“I wouldn’t have to hide out if you’d just end this, Seth.”
I blinked once, closing my eyes tight and opening them back up to look at her again. “That’s what I’m doing.”
“By continuing the killing?” she asked, voice tight with fear.
I didn’t answer. What the hell could I say? That I should show mercy to the man who tried to put my wife in a casket? Should I forgive a bullet aimed at the mother of my son?
“I didn’t raise you like this, Seth.”
I looked her in the eyes. My pain met hers. “You didn’t.”
“So… this is who you are now?” she asked, stepping closer. “Gun toting. Heart cold. Quick to kill. That’s your first answer to everything now?”
My voice dropped. “You damn right it is. Because I got a wife who almost died. A son who could’ve lost his second mother. A newborn who never would've known his mama’s laugh. You think I’m gon’ let somebody try me like that and walk around breathing?”
I was shaking now. Not from fear, from the rage I kept caged behind love.
“Let his mama handle it,” she said.
I laughed. “She should’ve raised him right the first time.”
“What do people think when they see me, knowing you became this?”
I stepped closer again. My voice cracked with all the pieces I’ve been holding together with duct tape and pride.
“Mama, you raised me right. Don’t you ever question that. All the good parts of me… the father, the husband that’s you. That’s everything you poured into me. But these streets? These streets didn’t just raise me, Ma, they took me. They took Daddy and left me standing in the wreckage. So now, anytime somebody touches what’s mine… the monster they created rises. That’s not your fault. That’s survival.”
She turned away, but I caught her before she could hide her shame.
“She doesn’t know where Dre is,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “So, what now? You gonna kill an innocent woman?”
I stared her dead in her eyes. “I remember I was seventeen. We were about to be evicted. You had every bill written down on notebook paper. $6,235.89. You were crying, saying you were robbing Peter to pay Paul.” I paused, swallowing the knot in my throat. “I gave you $4,000 and said I’d be back with the rest. That night, I brought you $10k. I laid it on the table. And you said…”
I looked at her harder. “‘Guess I gotta let you be a man now.’”
She lowered her head like I’d just held a mirror to every prayer she ever prayed. But I lifted her chin with two fingers.
“You don’t ever gotta hang your head. You did the best you could with what you had. You gave me everything. You raised me right. But just like you let me be a man then you gotta let me be one now.”
Her eyes filled with tears. But they weren’t just tears of sadness, they were realizing.
“‘Do not take revenge, my dear friends,’” she whispered, her voice laced in scripture now, like she was trying to call my soul back. “‘But leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written:It is mine to avenge; I will repay,says the Lord.’ Romans 12:19.”
I looked away. Because God ain’t got here fast enough. And I ain’t in the business of waiting when my family bleeds.
“Yo, she got Dre on the phone,” Rich said, stepping in like he already knew what was about to go down. His eyes flicked between me and Ma, catching the shift in the air.
Everything in me turned cold. Ma looked at me, and I could see it clear as day. She was praying I wouldn’t become the monster.The one she worked so hard to keep buried beneath the late-night prayers.
But it was too late. That version of me died the moment Stormi flatlined. I stepped into the living room. Dre’s mama sat on the couch, phone shaking in her hand. She was sobbing, her voice full of fear and regret. The kind that hit too late.
“Why would you shoot her?” she cried into the phone, sounding broken.
“He killed my father!” Dre snapped back, like that was justification. Like I started this war.
“Ronnie?” she spit out. “The same man who acted like you didn’t exist unless he needed something. The one who showed up for favors but never for birthdays?”
“He’s still my father!” Dre barked again.
