Chapters 1–8 are free, on the house. The full book is 35 chapters.
The heat in South Memphis don't play. It's the kind of hot that sits on your chest and dares you to breathe deep. Four forty-five in the afternoon and the sun still acting like it got something to prove, bouncing off the hoods of the cars lined up outside Fresh Finish Detailing like it's trying to blind somebody on purpose.
Inside the shop, the AC was fighting for its life and losing. A Three 6 joint rattled out the Bluetooth speaker — old school, back when Juicy J was still hungry — and Lil Ronnie was bent over the hood of a black Charger, buffing wax in slow circles, talking like his mouth had somewhere to be.
"Say mane, I'm just saying — if she got a BBL, she supposed to know she got a BBL. Don't be walking around like you don't know your ass sitting two inches higher than everybody else's. That's false advertising."
Miya didn't look up from the stack of twenties she was counting. "Ronnie."
"What?"
"Nobody asked you about nobody's ass."
"I'm just making conversation."
"You making noise." She licked her thumb, kept counting. "There's a difference."
Ronnie stood up, buffer in his hand, grinning that gap-toothed grin that made him look fourteen instead of nineteen. "You count money like you mad at it."
"I'm count money like it's mine, which is why I'm counting it and you buffing."
"Man —"
"Finish the Charger, Ronnie. Mr. Dupree picking it up at six and you know how he get."
Ronnie muttered something and went back to the hood. Miya kept counting. Twenty, forty, sixty — the rhythm of it settled her the way nothing else did. This was the part nobody saw. Not the corners, not the late-night drops, not the look on a man's face when he realized the quiet tomboy in the fitted cap was the one running the whole thing. Just this: a back office with a busted AC, the smell of car wax and weed, and money moving through her hands like water.
Her phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen and her whole posture changed — shoulders dropping, jaw unclenching, something soft moving across her face that Ronnie would've roasted her for if he'd seen it.
"Mama."
"Miya, baby." Gail's voice came through thick and warm, that New Orleans lilt wrapping around every word like honey. "Where y'at, cher?"
"At the shop. Counting. What's up?"
"I been dreamin' 'bout you." Just like that. No hello-how-are-you. Gail didn't do small talk when the spirits were on her. "Three nights now, baby. Same dream."
Miya set the stack of twenties down. "What kind of dream?"
"Water." Gail's voice dropped lower. "Deep water, cher. Dark. And you in it — not drowning, no. You standing in it. Up to your waist. And you looking at me like you waiting for me to pull you out, but my arms won't reach."
A beat of silence. Somewhere in the shop, Ronnie had stopped buffing.
"Mama —"
"I lit a candle for you this morning, baby. Red one. For protection. And I put Florida water on your picture." A pause. "Something coming, Miya. I can feel it in my teeth."
Miya rubbed the back of her neck. She wanted to say Mama, you always dreaming something. She wanted to say it's just a dream. What she said was: "You eat today?"
"Don't change the subject, cher."
"I'm not changing the subject. I'm asking my mama if she ate."
Gail laughed — that low, rough laugh that used to fill up a whole room. "Yeah, baby. I ate. Miss Delores brought me some red beans."
"Good. You take your —" Miya caught herself. "You good?"
"I'm good, cher. You just — you watch yourself, you hear me? Watch who you trust. The water don't lie."
"I hear you, Mama."
"I love you, baby."
"Love you too."
Miya hung up and sat there a second, staring at nothing. Then she reached under her shirt and touched the small gris-gris bag on a cord around her neck — worn soft, smelling faintly of herbs and her mama's hands. Habit, she told herself. Just habit.
"You good?" Ronnie was watching her.
"I'm straight." She picked the money back up. "How much we got on the Charger?"
"Two-fifty. Man paid cash, didn't even blink."
"Because we the best. Say it with your chest."
"We the best," Ronnie said, deadpan, and went back to buffing.
The bell over the shop door chimed, and Miya knew the walk before she saw the face. Unhurried. Deliberate. Like the ground was doing him a favor by being there.
Corey Bright stepped into the shop and the whole energy shifted — not loud, just present. Six foot, clean fade, white tee crisp enough to hurt your eyes, gold chain sitting exactly right. He moved like a man who'd never had to rush for anything in his life.
"Say mane." He nodded at Ronnie. "That wax better be even."
"It's even, C.E.O., damn." Ronnie didn't look up. "You act like I don't know what I'm doing."
"I act like I seen your work."
Miya stood, tucking the money into the lockbox. "What you doing here? I thought you had the thing on —" She stopped. They didn't say certain things out loud, even here.
Corey crossed to her, and whatever cool he was performing for the room dropped the second he was close. He touched her jaw — thumb along the bone, gentle in a way that still surprised her after two years.
"Missed you," he said.
"You saw me this morning."
"That was this morning." He smiled, and it was the real one — not the C.E.O. smile, the Corey smile, the seventeen-year-old from the cookout smile. "This is now."
She let herself lean into his hand for exactly three seconds. Then she stepped back. "You distracting my employee."
"Your employee was already distracted. He was telling you about somebody's BBL."
"I heard that," Ronnie said.
Corey laughed and pulled out his phone — checked something, thumb moving fast. The smile didn't leave his face, but something behind it shifted. Miya caught it. She always caught it.
"Everything good?" she asked.
"Yeah. Just — DMac want me to swing by the house Sunday. Family dinner thing." He pocketed the phone. "You coming with me?"
"You asking or telling?"
"I'm asking." He stepped closer again. "Please come with me."
She studied him. There was something in his eyes she couldn't read, and that bothered her more than she wanted to admit. Corey Bright was an open book to her — had been since they were kids. This closed page was new.
"Yeah," she said slowly. "I'll come."
His phone buzzed again. He glanced at it — just a glance, but he angled the screen away from her. Small thing. Tiny thing.
Miya filed it.
"You want something to drink?" she asked, moving to the mini fridge. "I got water and — water."
He laughed, but it didn't quite land. "I'm good. I can't stay long, actually. I got to —" He gestured vaguely toward the door, toward the block, toward everything he ran. "You know."
"I know."
He kissed her — quick, on the mouth, tasting like spearmint and secrets — and headed for the door. At the threshold he turned back.
"You lock up tight tonight, aight?"
"When don't I?"
"I'm serious, Miya."
Something in his voice. She frowned. "Corey. What's —"
"Just lock up." And he was gone, the bell chiming behind him.
Ronnie let out a low whistle. "That man got something on his mind."
"Don't start."
"I'm just saying. He came in here smiling and left here —" Ronnie made a face. "You know what he looked like? He looked like my uncle when the light bill due."
Miya didn't answer. She was looking at her own phone now — at the text that had come in while Corey was talking. Unknown number. Five words.
Your daddy want to see you.
Her jaw tightened. She deleted it without responding. Keith Faith didn't get answers on his schedule. Not anymore. That was the whole point of the shop, the operation, the money stacked in the lockbox — building something he couldn't touch, couldn't claim, couldn't hang over her head like a roof he could take away.
Everything you got, I gave you.
Everything I got, I took.
She'd said it to his face last month. She'd meant it. She still meant it.
The Charger was gleaming now, showroom black, and Mr. Dupree's old Cadillac was pulling up outside. Business as usual. Money moving. The front holding.
Then her personal phone rang — not the shop line, the other one. The one only five people had the number to.
It was Tee, one of her runners. Young, fast, scared of nothing. He wasn't scared now either — he was something worse. Careful.
"Miya."
"Talk to me."
A pause. Traffic sounds behind him. "Somebody been asking about you. About the operation. Asking how much we move, who our people are. Offering money for information."
Miya's hand tightened on the phone. "Somebody who?"
"That's the thing. It ain't street people asking. It's —" He lowered his voice. "It's somebody with real money, Miya. Somebody asking like they already know the answers and just want confirmation."
"Where?"
"Over on the east side. At the car wash on Winchester."
Her mind ran the list. Five people knew the details. Five.
Corey. Ronnie. Tee. Her supplier. And her father.
"Don't tell nobody nothing," she said. "You hear me? Nobody."
"I hear you."
She hung up. Stood there in the back office with the busted AC and the smell of wax, Three 6 Mafia still rattling through the speaker, Ronnie whistling some dumb tune over the Charger.
Deep water, cher. And you in it.
She touched the gris-gris at her neck.
Somebody was talking. And Miya Jones had never been the kind of woman to wait around and find out what they were saying.
---
End of Chapter 1
Miya didn't do stakeouts. She didn't do waiting. Somebody asking about her operation got to answer to her face — that was the rule, and it had been the rule since she was seventeen and learned that fear was just information you hadn't collected yet.
So at eight o'clock that night, she was in the passenger seat of her own Charger with Lil Ronnie driving, because her hands needed to be free.
"You sure about this?" Ronnie asked for the third time. He took the turn onto Winchester too fast and the tires chirped. "Like — what if it's some fed shit?"
"Then I'll know it's fed shit when I see it."
"That's not — that's not how that works, Miya. Feds don't got a look. That's the whole point of feds."
"Everybody got a look, Ronnie. You just gotta know how to read."
