“I have cameras in this apartment.”
The silence that followed was the loudest sound I’d ever heard in this penthouse. Louder than the parties we’d thrown. Louder than the arguments. Louder than Camille’s confession about the pregnancy. Just pure, dense, suffocating silence while the color drained from both of their faces at exactly the same rate.
Camille closed her eyes. Lyric’s mouth opened but nothing came out.
“I watched you stage it,” I continued. “I watched your brother walk in and fill the duffel bag. I watched Lyric direct the whole thing like a movie set. I watched him tie you up with silk scarves and knock over furniture and walk out with my shit. And then Iwatched you call 911 two minutes later. I saw the whole thing on my phone in the parking garage before I came up here.”
“Quest, let me explain—” Camille started.
“Explain what? That you got your brother to stage a fake robbery? That you filed a false police report? That you wasted the time of a detective and two officers who could’ve been responding to an actual crime? That you’re seven months pregnant committing a felony in my living room?” I was pacing now because if I stood still the anger was going to turn into something I couldn’t control. “What the fuck were you thinking, Camille?”
“It was Lyric’s idea?—”
“Oh, so now it’s my idea?” Lyric jumped up. “You agreed to it! You were the one who said we needed to get Quest’s attention because he wasn’t returning our calls?—”
“I don’t owe either of you a returned call. I don’t owe you shit. We are done. We been done. And staging a robbery to get me over here is the most delusional, pathetic, desperate shit I have ever seen in my life. And I have seen a LOT of desperate shit.”
“You’re cold,” Lyric said, crossing her arms. “You are so fucking cold, Quest. You just throw people away when you’re done with them like they never mattered?—”
“I was upfront with you. I agreed to GIVE you this penthouse. One of you tried to trap me with another man’s baby and the other one can’t stop spending my money long enough to develop a personality. And now you’re staging home invasions for attention? This is what we’ve come to?”
“You don’t get to talk to us like?—”
“I get to talk to you however I want in a penthouse that I pay for. And speaking of which—” I stopped pacing and looked at both of them. “I’m selling it. You’ve got ninety days to find somewhere else to live. My assistant will send the paperwork tomorrow.”
Camille’s face went white. “Quest, I’m about to have a baby. You can’t just?—”
“You should’ve thought about that before you committed a felony in my living room. Ninety days, Camille. That’s generous and you know it.”
Lyric lost it. She was up in my face now, finger pointed, neck rolling, voice at a volume that the neighbors were definitely going to complain about. “This is because you got a new bitch, isn’t it? That’s what this is really about. You found some new little hood rat to play house with and now we’re trash to you. Who is she, Quest? Because I swear to God, I will fuck her up. I will find out who she is and I will?—”
I stepped forward. Close enough that Lyric had to tilt her head back to look at me. Close enough that she could see in my eyes that what I was about to say was not a performance.
“If you come anywhere near my girl, I will send your head to your pappy down in Atlanta. Do not fuck with me, Lyric. Do not test me. Do not even think about her. Because the version of me that you’ve been dealing with? The one who gives you penthouses and credit cards and patience? That version is done. The next version is the one you don’t want to meet.”
My girl. I’d said it. Out loud. The words came out before I could filter them and I didn’t take them back because they were true and I was tired of pretending they weren’t.
Lyric’s mouth snapped shut. Whatever she saw in my face told her the conversation was over.
Camille stood up and put her hand on Lyric’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go to the bedroom.”
“I’m not done?—”
“Yes you are.” Camille pulled her toward the hallway, reading the room better than Lyric ever could. “Come on, Lyric. Now.”
Lyric let herself be pulled away but she looked back at me one more time with an expression that was half fury and halfsomething else. Perhaps hurt, maybe, or fear, or the realization that the man she’d been performing for wasn’t watching anymore.
They disappeared into the bedroom. The door closed.
I stood in my penthouse surrounded by overturned furniture and fake crime scene energy and felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time. Not anger. I was past anger. It was exhaustion. The bone-deep kind that comes from loving people who keep proving that love is a weapon they’ll use against you the first chance they get.
I was trying not to see all women this way. I was trying so hard not to let Peanut and Camille and Lyric and every woman who’d ever lied to me turn into a lens I looked at the whole world through. But nights like this made it damn near impossible. Three women in my life and not one of them could be trusted. Three women and every single one of them had schemed, manipulated, or betrayed me in ways that would make most men bitter enough to never try again.
I prayed Mehar was different. I prayed it with everything I had because if she wasn’t. If she turned out to be another version of the same lesson. I was done. Permanently.
I left the penthouse annoyed that these bitches had wasted my time. Took the elevator down, got in the whip, and sat in the parking garage for the second time that night.
I pulled out my phone and called Mehar.
