, the sound tearing from my throat like broken glass as I pulled my hands away from my face, looking at her through wet, swollen eyelids.
"She was everything, Ciara," I whispered, my voice cracked and raw, losing every ounce of its usual Harlem swagger. "She was my best friend. She was my roommate. And she was... she was my lover. We just started, real talk. Last night... last night we were sitting on the balcony, laughing, talking about the future... and now she’s dead. She’s gone. "
Helisa’s face softened completely, a deep, sorrowful sigh escaping her lips as she reached over and pulled my head down against her silk shoulder, wrapping her powerful arms around my trembling frame. "Oh, Miley... I am so, so sorry..."
"I’m cursed, Helisa!" I screamed against her shoulder, the ancient, buried trauma of my college days rushing up from the depths of my soul like a dark, suffocating wave.
The memory of the Buffalo State dorm room, the smell of the fries, the cold body of Alicia dangling from that ceiling fan—it all merged with the image of Terra on the concrete.
"I’m one cursed bitch! First Alicia... she unlived herself from that ceiling fan back in college because she loved me and I couldn't forgive her...
I spent years running from that word, terrified to let anyone close because I thought...
I thought loving me would just get people dead!
And the second—the very second I open my heart back up, the second I let Terra in... she gets gunned down by her ex!"
"Stop it, Miley! Don't you dare think like that," Helisa commanded softly but firmly, her fingers gently threading through my long box braids, pressing me tighter against her chest. "You are not cursed.
This is the malice of a broken man, not a curse on your soul. Don't let his hatred twist your mind."
"But it’s true!" I sobbed hysterically, my heart breaking into a million jagged pieces as the massive SUV dodged through the city streets. "Everyone who loves me dies! I should’ve stayed in the dark! I should’ve never looked at her like that... oh god, Terra... I’m so sorry..."
We sat in that heavy, suffocating silence for the remainder of the ride, the low rumble of the engine and the distant, muffled wail of Marcus’s emergency siren the only sounds accompanying my agonizing grief.
***
Exactly twenty-seven minutes after leaving the E-Tech headquarters, the massive black Jeep pulled up to the emergency entrance of St. Luke’s Hospital.
The tires screeched slightly against the curved concrete driveway as Marcus brought the heavy vehicle to a sudden, authoritative halt right in front of the sliding glass doors.
Before the car had even completely stopped, I threw the door open, my legs finding a sudden, desperate surge of adrenaline as I sprinted through the automatic doors into the sterile, brightly lit chaos of the reception lobby.
The sharp, chemical smell of antiseptic and rubbing alcohol hit my nose, instantly triggering a wave of nausea, but I pushed through it, my eyes frantically scanning the crowded waiting room.
Helisa and Ciara were right behind me, their heavy executive shoes clicking sharply against the linoleum floor as they followed me toward the central desk.
"Terra! Where is Terra?" I gasped out, slamming my palms against the tall laminate counter, staring at the middle-aged white nurse behind the glass whose eyes widened in sudden alarm. "She just came in... an ambulance... gunshot wounds..."
"Ma'am, you need to calm down—" the nurse began, her voice professional but guarded.
"We don't have time for protocol," Helisa’s voice boomed from behind my shoulder, cutting through the nurse's resistance with the weight of absolute authority.
She stepped up to the desk, her crisp cream blouse and commanding aura instantly shifting the dynamic.
"I am Helisa Smith, CEO of E-Tech. This is an extreme emergency involving our family.
Tell us what floor they took the gunshot victim to. Now."
The nurse blinked, her eyes tracking from Helisa’s face to the security badge hanging from her lapel, her jaw dropping slightly as she recognized the billionaire philanthropist whose face was regularly plastered across the New York Times.
"Uh... fourth floor. Intensive trauma unit. The elevators are to your left."
We didn't wait for her to finish. We bolted toward the steel elevator doors, the ride up to the fourth floor feeling like an eternity spent in a vacuum. The second the doors slid open, the sound of rhythmic, agonizing sobbing echoed down the hallway.
I turned the corner and saw them.
Kelly was sitting on a plastic chair, her head buried in her knees, her entire body shaking so violently her denim jacket was slipping off her shoulders.
Beside her, Gabriel was pacing the floor, his face completely pale, his hands covered in dry, dark smears of blood that made my stomach violently twist.
"Kelly! Gabriel!" I screamed, running down the corridor.
The moment they heard my voice, they both looked up.
Gabriel let out a choked, broken noise, sprinting forward to meet me halfway.
Kelly stumbled up from her seat, her eyes swollen completely shut from tears.
The three of us collided in a messy, desperate, and tear-soaked group hug in the middle of the hallway, our bodies shaking as our shared grief fused us together.
"Tell me she’s alive," I whispered fiercely into Gabriel’s shoulder, my fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt as I begged the universe for a miracle I knew wasn't coming. "Please... Gabriel... tell me she’s in surgery... tell me they’re saving her..."