She looked at me. Then at Justice, who was standing by his car with his hands in his pockets. Then back at the building.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll stay.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. And don’t visit me. I don’t want to see any of you.”
She walked toward the entrance without looking back. The woman in scrubs met her at the door, put a hand on her back, and guided her inside. The door closed.
Justice and I stood in the parking lot for a while. Neither of us spoke. A bird was singing somewhere in the trees and the afternoon sun was warm and everything about this place looked peaceful and nothing about how we got here felt like it.
“She’s gonna be okay,” Justice said.
“Yeah.”
“You did the right thing.”
“I know.”
What I didn’t say, what I’d never say out loud, was that putting Serenity in rehab didn’t solve the Mega problem. It just delayed it. My sister was safe for thirty days. And when those thirty days were up, I needed Mega to not exist anymore.
I wasn’t going to tell my brothers. I wasn’t going to discuss it or debate it or put it to a vote. When the time was right, I was going to handle it the way I handled everything that threatened my family.
Quietly. Permanently. And without losing a minute of sleep.
I checkmy phone to see if Mehar had responded to my text about dinner. She hadn’t. And she had me fucked up by not respondin’. I was headed to her ass next.
30
MEHAR
I didn’t text him back.
Janelle’s words had burrowed into my brain like termites and they were eating through every good feeling I’d had over the past few weeks.Trauma survivors often mistake intensity for intimacy.I’d driven home replaying every moment with Quest through that lens and by the time I parked, I’d convinced myself that everything between us was a chemical reaction, not a real connection. My nervous system seeking regulation. My body grabbing onto safety because it was starving. He wasn’t special. He was just the first man who wasn’t hurting me and my broken brain couldn’t tell the difference.
That’s what I told myself as I climbed the three flights of stairs to my apartment. That’s what I told myself as I unlocked the door. That’s what I was still telling myself when I walked into my living room and found Quest Banks sitting on my navy blue leather sofa with his legs crossed and his arm stretched across the back like he paid rent here.
I froze. My hand went to my purse where my gun was.
“How did you get in my apartment?”
“Your lock is trash, Mehar.” He said it casually, like he was commenting on the weather. “I picked it in about thirty-five seconds. Which is exactly my point.”
“Your POINT? You broke into my apartment to make a point?”
“I came to check on you because you didn’t respond to my text, which is not like you. And when I got here, I realized a twelve-year-old with a bobby pin could get through your front door. Your windows don’t have sensors. Your building has no cameras in the stairwell. And your elevator has been broken for weeks, which means the only way up is an unmonitored staircase that anybody can access from the street.” He looked at me with that expression that was half concern and half CEO assessing a security risk. “You need to move.”
“I’m not moving.”
“I’ll get you a condo. Something with a doorman, a key fob system, cameras on every floor. Somewhere safe.”
“I don’t need you to buy me a condo. I don’t need you to buy me anything. And I definitely don’t need you breaking into my home to tell me my home isn’t good enough. Do you understand how insane this is? You picked my lock, Quest. You’re sitting on my couch uninvited.”
“You didn’t answer my text.”
“Because I was busy!”
“Busy doing what?”
