CHAPTER 10 #2
I looked at her and laughed, but it came out bitter. “What the fuck kind of statement is that?”
“I’m just saying.” She tilted her head. “You look more upset about Samir and Kales than you looked when I told you I was struggling.”
That made me frown. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Try to make this about you because it is not.”
Her face hardened right back up. “Oh, there it is. Same selfish shit as always.”
I sat forward again. “Selfish? Bitch, I have been paying for everything for everybody for years.”
“And throwing money at shit don’t make you selfless,” she snapped. “That is your problem. You think because you pay bills you don’t owe nobody honesty.”
I opened my mouth to say something back, but the words stopped.
Because again, she had hit somewhere close to the truth.
Victoria saw it too.
That only made her voice sharper.
“You was honest with nobody, Quay. Not me. Not Kales. Not even your damn self. So now here you sit mad at the consequences.”
I looked away from her, jaw tight.
I hated conversations where somebody said exactly what I needed to hear. Especially when it came from somebody I didn’t even like half the time.
She let out a breath and stood up, gripping her phone in one hand.
“I didn’t come here to argue all day,” she said. “I came to tell you to wake the fuck up. If you know something, say something. Because while you sitting here trying to protect street codes and all that other dumb shit, your life is still falling apart outside these walls.”
I looked up at her. “You really think talking is that simple?”
“No,” she said. “But I think doing nothing is stupid.”
We stared at each other for a second.
Then she grabbed her purse and shook her head.
“And if you really still love Kales, you better figure out what you are gone do quick. Because from what I hear, Samir is not playing around with her.”
That was the last thing she said before she hung up the phone and walked out.
I sat there staring after her long after she was gone.
The guard eventually told me it was time to move. I got up like my body was heavy and made my way back toward the block, but my mind was nowhere near that jail anymore.
It was on Samir.
On Tariq. On Kales. On every missed sign and every lie and every choice that had brought me right there.
By the time I stepped back into my cell, Reese took one look at my face and frowned.
“The fuck happened now?”
I sat down on the bunk hard enough to make the frame creak.
“Victoria came.”
He blinked. “Your baby mama?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and stared at the floor.
“And she said Kales with Samir now.”
Silence hit the cell for a second.
Then Reese cursed under his breath. “Damn.”
I laughed, but it was dry and mean. “Yeah. Damn.”
He was quiet for a minute before asking, “You sure it is true?”
I shook my head once. “I don’t know. But even if half of it is true, that is enough.”
Reese looked at me carefully. “And what exactly you planning to do about that from a jail cell?”
That was the question, wasn’t it?
Because the old me would have answered with anger. Would have said something reckless. Would have talked about what I was gone do to Samir, to whoever, to everybody.
But sitting there in that cell, with all the weeks behind me and all that regret still sitting in my chest, I knew reckless was what had got me there in the first place.
So I let out a slow breath.
“I need to talk to Samir.”
Reese frowned. “About what?”
“Everything.”
He kept looking at me like he was waiting on more.
I gave it to him.
“About all this shit.” I lifted my head and looked at him. “Because if Tariq really moving how I think he moving, then this is bigger than me being locked up. And if Samir got Kales around him while all this going on, then whether he knows it or not, she in the middle of it now.”
Reese nodded slow, but his face stayed serious.
“You trust Samir enough for that?”
I laughed again, but there was no humor in it.
“Hell no.”
“Then why?”
“Because right now he the closest thing to the fire.”
I sat back against the wall and looked up at the ceiling.
The more I thought about it, the uglier everything got.
If Tariq had really made his move using Markie, then he had been plotting longer than I realized. If he had been plotting that long, then there was no telling what his next move was. And if Samir was distracted by Kales the way people were saying? That made him vulnerable.
And Kales?
That made her vulnerable too.
That was the part that sat the worst with me.
Because no matter how mad and hurt I was, it made my blood boil to picture her with another man, I still knew one thing deep down.
I wanted her safe before I wanted her back.
That was how I knew what I felt for her was real, even after all the shit I had done to poison it.
I looked over at Reese.
“I need a way to get word to him.”
Reese rubbed his chin. “That can probably be done.”
“Soon.”
He gave a short nod. “Aight. I will see what I can do.”
After that, the cell went quiet.
But my mind didn’t.
It kept replaying Victoria’s words. Kales with Samir now. Samir not playing around with her.
Every time I heard it in my head, something twisted in my chest.
Not just jealousy and anger, but fear.
Because if Samir really wanted Kales, and Tariq was still out there moving in the shadows, then there was a good chance the woman I loved had ended up right in the middle of a war she didn’t even know was building.
And this time, if I didn’t find a way to move smarter, I wasn’t just gone lose her.
I might lose my chance to save her too.