Ronnie glanced at her, then back at the road. He was nineteen and tried to hide that he was scared by talking, which meant he'd been talking nonstop for twenty minutes.
"I'm just saying, Tee said the man had real money. Like, not street money. Like —"
"Like what?"
"Like money money. Suit money."
Miya stared out the window. The east side rolled past — check-cashing spots, chicken joints, a church with a sign that said GOD IS STILL IN CONTROL in letters missing the second O. She thought about Gail's dream. Deep water, cher. And you in it.
"Pull in there," she said.
The car wash sat under buzzing fluorescents, all soap and wet concrete and neon. A couple of teenagers in soaked t-shirts were spraying down a Tahoe. An older man sat in a plastic chair by the office door, fanning himself with a folded newspaper.
Miya got out. Ronnie scrambled after her.
"Say mane." The teenager with the spray nozzle looked up. Sixteen, maybe. "We closing in twenty."
"We ain't here for a wash, little homie." Miya leaned against the Tahoe, casual. "I'm looking for somebody was here asking questions. About me."
The kid's face did something — a quick flicker, there and gone. "I don't know nothing about that."
Miya reached into her pocket and pulled out a fifty. Folded it once. Held it between two fingers.
"I ain't asking you to snitch. I'm asking you to remember."
The kid looked at the fifty. Looked at the old man by the office. Looked back at Miya.
"He was here Tuesday," the kid said quietly. "Older dude. Clean. Like — suit clean, not church clean."
"What he ask?"
"Asked about you. Had a picture and everything." The kid shifted his weight. "Asked how much you move. Who your people is. Said he'd pay for information."
Miya handed him the fifty. "You take his money?"
"Hell naw." The kid pocketed the bill fast. "Ain't nobody here stupid."
"Smart boy." She nodded toward the office. "Your boss over there?"
"Mr. Earl. He talked to him longer than me."
Miya walked over. Ronnie stayed by the car, arms crossed, trying to look like security. He looked like a teenager whose voice still cracked when he got excited.
"Mr. Earl." Miya stopped in front of the plastic chair. "I'm Miya Jones."
The old man looked up from his newspaper. Took her in — the fitted cap, the chains, the way she stood. He folded the paper slow.
"I know who you are, baby girl. Everybody on this side know who you are."
"Then you know why I'm here."
He studied her a long moment. Then he gestured at the empty chair beside him. She sat.
"He came Tuesday, like the boy said. Drove a black Escalade — new, dealer plates still on it. Walked in here like he owned the place." Mr. Earl shook his head. "Had a photograph of you. Printed out, nice paper. Recent — you was outside your shop, counting something in your hands."
Miya's jaw tightened. Somebody'd been watching her shop. Watching her.
"What'd he ask?"
"Asked was you Keith Faith's daughter." Mr. Earl said it plain, like he was reading the weather. "Asked how much product you move. Asked who your people was. Pulled out a roll — had to be five hundred, maybe more — said it was for anybody with answers."
The secret. The thing Keith had spent twenty-three years burying. This man just said it out loud in a car wash parking lot like it was nothing.
"Who'd he ask first?"
"Me. I told him I didn't know nothing. Which was a lie, but it was a respectful lie." A ghost of a smile. "He didn't push. Just nodded. Left his message and went on."
"What message?"
Mr. Earl leaned forward. His voice dropped.
"He said: Tell her the water's rising."
The night went very still around Miya. Somewhere behind her, a spray nozzle hissed. A car alarm chirped two lots over. But all she could hear was Gail's voice on the phone that afternoon.
Deep water, cher. And you in it.
"You alright, baby girl?" Mr. Earl was watching her face. "You look like you seen a ghost."
"I'm straight." Her hand found the gris-gris at her neck without her telling it to. "He say his name? Leave a number?"
"Nah. But —" Mr. Earl rubbed his chin. "He had this ring. Gold, big red stone in it. Like a class ring, but it wasn't no class ring. Caught the light when he pulled out that money. I noticed because my daddy had one like it, back in the day. Masonic."
Miya filed it. Gold ring. Red stone. Masonic.
She pulled out her wallet and counted off five twenties. Held them out.
"If he comes back — you don't call Tee. You don't call Ronnie. You call me." She recited her personal number. Made him repeat it back. "Direct. You understand?"
"Yes ma'am."
She stood. Started to walk away. Then stopped.
"Mr. Earl — that five hundred he was offering. Anybody here take it?"
The old man met her eyes. "Baby girl, everybody on this block knows two things. One: Keith Faith's daughter don't play about loyalty. Two: ain't no amount of money worth what happens to people who cross that family." He picked his newspaper back up. "Nobody took it."
In the car, Ronnie didn't start the engine right away. He just sat there, hands on the wheel.
"So," he said. "Somebody got a picture of you. Knows you Keith's daughter. Knows about the operation. And he's talking about water."
"Yeah."
"What does the water mean?"
Miya looked out at the fluorescents reflecting off wet concrete. "I don't know yet."
"But your mama —"
"I know what my mama said, Ronnie."
Silence. Then her phone lit up on the dashboard. Corey's name. His picture — him laughing at the cookout last summer, mid-sentence, happy.
Ronnie glanced at it. "You gon' get that?"
Miya stared at the phone until it went dark.
"Not right now," she said. "Drive."
---
End of Chapter 2
Miya's apartment smelled like ginger and rain. She'd lit one of Gail's candles when she got home — not the red one, just a plain white tea light from the corner store — and set it on the kitchen counter next to the carton of leftover Chinese food she was picking through standing up.
She was halfway through a cold egg roll when the front door opened.
Corey didn't knock. He had a key. He'd had a key for a year and a half, and most days that felt like love. Tonight, watching him walk in like he owned the air in the room, it felt like something else.
"Hey." He crossed to her and kissed the top of her head. "You eat?"
"Trying to." She held up the egg roll. "You want some?"
"Nah, I ate at the spot." He dropped his keys on the counter, shrugged off his jacket. "How was your day?"
Somebody with real money is asking about my operation. Somebody knows I'm Keith Faith's daughter. Somebody who knows details only five people know.
"Slow," she said. "Shop stuff."
He nodded, pulling out his phone — thumb moving, eyes down. Miya watched him the way she'd watched Mr. Earl watch her: reading.
"You good?" she asked. "You been on that thing all day."
"Yeah, just —" He locked the screen, pocketed it. "Business."
They'd been together two years. She knew every version of his "business" voice. This one was new. This one had a door in it.
He came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, rested his chin on her shoulder. For a minute, it was just them — the candle flickering, the rain starting outside, his warmth against her back. This was the Corey she'd fallen for. The one who held her like she was something precious instead of something useful.
"I missed you today," he murmured.
"You saw me at the shop."
"That was business." He turned her around. "This is you."
He kissed her — slow, real, the kind of kiss that used to make her forget her own name. She let herself have it for exactly ten seconds. Then she stepped back.
"Who's Keisha?"
The shift was instant. His face didn't change — Corey's face never changed, that was the problem — but his shoulders went up a quarter inch.
"What?"
"Keisha." Miya crossed her arms. "Your phone lit up when you set it down. I saw the name."
"It's nobody." Too fast. "Just somebody from around."
"Around where, Corey?"
"Around the — around the neighborhood, man. Damn." He laughed, but it was the wrong laugh — thin, performed. "You going through my phone now?"
"I'm asking you a question."
"And I'm telling you it's nothing." He moved to the fridge, opened it, stared inside like he was looking for something. "You want a water?"
"I want an answer."
He closed the fridge. Turned around. And for the first time in two years, Miya saw something in Corey Bright's face that scared her — not anger. Calculation. The same look she'd seen on Keith's face a hundred times. The look of a man deciding which version of the truth to hand you.
"Baby." He came toward her, hands up, reasonable. "It's nothing. Some girl who — she works at the beauty supply on Brooks. She asked me about getting her cousin a job on the block. That's it."
"Then why'd you angle your phone away from me at the shop today?"
A beat. "What?"
"At the shop. Twice. You checked your phone and turned the screen so I couldn't see it." She held his eyes. "You've never done that before, Corey. Not once in two years."
He was quiet. The rain got louder against the windows.
"You're tripping," he said finally. Soft. Dismissive. "You been stressed about the shop and now you —"
"Don't." Her voice was low. "Don't tell me what I'm doing."
"I'm just saying —"
"I'm asking about Keisha and you're telling me I'm tripping." She stepped closer. "That's not an answer, Corey. That's a redirect."
"Man —" He ran a hand over his fade. The C.E.O. mask was slipping, and underneath it was just a boy who'd been caught. "Fine. Yeah, I talked to her. It wasn't — it didn't mean nothing, Miya. It was one time. It was stupid."
The room tilted. Not because he'd cheated — some part of her had already known, had known since the phone at the shop — but because of how he said it. It didn't mean nothing. Like she was supposed to be grateful it was meaningless.
"One time," she repeated.
"Yeah. And I'm telling you because — because I love you, and it was dumb, and it's done." He reached for her. "Baby, come here."
She didn't move.
"There's something else." Her voice was steady. Too steady. "You been talking to Keith about my operation?"
