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"Did you ever even love me?" I asked. "Did you ever give a fuck about me? Or about our daughter?"

He sneered. "I don't have a daughter."

The world tilted.

"And that baby probably wasn't even mine," he added coldly. "Seeing as you named her after another man."

My knees buckled. My vision went white. And then—

CRACK!

The slap rang out like a gunshot. His face snapped sideways, the red bloom of my palm instantly rising on his cheek. My chest heaved as I stood there, staring at him, daring him to move. To say something. To test me.

He reached up slowly, touched the spot where my ring had sliced him just beneath his cheekbone. His fingers came away slick with blood. He stared at them like he couldn't believe it, and then his whole body went taut. His lip curled. His nostrils flared. His eyes turned cold and dangerous.

"Bitch—"

His voice dropped into that low, menacing register I knew too well. The one that always made my stomach twist. The one I'd ignored too many times. The one I used to excuse as frustration, stress, disappointment in me, never who he really was.

And I didn't flinch.

Let him try it, I thought. I was ready. I was past ready. I was every ugly, boiling thing he'd ever made me feel, all layered on top of each other like a house of cards set on fire. I dared him to try.

His nostrils flared. Then—he froze. Like someone hit pause mid-rage. His body went rigid, eyes locking on something just past my shoulder.

Not something.

Someone.

I turned slowly, heart pounding.

Maleek.

His pickup truck was parked at the edge of the driveway, the tailgate lined up perfectly with the mountain of boxes and trash bags Gavin had dumped onto the curb. And there, leaned back against the truck bed like a damn action movie entrance, was my man.

Arms folded. Legs crossed at the ankle. Head tilted just slightly.

His eyes were locked on Gavin.

Steady. Cold. Deceptively calm.

But I knew that calm. I knew what was buried underneath it. That wasn't composure. That was strategy. That was the eye of a storm holding itself back out of respect for me.

I felt my knees give a little.

"Maleek," I whispered, breath catching in my throat.

I didn't wait for my brain to catch up. I turned from Gavin and practically ran to him, the way a kid runs to their mother after falling off a bike. Like his arms were the only safe place left on Earth.

He caught me before I could even fully reach him, arms wrapping tight around me like instinct. And even then—even then—his eyes never left Gavin.

"I thought you had to be at the gym," I said, my voice breaking somewhere between a sob and a laugh.

"I turned around," he said, voice low, gravelly. Controlled. "Had a feeling."

That was all he said. Just that. But it was everything.

And his eyes were still on Gavin.