Chapter 46 Mehar
MEHAR
Once a good girl goes bad, she’s gone forever.—Jay-Z.
I was at my breaking point. I was done with men. Fuck all of them. I was on a mission to rid the world of shitty men. And I was gonna start with the one who made a fool of me.
Justice held the door open for me without a word. He’d barely spoken since he picked me up, just gave me a long look when I told him where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I thought he might try to talk me out of it. Tell me this wasn’t who I was. That I should let the men handle it.
But he didn’t.
He just nodded and said, “I’ll drive.”
Maybe he understood. Maybe he’d seen enough darkness in his own life to recognize it rising in someone else. Or maybe he just knew that some things couldn’t be talked through. Some things had to be walked through. Bled through.
I stepped inside and let my eyes adjust to the dim light.
There he was.Chained to a chair in the center of the concrete floor, wrists bound behind his back, ankles zip-tied to the legs. He was shirtless, his designer clothes stripped away, leaving nothing but boxers and bruises. His head was hanging low, chin to chest, like he’d given up on staying alert.
But when he heard my heels clicking against the floor, his head snapped up.
“Mehar?” His voice cracked, hoarse from screaming or crying or both. “Baby? Oh my God, baby, you’re here. You gotta help me. You gotta tell them this is a mistake. I didn’t—”
I kept walking until I was standing right in front of him. Close enough to see the dried blood crusted around his nose. Close enough to smell the stench of days without a shower. Close enough to see the hope flickering in his eyes like a dying flame.
I picked up the hose coiled in the corner.
“Mehar, wait—”
“YOU STINK, BITCH!”
I turned it on full blast and aimed it directly at his face.
He sputtered and choked, twisting against the chains, trying to escape the cold water pounding against his skin. I held it there, steady, watching him gasp and struggle. Watching the filth run off his body and swirl down the drain in the floor.
When I finally turned it off, he was shaking. Teeth chattering. Water dripping from his hair into his eyes.
“Please,” he gasped. “Please, baby, I’m sorry. Whatever they told you, I can explain. I love you. I love you, Mehar. You know I do.”
I set the hose down carefully and walked back to stand in front of him. He looked up at me with those eyes. Those pretty brown eyes that used to make me melt. That used to make me feel special and chosen and loved.
Now they just made me sick.
“You love me,” I repeated slowly, tasting the words. “You love me. That’s interesting. Is that what you told yourself when you were fucking Kacey? When you were making a baby with her while you were making a fool out of me?”
His face crumpled. “I was gonna tell you. I swear I was gonna—”
“Is that what you told yourself when you ordered my sister to be killed?” My voice was ice. “When you had someone put a bullet in Zahara and let Zainab take the fall for five years?”
“I didn’t— I never meant for—”
“Is that what you told Farah when you raped her?” I watched his whole body go rigid. “Yeah. I know about that too. Prime told me everything. Every disgusting thing you’ve done. Every lie. Every betrayal. Every woman you’ve hurt and used and thrown away like garbage.”
Tears were streaming down his face now, mixing with the water still dripping from his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll do anything. I’ll confess to everything. I’ll go to prison. Just please, please don’t kill me. Please.”
I crouched down so we were eye level. So close I could see my own reflection in his pupils.
“You know what your problem is, Thad? You’re small.
Inside, where it counts, you are so painfully small and inadequate that the only way you can feel like a man is by taking from women.
Hurting women. Controlling women. Making us feel beneath you so you don’t have to face how pathetic you really are. ”
He was sobbing now. Ugly, heaving sobs that shook his whole body.
“You thought you were going to use me and discard me,” I continued, my voice steady and calm. “Just like you did with Kacey. Just like you did with Farah. Find the broken girl, play the hero, get what you want, and toss her aside when you’re done.”
I stood up slowly, smoothing down my jacket.
“But here’s the thing, baby.” I smiled, and it felt foreign on my face. Cold. “I’m not going to discard you. That would be too easy. Too quick.”
I walked over to the corner where Justice had left the supplies and picked up the metal baseball bat leaning against the wall. It was heavier than I expected. Solid. The weight of it felt right in my hands.
Thad’s eyes went wide. “Mehar. Mehar, wait. Think about this. Think about what you’re doing. This isn’t you. You’re not like this.”
“You’re right. I wasn’t like this.” I walked back toward him, dragging the bat along the concrete floor. The sound echoed through the warehouse like nails on a chalkboard. “But you helped make me like this. You and Ahmad and my father and every other man who thought I was something to be used.”
“Please. PLEASE. I’m begging you!”
“I’m going to keep you, Thad. Like a pet. Chained in a cage somewhere until I get bored. And every day, I’m going to come visit you. And every day, I’m going to remind you of what you are. What you’ve always been.”
I raised the bat.
“MEHAR, NO! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY!”
I swung.
The crack of the bat against his kneecap was the most satisfying sound I’d ever heard in my life. He screamed so loud I thought the walls might shake. His whole body convulsed against the chains, thrashing and writhing, howling in agony.
I stepped back and watched him suffer for a moment. Then I raised the bat again.
“Please, no more, please, I’ll do anything, PLEASE—”
I swung at the other knee.
Another crack. Another scream. This one seemed to tear his throat apart, ragged and raw and barely human.
He slumped forward in the chair, held up only by the chains, whimpering and moaning. His legs hung at wrong angles now, useless, destroyed.
I dropped the bat. It clattered against the concrete floor.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said quietly. “Get some rest.”
I turned and walked toward the door where Justice was waiting. He looked at me with something I couldn’t quite read. Not judgment. Not horror. Something closer to recognition. Like he was seeing me clearly for the first time.
“You good?” he asked.
“I’m good.”
He pushed the door open and I stepped out into the night air. Cool and clean after the stench of the warehouse. The stars were out. A breeze rustled through the trees at the edge of the lot.
I made it three steps before the pain hit me.
It came out of nowhere, a searing, ripping sensation low in my belly that dropped me to my knees. I gasped, clutching my stomach, and when I looked down at my hands they were shaking.
“Mehar?” Justice was at my side instantly. “What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
I couldn’t answer. The pain was too much. It radiated through my entire body, wave after wave, stealing my breath and my thoughts and everything else.
Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
“I need… hospital…” I managed to choke out before another wave hit and I doubled over completely.
Justice didn’t hesitate. He scooped me up like I weighed nothing, carrying me to the car, moving faster than I’d ever seen him move.
“Stay with me,” he kept saying as he laid me across the back seat. “Stay with me, Mehar. I got you. Just stay with me.”
The last thing I saw before everything went black was his face in the rearview mirror, jaw tight, eyes scared, driving like our lives depended on it.
Maybe mine did.