Page 26 of The Birthday Girl
D anielle's smile froze, then collapsed at the edges like a soufflé touched too soon. The careful mask she'd constructed slipped away in an instant, revealing the face of a woman whose secrets had just been exposed by the most damning witness possible: a child who couldn't be persuaded to lie.
For a beat, nobody spoke. Then Kali’s small voice pierced the silence. “Mommy… did you hear me? That’s her. That’s the lady from school. The one asking about Daddy.”
Shanice’s stomach clenched as she gripped her daughter’s shoulder a little too tightly, her gaze cutting from Kali to Danielle. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Mommy. It’s her.” She pointed at Danielle, leaving no room for argument.
“Baby, what did she ask you? I don’t remember you ever telling me,” Shanice asked, her eyes laser-focused on Danielle.
“About Daddy," Kali said, her voice small but steady.
“She wanted to know where he sleeps at night, and if he comes home to us. And she kept asking me weird questions, like if I look like him or if I got my eyes from another man.” Kali's brow furrowed, remembering.
“She asked if I'm really Daddy's or if I belong to someone else.”
A vise clamped around Shanice's lungs, forcing air out in a thin hiss between her teeth. Her fingers peeled away from Kali's shoulder one by one, then coiled inward until her nails bit into her palm.
Her eyes locked on Danielle. “What the fuck possessed you to go to my child’s school and ask her if Tyriq’s her father? That is none of your fucking business!”
Danielle’s lips twitched into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “You’re so damn gullible. Why the hell do you think I went to her school? I needed answers. Men lie. Tyriq lied, and you know that better than anyone.”
Shanice’s whole body was shaking with the effort not to lunge at her. “So you thought the answer was to corner my little girl? What the hell kind of woman does that?”
Danielle tilted her head, her smirk hardening into something meaner. “The kind of woman who refuses to play second to anybody. If I want the truth, I’m gonna get it by any means necessary, and you’re daughter was the one person I knew wouldn’t lie. Kids don’t know how to fake it.”
Blood rushed through Shanice's head so loud she could hear nothing else.
Like puzzle pieces snapping together, she saw everything at once.
The black SUV that had followed her for weeks, the packages on her doorstep, and her exhaustion from sleepless nights —all of it pointed to the woman standing before her.
Questions she'd buried beneath layers of denial now cut through her thoughts with terrible clarity.
Was Danielle the one stalking her? Was she the one snapping photos through tinted glass and leaving blood-soaked body parts on her welcome mat?
The thought twisted in her gut, but it didn’t sit clean.
Shanice remembered sitting across from Danielle inside her living room weeks ago, sipping coffee out of mismatched mugs while she explained she was Tyriq’s sister, and that she wanted to get to know her nephew.
She had invited Shanice over, playing the role so well that she hadn’t thought to question it.
And for what? To get close to her children? To her? If Danielle wanted Tyriq so badly, why would she hurt him? Why send his ear in a box? Why carve him up piece by piece?
It didn’t make sense. None of this did. Wanting a man and destroying him didn’t live in the same breath. Unless Danielle was even sicker than Shanice had imagined.
Danielle watched Shanice's eyes darken and felt a flutter of victory in her chest. However, her shoulders tensed for the explosion that would surely follow.
But instead of the screaming fit she'd expected, Shanice went utterly still, and her face hardened into the same granite mask her sister had worn when she learned her boyfriend had fathered Danielle’s child.
Shanice’s jaw locked. “You had me in your raggedy-ass house, sat across from me with that fake-ass smile, pretending to be Tyriq’s sister while my child sat at your feet like you gave a damn about him. But all you cared about was taking Tyriq for yourself.”
Danielle’s chin lifted, defiance sparking in her eyes. “I never swore I was his sister. You assumed, and I didn’t correct you.”
Shanice’s stomach twisted. “Correct me now.”
Danielle’s lips curled into a grin, mean and gleaming.
“I’m his baby’s mother.” She let the words hang like a machete between them before shoving it deeper into Shanice’s back.
“While you were busy playing the dutiful side bitch, I was the one he was devoting his life to. I got his seed, and I’m the one he comes home to and who he runs to when you hoes are getting on his nerves. ”
Air scorched through Shanice’s throat as if she had swallowed fire. “You dragged my daughter into this for your sick obsession?”