The air left the room.
"What?" His hand dropped.
"You heard me. My daddy. You been telling him about my shop? My numbers? My people?"
"Miya —"
"Because somebody with real money is asking questions about me on Winchester. Somebody who knows I'm Keith Faith's daughter. Somebody who knows details only five people know." She counted on her fingers. "You. Ronnie. Tee. My supplier. And Keith." She dropped her hand. "So I'm asking you straight, Corey. You been reporting to my daddy?"
He stared at her. And in that stare, she saw it — the flicker. The guilt. The same flicker she'd seen on the car wash kid's face.
"He asked how you was doing," Corey said quietly.
Miya laughed. It wasn't a happy sound.
"Keith don't ask how I'm doing, Corey. He summons. So try again."
"He's your father, Miya! He's — he looks out for you, whether you want to see it or not, and you're out here moving like you don't need anybody, like you're bulletproof, and you're not —" He was pacing now, voice rising. "Somebody's asking about you? Good! Maybe that means you need to be smarter about what you're doing! Maybe that means you need to let people who actually know this game help you instead of running around like —"
"Like what?"
"Like you got something to prove!"
She went very still.
"I'm trying to protect you." He stopped pacing. Looked at her. "That's all I've ever tried to do."
And just like that, she wasn't in her kitchen anymore. She was ten years old, watching taillights disappear down the street. She was fifteen, standing on a curb holding five hundred dollars from a man who wouldn't get out of his car. She was every age she'd ever been, listening to a man tell her he was keeping her safe while he kept her small.
"You sound like my daddy."
The words landed like a slap. Corey's face went white, then red.
"Don't — don't do that. Don't compare me to him."
"Why not?" She was crying now, and she hated it, hated him for seeing it. "You tell me who to trust. You decide what I need to know. You go behind my back to the man who —" Her voice cracked. "You did exactly what he does, Corey. You loved me the way you love something you own."
"That's not — Miya, that's not fair —"
"What's not fair is you fucking some girl from the beauty supply and then feeding my business to my father and standing in my kitchen telling me you're protecting me." She wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Get out."
"Baby —"
"Get out, Corey."
He stood there a long moment. Then he crossed to her — not threatening, just close — and took her wrist. Gently. His thumb on her pulse.
"You mine, Miya." Quiet. Certain. "Don't forget that."
She looked at his hand on her wrist. Thought of Keith's voice, low and final through a bedroom door twenty years of nights ago: Be mine, but don't tell nobody you're mine.
She pulled her wrist free.
"I was never yours," she said. "I was just letting you borrow me."
He left. The door clicked shut. The candle on the counter guttered in the draft.
Miya stood in her kitchen for a long time, listening to the rain. Then she grabbed her keys.
---
The corner store on South Parkway was dead at 1 AM — just the hum of the coolers and the clerk half-asleep behind the plexiglass. Miya grabbed a peach soda and stood in the candy aisle, not really seeing anything.
"You look like you're carrying the whole city on your back."
Miya turned. Tori Hughes stood at the end of the aisle in nursing assistant scrubs, hair pulled back, a bag of chips in her hand. No makeup. Tired. Still the prettiest person Miya had ever seen in real life.
"Tori." Miya's voice came out rough. "Hey."
"Hey yourself." Tori walked over, unhurried. "You good?"
"Yeah. Just —" Miya gestured vaguely. "Tired."
"Mm." Tori studied her — not the way men studied her, not the way the streets studied her. Like she was actually looking. "You want to talk about it?"
"I don't even know what it is."
"That's okay." Tori smiled, small and real. "You ever need somebody to just sit with? No fixing, no advice. Just sit." A pause. "I'm around."
They reached for the same peach soda at the same time. Their hands brushed. Both of them froze — half a second, a full second — and Tori didn't pull away first.
Miya's heart was doing something complicated in her chest.
"I should —" Miya stepped back. "I should go."
"Yeah." Tori's eyes held hers. "Drive safe, Miya."
Miya drove home with the windows down, rain misting her face, Tori's voice in her head: I'm around. Such a small thing. Such a soft thing. Nobody had been soft with her in years — not since before the pipe, before the taillights, before she learned to be hard enough that nobody could leave a mark.
She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, Corey's voice on loop: You mine. Don't forget that.
And underneath it — older, fainter, from a streetlight in Orange Mound eight years ago — a boy's voice, seventeen and certain:
You ain't gotta be hard all the time. Not with me.
She turned on her side and pulled the pillow over her head. But the memory was already coming, whether she wanted it or not — the cookout, the dominoes, the hand in hers under the streetlight. The beginning. Before she knew what the end would cost.
---
End of Chapter 3
The morning after she threw Corey out, Miya woke up to seventeen missed calls and a headache sitting behind her eyes like it paid rent.
She scrolled through the calls without listening to a single voicemail. Corey. Corey. Corey. Corey. Then — Gail. Then Corey again.
Miya sat up slow, the burgundy tracksuit she'd fallen asleep in sticking to her skin. The apartment was too quiet. The candle from last night had burned down to nothing, a black wick drowning in clear wax.
She called Gail back first.
"Baby." Gail's voice was rough — not the dream-soft voice from the phone call at the shop. This was the other voice. The coming-down voice. "You called?"
"You called me, Mama."
A pause. "Did I?" Rustling. "Oh. Yeah. I — I had that dream again, cher."
Miya closed her eyes. "The water."
"The water." Gail's breathing was uneven. "But this time — this time I could see the man standing in it with you. He had two faces, baby. One looking at you, one looking away. And he had something in his hand —"
"What, Mama? What was in his hand?"
"I couldn't see. But it was heavy. Whatever it was, it was heavy enough to pull you both under."
Miya's grip tightened on the phone. "Mama, you eat?"
"Miya."
"I'm asking."
"Miss Delores brought — she brought something yesterday. I think." A longer pause. "Baby, the girl with the light. You remember? From the other dream?"
"The girl with the light," Miya repeated.
"She's closer now, cher. I could feel her. Like warmth. Like —" Gail's voice cracked. "Like sunrise through a screen door."
"Mama —"
"I gotta go, baby. Somebody at the door." The lie was thin as tissue. Nobody was at the door. "I love you, cher. You watch that water."
The line went dead.
Miya sat there holding the phone, staring at the dead candle. Two faces. Something heavy. The girl with the light getting closer.
She got up, splashed water on her face, and pulled her hair back. The woman in the bathroom mirror had her mama's grey eyes and her daddy's jaw — a combination that had never once in her life felt like a blessing.
Her personal phone buzzed. Ronnie.
"Talk."
"Say mane, you up?"
"I'm up. What?"
"I been asking around about that ring. The gold one with the red stone."
Miya's pulse picked up. "And?"
"And it's weird. Nobody on the street know it. But my uncle — my uncle who used to drive for them old heads back in the day — he said it sound like something from the lodge."
"What lodge?"
"The Masonic lodge, Miya. Them old men with the aprons and the secrets." Ronnie lowered his voice. "He said there's a lodge over on the east side. Mostly older Black men. Businessmen, preachers, some — some connected men. And he said the red stone mean something. Said it ain't just decoration."
"What's it mean?"
"He didn't know. Just said — red stone, gold ring, black Escalade with dealer plates?" A beat. "Said that sound like somebody with institutional money. Not street money. Like — boardroom money."
Miya thought about Mr. Earl's words. Suit clean, not church clean.
"You think it's Keith?" Ronnie asked.
"I think everybody who knows I'm Keith's daughter is on a list of five people, and four of them I can account for." She was quiet a second. "I need you to do something for me."
"Anything."
"Don't tell Corey about the ring. Don't tell him we asking. You understand?"
Ronnie was quiet. Then: "You think he —"
"I think I need you to do what I asked."
"I got you."
She hung up and stood in her bathroom, water dripping off her chin. Then she went to her closet, pulled out the lockbox she kept behind her shoe rack, and took out the locket.
Gold. Heart-shaped. Old — older than her. Inside, on one side, a tiny photograph of Gail when she was young and luminous, hair like red dirt, grey eyes bright as coins. On the other side, empty. It had been empty her whole life.
Gail had given it to her when she was twelve. "This was your grandma Pearl's, cher. She wanted you to have it when you was old enough to understand what it means."
"What does it mean, Mama?"
"It means you come from women who survived things that should've killed them. You wear it when you need to remember."
Miya hadn't taken it off for three years. Then Corey had asked about it — what's that old thing? — and she'd put it in the box. She didn't know why. Maybe because he'd looked at it the way he looked at everything from her mama's world: like it was quaint. Like it was less.
She fastened it around her neck now. It sat against her skin, warm within seconds.
Her phone buzzed again. Corey. Text this time.
Can we talk? Please.
She stared at it for a long time. Then she typed back:
Come to the shop at 6. We talk there.
Not at her apartment. Not where he'd held her wrist and called her mine. Neutral ground. Business ground.
---
She got to the shop a little after ten. Ronnie was already there, bay door up, a beat-up Altima on the lift.
"Say mane," he called out. "You good? You look like you fought sleep and lost."
