“That’s exactly what I mean,” I say, taking the tablet from her and walking back to the counter.
Fuck that ball. And fuck that engagement party. A fake-ass engagement that doesn’t mean shit except three more years of confinement in a gilded cage. There isn’t shit to celebrate. And I refuse to be threatened into attending. Because it’s fuck Asad forever.
My gaze drops to my stitched and bandaged finger. It’s not the wound that causes me to wake up late in the night and stare at the ceiling, pain radiating throughout my body. It’s not even the bruise to my face or the healing split lip.
No, it’s the memory of being bound to that chair with strangers and Kareem watching me with those cold, dead eyes. It’s the hot anger, fierce joy, and satisfaction that had buoyed me in that torture chamber as I waited for Asad’s arrival. I just knew when he walked into that room, he would go to war and drop bodies on my behalf for being handled so disrespectfully. I knew he would ride in like that fabled prince in fairy tales to free me and repay insult for insult.
So no, it’s not physical pain that tortures me in those dark, lonely hours. It’s the agony and grief that had sliced through meafter his arrival when I realized he wasn’t there to have my back. He was the knife in it.
I can’t get past it. I can’t forgive it.
Because for the first time since my mother died, he made me trust. He made mewantto trust. Made me… hope. And he killed it as surely as he murdered the soldier who punched me in the face when I refused to docilely accept my own kidnapping.
That crime—the crime of hope—is punishable by a life sentence.
Asad Prince can go fuck himself.
“Forgive me if I overstep, Ember, but with you being here this past week and not at the lab, I’m assuming something happened between you and Asad,” Perla hesitantly says. “With you nursing your injured hand, we didn’t want to pry, but…”
“But your hand is on the mend, so what she’s so delicately trying to say is, it’s obvious he pissed you off, and it must’ve been pretty bad for you to say fuck even the pretense of going into work and focusing on your own project,” Jaq adds.
“I don’t think she was trying to say exactlythat, but neither one of them are wrong.” Gus returns from storing the subject and leans back against the counter.
“You’re not wrong.” On reflex, I cradle my injured hand to my chest. “But there’s more going on here that I can’t really get into—”
“Oh, we already figured that out once you turned up engaged to the human version of Thanos.” Jaq snorts. “And we’re not asking for the details, but since I’ve just been elevated to partner status, I’m going to say it. You would be making a mistake not going to that ball.”
“Is that right?”
I don’t see how they came to that conclusion, but then again, none of them have all the details. Or the nightmares of the man they’d come to trust and believe in trying to break them.
“Hear me out, and don’t slip anything toxic into my afternoon smoothie.” They point a warning finger at me. “I’m not askingany more questions because, frankly, I don’t want the answers, but your finger was fine when you left out of the Castle a week ago. Then we showed up here to work and you had a busted finger. So by the power of deduction, I’m guessing your lovers’ quarrel involved that. So all’s I’m saying is, it would be a miscalculation and sign of weakness on your part to not go. You need to go to that thing and show him and everyone there—including that heffa mother of his—what a bad bitch you are.”
Jaq doesn’t have the details—is missing torture, near death, and murder—but they have the gist of the situation.
The last time Asad—and maybe, more importantly, the members of the Cross organization—had seen me, I’d been strapped to a chair, under interrogation, and then walked out of that basement, bloodied and hurt.
I’d been weakened.
I’d been humiliated.
But… I’m not ready to see them again. Not ready to look all of them in the eye knowing they saw me at my weakest. Knowing they’ve probably told others that Asad thinks so fucking little of Marcus’s daughter, his new fiancée, that he damn near cut off her finger while accusing her of being the worst kind of traitor. Knowing they probably believe Iamthat traitor. Usually, I don’t give a fuck about people’s opinions of me, but having to spy the disdain and suspicion in their eyes—the unwarranted and unfounded disdain and suspicion…
I’m not ready to see that ho Michelle. It didn’t take a lot of digging to figure out she was behind the video. Stepping into that ballroom and facing her glee, the gotdamn triumph? She wounded me through her worst and most effective weapon—her son.
I’m not ready to seehimagain. When I told him I needed space, I meant it. Other than that text about Gus, Perla, and Jaq, I haven’t reached out to him. And I’ve blocked his contact so he can’t contact me. And I can’t be tempted to call or text him. The pain is too fresh, the hurt, the humiliation too close to thesurface. I’m not ready to look into all that dangerous, deceptive beauty and accept that I’d fallen for it like a naïve-ass bitch who should’ve known better. Somewhere, Maya Angelou’s sucking her teeth at me because Asad has shown me over and over exactly who he is, but I chose not to believe it.
Consider me baptized and saved because I’m a believer now.
“You’re not wrong, but I’m good,” I say to Jaq, entering the code for the door and exiting into the main lab. “Besides, I didn’t bother buying a dress or any of that. And it’s a little too late to go shopping.”
Perla scoffs, waving a hand. “As far as excuses go, that’s a pitiful one. Especially since Jaq and I kind of foresaw this and have a stylist on standby ready to arrive with several gowns, shoes, and other accessories for you to choose from.”
I blink, lips parted.
“You have what?” I blink again. Because… what? They made all these plans, went to all of this trouble, for me? Love for them blooms inside me, even though I still have zero intention of going to this farce. “When?”
“Bennie.” Jaq shrugs. “She does too much way too often, but bae comes through with this kind of shit. She knowseverybody.”
