Darius
“You sure you’re not up for dinner?”
“I’m sorry. I just can’t tonight.”
Something was wrong. I’d known Solei for a little over a year.
Now, we’d been officially in a relationship for six months.
In that time, I’d learned to read her moods.
She was a woman who carefully managed her emotions.
She rarely let me see beneath the surface.
But tonight, driving her home from work, I could feel the cracks.
“How were the depositions?” I asked, keeping my voice casual.
“Fine.” She was staring out the window, her reflection ghostly in the glass. “Standard.”
“Baby, you seem distracted. I mean, you love Majesty’s chicken marsala, and we still haven’t celebrated our engagement.”
“I know. I’m just really tired.”
“You’ve been saying that all week.”
She turned to look at me, and I saw the flash of irritation in her eyes. “Because I am tired, Darius. It’s been a long week.”
I let it drop, but my mind was working. Something had changed.
Something had shifted in the last few days, and I couldn’t put my finger on what.
We’d been happy. Or at least, I’d thought we were happy.
The engagement had been perfect–sunset by the lake, the ring I’d spent months choosing, her tearful ‘yes’ that had made me feel like the luckiest man alive.
But since then, she’d been pulling away.
It was subtle and easy to dismiss as stress or work pressure, but it was getting harder to ignore.
The late nights at the office all week. Postponing our celebratory dinner.
The distracted conversations. The way she’d stopped saying ‘I love you’ without me saying it first. The way she’d turned down my invitation to stay over three nights in a row. The lack of sex.
“I was thinking,” I said as I pulled up to her building, “Maybe we should set a date. Actually, pick a day and start looking at venues.”
“We said next spring.”
“I know, but spring is vague. We should narrow it down. April 30th is a Saturday, and the weather should be…”
“Can we talk about this later?” She unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for her purse. “I really need to get some sleep.”
“Solei.” I caught her hand and she stilled. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out.”
She sighed, shoulders slumping, and I caught the flicker of something raw in her eyes–a loneliness I hadn’t noticed before.
For a moment, I thought she might actually tell me the truth.
But then she leaned over and kissed my cheek, her lips cool and quick, the gesture more like dismissal than affection.
“I’m just tired and stressed about work. The Richardson case is complicated, and I’m worried about…”
“Is this about Montana?”
The name hung in the air between us like a grenade as Solei went very still. “What?”
“Your ex-husband. Is this about him?”
“Why would this be about him?”
“I don’t know, Solei. You tell me.” I was trying to keep my voice level and not sound like the jealous fiancé I was quickly becoming. “You’ve been different since we got engaged. You must’ve told him about the ring. Is he upset? Has he done something?”
“I haven’t even talked to Money.”
“Haven’t you?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything. I’m asking you directly. Have you been in contact with your ex-husband?”
“We have children together, Darius. Of course, I’m in contact with him.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
She pulled her hand free and grabbed her purse. “I’m not doing this right now.”
“When are you going to do it? Because every time I try to talk about anything real, you shut down.”
“Maybe because you’re being paranoid!”
“Am I?” I turned in my seat to face her fully. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re having second thoughts about us, and I’d rather know now than find out at the damn altar.”
Her cheeks flushed a deep crimson, and her eyes darted away. I knew I’d hit a nerve. “I’m not having second thoughts,” she said, but her voice trembled, barely above a whisper.
“Then what’s going on? Talk to me, baby. Let me in.”
For a long moment, she just looked at me. I could see the war in her eyes, the part of her that wanted to be honest fighting with the part that wanted to protect me from the truth. Finally, she said, “Money showed up at the coffee shop this morning.”
My stomach dropped. “He what?”
“He was there when I went to get my latte. He wanted to talk.”
“About what?”
“About us. About the engagement. About…” She stopped and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I told him to leave me alone.”
“And did he?”
“Yes.”
“Solei…”
“He did, Darius. I told him I was engaged, that I was moving on, and he left.”
I wanted to believe her. Fuck, I wanted to believe her so badly. But I’d seen the look on her face when she'd said his name and heard the tremor in her voice.“I don’t trust him,” I said.
“You don’t have to. I’m not asking you to.”
“But I have to trust you.”
She flinched like I’d slapped her. “So, now you don’t trust me?”
“I’m trying to, but as of late, you’re making it really fucking hard.”
We sat in silence for a moment with the tension thick enough to choke on. “I should go,” she finally said.
“Yeah. You should.”
She got out of the car without another word. I watched her walk into her building, her shoulders tight, her steps quick. I sat there for a long time after she disappeared. My hands gripped the steering wheel. My mind raced.
Montana Money Madden. I’d heard the stories.
Everyone in the city had heard the stories.
The kingpin who’d built an empire. The man who’d gone to war with rival crews and law enforcement and always won.
The man Solei had loved enough to marry, to have children with, to have attorneys defend in court even if she knew he was guilty.
I’d asked her about Money once, early in our relationship. She’d shut down completely, said it was in the past, and she didn’t want to talk about it. I’d respected it and her urgency to move on, but now I was wondering if she’d ever really moved on at all.
I pulled out my phone and did something I promised myself I wouldn’t do.
I googled him. He was a supposed businessman at thirty-eight, which was four years older than me.
He had multiple arrests but no convictions.
There were photos of Money leaving court in an expensive suit, fancy lawyers at his side.
Photos of him at a charity event, looking like a legitimate businessman.
Then a picture of him and Solei together at what looked like a courthouse wedding–both young, stupidly in love.
I stared at that last photo for a long time. The way he looked at her. The way she looked at him. Like they were the only two people in the world. I’d never seen her look at me like that. I closed the browser. Threw my phone on the passenger seat.
This was a mistake. All of it. I was marrying a woman who was still in love with her ex-husband, a woman who would never look at me the way she looked at him, a woman who was settling for safe when what she really wanted was fire.
I should’ve called it off and saved us both the heartbreak, but I didn’t because I loved her.
I believed that love could be enough, that stability, respect, and partnership could build something real. Because I was a fool.
I started the car and drove home, already knowing I wasn't going to sleep tonight. I already knew that this engagement was doomed. I already knew that I was going to fight for her anyway.