"I lost," Miya said. She dropped her bag behind the counter and tied her hair back. "Who's the Altima?"
"Miss Carla. Brakes squealing again. I told her last time them pads was done, but she said —" he pitched his voice high, "'Ronnie, baby, just make it stop making that noise, I get paid Friday.'"
Miya almost smiled. Almost. "Put the pads on. I'll cover it till Friday."
"You sure? That's —"
"I'm sure." She pulled on her work gloves. "What else we got today?"
Ronnie checked the book. "Charger pickup at noon. Two details this afternoon — the Escalade and a Benz. And DMac called. Said to tell you he coming by around two."
Miya's hands stilled. "DMac? What he want?"
"Didn't say. Just said tell you he stopping through."
She nodded slow. DMac didn't just stop through. DMac coming by meant DMac had something to say.
The morning moved the way shop mornings moved — loud and greasy and normal. Miya threw herself into the work. She did the Altima's brakes herself, hands remembering what her mind kept trying to run from. Every bolt she tightened was a thought she didn't have to think. Every rotor she checked was a minute she didn't have to spend wondering what Corey had told her daddy.
By eleven, her shirt was stuck to her back and her hands were black. She felt almost human.
The Charger came at noon — some young boy with more money than sense, rapping along to his own music loud enough to rattle the windows. Miya took his keys, took his cash, didn't take his number when he tried to slide it across the counter with a wink.
"I'm good, baby," she said, and turned back to the books.
At one, she stepped out back for air. The alley behind the shop was quiet — dumpster, chain-link, a cat that lived under the pallet and didn't trust anybody. Miya leaned against the brick and pulled out her phone.
No new texts from Corey. Just the one from this morning, sitting there like an unanswered question.
She thought about last night. His hand around her wrist. Not hard enough to bruise — he'd never do that — but hard enough to say you're mine. And the way he'd said it, like it was a fact instead of a question.
Her thumb hovered over his name. She could call it off. Tell him don't come. Handle it over the phone like a coward.
Instead she locked the phone and put it back in her pocket.
The locket sat warm against her skin. You come from women who survived things that should've killed them.
"Okay, Mama," she whispered. "Watch me survive this."
---
DMac pulled up at two-fifteen in his old truck, the one with the dent in the fender he'd never fixed because "it give it character."
He didn't come inside. Just leaned against the truck and waited till Miya came out, wiping her hands on a rag.
"DMac."
"Miya." He looked her over. "You look tired, baby girl."
"I'm good."
"Mm." He didn't believe her, but he let it go. "I ain't gon' hold you long. I just wanted to —" He paused. Scratched his jaw. "Corey came by the house last night. Late."
Miya's stomach dropped. "And?"
"And he was tore up. Said y'all had a fight. Said —" DMac looked at the ground, then back at her. "Said some things about Keith I didn't like hearing."
"What things?"
"That Corey's been talking to him. About you." DMac's voice was careful. "Now, my son ain't no snitch, Miya. You know that. But he's young, and he's scared, and scared boys make stupid decisions trying to protect the people they love."
"I'm not his to protect."
"I know that." DMac's eyes were steady. "I'm just asking — whatever you say to him tonight, say it knowing he loves you. Even if he did it wrong."
Miya stared at him. "Tonight?"
"He told me he coming to see you at six." A small, sad smile. "Boy can't keep nothing to himself when he's hurting."
She didn't know whether to laugh or throw something. "Anything else?"
"Yeah." DMac pushed off the truck. "Watch yourself with Keith, baby girl. That man don't make moves without a reason, and if he's sniffing around your operation, the reason ain't fatherly love." He opened his truck door. "You need anything — anything — you call me. Not Corey. Me."
She nodded, throat tight. "Thank you, DMac."
He drove off, and Miya stood in the parking lot a long time, the rag twisted in her hands.
---
The afternoon dragged. The Escalade detail took two hours — dog hair in every crevice, kid fingerprints on every window. Miya worked alongside Ronnie in silence, both of them lost in their own heads.
At four-thirty, her phone rang. Unknown number.
She almost didn't answer. Then she did.
"Miya."
Linda's voice. Smooth as silk.
Miya's blood went cold. "How'd you get this number?"
"Keith's wife knows things, sweetheart. That's practically the job description." A soft laugh. "I'm not calling to threaten you. I'm calling because —" A pause. "Because I think we might want the same thing. And I think you know it."
"I don't know anything."
"Not yet." Linda's voice dropped. "But you're smart. You'll figure it out. When you do —" The line clicked. She was gone.
Miya stood there, phone in her hand, detail spray dripping off her glove.
Ronnie looked over. "You good?"
"Yeah." She wasn't. "Ronnie — go ahead and head out. I'll close up."
"It's only —" he checked his watch, "four-forty-five. We got the Benz at five."
"I'll handle the Benz. Go on."
He studied her face. "This about Corey?"
"This about me needing my shop empty at six."
Ronnie nodded slow. He untied his apron. "You need me to stay — just, you know. In the back or something —"
"No." Her voice was firm. "Go home, Ronnie."
He grabbed his bag. At the door, he stopped. "Say mane — whatever he did? You bigger than it. Don't forget that."
After he left, the shop felt too big. Miya finished the Benz on autopilot — vacuum, wipe-down, tire shine — her hands moving while her mind ran the conversation she was about to have a hundred different ways.
Don't cry. Don't yell. Don't let him touch you. Get the truth. Then decide.
At five-fifty, she locked the bay door. Turned off the Three 6. The AC hummed, finally winning for once.
She stood behind the counter and waited.
---
Corey came in at six-oh-four. He looked like he hadn't slept. That almost made her feel something. Almost.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey." She stayed behind the counter. Distance felt safer.
He stood there, hands in his pockets, looking around the shop like he'd never seen it before. "You closed early?"
"Sent Ronnie home."
"Oh." He nodded. "So it's just us."
"That's the idea."
Silence. The AC hummed.
"Miya, I —" He stopped. Started again. "What I did with Keisha —"
"Don't." She held up a hand. "I don't want to hear about Keisha. Keisha's done. You want to talk, talk about my daddy."
His jaw tightened. "I told you —"
"You told me he asked how I was doing." She came around the counter. Slow. Deliberate. "Corey. Somebody came to a car wash on Winchester with a printed photograph of me. Asked if I was Keith Faith's daughter. Offered five hundred dollars for information about my operation. Left a message." She stopped two feet from him. "You know what the message was?"
He shook his head.
"Tell her the water's rising." She watched his face. "That's my mama's dream, Corey. That's something Gail dreamed three nights running, and this man said it out loud in a parking lot. So either my mama's dreams are leaking into the street, or somebody close enough to hear about them is talking."
"I didn't —"
"Who'd you tell about the operation, Corey?"
"Nobody —"
"Who'd you tell about Gail's dreams?"
"I didn't — Miya, I wouldn't —"
"Wouldn't what?" Her voice was rising now, and she let it. "Wouldn't cheat? Wouldn't lie? Wouldn't go behind my back to the man who spent my whole life deciding when I was worth claiming?" She was right in front of him now. "Because you've done all three, so forgive me if your wouldn't don't carry much weight."
He grabbed her shoulders — not hard, but sudden. "Listen to me. I never gave Keith your numbers. I never gave him names. He asked how you were doing and I — I told him you were good. That you were handling your business. That's it."
"Why?" The word came out flat. "Why would you tell him anything?"
"Because he's your father —"
"He's a man who hid me for twenty-three years!"
"He's still your blood, Miya!" Corey's voice cracked. "And you're out here acting like you don't need anybody, and I was scared, okay? Somebody's asking about you, your mama's dreaming about water, and I'm watching the woman I love walk around like she's bulletproof when she's not —"
"So you decided for me." She stepped back, out of his hands. "That's what you're saying. You got scared, so you went to Keith. You decided I couldn't handle my own life."
"I was trying to protect you —"
"Stop saying that!" The words tore out of her. "Every man in my life says that right before he takes something from me. My daddy protected me by hiding me. You protected me by reporting to him. What's next, Corey? You gonna protect me right into a cage?"
He stared at her. His hands were shaking.
"I love you," he said quietly.
"I know." And she did know. That was the worst part. She believed him. "That's what makes it unforgivable."
She walked to the door and held it open.
"Go."
"Miya —"
"Go, Corey."
He stood there a moment longer. Then he walked past her — close enough that she could smell his cologne, the one she'd bought him for his birthday — and out into the evening.
At the threshold, he stopped. Didn't turn around.
"That man at the car wash," he said. "With the ring."
"What about him?"
"I don't know who he is." A pause. "But Miya — I heard something. On the block. Somebody said Keith's been meeting with men from the east side. Men with money that ain't street money." He finally looked at her. "Whatever's coming — it ain't just about you. I think it's about him."
Then he was gone.
Miya locked the door behind him. Leaned against it. Touched the locket at her throat.
The water's rising.
She pulled out her phone, found the unknown number from this afternoon in her recents, and called it back.
It rang twice.
"Linda."
A pause. Then, smooth as silk, with something like amusement underneath: "Miya. I was hoping you'd call back."
