1
ZAINAB
I hadn’t slept.
Couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the cameras flashing. The handcuffs clicking. Prime’s face. My man had that look in his eyes like he was about to tear through every cop in that room with his bare hands.
And Vivica. Standing in the back of MY bakery. Smirking.
I paced the cell, my feet slapping against cold concrete. Five steps forward. Turn. Five steps back. Turn. The khaki jail clothes they’d given me were stiff and scratchy, two sizes too big, smelling like industrial detergent and someone else’s despair.
The fluorescent lights hadn’t turned off all night. I didn’t even know what time it was anymore. Morning? Still night? Time didn’t exist in here. Just the buzzing of those lights and the distant sound of metal doors clanging somewhere down the hall.
My baby kicked.
Hard.
I pressed my palm against my belly, trying to breathe. “I know, baby. I know. Mama’s scared too.”
My heart was doing that thing again. It was racing so fast I could feel it in my throat. I couldn’t get a full breath. Everyinhale felt like I was breathing through a coffee stirrer. The walls were too close. The ceiling was too low. The air was too thick.
Breathe. You have to breathe. For the baby.
But how was I supposed to breathe when everything I’d built—everything I’d finally let myself believe I could have—had just been snatched away in front of everyone I loved?
I was supposed to be safe.
WE were supposed to be safe.
He promised.
“Aye.”
I stopped pacing. Looked over at the metal bunk on the other side of the cell.
My cellmate —Adrienne, she’d told me her name was when they first put me in here—was propped up on one elbow, watching me with tired eyes. She was older than me, maybe late forties, with box braids pulled back in a low ponytail and the kind of face that said she’d seen some things. Lived through some things.
“You gon’ wear a hole in that floor,” she said.
“Sorry.” I didn’t stop moving. Couldn’t stop. If I stopped, I’d think. If I thought, I’d break.
“And if you don’t sit your pregnant ass down somewhere, that baby gon’ drop right out your pussy onto this concrete.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. The sound surprised us both.
“It would be just my luck,” I muttered, finally sinking onto the edge of my bunk. The thin mattress wheezed under my weight. “Give birth in a jail cell. Add it to the list.”
Adrienne sat up fully now, swinging her legs over the side of her bunk. She studied me for a long moment. Her eyes dropped to my left hand—to the pale tan line where my engagement ring used to be. They’d taken it during booking. Along with my earrings, my bracelet, my dignity.
“First time?” she asked.
I nodded. Swallowed hard.
She made a sound. Not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. “Yeah. I can tell. You got that look.”
“What look?”
“Like you still think this is a mistake. Like somebody’s gonna come through that door any minute and say ‘Oops, wrong person, you’re free to go.’”
