Rico crouched in front of me. He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. “If you didn’t do it, then you’re going to find out who did.”
He released my face like it disgusted him.
I lay there on my living room floor, blood in my mouth, ribs screaming, legs shaking, trying to pull air into my lungs without making weak, whimpering sounds.
Rico stood and adjusted his jacket. “Next time, I won’t be this patient.”
Then he walked toward my door, and his men followed behind him.
A MONTH LATER
21
RHYTHM BROOKS
Kodi’s call came through right as I merged onto the expressway, and I knew he was angry before I even answered. He’d been texting all morning, swinging between attitude and guilt trips as if that was supposed to get me back.
I hit accept anyway because I didn’t want him blowing my phone up once I got to Sincere’s place.
“What, Kodi?”
“I just want to talk,” he griped.
I exhaled. “I don’t have time to talk. I’m on my way somewhere, and I’m almost there.”
“You always got somewhere to be now.” The envy and resentment in his voice were new. He wasn’t used to watching my life from the outside, and now that he was, he was livid.
In the last month, my life had changed. I had more income than I’d ever had. I moved me and the kids into a new place. I got a new car. It felt foreign being able to make big moves on my own. I rented my first and only apartment with Kodi. Every step after that had been made with him. Now me and my kids were in a three-bedroom condo, and the first night Kinsley slept in herown room, I didn’t want to get up the next morning because I didn’t want that feeling to end.
“You not gone talk to me? You too busy?”
“I’m talking,” I said. “What do you want?”
He hesitated, like he didn’t even know how to say what was eating at him. Then it came out. “I just don’t get it. For years, I did what I had to do. I took risks. I made sure y’all was straight. And now you got a little money coming in and it’s like you don’t need me for nothing.”
“Kodi—”
“Nah, let me finish. Because you’re playing me like I’m crazy, but you moving like I’m disposable. Like all those years don’t mean nothing.”
“You are not disposable,” I said. “But we are not together.”
“You decided that,” he snapped. “Without even giving me a chance to fix it!”
“It’s me deciding what I can’t live with anymore.”
He ignored that. He always ignored the parts where I made sense.
“And then my son talking about some nigga picked him up from school,” he continued. “KJ was bragging about how nice the nigga’s car was.”
I bit back my laugh, but I made a mental note to check KJ.
“That nigga wouldn’t have had to pick your kids up if you weren’t in your feelings, punishing me through them,” I said.
“You don’t put no man around my kids.”
“You sound stupid,” I snapped. “You cannot keep failing and then get mad when I solve the problem. I don’t have the option to sit around and wait on you.”
Kodi breathed hard into the phone. “You got that little art shit poppin’, got your new spot and new car, and now you don’t want me.”
