Page 10 of The Birthday Girl
T he soles of Tyriq's sneakers slapped against the wet pavement, each stride pulling him farther from the condo tower he called home.
The morning air was crisp, but sweat still slicked his temples.
He checked his phone mid-stride. Twenty missed calls from Danielle.
Fifty from Shanice. He cursed under his breath and shoved the phone back into his pocket, quickening his pace as if he could outrun the memories of the night before.
His hand drifted up, brushing the scar that cut from the crown of his skull to the center of his forehead.
Fifty stitches. That was his penance. The cops had called it a mugging after he fed them the lie, but he knew better.
It was the price he had to pay for all he’d put Tahlia through in less than thirty days.
He lengthened his stride, lungs pulling in sharp breaths of chilly air, but nothing removed the pressure in his chest. Shanice’s name glared in red across his call log, and he wished she would go away. What she did to Tahlia on her birthday was unacceptable. She didn’t deserve that.
As punishment, Tyriq hadn’t spoken to Shanice since the night she crossed the line.
They had shared two years of secrets, and she blew it all up with one swipe of her finger. Tyriq knew why. She wanted him to tell Tahlia about their son. She had been pressing him for months.
Tell her. Tell her. Tell her.
She’d demanded many times, but he hadn’t. He couldn’t. He loved Tahlia, and he couldn’t bear to watch her face splinter when she realized the man she’d built a life with had been living another one behind her back.
His shoes struck the pavement harder, the sound echoing his frustration. He told himself Shanice hadn’t meant to ruin him, but what kind of mother gambled with her own child’s peace for revenge?
Only a trifling one.
Shanice had proven just how dirty and selfish she was. Tyriq knew he should’ve walked away from her years ago.
But Danielle… that was different. That was on him.
His jaw tightened at the thought of her.
He could still see the day she walked into his office, a tight-fitting bondage dress clinging to her frame with no bra straps on her shoulders, and no panty lines beneath the fabric.
She had booked the appointment under the pretense of needing counsel, but the truth revealed itself the moment the door shut behind her.
Without hesitation, she stripped down to nothing, straddled his lap, and kissed him with so much passion that the little common sense he had vanished in an instant. What began as harmless flirting at family gatherings and too many drinks had morphed into something he couldn’t undo.
Tyriq knew better. That mistake, he couldn’t explain away. Danielle was Tahlia’s sister before she was anything else, and he had known it even as he gave in. And now, after the baby, she acted as if she was entitled to everything her sister had built, as if she deserved it.
Tyriq would never have set foot in that baby shower if Danielle hadn’t forced his hand.
She had him by the throat with the proof she’d been sitting on, and she knew exactly how to squeeze him.
He couldn’t risk Tahlia finding out the truth, not when Danielle held enough dirt to destroy their entire relationship.
So, when she told him he’d better be there, he didn’t argue and walked into the shower carrying more than just his obligation.
Danielle had made it clear that her silence had a price, and it stretched well beyond diapers and onesies.
Expensive handbags, jewelry, and whatever else she could dream up had found their way into her demands.
Tyriq brought gifts for the baby to keep the peace and gifts for Danielle because he had no choice.
Each box and bag he set down in front of her felt like another chain tightening around his neck.
He hated her smug smile, hated the way she looked at him like she owned him, but until he found a way to flip the game, Danielle’s blackmail kept him exactly where she wanted, obediently trapped.
What he hadn’t accounted for was Tahlia showing up.
Danielle hadn’t mentioned her sister would be there, and it didn’t make sense that they’d asked Tahlia for anything when he’d already provided more than enough for the baby.
Between the money he’d funneled and the extras Danielle demanded for herself, there was nothing left that child needed.
Rage burned under his calm expression. His breath sawed in and out, but his mind kept circling the same truth: his dick made him stupid.
Tyriq never meant to hurt Tahlia. Not like he had. Despite her awkwardness, she was the only woman he loved. Always had.
Tyriq remembered the first time he laid eyes on Tahlia.
She wasn’t the kind of woman who invited conversation.
While her friends laughed loud and filled the room, she sat with her arms folded, her expression icy.
Her beauty was obvious, but it came wrapped in silence, and a stare so cold it gave him chills.
When their eyes met, he thought he caught interest, but later he realized it had only been the edge of her indifference. Talking to her felt like dragging words out of stone. Every answer was clipped and every glance measured, as if she was cataloging his every move.
It was awkward, almost uncomfortable, and Tyriq couldn’t get enough of it. Most women leaned in when he turned on the charm. Tahlia leaned back, unimpressed, and the distance made him want to close it. Cracking her shell became less of a challenge and more of an obsession.
His friends told him to leave her alone. They said she looked crazy, that nothing good could come from chasing after a woman with eyes like hers. Eyes that promised to do more damage than devotion. Tyriq heard them, but he didn’t care.
He loved that she looked untouchable, loved that being with her felt like handling fire with bare hands. She was cold, dangerous, impossible—everything about her made him want her more.
Up ahead, the street narrowed, and the park’s iron gates lay wide open.
Tyriq slowed, sweat rolling down his temple as he glanced over his shoulder.
The street behind him was empty, unsettlingly so.
The stretch was usually alive with joggers and dog walkers at that hour, but that day, it was just him and the echo of his breath. Even the birds had gone quiet.
