That word should not feel like punishment.
It does.
Because I took choices from silence, not force. Men like me love to think that matters. It doesn’t matter enough.
Cherry whispers, “What happens to me?”
I look at her.
Magic’s hand tightens on the back of her chair.
Diablo answers before I do. “You’re moved out of Vice Ink. Safe house. Guarded. If your sister and niece are in danger, we secure them. If you lie again, protection ends for you, not them.”
Cherry nods, crying silently.
She looks at me one last time. “Shady.”
I meet her eyes.
“Can you say for certain Rosa was mine?”
She studies the table between us. For one second, she looks like she might lie because needing me to believe it is the last thing she has left.
Then her mouth trembles. “No.”
The word guts the room.
“But I believed it,” she whispers. “I needed it to be true.”
I nod once, even though something old in me cracks. “That is the first honest thing you’ve given me today.”
There is grief there. Mine too. Old and ugly and real. But it ain’t a chain anymore.
“Goodbye, Cherry.”
She breaks.
Magic takes her out.
I don’t look away until the door shuts.
Then I look at my phone again.
No new message.
Lady is somewhere with Darling, seeing my past fed to Miami like gossip candy.
And for the first time in my life, the hardest thing I have to do is nothing.
Not nothing.
Worse.
Wait.
Tell the truth.
Let her choose whether I ever get close enough to touch her again.
