But I knew better. By the time I got there, the fire trucks were gone and all that remained was smoke, ash, and a tarp over her body.
Something in me cracked.
Hakeem held me that night. Promised justice. Swore he’d find whoever did it and burn them alive. But when we got the security footage from a neighbor’s porch camera... everything changed.
The woman spotted near the back gate moments before the fire? Margaret Lawrence. The ghost from his past. The woman everyone thought was dead. But she wasn’t.
Suddenly, my dead mother didn’t matter. Suddenly, justice didn’t matter. All that mattered was her.
He forgot everything else.
Including me.
I begged him to press charges. He said no. I demanded justice. He said she needed help.
I pushed harder and he snapped.
So he took Aziel.
“My love,” he said with that fake-soft voice, “just one signature and it all ends. Stop living in the past.”
I never thought it would come to this.
I used to believe he loved me.
Hakeem Masterson chased me like his life depended on it. Everyone said I was just a fling, some pretty little thing from the slums he’d throw away when he got bored. I thought so too. So I left. I faked my death and vanished.