Chapter 50 Mehar
MEHAR
My brief pregnancy with Thad’s seed was an ectopic pregnancy. And I couldn’t have been more grateful to have lost that child. God or the universe or whatever was out there decided that nothing from that man deserved to live inside me, and honestly? Same.
I’m sad that I lost a fallopian tube though. It ruptured the night Justice rushed me to the hospital. One minute I was walking out of that warehouse on a high from breaking both of Thad’s kneecaps. Next minute I was on the ground bleeding, and Justice was carrying me to his truck like a ragdoll.
They cut me open. Took the tube. Told me I was lucky to be alive.
Lucky. That’s cute.
But I wasn’t about to sit around mourning what that man took from me. He already took enough. My sister. My trust. My ability to sleep without checking twice that the door was locked. He wasn’t getting my future too.
So I found new hobbies.
The shooting range in Virginia became my second home. Three times a week, sometimes four. The owner, Ray, stopped charging me after the first month because I was good for business. Other members would stop their sessions just to watch me shoot.
And I was good. Not just good. Scary good.
Turned out all that rage I’d been carrying since Ahmad, since my father, since every man who ever thought I was something to be used, it made my hands steady. Made my focus sharp. Made my breath slow and even when I lined up the shot.
Fifteen rounds. Center mass. Every single time.
Ray said I was a natural. I told him naturals don’t practice four hours a day. He laughed. I didn’t.
I emptied another clip, pulled the target back, and admired my work. Tight grouping. All chest, all kill shots. I took a picture and sent it to Zainab.
She sent back a single emoji.
Then: Girl…
Then: Remind me to never make you mad.
I smiled. Put my phone away. Packed up my case.
I had somewhere to be.
The warehouse unit was on the outskirts of Northeast. Industrial area. Nobody around. Prime was paying the rent on it monthly, no questions asked. He understood that some debts couldn’t be settled with money or mercy.
I unlocked the padlock and rolled the door up.
The smell hit me first. Piss and sweat and something sour underneath that I’d stopped trying to identify weeks ago. The single overhead bulb flickered on, casting everything in that sickly yellow light.
And there he was.
Thad. In his cage.
I’d had it custom built. Six by four, steel bars, just tall enough that he could sit up but not stand. Bolted to the concrete floor. A thin mattress on the bottom that I changed out once a week because I wasn’t an animal.
But my favorite addition was the water bottle. One of those big ones with the metal spout, mounted to the side of the cage the same way you’d mount one on a hamster cage. He had to press his mouth to the nozzle and suck to get water out.
Poetic, I thought.
He heard me come in and his head lifted. Three months in that cage and he barely looked human anymore. Beard grown out wild, hair matted, eyes sunken and hollow. His legs were useless, both knees still destroyed from the bat. He couldn’t stand even if I opened the door and invited him to try.
“Mehar.” His voice was gravel. “Mehar, please. Please, I’m begging you. Just let me go. I’ll disappear. I’ll leave the country. You’ll never see me again.”
I crouched down in front of the cage and pulled a Tupperware container from my bag. Leftover rotisserie chicken I’d picked apart with my fingers. Some rice. A few pieces of bread.
I pushed it through the slot at the bottom of the cage. The opening was just wide enough for a plate. He scrambled for it with his hands, stuffing food in his mouth before I could change my mind.
“You say the same thing every time,” I said. Calm. Almost bored.
“Because I mean it every time.” He was crying and chewing at the same time. Tears and chicken grease running down his chin. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. For everything. For Zahara. For you. For all of it. Just please. Please let me go.”
I watched him eat. Watched him grovel. Watched this man who used to walk into rooms like he owned them reduced to begging a woman he thought was disposable for scraps through a hole in a cage.
“Nah,” I said. “I’m not done yet.”
He broke down. Full sobs. Shaking the cage with his fists like it would do anything.
I stood up, brushed off my knees, and walked out.
Locked the padlock behind me. Got in my car. Sat there for a second.
I didn’t feel bad. I didn’t feel good either. I just felt… in control. For the first time in my life, I was the one with the power. And I wasn’t ready to give that up.
My phone buzzed.
A booking notification from my website.
Dame CoCo—Session Request Client: TallDarkDC_42 Service: Full submission, 2 hours Rate: $1,500
I smiled. A real smile this time.
Dame CoCo. That was me. My alter ego. My new business. The thing I stumbled into after the surgery when I was lying in bed, angry at the world, scrolling the internet at 3 AM trying to figure out who I was now.
Turns out there were a LOT of powerful men in Washington, DC who wanted to be humiliated, controlled, and disciplined by a beautiful woman. Lawyers. Lobbyists. Politicians. Men who spent their whole lives dominating boardrooms and courtrooms, who craved the exact opposite behind closed doors.
And me? A woman who’d spent her whole life being dominated by men? Who’d been beaten by her husband, controlled by her father, manipulated by her lover?
I was the perfect person to flip that script.
I’d found my calling. Ahmad taught me what pain felt like. Thad taught me what betrayal felt like. And now I was using every lesson those men gave me to take money from men just like them.
The irony was delicious.
I confirmed the booking. Checked my schedule. I had a session tonight and another one tomorrow morning. Business was good. Business was VERY good.
I pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward my apartment, the DC skyline catching the last of the afternoon light.
Mehar Ali. Good girl. Obedient daughter. Beaten wife. Broken woman.
She was dead.
Dame CoCo drove a black Audi, owned a cage with a man inside it, and was booked solid through the end of the month.
And she was just getting started.