---
End of Chapter 4
Linda wanted to meet at a coffee shop in Midtown — neutral, public, the kind of place where nobody from the neighborhoods would look twice at two women having a quiet conversation.
Miya got there first. Ordered black coffee. Sat where she could see the door.
Linda walked in at exactly the agreed time, and Miya had to give it to her — the woman knew how to make an entrance without trying. Late twenties, gorgeous, the kind of plus-size that made the room adjust. Designer everything. Hair laid. She moved like money had never been a question.
"Miya." Linda slid into the booth across from her. "You look tired."
"I am tired."
"Grief'll do that." Linda ordered a latte from the hovering waiter. "Even when you're grieving something that's still alive. Especially then."
Miya studied her. "You called me, or I called you? I don't remember how this started."
"You called me." Linda smiled. "Last night. After Corey left your shop."
Miya's spine straightened. "How'd you know about that?"
"I know a lot of things, Miya. That's why you're here." The latte arrived. Linda wrapped her hands around it. "You want to know about the man with the ring."
The coffee burned going down. Miya set the cup carefully back on the saucer.
"Talk."
"I don't know his name. But I know what he is." Linda leaned forward. "Keith's been having meetings. Quiet ones. Not at the compound, not at the studio — at a house on the east side. Men in suits. Men with old money. The kind of money that doesn't come from the street and doesn't go back to it."
"The lodge," Miya said. "The Masonic —"
Linda's eyebrows went up. "You've been doing homework."
"Ronnie's uncle."
"Mm." Linda sipped her latte. "Keith's empire was built on street money, Miya. But he's been trying to go legitimate for years — real estate, investments, clean it all up before —" She stopped.
"Before what?"
"Before it falls." Linda's voice was very quiet. "The feds have been circling. Detective Rollins — you know that name?"
"I've heard it."
"He's been building a case for three years. Keith knows. And Keith's solution —" She set the cup down. "Keith's solution is to sell the street operation. All of it. The corners, the supply lines, everything. Sell it to men with clean hands and dirty intentions. Men who can afford to buy an empire and wash it through boardrooms."
Miya's mind was racing. "And where do I fit in that?"
"You're the loose end." Linda said it gently, but it landed like a brick. "You're the daughter nobody knows about, running an independent operation on territory Keith's trying to package and sell. If those buyers find out there's a Faith out there they don't control —"
"They walk."
"Or they negotiate harder." Linda's eyes were steady. "That man with the ring? He's not asking about you because he's curious, Miya. He's doing due diligence."
The coffee shop sounds faded — the espresso machine, the chatter, all of it going distant and underwater.
Deep water, cher. And you in it.
"What do you want, Linda?" Miya's voice was flat. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I've been documenting everything for four years." Linda pulled out her phone, turned it so Miya could see the screen — a spreadsheet. Dates. Amounts. Names. "Every meeting. Every transaction I could track. Every name I could catch."
"Why?"
"Because I'm twenty-nine years old and married to a forty-seven-year-old kingpin who would bury me in a foundation if I became inconvenient." Linda locked the phone. "I want out, Miya. With enough money to never need another man. And I can't do it alone."
Miya stared at her. "You want me to help you take down my father."
"I want you to help yourself. Keith's going to sell you out with the rest of the inventory if you don't move first." Linda leaned back. "I'm not asking you to decide today. I'm asking you to think about it."
"And if I say no?"
"Then I wish you luck." Linda stood, smoothed her dress. "But Miya — that girl with the light your mama keeps dreaming about?"
Miya froze. "How do you know about that?"
"Gail told me. Years ago, when she was —" Linda paused. "When she was better. She said one day you'd find someone who'd be your way through. Not around." A small, sad smile. "I hope she's right. Because you're going to need someone."
Linda left a twenty on the table and walked out, hips swaying, head high — a woman who'd learned to move through dangerous rooms like she owned them.
Miya sat alone with two coffees going cold, thinking about water, and rings, and fathers who sold everything they touched.
---
She didn't mean to drive to Tori's.
That was the truth, and she'd swear to it on her mama's altar. She left the coffee shop meaning to go back to the shop, meaning to call Ronnie, meaning to think — and instead she found herself on Tori's street, parked across from the apartment building, engine running, arguing with herself.
Go home, Miya.
Just drive past.
She's probably at work.
She was reaching for the gear shift when the building door opened and Tori walked out — scrubs, hair pulled back, that red lace front tucked under a scrub cap, gym bag over her shoulder. She saw Miya's car immediately. Stopped. Smiled — not surprised. Like she'd been expecting her.
Tori crossed the street and leaned into the passenger window.
"Hey, stranger."
"Hey." Miya's voice came out rough. "You — you just getting off?"
"Twelve-hour shift. I'm dead on my feet." Tori studied her. "You look worse than me, and that's saying something."
"Thanks."
"Get out the car, Miya."
"What?"
"Get out the car. Come upstairs. I'll make you eat something before you fall over."
"I don't want to —"
"I don't care what you want." Tori opened the passenger door. "Scoot over. I'm driving. You look like you're about to pass out."
Miya scooted. Tori got in, adjusted the seat, and pulled a U-turn with the ease of somebody who'd been driving Memphis streets her whole life.
"You always this bossy?" Miya asked.
"You always this stubborn?" Tori glanced over. "We match."
---
Tori's apartment was small and immaculate — the apartment of somebody who cleaned when she was stressed. Nursing textbooks stacked on the coffee table. A candle that smelled like vanilla. Photos on the fridge: Tori with older women who had her eyes. Tori in a graduation cap.
"Your mama?" Miya nodded at the photos.
"My grandma, mostly. She raised me." Tori was in the kitchen, moving with tired efficiency — bread, peanut butter, a banana. "Mama was — she was around. Sometimes."
Miya recognized the shape of that sentence. "My mama's Gail. She's —"
"I know who your mama is, Miya." Tori set a plate in front of her. "Everybody knows Mama Gail. Eat."
Miya ate. The peanut butter sandwich was the best thing she'd tasted in days.
"So," Tori said, sitting across from her with her own sandwich. "You wanna tell me why you were parked outside my building like a stalker?"
Miya almost smiled. "I wasn't stalking."
"Mm-hm. That's what stalkers say."
They looked at each other across the small table, and the air did that thing it had done in the corner store — went heavy, went charged, went full of everything neither of them was saying.
"I broke up with Corey," Miya said.
Tori's expression didn't change. "I heard."
"From who?"
"From everybody. Memphis ain't that big, Miya." A pause. "You okay?"
"No." The honesty surprised them both. "No, I'm not okay. He cheated, and he — he's been talking to my daddy about my business, and there's some man with a ring asking about me, and my mama's dreaming about water, and Linda Faith just told me my father might sell me out with the rest of his inventory —" She stopped. Breathed. "Sorry. That's a lot."
"Don't apologize." Tori's voice was soft. "I'm right here."
Miya looked at her — really looked at her. The tired eyes. The scrub cap coming loose, red waves escaping. The braces when she smiled. The way she sat there, steady as a wall, like Miya's whole collapsing world was just something to sit with.
"Why are you being so —" Miya gestured helplessly. "Why are you like this with me?"
"Like what?"
"Like you care. Like I'm not —" She stopped.
"Like you're not what?"
"Like I'm not too much. Too hard. Too —" Miya's voice dropped. "Everybody leaves, Tori. Or they stay and try to own me. There's no in-between."
Tori was quiet for a long moment. Then she stood, came around the table, and sat on the couch. Patted the cushion next to her.
"Come here."
Miya went. Sat close enough that their knees touched.
"I've known you since we were kids, Miya." Tori's voice was low. "And I've watched you carry everything — your mama, your daddy's shadow, Corey, your whole operation — like it was normal. Like you were supposed to." She turned to face her. "Can I tell you something I've never told anybody?"
Miya nodded.
"I'm thinking about dancing."
"Dancing?"
"At a club. Not — not forever. Just —" Tori looked down at her hands. "Nursing assistant pay is nothing, Miya. I'm taking classes, I'm trying to get my RN, but tuition —" She laughed, bitter. "My grandma's getting older. She needs things I can't afford. And I'm tired of being the pretty girl with nothing to show for it."
Miya was quiet. Then: "Have you — have you started?"
"Next week. Club on the east side. I did the audition yesterday." Tori looked up, and her eyes were bright — not with tears, with defiance. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you're deciding whether to judge me."
Miya took Tori's hand. Held it. "I'm not judging you. I'm —" She squeezed. "I'm asking if you're sure. Because once you start, people —"
"People already decide who I am the second they see me, Miya. Pretty girl. That's it. That's the whole story they tell." Tori's thumb traced circles on Miya's knuckle. "At least this way I get paid for it. At least this way I decide."
Miya thought about her own operation. Her own choices. The ways she'd decided to survive.
"I get it," she said quietly.
"I know you do." Tori smiled — small, real, braces glinting. "That's why I'm telling you."
They sat there on the couch, holding hands, knees touching, the vanilla candle flickering. Outside, Memphis moved — sirens far away, somebody's music, the night settling.
