I knew that car.
My stomach dropped.
“No,” I whispered.
The driver’s side door opened.
Phillip stepped out.
And then Destiny got out of the passenger side, her phone already in her hand like she was about to record this.
“Well, well, well,” Phillip said, grinning like he’d just won the lottery. “Look who it is. My broke-ass ex-wife and her new sugar daddy.”
My hands curled into fists.
Amai didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stood there, watching.
Phillip walked closer, his chest puffed out, his voice loud enough for the whole block to hear.
“What, you think you special now, Truth?” he said, laughing. “You think you better than me ’cause you got some nigga with money? You still the same?—”
Amai moved.
Fast.
One second, he was standing next to me.
The next, he was on Phillip.
The sound of Amai’s fist connecting with Phillip’s jaw was so loud it echoed down the block.
Phillip went down hard, his body hitting the pavement with a sickening thud.
But Amai didn’t stop.
He grabbed Phillip by the front of his shirt and dragged him up, only to slam his fist into his face again.
And again.
And again.
Blood sprayed across the concrete.
Phillip was screaming—high-pitched, desperate, terrified.
“Amai!” I shouted.
But he didn’t hear me.
Or maybe he did and just didn’t care.
He was a different person now.
Not the man who’d sat in Macy’s watching me shop.
Not the man who’d code-switched for my mama.
This was the man people whispered about.
