“I don’t remember it.”
The word lands like a slap.
Shady looks toward the screen.
Lady’s bloody mouth.
Lady’s white rose.
Lady’s clue.
Then he looks back at Cherry.
“If I fucked you, it was because I was pissed and stupid and wanted to prove something to myself that was not true. I knew you were hurt. I knew you heard promises in places Ididn’t put them. I left the door open because shutting it meant looking at what we lost.”
Cherry crumples.
He keeps going, quieter now, which makes it worse.
“That baby might’ve been mine. I don’t fucking know. You lie Cherry so I don’t know what to believe. If it was, losing it hurt. And I didn’t love you right, and I didn’t grieve with you right. But I’ll never know if my grief is real or your fantasy.”
Nobody speaks.
That is the first truth any man has said in this room all morning.
My anger doesn’t fade.
It sharpens.
Because Lady deserves to hear that from him before anyone else turns it into a knife.
Shady looks at me.
“I’ll tell her.”
“You better,” I say. “Before someone else does.”
His eyes go back to the screen. “I know.”
Alpha clears his throat.
It sounds almost rude in the silence, which means it matters.
“Then we use what Lady gave us before Toro uses what Cherry gave them.”
Every head turns.
Alpha stands at the old altar table we use for church, laptop open, phone connected by a cable, three monitors arranged like he brought an office into a war room. He rewinds three seconds and plays Lady’s video again.
“You hear me? Don’t get lost. Count the beat. Two left, three right. Flowers don’t grow where planes scream and trains cry.”
His finger taps the table.
Once.
Twice.
Then three times.