"I should go," Miya whispered. But she didn't move.
"Yeah," Tori whispered. But she didn't let go.
Miya turned. Their faces were inches apart. She could see every detail — the baby hairs Tori had laid that morning, now curling with sweat. The tiredness under her eyes. The want, undisguised.
"I've wanted this since I was sixteen," Tori breathed. "Don't make me wait anymore."
Miya closed the distance.
The kiss was soft. Unhurried. Nothing like the kisses she'd shared with Corey — those had always been hungry, urgent, a little bit like fighting. This was — gentle. Tori's hand came up to cup her jaw. Miya's fingers found the back of Tori's neck, under the scrub cap, where the red waves were warm.
It felt like coming home to a house she'd never lived in.
When they pulled apart, Tori was smiling — the real smile, the one that changed her whole face.
"Hi," Tori said.
Miya laughed — actually laughed, for the first time in days. "Hi."
"Stay." Tori's voice was soft. "Not — not like that. Just — stay. Sleep on the couch. You look like you're gonna fall over, and I don't want you driving."
Miya wanted to argue. Wanted to say she was fine, she was always fine.
Instead she said: "Okay."
Tori got her a blanket and a pillow. Miya stretched out on the couch, and Tori sat on the floor beside her, their fingers laced together over the couch cushion.
"Tell me something good," Miya murmured, half-asleep already.
"Something good?" Tori thought. "When I was little, my grandma used to say — she used to say pretty is what you are, but beautiful is what you do." A pause. "I think you're beautiful, Miya Jones."
Miya's throat tightened. "Go to sleep, Tori."
"You first."
Miya fell asleep holding Tori's hand, the vanilla candle burning low, Memphis humming outside the window. And for the first time in longer than she could remember, she didn't dream about water.
She dreamed about sunrise through a screen door.
---
End of Chapter 5
Miya woke up on Tori's couch to the smell of coffee and the sound of humming.
For a disoriented second, she didn't know where she was. Then it came back — the coffee shop, Linda's spreadsheet, driving to Tori's street without deciding to, the kiss. The kiss.
She sat up fast. The blanket pooled in her lap.
Tori stood in the kitchenette in an oversized t-shirt and shorts, hair down — red waves everywhere — making coffee in a little drip machine. She looked over and grinned, braces flashing.
"Morning, sleepyhead."
"What time is it?"
"Eight." Tori poured two mugs. "I called in. Told them I was sick."
"You called in sick?"
"I worked a twelve yesterday and I'm about to start —" She stopped. Set the mugs down. Came and sat on the coffee table across from Miya. "I wanted to be here when you woke up."
Miya took the coffee. Their fingers brushed. Neither of them moved away.
"About last night —" Miya started.
"Don't." Tori's voice was gentle but firm. "Don't do the thing where you wake up and try to un-feel it."
"I'm not —"
"You are. I can see it. You're doing the math — what does this mean, what will people say, what about Corey —" Tori leaned forward. "Miya. I don't need you to have it figured out. I just need you to be honest with me."
Miya stared into her coffee. "I'm scared."
"I know."
"I've never — with a girl, I've never —"
"I know that too." Tori reached out and tucked a curl behind Miya's ear. "We go as slow as you need. But we don't go backwards. Okay? No pretending last night didn't happen."
Miya looked up. Met those eyes — warm, steady, unafraid.
"Okay," she whispered. "No backwards."
Tori smiled. "Good. Now drink your coffee. You got a war to fight and you can't do it decaffeinated."
---
The shop was already open when Miya got there — Ronnie had the bay door up, music going, a white Escalade getting the full treatment.
"Say mane, look who decided to show up." Ronnie grinned, then did a double-take. "Damn. You look — you look rested. What happened to you?"
"Don't worry about what happened to me." But she was smiling. She couldn't stop smiling.
"Uh-huh." Ronnie's eyes narrowed. "That's a glow, Miya. That's a —" He pointed the buffer at her. "You got laid."
"I did not —" She grabbed a rag and threw it at him. "Mind your business and finish the Escalade."
"I'm just saying! You walked in here yesterday looking like death and today you —"
"Ronnie."
"I'm finishing the Escalade." He went back to buffing, muttering. "Somebody got some joy in their life and can't even share the details."
Miya went to the back office and pulled out her phone. She needed to think about Linda's offer. About the east side meetings. About the man with the ring doing due diligence.
But first, she called Gail.
It rang four times. Five. Miya's stomach tightened.
"Hello?" Not Gail. A man's voice. Older.
"Who is this?"
"This is Miss Delores's nephew. Who's this?"
"This is Gail's daughter. Where's my mama?"
A pause. "She's — she's resting, baby. Miss Delores asked me to sit with her."
"Resting or —"
"She's breathing. She's okay. She just — she had a rough night."
Miya was already grabbing her keys. "I'm on my way. Don't let nobody in that apartment but me. You understand?"
"Yes ma'am."
She found Ronnie in the bay. "I gotta go check on my mama. You got the shop?"
"Yeah, but —" He saw her face. "She good?"
"She's breathing." Miya was already moving. "That's what I know."
---
Gail's apartment smelled like sickness and old smoke.
Miss Delores's nephew — a thin man in his fifties named James — sat in the kitchen, nodding at Miya as she pushed past him to the bedroom.
Gail was on the bed, curled on her side, breathing shallow. Her long red-dirt hair was matted. Her skin had a grey cast under the high yellow. On the nightstand: a pipe. A lighter. An ashtray full of ash.
Miya stood in the doorway, and something in her chest cracked open.
She'd seen this before. A hundred times. But it never got easier. It never got normal, no matter what anybody said.
"Mama."
Gail's eyes fluttered. Those grey eyes — cloudy, but there. "Miya?"
"Yeah, Mama. It's me." Miya sat on the edge of the bed. Took her mother's hand — the skin papery, the nails unpainted. "What happened?"
"I don't —" Gail's voice was thin. "I had the dream again, baby. The water. But this time —"
"Don't worry about the dream right now."
"No, listen." Gail's grip tightened, surprising strength. "This time I saw his face. The man with two faces. It's —" She coughed. "It's Keith, baby."
Miya went still. "What?"
"One face looking at you, one looking away. That's Keith. That's always been Keith." Gail's eyes were suddenly clear — terrifyingly clear. "And the heavy thing in his hand? It's you, Miya. You're the heavy thing. He's been carrying you like a weight and calling it love."
"Mama —"
"And the girl with the light —" Gail smiled, and for a second she was beautiful again, really beautiful, the way she'd been when Miya was seven. "She's here now, ain't she? I can feel her. Warm. Like sunrise."
Miya's throat closed. "Mama, you need to —"
"I'm okay, cher." Gail's eyes were drifting closed. "Just tired. You go on. You got things to do."
"I'm not leaving."
"Yes, you are." The clarity flickered. "Because if you stay, you'll watch me sleep, and you'll get soft, and right now you can't afford soft." A pause. "Except with her. With the girl. With her, you be as soft as you want."
Tears were running down Miya's face. She didn't wipe them.
"I love you, Mama."
"I know, baby." Gail was already half-gone. "Your grandma's blood don't miss. Even when you try to outrun it."
Miya sat with her until Gail's breathing evened out. Then she cleaned the nightstand — pipe, lighter, all of it into a plastic bag she tied tight and shoved deep in the kitchen trash. She left water and crackers by the bed. She told James to call her the second Gail woke up.
In the car, she sat for a long moment, hands on the wheel, not moving.
Then her phone rang. Unknown number.
She almost didn't answer. Then she did.
"Miya Jones."
A man's voice. Deep. Measured. "Miss Jones. My name is Detective Rollins."
Her blood went cold.
"I'm with Memphis PD. I've been trying to reach you."
"How'd you get this number?"
"That's not important." A pause. "What's important is that I think we can help each other. I've been building a case against your father for three years. I have enough to hurt him. I don't have enough to end him." Another pause. "Not without someone on the inside."
Miya stared through the windshield at Gail's apartment building.
"You want me to flip on Keith."
"I want you to think about what happens if you don't." Rollins's voice was calm, professional. "He's selling, Miss Jones. His entire street operation. To men who don't care about Memphis, don't care about the neighborhoods, don't care about you. When that sale closes, everyone connected to Keith Faith becomes a liability. Including his secret daughter."
Loose end. Linda's words echoed.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I've seen what happens to loose ends." A beat. "And because I think you're smarter than the men trying to use you. All of them."
"That's a nice speech."
"It's not a speech. It's a warning." Papers shuffling. "Think about it. You know how to reach me."
The line went dead.
Miya sat in the car outside her mama's apartment, holding the phone, the locket warm against her skin.
Linda's spreadsheet. Rollins's case. Keith's east side meetings. The man with the red-stone ring doing due diligence. Gail's dream — one face looking at you, one looking away.
It was all converging. She could feel it the way you feel weather changing — pressure dropping, air going still before the storm.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Tori:
You good?
Miya stared at it. Then typed back:
No. But I'm coming to see you tonight.
I'll be here, Tori wrote back. I'm around.
Miya put the phone down. Started the car.
