Forever.
I hated that fucking word.
But I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. When I heard he bought a penthouse, I offered to design it for free. Told myself it was about building my portfolio. Really I just wanted to be in his space. Touch his things. Pick out his sheets and imagine lying in them with him.
And the whole time I was loving him from a distance, I was also protecting him from other bitches.
There was this girl once. Some pretty little thing who worked at the same gym Prime used. I noticed her watching him. Noticed her timing her workouts to match his. Noticed how she’d find excuses to be on the machine next to him, bending over a little too long, laughing a little too loud.
I watched her for two weeks. Found out where else she worked—some boutique in Georgetown. Showed up one afternoon when she was alone behind the register.
“Hi.” I smiled real sweet. “You don’t know me, but I know you. And I need you to understand something.”
I leaned across the counter, close enough to smell her cheap perfume.
“If you ever look at Prime Banks again—if you talk to him at the gym, if you smile at him, if you even THINK about him—I will cut your face so bad your own mama won’t recognize you. We clear?”
She switched gyms by the end of the week.
See, I was PROTECTING what was mine. Running off every bitch who tried to get close. Keeping him available for me. For US. For the future I knew we were supposed to have together.
Twelve years. TWELVE YEARS I loved that man.
And then Zainab came along.
Some random bitch who made cinnamon rolls. CINNAMON ROLLS. And suddenly Prime was looking at HER the way I’d been waiting twelve years for him to look at me. Soft. Protective. Like she was precious.
Like she mattered more than me.
I planted that roach in her rolls at the mayor’s gala. Watched her whole little business almost crumble in one night. And when she slapped me—when that bitch actually put her hands on MY face in front of everybody—I knew the war had officially started.
But I wasn’t ready yet. Wasn’t prepared. So I fell back. Watched. Waited.
I started following her. Not in a crazy way at first. Just… keeping tabs. Checking her Instagram. Googling her business. Driving past the bakery sometimes to see if Prime’s car was there.
Okay. Maybe it was a little crazy.
I followed her to the grocery store once. Watched her squeeze avocados and smell cantaloupes like she was just some regular bitch living a regular life. Like she hadn’t stolen everything that was supposed to be mine.
I sat in my car and imagined all the ways I could end her. Car accident. Home invasion. Something slow and painful that would make Prime suffer the way I’d been suffering for twelve years.
But before I could make my move, Prime got to me first.
He kidnapped me. Tied me to a chair in some dirty ass warehouse like I was nobody. Like I wasn’t the daughter of theman who MADE him. Like twelve years of loving him meant nothing.
And then he cut off my ear.
I can still feel it. Still wake up in the middle of the night feeling that dull blade sawing through cartilage. Back and forth. Back and forth. The knife wasn’t sharp enough for a clean cut so he had to SAW through it while I screamed and begged and promised him anything, everything, whatever he wanted?—
The blood. So much blood. Warm and thick, running down my neck, pooling in my collarbone, soaking through my shirt.
My mother’s earring. The diamond Daddy gave me on my twenty-first birthday. The only piece of her I ever had.
Gone.
Taken by the man I loved.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
