For a moment, there was complete silence.
Then Quest, Thad, and I burst out laughing.
Julius dropped the gun and started sobbing harder, his whole body shaking. Ivy collapsed in her chair, gasping for breath.
And then I smelled it. Piss. Both of them had pissed themselves. The dark stains spreading across their clothes, puddles forming beneath their chairs.
“Yo!” Thad was doubled over, laughing so hard he could barely breathe. “They both pissed themselves! Both of them!”
Quest wiped tears from his eyes. “Damn. Our sister really married a simp-ass, pussy-ass nigga. This is sad.”
The relief on their faces was almost funny. Almost. They thought it was over. Thought this was just a scare tactic and now they could go home.
Julius was still crying, rocking back and forth. “Thank you. Thank you. I swear I’ll never do this again. I swear. I love Serenity. I’ll never?—”
“Oh, this shit ain’t over?” Quest taunted.
Julius and Ivy both froze, hope dying in their eyes.
I grabbed Julius before he could react, forcing him down onto his knees, pinning his left arm to the concrete floor. He started struggling, but I was much stronger.
“What are you doing?! You said?—”
Quest pulled out a cleaver from under the duffel bag. The blade caught the fluorescent light.
“No! No, please! PLEASE!”
Quest raised the cleaver.
“You’re dishonorable,” he said calmly. “And dishonorable men don’t get to wear wedding bands.”
The cleaver came down.
THWACK.
The sound was wet and final. Julius’s ring finger—the one with the gold wedding band—separated from his hand and fell to the plastic sheeting.
Julius’s scream was inhuman. High-pitched. Primal. He was trying to jerk away but I held him firm, watching the blood pour from the stump where his finger used to be.
Ivy was sobbing, screaming, incomprehensible sounds of horror.
“Pussy-ass nigga,” Thad muttered, shaking his head.
I let Julius go and he collapsed to the floor, cradling his mutilated hand, blood everywhere, still screaming.
I picked up the severed finger, the wedding band still on it, and walked toward the bathroom in the back of the warehouse.
“Where you going?” Thad called.
“To flush this dishonorable shit down the toilet where it belongs.”
Julius’s screams followed me down the hall. I dropped the finger into the toilet, watched it swirl and disappear, then washed my hands.
When I came back, Quest was standing over Julius, who was curled in a fetal position, whimpering.
“Listen close,” Quest said. “You’re gonna tell Serenity the truth. All of it. And then you’re gonna sign whatever divorce papers she gives you. You’re gonna give her the house, the cars, half your business, whatever she wants. Because if you don’t, we come back. And next time, it’s not a finger. Understand?”
Julius nodded, unable to speak through the pain.