She was halfway back to the shop when her personal phone rang again — not the business line, the other one. The one only five people had.
She glanced at the screen.
Blocked number.
She answered. "Yeah."
Silence. Then — breathing. Then a voice she knew better than her own heartbeat.
"Miya."
Keith.
"Daddy." The word came out before she could stop it. Twenty-three years old and she still said it like a little girl.
"I hear you've been asking questions." His voice was smooth, amused — the voice from a thousand rap verses, the voice that could fill an arena. "About rings. About meetings. About water."
Her hands tightened on the wheel.
"Baby girl." He laughed, low. "You think I don't know my own blood? You think I don't know when you're digging?"
"What do you want, Keith?"
"Keith?" A pause. "That's new."
"What do you want?"
"I want you to come see me." Not a request. "Tonight. The compound. We need to talk — father to daughter."
"About what?"
"About the fact that you're about to make a mistake you can't undo." His voice dropped — the charm falling away, the kingpin underneath. "You've got Linda whispering in your ear. You've got a detective calling your phone." A beat. "You've got a little girlfriend you're hiding."
Miya's foot slipped off the gas. The car slowed.
"How —"
"I know everything, Miya. That's what I do." He was quiet a moment. "Come tonight. Alone. We'll talk about your future."
"And if I don't?"
"Then I'll come to you." Soft. Final. "And you don't want that. Not with your mama the way she is. Not with your little friend at her apartment waiting for you."
The line went dead.
Miya pulled over. Hands shaking. She sat on the shoulder of South Parkway with traffic rushing past, staring at nothing.
He knew about Tori.
He knew about Gail.
He knew everything — and he'd just told her so, the way you'd show someone the gun before you asked them to sit down.
She picked up the phone. Called Ronnie.
"What's up?"
"Ronnie." Her voice was steady. She made it steady. "I need you to do something for me, and I need you to not ask why."
"Okay."
"Go to Tori's apartment. Don't knock. Just — sit outside. Watch. If anybody comes around who shouldn't be there, you call me."
"Miya, what's —"
"Please, Ronnie."
A pause. "I'm on my way."
She hung up. Then she called Tori.
"Hey you." Tori's voice was warm, sleepy. "You on your way?"
"Tori." Miya's voice cracked. "Listen to me. Don't open your door for anybody tonight. Not anybody. Ronnie's coming to sit outside. Don't — don't ask me why right now. Just promise me."
A long silence. Then, quiet: "Okay. I promise."
"I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Miya —"
"I know." She closed her eyes. "I love you too."
She hung up before Tori could respond — before either of them had to sit with what she'd just said for the first time.
Then Miya Jones turned her car toward the east side, toward the compound, toward the man with two faces.
Toward her father.
---
End of Chapter 6
The compound sat behind a black iron gate at the end of a street that didn't look like it belonged in Memphis.
Miya had been here before — twice as a teenager, once at twenty-one — but it never stopped feeling like a different country. The lawn was too green. The hedges were cut into shapes. Somebody was paying somebody a lot of money to make nature behave, and nature was behaving.
She pulled up to the call box and rolled her window down. The camera above it swiveled toward her like an eye opening.
"Yeah?" A man's voice, bored.
"It's Miya."
A pause. Then the gate started swinging inward, slow and silent, and Miya drove through with her hands at ten and two like she was sixteen again taking her driver's test.
You don't have to do this, she told herself.
Yes I do, she answered.
---
The mansion was all glass and angles, lit up gold from the inside like a lantern. Music spilled out of it — not the radio kind. The studio kind. Bass you felt in your molars.
A man she didn't know met her at the door. Big. Still. The kind of still that meant he could move fast if he decided to.
"Miss Jones."
"Where is he?"
"Studio." He stepped aside. "He said come on back."
She followed him through the house. Marble floors. Art on the walls that probably cost more than her whole shop. Everything smelled like cedar and money.
The studio door was open. The music hit her full in the chest — a beat she'd know anywhere. It was Keith's. An old one, from before she was born, back when he was still hungry.
And there he was.
Le Roi.
He sat at the mixing board with his back to the door, one hand up, conducting nothing. He wore a black tee and jeans and a watch that caught the light every time he moved. His hair was cut close. He looked — Miya hated this — good. Like health. Like power that didn't have to announce itself.
He didn't turn around. "You drove fast."
"How you know how I drove?"
"Cameras all the way down the street, baby girl." He spun the chair around, slow. Smiled. "You think I don't watch my own road?"
Miya stayed in the doorway. "We need to talk."
"We talking." He gestured at the chair next to him. "Sit."
"I'll stand."
His smile didn't move, but something behind it did. "Still stubborn."
"Still alive."
"That too." He stood up. He was bigger than she remembered — or maybe she was just smaller in this room. He walked to the bar in the corner and poured two glasses of something amber. Held one out.
She didn't take it.
"Suit yourself." He drank his. Set the glass down. "You want to tell me why my daughter drove across town at nine o'clock at night like the devil was behind her?"
"Somebody threatened the people I love tonight."
"Somebody." He nodded, like he was tasting the word. "That somebody got a name?"
"You."
The room went quiet except for the beat still looping, patient as a heartbeat.
Keith looked at her for a long time. Then he laughed — one short bark.
"Me." He set his glass down harder than he needed to. "I threatened you."
"You said you knew about Linda. About the detective. About —" She stopped. Made herself say it. "About Tori."
"I do know." He walked toward her, slow. "I know everything that happens in my city, Miya. That's not a threat. That's a fact. You want to be mad at me for knowing things, we got bigger problems than we thought."
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Talk to me like I'm one of your artists. Like I'm somebody you managing." Her voice was steady. She was proud of that. "You called my phone and listed the people I care about like a menu, Daddy. Don't tell me that wasn't a message."
He stopped two feet from her. She could smell his cologne — something expensive and woodsy, the kind of smell that filled a room before the man did.
"It was a message," he said quietly. "But not the one you heard."
"Then what was it?"
"It was me telling you to be careful." His voice dropped. "Linda's playing a game I can't see the edges of yet. That detective is building something — I don't know what, but it's got my name on it. And that girl —" He paused. "That girl got a father who carries a badge and a mother who —"
He stopped himself.
Miya caught it. "A mother who what?"
"Nothing." Too fast. "My point is, you got three fires burning and you're standing in the middle of all of them like they can't touch you."
"They can't."
"Miya —"
"They can't." She stepped closer. "Because I'm not a little girl you can scare with a phone call anymore. I'm not Gail, waiting by the window. I'm not one of your runners. I'm your daughter, and I built something with my own hands, and if you come for it — if you come for them — I will burn everything you gave me to the ground before I let you take it."
Silence.
Then Keith did something she didn't expect.
He smiled. Really smiled — not the kingpin smile, not the Le Roi smile. Something smaller. Something almost proud.
"There she is," he said softly. "There's my girl."
"Don't —"
"I'm serious." He sat back down, suddenly tired. The tiredness made him look his age. "You sound just like me at twenty-three. That's what scares me."
"I'm nothing like you."
"Baby girl." He looked up at her. "You drove to the compound of the most dangerous man in Memphis at nine o'clock at night, alone, to tell him to his face to back off. You want to tell me again how you're nothing like me?"
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
Damn him.
"Water," he said suddenly.
"What?"
"Your mama's dream. The water." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "She called me too, you know."
Miya blinked. "What?"
"Gail. Called me this morning. Left a voicemail." His voice went quiet. "She said the water's rising and the man with two faces is standing in it. Said I needed to choose which face."
The studio felt very still.
"What did you tell her?"
"I didn't call back." He looked at his hands. "I never know what to say to your mama. Twenty-three years and I still don't know what to say to her."
It was the most honest thing he'd said all night. Miya didn't know what to do with it, so she put it in her pocket for later.
"Why'd you hide me?" she asked.
The question landed like a dropped glass.
Keith looked up slowly. "What?"
"All my life. Why'd you hide me?"
"Baby girl —"
"No." She held up a hand. "No speeches. No kingpin wisdom. Just tell me. Why?"
He was quiet for a long time. The beat looped. Somewhere in the house, a door closed.
"Because the world I live in eats soft things," he said finally. "And you were the softest thing I ever made. I thought —" He stopped. Started again. "I thought if nobody knew you were mine, nobody could use you against me. Or use me against you."
"That's not an answer. That's a press release."
"It's the truth!"
"Is it?" She stared at him. "Or did you hide me because I was proof? Proof that the great Le Roi had a baby with a root worker from New Orleans while he was building an empire on being untouchable?"
His jaw tightened. "Watch yourself."
"Or what? You'll hide me again?"
They stared at each other. Father and daughter. Two faces of the same coin, and the coin was spinning.
Then the studio door opened.
Linda stood in the doorway in a silk robe, hair wrapped, no makeup — and somehow still the most put-together person in the room.
"Well," she said. "This is cozy."
Keith didn't look at her. "We're talking, Linda."
"I can see that." She came in anyway, poured herself water from the bar. Her eyes found Miya's. Held them. Something passed between them — the spreadsheet, the plan, the whole secret thing — and then it was gone. "You staying for dinner, Miya?"