Tyriq rolled his shoulders, trying to shake off the creeping sensation of being watched. He cut left onto the path that dipped beneath a cluster of ancient oaks, their branches netted with mist as thick as smoke.
Twenty yards ahead, a black SUV rolled up and stopped, idling at the curb beyond the gates, its exhaust pipe coughing white smoke into the morning haze. Tyriq’s lawyer brain cataloged the make, model, and tint percentage, noting the windows were darker than state law allowed.
Choosing not to psyche himself out more than he already had, he was about to turn up his music to drown out the anxiety when a text pinged through from a sender labeled: TAHLIA.
Come home. Now.
The message was a single directive, and he almost tripped when he read it. His throat went dry, sweat turning cold against his skin as he forced one foot in front of the other, pulse roaring in his ears, louder than his sneakers hitting the pavement.
The SUV’s doors burst open, and two figures surged out. Tyriq had no time to brace. One hit him high, shoulder to chest, while the other swept his legs out from under him. His phone skittered across the pavement, the screen shattering, Tahlia’s message still glaring through the cracks.
A rag stinking of chemicals smothered his mouth before he could shout. He bucked hard, landed a fist against a jaw, but pain exploded through his ribs as an elbow crashed down, snapping bone like brittle wood. His lungs seized, vision tunneling to pinpricks.
Hands like iron clamps wrenched his arms back, a knee crushed into his spine, and then his body lifted, dead weight between them.
They shoved him into the dark trunk of the SUV. The door slammed. Tires shrieked. The vehicle vanished down the empty street.
On the asphalt, Tyriq’s shattered phone buzzed once, the screen fractured but still glowing, the words burning through the cracks:
Come home. Now.
When Tyriq eventually came to, his head was slumped forward, chin stuck to his chest by dried blood. Every muscle ached, his ribs screamed with each shallow breath, and his wrists burned where the rope bit into his skin.
The air was damp, and fear coated his tongue. His mouth was so dry he could barely form words. Concrete walls surrounded him, bare and cold, and the floor pressed against his feet like ice as a single bulb dangled overhead, leaving the room drowned in shadows.
He shifted, wincing as the chair creaked beneath his weight. His ankles were bound tight. A tremor started in his left leg, preparing him to run, but his mind knew he was trapped. There was nowhere to go.
Panic crawled up his throat, and he pulled against the restraints, but they didn't give. Whoever had tied him had done a magnificent job. They knew exactly what they were doing.
Fragments of memory cut through the haze. The black SUV. The rag. The crushing weight against his chest. He had no idea how long he'd been out. It could’ve been minutes, hours, maybe more.
The silence was unbearable. Even the sound of his breath felt strange, as if it didn't belong to him. His mind spun through the list of people who might've wanted him hurt.
Shanice. Danielle. Clients he'd screwed over. Gangsters he'd outsmarted. Detectives who'd sworn to bury him. Tahlia.
Any of them could've been waiting behind that door. Worse than the pain, worse than the fear, was knowing he deserved whatever came next.
When the door finally opened, a blade of light split the darkness.
He turned his head, teeth clenched against the pain that lanced through his skull.
The figure in the doorway paused, hands buried in the deep pockets of a charcoal coat.
It took a moment for Tyriq’s pupils to adjust to the light, but as the silhouette resolved itself, his entire body recoiled, chair scraping noisily across the concrete.
Recognition gutted him, not with surprise but with the sickening certainty that had been waiting in his bones all along. Part of him, the part he never wanted to acknowledge, knew that his life was over. He’d done too much to too many people and had taken things too far.
“Please,” he rasped, his voice shredded. His head shook weakly as his eyes went wide. “I'm sorry. I swear I never meant to hurt you. Please… just hear me out.”
The figure stepped fully into the room, closing the door with a soft click that sounded louder than any gunshot Tyriq had ever heard.
They didn’t speak. They didn’t have to. The glint of steel that caught the single bulb’s dim light as they pulled a knife from their coat pocket did the talking for them.
Tyriq's chest heaved, each breath sending daggers through his fractured ribs. “No—wait—” The words caught in his throat as salt stung his eyes and wet tracks collided with his cheeks.
The chair legs scraped concrete as he twisted, sending fresh blood trickling down his forearms where hemp fibers had worn the skin to a fleshy pulp.
“You don’t have to do this. I can fix it. I- I’ll do whatever you wa—” His jaw clenched, teeth clicking together. “Just put the knife down. Please.”
Angled at forty-five degrees, the blade held his gaze while his captor closed the distance with a single step.
“Listen to me!” Tyriq’s voice cracked, ricocheting off the four bare walls. “I know I messed up. I’m sorry. If I could undo it, I would. Just let me fix this. I can make things right.”
The figure dropped into a crouch, knife dancing between gloved fingers, eyes pinned to his like a predator studying prey.
Tyriq’s lips quivered. “I never meant—” His words fractured into hiccups. “Please.” Tears spilled as he broke, finally surrendering to the fate that awaited him.
The captor’s head tilted, as if savoring the moment. Then, without warning, the steel carved a silver line through the air.
Tyriq’s scream tore loose, high and ugly, echoing off the walls as the knife met with flesh and the first hot spill of blood ran down his chest.