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The man I’d built almost ten years with.

Michael asking when Daddy was coming back.

The fact that Serenity would know her father through pictures and everybody else’s memories.

I hated that for them.

I hated pieces of it for me too.

But regret?

That was different.

I went back downstairs.

Started gathering cups and wrapping the rest of the cake.

Then I stopped in front of the shelf.

Xay smiled back at me.

Funny.

Everybody thought they knew what happened to Xavier Lawless.

The police had spent months digging through his life.

And in the end, they’d landed exactly where they were supposed to.

The gambling debt.

Frozo had actually been the one to put the thought in my head.

He probably didn’t even remember saying it.

Between you, child support and them Newark niggas he owe, Xay got enough problems.

I’d looked at him.

What Newark niggas?

And that motherfucker’s face changed.

Just for a second.

But I’d seen it.

Frozo tried to clean it up.

Told me it wasn’t my business.

Xay was handling it.

I let him believe I’d dropped it.

I hadn’t.

Because by then, I was preparing to divorce a man who didn’t believe divorce meant he had to let me go.