"No."
"Pity." Linda sipped her water. "Keith, don't keep her too late. She looks tired."
"I'm fine."
"You look tired," Linda repeated, gentle as a blade. "Go home to your girl, baby. We'll handle the rest."
Miya stared at her. Your girl. Linda knew. Of course Linda knew.
"I'll walk you out," Keith said, standing.
"No." Miya was already moving toward the door. "I know the way."
At the threshold she stopped. Looked back at him — her father, the kingpin, the rapper, the man with two faces.
"Whatever you're planning," she said, "with the east side men, with the sale, with all of it — I see it. And I'm not Gail. You can't dream me into being careful."
She walked out before he could answer.
---
She was halfway down the front steps when she heard the door open behind her.
"Miya."
Linda. Barefoot on the marble, robe pulled tight against the night air.
"What?"
Linda came down two steps. Lowered her voice.
"He's selling," she said. "Not just the street operation. Everything. The studios. The properties. He's getting out."
"Why?"
"Because something's coming and he knows it." Linda's eyes were sharp. "The men from the east side — they're not buyers, Miya. They're collectors. And what they're collecting —"
A light came on upstairs. A window. Keith's silhouette, watching.
Linda went quiet. Smiled, bright and empty, for the benefit of whoever might be watching.
"Drive safe, sweetheart," she said loudly.
Then, barely moving her lips: "Tomorrow. The coffee shop. Ten."
She went back inside.
Miya stood in the driveway with the night air on her face and her father's silhouette in the window above her.
The water's rising.
She got in her car and drove — not home. Not to the shop.
To Tori's street. She parked a block away, where Ronnie's car sat dark and quiet, keeping watch like he promised.
She texted Tori: You good?
Three dots. Then: I'm good. Ronnie's out there, huh?
Yeah.
Tell him I said thank you. And Miya?
Yeah?
Come up. Please.
Miya looked at Ronnie's car. He'd be fine. He was good at being invisible.
She got out and walked to Tori's door.
---
End of Chapter 7
Tori opened the door before Miya could knock.
She stood there in the same oversized t-shirt and shorts from that morning, hair pulled up now, face scrubbed clean — and Miya's chest did something complicated.
"Hey," Tori said softly.
"Hey."
They looked at each other for a second that felt longer. Then Tori stepped aside.
"Come here."
Miya walked in. The apartment was small and warm — fairy lights strung along the wall, a candle burning on the coffee table, the blanket from that morning still pooled on the couch where Miya had slept.
Tori locked the door. Turned around. And just looked at her.
"You went to see him," she said. Not a question.
"How'd you know?"
"Because you got that look." Tori came closer. "The one from the coffee shop. Like you just walked through fire and you're deciding whether to tell somebody you're burned."
Miya laughed — one short, surprised sound. "You read people too good."
"Occupational hazard. Nursing assistants see everything." Tori took her hand. Her fingers were warm. "Talk to me."
So Miya did. She told her about the gate, the cameras, the studio. About Keith pouring drinks and smiling like the devil at a church picnic. About the why'd you hide me and the way his face did something she'd never seen before.
"He said I sound like him," Miya finished quietly. "At twenty-three."
Tori was quiet for a moment. Then: "Do you?"
"I don't know." Miya looked down at their joined hands. "That's what scares me."
"Listen." Tori lifted Miya's chin with one finger, gentle. "You drove to that man's house, alone, at night, and told him to his face to stay away from the people you love. That's not Keith. That's you. The fact that you're scared of becoming him? That's the proof you won't."
Miya stared at her. "When'd you get so wise?"
"I've been wise. You just been too busy to notice." Tori grinned, braces flashing, and the heaviness cracked a little.
They ended up on the couch, Miya's head in Tori's lap, Tori's fingers slow in her curls. The candle flickered. Somewhere outside, a car alarm went off and then thought better of it.
"Ronnie still out there?" Miya murmured.
"Mm-hm. I took him a plate."
"You what?"
"He looked hungry." Tori shrugged. "Told him to keep the porch light on in his car so I know he's awake."
Miya smiled into the blanket. "You mothering my security detail."
"Somebody got to." Tori's fingers stilled. "Miya — what did Linda say? On the steps. You went quiet when you got to that part."
Miya sat up. "She said he's selling. Not just the street stuff — everything. The studios, the properties. All of it."
"Why?"
"She said something's coming and he knows it." Miya rubbed her face. "And the east side men — she said they ain't buyers. They're collectors."
"Collectors of what?"
"I don't know. She got cut off — Keith was in the window." Miya looked at Tori. "She wants to meet tomorrow. Coffee shop. Ten."
Tori was quiet. Then: "You trust her?"
"No." Miya said it flat. "But I need what she knows."
"Okay." Tori nodded slowly. "Then I need you to promise me something."
"What?"
"Whatever she tells you tomorrow — you don't go alone after it. Not like tonight." Tori's voice was firm. "You call Ronnie. You call me. Somebody knows where you at at all times. Deal?"
Miya looked at this girl — twenty-two years old, nursing assistant, prettiest girl in every room she'd ever walked into — laying down terms like a general.
"Deal," Miya said.
"Good." Tori leaned in and kissed her forehead. Soft. Unhurried. "Now. No more war talk. It's —" she checked her phone, "eleven-fifteen, and I have been waiting all day to do nothing with you."
They didn't do nothing, exactly. They talked — about stupid stuff, the kind of stuff that felt like oxygen after the night Miya'd had. Tori's coworker who kept "borrowing" her pens. The lady at the shop who wanted a full detail but wouldn't move her seventeen air fresheners. Miya did an impression of the Charger boy from the shop that made Tori laugh so hard she snorted.
It was the most normal Miya had felt in days.
Then Tori's phone rang.
She glanced at it. Her whole face changed — a grin spreading slow.
"Oh Lord. Hold on." She answered on speaker. "Mama."
A voice burst out of the phone — loud, delighted, talking a mile a minute.
"—and don't you play with me, Tori Renee Hughes, I know you seen my three missed calls, I raised you better than to ignore your mama —"
"Ma, I'm right here, I'm on the phone —"
"I know you on the phone, that's why I'm talking!"
Miya pressed her lips together, shoulders shaking. Tori shot her a look — don't you dare laugh — which only made it worse.
"Tina, baby, I'm with company —"
"Company? What company? It's eleven o'clock at night, what company you got over there — oh." A beat. Then, delighted: "OH. Is this the girl?"
Tori's eyes went wide. "Mama —"
"Put her on! Put her on the phone right now, don't be rude, I know I raised you better than —"
"Ma —"
"Tori Renee!"
Tori looked at Miya, mortified and laughing at the same time, and held the phone out.
Miya took it. Cleared her throat. "Hi, Miss Tina."
"Hi, Miss Tina!" Tina crowed. "Listen at you, all polite! Baby, what's your name?"
"Miya. Miya Jones."
"Miya Jones." Tina tasted it. "Well. Miya Jones. My baby talks about you like you hung the moon, so I already know I like you. You treating my girl right?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Mm-hm. Good. Because I will come over there —"
"MA." Tori grabbed the phone back. "We got to go. Love you. Call you tomorrow."
"Love you too, baby! And Miya —"
"She says love you too," Tori said quickly, and hung up.
Silence.
Then both of them burst out laughing — the deep, helpless kind, doubled over on the couch.
"I'm so sorry," Tori gasped.
"Don't be." Miya wiped her eyes. "I love her already."
"She's a lot."
"She's perfect." Miya meant it. After Keith's marble mansion and Linda's silk robe and all that careful power — Tina's loud, joyful, real love felt like cold water on a burn.
Tori leaned her head on Miya's shoulder. "She's been asking about you for weeks, you know. Ever since the coffee shop."
"Weeks?"
"Mm-hm." Tori's voice went soft. "I told her about you. Not — not everything. But enough."
Miya wrapped an arm around her. "What'd you tell her?"
"That there was a girl." Tori looked up. "That she's the bravest person I know. And that I think —" She stopped. Swallowed. "I think I might be in love with her."
The candle popped. The fairy lights hummed.
Miya touched Tori's face — gently, like she was something precious.
"I love you," Miya said. "For real this time. Not on the phone, running. Here. Looking at you."
Tori's eyes shone. "For real?"
"For real."
Tori kissed her then — slow and sure, no hesitation, no backwards.
---
Miya woke up at seven to Tori already dressed for work, scrubs on, hair in a neat puff.
"Morning," Tori whispered, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I gotta go. Shift starts at eight."
Miya caught her wrist. "Be careful today."
"You be careful today." Tori kissed her knuckles. "Coffee shop. Ten. Somebody knows where you at at all times — that was the deal."
"Ronnie's driving me."
"Good." Tori stood. At the door she turned. "Miya?"
"Yeah?"
"No backwards."
"No backwards," Miya promised.
After Tori left, Miya lay there staring at the ceiling, the morning light coming through the blinds in stripes.
Coffee shop. Ten. Linda.
She got up, splashed water on her face, and texted Ronnie: Pick me up at 9:30. We got a meeting.
---
End of Chapter 8
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