I started toward her but stopped outside my own room. The door was hanging on the hinges. Through the lopsided positioning of it, I could already tell that my bed was as diced as the sofa. Apicture of my sister was smashed on the floor beside the bed, and on top of it were dozens of tiny pieces of–
“No,” The words flew out of my mouth when my brain made sense of the blue printed pattern on the snippets of paper.
I scooped up the pieces like I thought I might glue the marriage license back together. Hot, silent tears streamed down my cheeks unchecked. I’d begged him to be real with me, and now all I had were shards of what my heart had already known was too good to be true.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Gone
Anthony
It was a prison.
What the fuck was I going to do to guard the entrance with a forty-five, that the uniformed professionals inside weren’t going to do ten times better?
It was busy work, and I knew it, I just didn’t know why.
Rather than drive myself nuts about it, I gave my back to the bike.
I put my glasses on, cupped the phone to my chest and closed my eyes for a few minutes.
I’d counted on waking up to a text from her, long before the two of them got back. Instead, I woke up to the phone being ripped out of my hands.
“This is all the further I can count on you?” Mark roared, when I followed the path of the phone off the bike.
He slammed it on the ground and kicked it away. I was so shocked by his open disrespect, I froze, but he didn’t. He grabbed my cut on either side of the chest and drew me back when I tried to go after the shattered phone.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Huh? Look, I know most of them prefer the diamond dust or whatever it is that makes their tits sparkle, but that doesn't make her pussy gold. Get your fucking shit together.”
The fuse of my temper felt like it had suddenly shrunk to the size of a tea candle wick. I clenched my jaw and let him heft me around.
I really didn’t have much choice, with Big Vick standing beside him.
If I responded, I probably wouldn’t even land a blow before I’d be eating the same pavement the phone did.
I tried to stay calm.
It was a throwaway phone, but all phones had a sim card, right?
I held onto that little shred of hope and closed my eyes while he raged about what a failure I’d been the past week. When he let go and stepped back, I thought he was going to hit me. His eyes were wild when I met his gaze.
Instead, he scoffed like I wasn’t shit and marched back to his bike.
Several other bikes were parked in a row beside him.
How the hell I slept through the approach of all them brothers, I had no idea. Every fiber in my being twitched while I watched him fire it up and circle around the lot.
“Let’s go!” He barked.
I shot toward the ditch, wading into the muck as I frantically started looking around for the phone. The weeds were as tall as my knee, making it an impossible task.
“Jesus, come on, Anthony. He’s fucking pissed.” Easy tried to reason, before starting his bike.
Finally, I found it, caked in mud and all but a corner of it submerged in nasty water.
“Fuck,” I huffed, hurrying back to my bike.
I had no idea just how many times I’d be saying that word in the coming week. Mark took us south, to a party near Cairo, and insisted we spend the next two days at what he called aMeeting of the Minds.
