PROMISED TO HIM
CHAPTER 13
ROY SMITH
I got back from the council meeting at 03:45. The drive home was a blur of streetlights and worn leather — polite smiles at the table, promises like paper weights.
I told myself I’d swing by Jayden’s place first. Tell him to keep his distance. Say it like a warning, not a plea. But when I opened my own front door the decision was made for me.
Mayibuye was on the couch, half-covered by a thin blanket, one shoe kicked off and the other dangling from her toes. She looked exhausted, like the kind of tired you get from trying to be brave for too long.
For a second I just stood there, the silence of the house filling the space between the meeting and what my gut told me.
Then I carried her to the bedroom. Her skin was warm under the blanket and when she sighed I felt a part of me relax, stupid and soft.
I ran a cold shower , I came back to the room and the closet door was open. A small bag sat on the shelf, clothes folded in a way that said someone had practiced a dozen exits. My jaw tightened. Who packed at night and left the bag within reach, if they are innocent?
I went out to the balcony and lit a cigarette. The smoke did nothing to clear the suspicion.
I checked the CCTV — I had to. I rewound the footage, my fingers moving like a machine. Jayden had been here. He was on the couch with her
The way he leaned back, the careless laugh, the easy angle of his shoulder — it was small things but they pressed like weights against whatever faith I had left.
I didn’t take the long way to home with my car speeding . I slammed my car into park and walked straight through the door. He looked startled look of someone who’s been caught with his hand in something he knew wouldn’t belong to him as he woke up .
“Stay away from things that belong to me,” I said without preamble. My voice was flat. I let him watch me for a beat, let the meaning fill the space.
He blinked and tried to make light of it.
“Roy, what are you talking about?”
“Mayi.” The name itself was a command.
He sat up, narrowing his eyes like he didn’t expect the storm to be so small and so close.
“I consider her like family , man. You always make things…big.”
“Don’t play that with me.” I placed my gun in the bedside drawer — He understood.
“Pretty is here” I said when I left, the words tasting like gravel.
“Don’t act like a charity case or you won’t like what I might do. You know I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty.”
He didn’t answer. He never had when it mattered.
It was nearly five when I walked back through my front door. Dawn was trying to push itself through the windows, soft and useless. She came down the stairs in a robe, She poured coffee like she was filling up with courage.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hi,” I answered, letting the word hang between us. I set my coat down and watched her move. My mouth managed a line with more poison than meaning.
“Thank you for last night. Or should I say this morning.”she said
“What are you talking about?”
“You put me to bed.”
She laughed then, a short.
“I don’t remember that.”I said
The laugh made something in me close like a fist. I stepped closer than I needed to, watching for a flicker that would tell me she was lying.
“Are you planning to leave? When?”
“What are you talking about? I’m not going anywhere, Mr Smith.” The way she said my name — formal, small, with a hit of mockery.
“How does it feel, flirting with my brother?” I asked, the question sharp enough to cut.
“I’m not flirting with him, Roy.”
“What, you fucking him?” I pushed.
Her palm came up and landed hard on my face. The slap was immediate, hot, and meant to shame. It did. The sting cleared my head but it didn’t calm the thing under my ribs. I stepped in. My first thought wasn’t to hurt her, it was to assert that I could — to show I could make her still. I grabbed the robe at her waist and pulled her toward the counter, then caught at her hair to keep her from turning away. My hands were firm, and clumsy, more hungry for control than for any real harm.
She was breathing fast, eyes wide with something between fear and fury. I felt the line I’d crossed in bone and muscle, and for a second the room narrowed to the sound of her breathing and my heartbeat. My palm pressed to her throat — not to crush, but to threaten, to hold. I could see the sharpness in her face
“Don’t make me small,” I said, my voice a low thing.
A small sound — a staff member clearing her throat, the domestic normal of someone who belonged in a different kind of life — snapped the moment like a brittle twig.
The spell broke. I let go as if the release burned, stepped back, and watched as she slid down the counter, the tremor that ran through her visible as the first bright thread of a bruise.
I left, not because I wanted to but because staying would be an admission. I climbed the stairs and shut the door on a room that felt too much like a cell.
I sat on the balcony and smoked until the cigarette felt like ash under my nails. I pressed my forehead to the cool glass and let the morning go on without me
When the house stirred fully and staff began to thread through the rooms, I put the gun back in the drawer where anyone who knew me would look and not see everything. I had decisions to make, boundaries to draw, lines to repair.