I laughed. “You want a conversation?” I hissed. “After all these years? After you left Stormi to raise me while Jo was strung outon everything, she could get her hands on? After Stormi had to play mama as a child, while you played ghost?”
“Noah, I know.”
“You don’t know shit,” I cut him off, heat crawling up my throat. “You don’t know one damn thing about what Stormi and I lived through.”
His silence was heavy on the other end, but guilt filled the line.
“Noah… son”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, voice cracking pissing me off more. “You don’t get to pull that word out like you earned it.”
I stared at Leon’s porch. The rage in me warred with something else, something that scared me more than pulling the trigger ever could.
“I’m not askin’ for forgiveness,” he whispered. “I’m askin’ for a chance to try. Just try.”
My throat tightened, my fingers flexed around the phone. Stormi’s voice from years ago echoed in my head“He’s still your father, Noah whether he ever acted like it or not.”
But that didn’t make the pain feel any less like fire.
“You want a chance?” I muttered. “I been surviving without you my whole damn life. What the hell you think coming into my life now will do?”
He inhaled shakily. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I can start by saying I’m sorry.”
Something in my chest twisted hard, sharp, like a blade turning. I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I just stood there in the dark, phonepressed to my ear, gun heavy in my hand, heart splitting open in a way it never had before. I took one last glance at Leon’s house before I hopped in my whip and I peeled off. I’ll leave Leon for another day, but he will pay.
Chapter
Sixteen
STORMI
Ronnie was dead, Dre was dead, and for the first time in what felt like forever, life was starting to look normal. Whatever normal even meant for us.
I was back behind my own wheel again, driving myself where I needed to go. But even with that small piece of freedom, I still caught glimpses of Josh posted up somewhere in the shadows, pretending like I didn’t see him watching.
Old Stormi wouldn’t have noticed. But Seth’s wife, the woman who got shot while eight months pregnant and still lived to tell the story, she noticed everything now. Not out of fear, but out of memory and out of survival. I had that unspoken reminder: remember who the fuck you are.
“So, this man wants to build you a house from the ground up,” Jo said, giving me that side eye smirk, “when y’all already got a nine-bedroom, twelve-bathroom mansion and just two kids?”
We were walking through the fourth property of the day, scouting spaces for my new women’s wellness center. Ever since Dre’s mess was over, I’d promised myself I’d focus on livingmy life to the fullest. The night Seth asked me what I wanted outside of being a wife and mother, I just stared at him. I didn’t even know how to answer. I’d been floating for so long, taking whatever good came my way I’d forgotten what it felt like to want something for myself.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved teaching. But teaching was something that happened for me. A scholarship. A job. A paycheck. Stability. Where I came from, that was more blessing than dream.
But this, this was different. This was mine. I stepped inside the building, and the air shifted. Big open floors, light pouring in through wide glass windows. It felt right, like the walls were already calling my name.
“This the one,” I whispered, mostly to myself.
“He wants to build our first home together,” I said to Jo as she ran her hand across the exposed brick wall. “As husband and wife. Not just move me into something he already had.”
Jo grinned, her gold hoops catching the light. “I picked you a good husband, didn’t I?”
“Jo, what?” I laughed, shaking my head, but I could feel the warmth rising in my chest. She just smiled harder.
“I’m serious, Stormi. After everything, you deserve a man who wanna build with you, not just keep you.”
Her words hit soft but deep. I looked around the space again this empty building, these blank walls and I could almost see it all already women coming in broken, walking out whole. A place where healing didn’t just sound good, it felt possible.
“Yeah,” I said finally, turning back to her. “I think I finally got one.”