Danielle tilted her head, laughter spilling low and sharp. “Obsession? No, bitch. I’m far from obsessed. I asked your kid ‘cause I knew you’d lie. At least she ain’t as dumb as her mama.”
Shanice’s pulse thundered as Kali’s voice echoed in her head. She asked if I was really Daddy’s or if I belonged to someone else.
“Stay the fuck away from me and my kids,” Shanice snapped, her voice raw.
Danielle smiled wider, vicious as ever. “You and your kids are irrelevant. Tyriq ain’t thinkin’ about y’all, and neither am I. Now, get your bitch ass off my porch before I shoot you dead in your face for trespassing on my property.”
Shanice’s breath sawed in and out, rage burning so hot behind her eyes she swore the night tilted around her, but Kali’s small fingers tugging at her sleeve kept her rooted.
“This ain’t over, bitch. Not by a long shot. You better pray I never catch you in the streets without my kids,” Shanice spat as she snatched her son’s hand while guiding Kali with the other and hurried her kids off the porch before her rage won out over reason.
Shanice’s threat still hung in the air when the porch light bled into the street, spilling over a black sedan parked half a block down.
Behind the wheel, Tahlia leaned back against the leather, one manicured finger tapping the steering wheel in a slow, dramatic rhythm.
She watched Shanice yank her children away from the house while Danielle loomed in the doorway, her arms locked across her chest and her chin tilted toward the sky.
Tahlia didn’t need to hear the words to know there was an issue. Their body language said it all. Shanice looked furious and was shaking like a live wire, while Danielle stood with her weight on one hip with the corner of her mouth curved in what could only be described as satisfaction.
Watching them, Tahlia felt Mercedes' final gasping words rise to the surface of her memory, each syllable now crystallizing with terrible clarity.
“You… you really think… Shanice just… just showed up… on her own?” She gagged on her next breath, then pushed harder, her lips trembling. “S-somebody… close… to you… made that happen. They… want to… humble you.”
The scene unfolding confirmed what she'd suspected all along.
Shanice, the very woman who had made her a laughingstock, was working with Danielle, and their connection was no accident.
Mercedes' dying words had to be true. Shanice hadn't stumbled into Tahlia's life by chance.
She was merely a pawn, carefully selected and positioned by Danielle to strike where it would hurt most.
Tahlia tilted her head, watching as Shanice buckled her children into the car.
A smile ghosted across Tahlia’s mouth, not amusement but hunger, the kind that curled low in her belly and pulsed behind her teeth.
Mercedes had been an appetizer, and Danielle was the main course waiting in her sights.
But Shanice? Shanice was different. She wasn’t meant to be touched, but standing there, she looked like the dessert fate had served early, a temptation too perfect to ignore.
Why waste her fury on Danielle when she could savor Shanice… and save her for last?
Shanice’s two kids pressed their faces to the glass, wide-eyed and oblivious, their small hands smudging the window as they pointed at nothing in particular.
Tahlia’s gaze followed them, steady and unblinking.
Children had never been her target, but Mercedes had taught her that secrets didn’t just fester; they spread, and children, with their wide eyes and loose tongues, were the most dangerous carriers of all.
Shanice was the disease, yes, but if her children stood between Tahlia and her work, then their souls would be claimed. Innocence meant nothing once it stood in the way of justice. Mercy wasn’t compassion. It was currency, and she had no intention of letting anyone else spend hers.
Tahlia's lungs filled with resolve as she watched the family. When payment came due, their voices would join the chorus of consequences. The mother's fate was sealed, but now the children had been added to her ledger.
When Shanice's taillights flared red at the stop sign, Tahlia eased her foot off the gas, letting three cars slide between them.
She clicked her headlights to their dimmest setting and kept her gaze fixed on the back of Shanice's Honda as it merged onto I-30.
The yellow porch light from Danielle's house had disappeared miles back, but the image of their betrayal stayed lodged in her mind.
The drive dragged them to a sagging roadside motel with a flickering neon sign that buzzed like an insect trapped in a jar. Shanice hurried to pay, then hustled her children inside their room with arms full of bags, her gaze repeatedly flicking over her shoulder until she locked the door.