Once a good girl goes bad, she’s gone forever.—Jay-Z.
I was at my breaking point. I was done with men. Fuck all of them. I was on a mission to rid the world of shitty men. And I was gonna start with the one who made a fool of me.
Justice held the door open for me without a word. He’d barely spoken since he picked me up, just gave me a long look when I told him where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I thought he might try to talk me out of it. Tell me this wasn’t who I was. That I should let the men handle it.
But he didn’t.
He just nodded and said, “I’ll drive.”
Maybe he understood. Maybe he’d seen enough darkness in his own life to recognize it rising in someone else. Or maybe he just knew that some things couldn’t be talked through. Some things had to be walked through. Bled through.
I stepped inside and let my eyes adjust to the dim light.
There he was.Chained to a chair in the center of the concrete floor, wrists bound behind his back, ankles zip-tied to the legs. He was shirtless, his designer clothes stripped away, leaving nothing but boxers and bruises. His head was hanging low, chin to chest, like he’d given up on staying alert.
But when he heard my heels clicking against the floor, his head snapped up.
“Mehar?” His voice cracked, hoarse from screaming or crying or both. “Baby? Oh my God, baby, you’re here. You gotta help me. You gotta tell them this is a mistake. I didn’t?—”
I kept walking until I was standing right in front of him. Close enough to see the dried blood crusted around his nose. Close enough to smell the stench of days without a shower. Close enough to see the hope flickering in his eyes like a dying flame.
I picked up the hose coiled in the corner.
“Mehar, wait?—”
“YOU STINK, BITCH!”
I turned it on full blast and aimed it directly at his face.
He sputtered and choked, twisting against the chains, trying to escape the cold water pounding against his skin. I held it there, steady, watching him gasp and struggle. Watching the filth run off his body and swirl down the drain in the floor.
When I finally turned it off, he was shaking. Teeth chattering. Water dripping from his hair into his eyes.
“Please,” he gasped. “Please, baby, I’m sorry. Whatever they told you, I can explain. I love you. I love you, Mehar. You know I do.”
I set the hose down carefully and walked back to stand in front of him. He looked up at me with those eyes. Those pretty brown eyes that used to make me melt. That used to make me feel special and chosen and loved.
Now they just made me sick.
“You love me,” I repeated slowly, tasting the words. “You love me. That’s interesting. Is that what you told yourself when you were fucking Kacey? When you were making a baby with her while you were making a fool out of me?”
His face crumpled. “I was gonna tell you. I swear I was gonna?—”
“Is that what you told yourself when you ordered my sister to be killed?” My voice was ice. “When you had someone put a bullet in Zahara and let Zainab take the fall for five years?”
“I didn’t— I never meant for?—”
“Is that what you told Farah when you raped her?” I watched his whole body go rigid. “Yeah. I know about that too. Prime told me everything. Every disgusting thing you’ve done. Every lie. Every betrayal. Every woman you’ve hurt and used and thrown away like garbage.”
Tears were streaming down his face now, mixing with the water still dripping from his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll do anything. I’ll confess to everything. I’ll go to prison. Just please, please don’t kill me. Please.”
I crouched down so we were eye level. So close I could see my own reflection in his pupils.
“You know what your problem is, Thad? You’re small. Inside, where it counts, you are so painfully small and inadequate that the only way you can feel like a man is by taking from women. Hurting women. Controlling women. Making us feel beneath you so you don’t have to face how pathetic you really are.”
He was sobbing now. Ugly, heaving sobs that shook his whole body.
“You thought you were going to use me and discard me,” I continued, my voice steady and calm. “Just like you did with Kacey. Just like you did with Farah. Find the broken girl, play the hero, get what you want, and toss her aside when you’re done.”
