Morgan sniffed and lifted a trembling hand to her cheek to clear tears.

“How could you leave me?” she whispered.

Messiah gripped the steering wheel and turned his body to face her.

“I just had to handle some shit, Mo. I had to. You couldn’t come with me. Every day, I thought about you, though, shorty. That’s no lie. Every single fucking minute.”

“I died here without you.”

“Yeah, well, it don’t seem that way to me, shorty. Seem like you were living just fine,” he said.

She heard his disdain. His judgment. Silence. Discomfort. This had never been them. They were practically strangers, and it felt horrible because no one knew her better than he did. The intimacies they had shared in the midnight hours all those years ago had made them experts on each other. Well. He was an expert on her. Morgan didn’t know much at all about the man who had stolen her heart.

“Your kids. They’re two?”

“They are,” she said. Her stomach tensed because she already knew where this was going.

“I bet you were pretty as fuck pregnant. I was supposed to know what that looked like. You letting another nigga live my life, Mo,” Messiah said in disbelief.

Morgan didn’t respond to that. She didn’t even give him her eyes.

“And you named your son after me?” he asked. “Are they mine, Mo?”

She was silent. Her heart screamed, but her mouth didn’t open.

“Either they’re mine, or you were with him the whole time you were fucking with me? Is that why he was so comfortable with you back then? You were fucking the nigga?”

Morgan’s throat closed. It was as good of an opportunity as any to tell him the truth. That he was a father and his kids were upstairs. She couldn’t, however. She didn’t trust Messiah. She didn’t know him. The threat he posed if he had a hidden motive could destroy her entire family. What if he didn’t stick around this time? If she told him, and he abandoned her again? What if she told him, and Bash was so slighted that he told what he knew about Ethic? No. Morgan couldn’t say anything. It was best for everyone.

“I won’t apologize for how I moved when you were moving dirty yourself,” she said, remaining vague.

“So that’s the word? You were fucking that nigga while we were together?” Messiah asked.

Morgan wanted to defend herself. She wanted to yell that she was stupid in love with him, and that she hadn’t dismissed what they had shared the way he had.

Silence.

Nothing.

“Never knew you had so much ho in you, shorty. I would have handled you different,” Messiah snapped.