Her eyes flood with tears.
“I didn’t know.”
I slap her again.
Diablo says my name behind me, but he doesn’t move.
Good.
He is learning fast.
Cherry folds forward in the chair, sobbing into her hands. “I was scared.”
“So is she.”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“But it did.” My voice shakes so hard it almost breaks. “It happened because they found your worst pain and your pettiest hope and tied them together with a bow.”
Cherry looks past me at Shady, desperate. “Tell her.”
Shady doesn’t move. “Tell her what?”
“That you came to me after Eclipse.”
The room goes sharp again.
“No,” Shady says.
Cherry laughs through tears. “No? That is all you have?”
“I came to check on you.”
“You fucked me.”
His jaw flexes.
No.
No, not because I care who Shady fucked before Lady. I care because Lady might care. Lady, who is tied to a chair.
Cherry’s eyes shine with something cruel now, grief and jealousy twisting together until I can hardly tell one from the other.
“He fucked me after he started seeing Lady,” she says. “After Eclipse. After she left with that promoter. He was mad. He was drunk. He came to my room.”
Shady moves then.
Fast enough that Magic steps in front of him.
Not because Magic can stop him if Shady truly wants through.
Because a brother offers a wall before a man does something he can’t undo.
“I didn’t fuck you that night,” Shady says.
Cherry flinches.
“But you did.”
