“Who did you send that to?” I ask.
Cherry slips from the bed, keeping the sheet around her as she grabs her dress from the chair.
“Not Miami,” she says. “Yet.”
“Who?”
She steps into the dress with shaking legs. “Insurance.”
I move before I think.
She lifts the phone again. “Take one more step and every gossip gets them with a timestamp and a caption about how fast you got over her.”
I stop.
Every part of me wants to roar.
I don’t.
Because this is how they win. Rage makes men predictable. Carmen knows that. Cherry knows that now because someone taught her where to press.
“What do you want?” I ask.
Her eyes shine.
For one second, I see the old Cherry. The one bleeding on a bathroom floor. The one I failed through silence. The one I should have been honest with before grief had time to rot.
Then she is gone.
“I want you to listen.”
“Not your strong suit lately.”
“Don’t joke.”
“If I stop joking, I start killing.”
She swallows.
Good. Be scared. Be very fucking scared.
“You’re going to do what I say,” she says.
“You’re out of your fucking mind.”
“No. I’m finally seeing clear.” Her voice shakes, but she keeps going. “You chose her. You humiliated me. You made me nothing in front of everybody.”
“You made yourself something when you gave them Lady’s code.”
“They threatened my family.”
“And now you have mine?”
Her face twists. “Lady ain’t your sister.”
“No,” I say. “She’s my woman, whether she claims me back or not.”
Cherry’s mouth tightens like the words hit exactly where I meant them to.
