Limited food. Limited water.
Navy in the kitchen.
Lucian not taking the gun until Navy came running out.
All of it was tactics meant to break me. Lucian wanted me at the brink of no return. I tried to save my mom, so why wouldn't Isave the beautiful stranger in the kitchen? The girl who stole my breath with just a glance.
He knew.
Patterns had a habit of repeating themselves, and mine reared its head into this situation, forcing me to decide… a decision I didn't fully understand but knew was my only option. With little thought, I blurted exactly what he wanted to hear.
"Fine!"
The single syllable was my offering to Lucian. A shattered mind for him to reshape. Piece by muthafuckin' piece until the only thing left standing…
Looked like him.
Talked like him.
Killed like him.
Prologue: Navy Achebe
Five Years Later…Honor's 16thBirthday
As moonlight spilled through Honor's bedroom window, I found myself lost in thought about what the future held for us. Come sunrise, everything was going to change for the two of us, and that scared me more than I wanted to admit. In the five years I'd known Honor, he'd become my best friend. We shared secrets, snuck glances, and became whatever the other needed when they needed it. He'd somehow entered my world and became the center of it. Five years of knowing him wasn't enough. I needed more. I craved more.
More of his daunting silence, more of his storm-brewing orbs crashing into my calm ones, and more of his presence, throwing my pulse out of whack.
I yearned for Honor, not in the way a girl did for her crush, but I ached to know him in all the ways no one else cared to. Knowing Honor wasn't easy. It came with accepting that he ran with demons he no longer felt the need to outrun. It happened the day we met, the day he jammed the gun against his head, finger itching to press down and… boom, blow himself away. Few were willing to deal with that kind of trauma because itwasn't a one-off. Something like wanting to take your own life, lived with you for years to come.
At the time, I was ten and had no business running out of the house screaming for him not to do it. If Lucian were a better father, he might've yanked me back the moment I wrapped my arms around Honor. He didn't, and the burden of that haunted me. I didn't have a clue what any of it meant, but I did it because my young heart wouldn't allow me to stand by while a boy robbed himself of his future.
"I'm Navy by the way."
"Honor."
Staring at my reflection in the window, I still heard the childlike version of his voice. Even back then, it carried a pain I couldn't relate to but felt each time he spoke. Through the glass, I watched my cheeks flush at the thought ofhim. That's the effect he had on me, even in his absence. Honor made me feel things that words couldn't fully explain. Feelings that lived in the space between a breath and a heartbeat, because with him, it was never about what was said, but solely about how everything felt.
Ialwaysfelt him… all of him.
That man… he was surely too young to be labeled a man, but that's what the game of life deemed him. He moved across the board, carrying a secret too heavy to tell. Every move was intentional, even the ones my father forced on him. Each step, a stroke against the canvas of a bigger picture, meant only for him to interpret. His solace… detachment. He wore it like armor, keeping himself unattached, unloved, and untethered to anyone or anything that might've made him feel. I hated that for him because all he ever did was make mefeel,at the same time, I understood.
Only a year older, Honor already lived a life that mirrored that of a man twice his age. Lucian was to blame, but so were the pieces of his past that haunted him at night. Pieces that broughthim to my room whenever I spent weekends at Lucian's. Beyond the secrets he shared, I listened to everything he didn't say. I studied the language of his silence. The way his body tensed in moments where love should've bloomed, but chaos had already planted its roots. I wanted to change that for him and dig up those roots, planting new ones that would pull him from the depths and push him to the surface. That's why I am here now. I had fifteen minutes to find my voice. Once the day flipped and it became Honor's birthday, things would never be the same.
I overheard my father speaking to Chance a few weeks ago about Honor moving into a group home in Gravehart Grove. I started to rush in, ready to beg my father to let Honor stay, but something in me wouldn't allow my feet to move.
I stood outside his office, listening as he told Chance that Honor was going to run drugs through the group home and build a team. Chance snorted at the plan, believing it should've been him taking over Gravehart Grove instead of Honor. Chance was underestimating Honor. My father saw that and corrected him.
"Why would I send my right hand into a graveyard to dig for bones?" Lucian quizzed. The callousness of his tone, even though it wasn't directed toward me, made me flinch.
"Why not?" Chance challenged. "You need someone there who can handle those savages. Honor isn't ready."
"You are watching my mouth move yet refuse to listen to anything coming out of it. This is why you will never enter rooms as my equal but as a man who trails three paces behind. Honor is from Gravehart Grove. His roots are embedded there, whether he knows it or not. He understands the hustle of that grim city. Beyond that, he has a story. Tragedy punished him, as it has many of the boys in that group home. Do you understand the kind of power that holds?" Lucian paused, giving Chance the opportunity to display more of his stupidity.
"Yes, but he's not?—"
"No!" Lucian barked, followed by a loud slam. His hands, I guess, were hitting the oak of his desk. "All I am hearing is envy when you speak, and still, you fail to listen. Do yourself a favor and rid yourself of it, or marrying my son will be the least of Chosyn's worries."
