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I didn’t know what to say. She was hurting. I was hurting her. I couldn’t change the past. I couldn’t undo what my brothers had done, but I could change her future…our future…if she’d let me.
So, I decided then to tell her about the future I was trying to build for us. Maybe then she would see, maybe she would understand that I wasn’t a threat to her. Maybe then she would trust me.
She was right. All I’d fed her was lies. She needed the truth.
“Mya, you’re right. You are being used. And it’s not okay. This isn’t the life I want for you or for our child.”
She took a deep breath, and her eyes filled with tears.
I kept pushing, hoping I could reach her. “I’m giving it all up, Mya. My position in the organization. Everything. I’ve started dismantling and untangling myself from it all. All those late nights, all the meetings, all those times I disappeared…I was meeting with some key players trying to find a way to distance myself, turning over my operations to people I hope I can trust. I’m walking away from it all, Mya…for you…for the baby.”
She wiped away tears and shook her head. “You’re lying. I can’t believe a word you say. I can’t trust you.”
“You can trust me, Mya. Why else would I be here?”
“To control me. Because you can’t stand the thought that something is outside your sphere of influence. Your pride can’t take it.”
My pride. Wasn’t that always a man’s downfall? She knew me too well.
Control mattered to me, like water mattered to a fish. She was right. But where had that control gotten me? Here.
To a point where the woman I had finally realized I loved would rather face death and uncertainty than trust me.
I’d miscalculated. I’d fallen for her. And all she saw was a monster without feelings, without love…someone who just wanted control over her.
But who could blame her? Up until recently, that’s exactly who I was. But she’d changed me. For the better.
It was too bad she wouldn’t give me the opportunity to show her.
What now? What did I do now? I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t want to force her to come with me and end up hurting her or the baby. What were my options?
“Sir,” I heard Joseph say. I’d forgotten he was there. For a moment, the world seemed so far away and there was only Mya.
“What is it?”
“We have company.”
I heard the doors open and feet hit the sidewalk. It was too late now. “Mya, they’re coming for us. It’s now or never.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Mya
I didn’t knowhow I felt being tossed over a fence like a sack of potatoes. But it was better than being dead.
“Let’s go,” Joseph said as I landed in his arms, tossed there by Dario who was still on the other side of the fence. It was at least six feet high. I couldn’t see him from where I had landed.
Joseph sat me down on my feet, grabbed my hand, and started pulling me toward the neighbor’s backyard.
“But what about Dario?”
“He’ll figure it out.”
“We can’t just leave him,” I found myself dragging my feet. “We have to go back!”
“And die?” Joseph said pulling me toward my neighbor’s ancient Cadillac. “That’s not happening on my watch. Dario would kill me.”
The irony of his words wasn’t wasted on me. He opened the passenger side of the Cadillac, shoved me in, apologized, and said, “Buckle up.”