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“And what if I was wrong?”

I laughed bitterly. “If you had been wrong, I would’ve been mad at you. So, fucking what? Instead, I had that man sleeping in my bed. I was at his house. Alone.”

Kyenna didn’t say a word. My anger was valid. We weren’t best friends, but I expected her to protect my kids more than she had.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“He’s dead,” she said.

My heart stopped. It was like I had gone deaf for a minute. There was no way she was sitting here telling me that Q was dead. Now I had more questions, and I didn’t know if I wanted the damn answers, the way she was sitting here like nothing was bothering her.

“Dea…dead?”

“Q is dead,” she said again.

“How?”

Kyenna didn’t answer. Her silence was her answer, and I knew it.

“You killed him?”

“I did,” she said, uncrossing her legs and sitting up.

I reacted before I could think about it. I launched at her, but she had hopped out of the seat before I could get across the table. I was never aggressive, but I was taking loss after loss, and she was always the fucking face connected to it.

“Out of respect for the kids, I’ll let you have that moment. When you come to your senses, you’ll realize what I did had to be done. He admitted to helping set Rah up.”

“And you couldn’t come tell me first?”

“How was I supposed to know the nigga was going to admit anything?”

“Kyenna, you could’ve called immediately after.”

“Averie–”

“Again, you only care about yourself. Raya was right about you. You’re a selfish bitch. I had questions too, Kyenna. You think because Rah was your husband, you're the only person who lost somebody? That was the father of my children. I loved that man before you ever met him. I had ten years of my life with him. And now I find out the man I’ve been laying with helped murder him, and you killed his ass before I could even ask him why.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it like that.”

“Exactly! You didn’t fucking think about me at all.”

“Can you bring your voice down? The kids do not need to know about this.”

“Fuck you, Kyenna! Don’t worry about my kids. You thought about what Q did to you. You thought about getting revenge. You didn’t think about the fact that I have been opening my legs to that man. Telling him shit and letting him into the lives of my children. I deserved to look him in his face and ask him why.”

“You’re right. Again, I’m sorry.”

Kyenna didn’t put up a fight. She let me yell without yelling back. I think her being calm is what stopped us from fighting. Had she gotten loud back, there was no telling what would’ve happened. I started crying before I realized the tears were falling. I hated being vulnerable in front of her. Kyenna walked up to me and wrapped her arms around me.

“He loved you. He did tell me that too. All he talked about was you and the kids. I believed him.”

“You said he didn’t shoot Rah, right?”

“Correct.”

“Well, who killed him if it wasn’t his men?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. He died holding the secret in.”