Page 44 of Certified Pressure 2

Trill-Land, Jungle Estate

A ll I could do was sit on the sofa in the living room and cry.

The tears wouldn’t stop, no matter how many times I wiped my face with the back of my hand.

I didn’t care who saw me. I didn’t care if the whole damn mansion heard me breaking down.

Everything inside of me felt torn apart, and I couldn’t hold it together anymore.

Pluto’s words kept replaying in my head like a broken record.

It’s up now. May the best woman win. The way she said it…

calm, unbothered, like she was some saint burned through me.

She was using that quiet act to make it seem like she was innocent, like I was the one who came in here foul.

But I knew better. She wasn’t the one down here day after day, fighting for Pressure’s heart, trying to prove she was worth standing next to him. That was me.

Pluto hadn’t been here through the chaos.

She hadn’t been in the mansion when all eyes were on Pressure, dealing with his ex, or when shit was spinning out of control.

She dipped. She ran. And now she just waltzed back in like all she had to do was show her face and he would drop everything for her.

That shit crushed me because I knew what I had been building with him while she was gone.

I curled my legs up on the sofa, hugging my knees to my chest, my face pressed against them as more tears fell.

My heart was heavy, but my mind wouldn’t stop racing.

I kept seeing Pressure’s face earlier when he looked at me.

I knew what I saw in his eyes. I knew the love was there.

I wasn’t imagining it. When he let Ka’mari go, when he told her about the baby they lost, the pain in his voice, the way his eyes glistened… I had never seen him like that.

I thought about the way he touched my face, the softness he showed me even when his words were sharp.

He had been through so much, carrying pain that would’ve killed another man, and still he stood tall.

And I wanted to give him everything he lost. I wanted to give him the love he deserved, the loyalty he’d been craving.

I wanted to be the one he could lean on when the world got heavy.

My chest ached because I knew my feelings wasn’t fake.

They wasn’t forced. I hadn’t planned on falling in love with him, but it happened.

It happened in the way he held me when I was wilding, in the way he calmed me down instead of pushing me away, in the way he let me see pieces of him that nobody else got to see.

So no, I wasn’t about to sit here and let Pluto act like she had the right to claim him just because she showed up first. We both came into this mansion with motives.

We both had plans that had nothing to do with love.

Her plan was to get that money for Zurie.

Mine was to protect her, to make sure she didn’t drown in this shit.

Neither one of us thought we’d end up here, caught up in this kind of love.

But just because she caught feelings first didn’t mean mine mattered less.

I wiped my face again, angry now more than anything.

She took my one chance. She took the moment I’d been waiting for—me and Pressure finally standing in front of each other with no one else in the way.

And she snatched it like it belonged to her.

She was selfish for that. She didn’t think about how much I had given, how much I had put up with, how much I had fought.

She just wanted what she wanted, and she expected him to bend because she showed up crying.

The thought of it made me sit up, my hands gripping the sofa cushion. “You don’t get to do that, Pluto,” I whispered to myself, my voice trembling. “You don’t get to walk in and take him from me like I ain’t been here, like I ain’t given my heart to this man too.”

I thought about the way Pressure looked when he saw Pluto.

The shock in his face, the way his body went stiff.

He hadn’t even been expecting her. That’s what got me the most. He had already made peace with her being gone.

He hadn’t been calling her name, he hadn’t been running around this mansion lost without her. He had been with me.

And yeah, I knew he still loved her. I wasn’t blind. But I also knew he loved me. And for her to show up now, throwing her feelings in the mix, it felt like she ripped the rug from under me. I was so close. So close to finally having him to myself, and so close to being the one he chose.

More tears rolled down my cheeks as I leaned back and stared at the ceiling.

My heart felt like it was splitting open, but I didn’t care.

I let the pain sit on me because I needed to feel it.

I needed to remind myself that what I felt for this man was so fuckin’ real. That’s why letting go wasn’t an option.

I remembered the look in his eyes when he kissed me slow the other night, when his voice dropped and he said I was different.

I remembered the way his hand lingered on my waist, the way he laughed when I said something crazy and the way he pulled me close even when he was mad.

Those weren’t accidents. Those weren’t pity. That was love.

And because I knew that, I couldn’t walk away. I wouldn’t.

I pressed my palm against my chest, whispering into the empty room, “I love you, Pressure. I swear I do.” The words broke me even more, but they also gave me strength.

I wasn’t about to fold because Pluto came back.

I wasn’t about to hand him over like I hadn’t been here fighting for him with everything I had.

Pluto might have her story, her pain, her reasons. But so did I. And mine mattered too.

I sat up straighter, wiping the last of my tears. My heart was shattered, but it was still beating, and every beat screamed his name. No matter what, I wasn’t letting go.