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I know that I’m only fifteen, but give me three years and I’ll be able to convince Justice that we’re meant to be together.

I’ll eventually find a way to reveal to him that I’m not really his daughter. Dream will die in a freak accident. And then he’ll take shelter in my love.

We’ll live happily ever after. I just have to keep the hoes away.

The bell rang and my lunch time was over. Since I had no friends, I often spent my lunches in the library reading. But today I crafted that letter, which I will slip in the USPS box that’s near the 7-11.

After school, I like to ask the driver to take me to 7-11 to get a snack and he always obliges. That’s how I’ve been mailing Tavares.

I needed to make sure my real father got this letter so that he didn’t come looking for me when he got out of prison.

I picked up the letter and slid it into my purse.

I don’t want him causing any problems for my baby, Justice.

8

Justice

At this point I didn’t know who to trust. My own child or Skye. Excuse me… Melody.

The fact that I didn’t know her real name should’ve been enough proof that she was the one that couldn’t be trusted.

But there was something tugging at me to search my daughter’s room for evidence that what Melody told me was true.

I pushed a row of hanging clothes aside and reached into the back of Storie’s closet. Storie was spoiled for sure. She was a Banks girl. There wasn’t too much I would say no to as long as she was respectful and she kept her grades up.

Lately she’d been slipping, so there were no new designer bags or coveted clothes. She had to earn that shit. And if what Melody was saying was true, she would never get anything out of me. I might have to lock her ass in a cellar.

As I searched through the closet, I thought of what Rita and I talked about. She was team Skye, the liar. Which I understood, my daughter had been unlikable lately. And Skye… ugh Melody, had taken really good care of Rita. Which is something that was really fuckin’ with me. Melody was damn near irreplaceable.

Today, Rita was spending the day with Zainab and the twins since we had no one to be with Rita. Rita still swears she doesn’t need a nurse or a baby sitter. But Zainab and Mehar have said they would split days caring for her until we can replace Melody.

That seemed like an impossible task.

I ran my hand along the shelf, then started bringing shoe boxes down.

Skye had been specific about what she’d found. But there were no bottles of anti-freeze anywhere.

Now I was checking everywhere else.

I went through that closet furiously, hoping to find that one of them was a liar. No matter what I found I wouldn’t be satisfied. It would fuck me up if Melody made that shit up. And furthermore it would kill me to know that Storie was capable of killing an animal. And worse, her mother.

I tossed boxes to the side. All these damn shoes. My babygirl had enough footwear to rival your favorite celebrity and still had the nerve to look at me like I was oppressing her every time I told her no.

I put the last box back and moved to the bed.

There was nothing under the mattress, pillows or frame. Nothing was in her desk — no journal or letter. There was absolutely nothing anywhere except what you’d expect to find in a teenage girl’s room. Books, clothes, jewelry, posters, beauty products and a few magazines. She started buying them to entertain herself ever since I took her phone.

I looked around and made sure I put everything back in its place. Storie could have anything that she wanted but I knew that she wasn’t fully happy. It was something that I hoped would change in therapy.

She ain’t been the same since Monica died. After her mother passed, then came the attitude, the trouble at school, that grown-ass man thinking he could get near my daughter. I had been handling one problem after another, trying to figure out what the fuck I was missing.

Now I was supposed to believe she’d killed her little sister’s horse.

She could’ve moved the bottles and destroyed the letter. Or Melody could’ve been lying to save her ass after getting caught lying about every-fuckin-thing. Either way, I had to keep an eye on Storie.

Shit, I needed to add a PI to keep his eye on Melody. I needed to make sure she wasn’t going to try to weasel her way in our life and destroy us. What was her aim? She was married to Roman. Did she get with me to try to sabotage his business?