RIVALRY | LAST SUPPER…. PREVIEW

Rakik had moved on long before the news ever reached her, so when she heard about Tafari’s death, there was no storm inside of her—just silence. No tears. No heartbreak. No trembling hands. Just a cold, quiet acceptance that made even her pause for a moment. She wasn’t shocked by what happened… only by when. Deep down, Rakik had always known Tafari’s life would eventually catch up with him. A man can only outrun the consequences of his choices for so long.

When Loretta called, her voice was heavy with grief. A mother’s pain bled through every word as she told Rakik that her son had passed away. Maybe a part of Loretta expected Rakik to break down, to mourn him, to say something soft or sentimental about the man he used to be. But Rakik had nothing. No comforting lies. No forced sorrow. No speech prepared for the dead.

She simply sat there with the phone pressed to her ear, emotionless.

There was a time when Tafari could’ve destroyed her with a single decision, a single betrayal, a single disappearance. But that woman was gone now. The version of Rakik that once loved him, waited for him, and hoped he would become better had already died long before he did.

Loretta, still trying to hold onto whatever pieces were left of her son’s life, suggested Rakik come by. Maybe she wanted familiarity around her. Maybe she wanted someone who once knew him in a way a mother never could. Maybe she just didn’t want to grieve alone.

But Rakik couldn’t do it.

Not because she was cruel.

Because she was finished.

She gently told Loretta she wouldn’t be coming. Then she said the one thing that made the line go quiet—she had already moved on. She was in a new relationship now. Her life had continued, even if Tafari’s had not.

Loretta didn’t say much after that, but Rakik could feel the disappointment in her silence. Maybe even resentment. As if moving on from a dead man somehow made Rakik heartless. As if she was supposed to pause her life in honor of someone who never gave her peace while he was alive.

But Rakik refused to carry guilt that didn’t belong to her.

Tafari was gone.

And whatever they had died long before the funeral ever came.

Trey was the ghost nobody could catch.

His name floated through interrogation rooms, alleyway whispers, burner phones, and police reports with too many blank spaces. Detectives knew in their gut he was behind Tafari’s death. Truthfully, they suspected he was behind a lot of deaths. Bodies kept dropping, loose ends kept disappearing, and somehow Trey always remained untouched—clean on paper, invisible in motion.

But suspicion wasn’t proof.

And proof was the one thing they didn’t have.

That was what made them desperate.

They started pulling anybody they thought could crack. Old flings. Cousins. Friends of friends. Women he had once laid up with. Men he had once did favors for. Anybody whose name ever got caught in the same breath as his.

Yet nobody spoke.

Some were loyal.

Some were scared.

Some simply knew better.

Street code was still louder than a badge and a gun.

And Trey knew it.

Meanwhile, Rakik knew absolutely nothing about Trey. No ties. No friendships. No hidden connection. She wasn’t in that world, and she never had been. The detectives would’ve been wasting their breath trying to drag her into something she knew nothing about.

Her focus was elsewhere.

Tafari was dead.

And for the first time in what felt like forever… Rakik could breathe.

There was no fake sadness in her spirit. No pressure to mourn. No secret ache. Just relief so deep it felt holy.

When Tafari was alive, he made her feel small.

He was the kind of man who could look at a woman and slowly strip her confidence away piece by piece, until she no longer recognized herself. Every slick comment. Every insult disguised as “honesty.” Every moment he made her question her beauty, her body, her worth. He had planted seeds of insecurity in places that took her years to even identify.

He made her feel like she was never enough.

Not pretty enough.

Not thick enough.

Not quiet enough.

Not perfect enough.

And after enough time, Rakik had started believing it.

That was the real damage Tafari left behind.

Not bruises anyone could photograph.

Not wounds anyone could point at.

But the kind of emotional rot that sat inside a woman and whispered to her every time she looked in the mirror.

So no—Rakik wasn’t grieving.

She was celebrating.

Not loudly.

Not publicly.

But in the privacy of her own spirit, she felt something rise up in her that hadn’t been there in a long time.

Freedom.

His death had done what years of surviving him couldn’t.

It forced his shadow off of her.

And with him erased from the face of the earth, Rakik felt her insecurities begin to loosen their grip almost instantly. It was almost insulting how quickly peace found her once he was gone. Like her spirit had been waiting for confirmation that the monster was truly dead before it allowed itself to heal.

That night, she stepped outside and looked up at the sky.

The wind moved softly around her, cool against her skin, almost like the universe was listening.

Her eyes stayed fixed on the darkness above as she whispered, cold and without apology—

“Keep taking the wicked and corrupt people.”

No tears followed.

No guilt came after.

Only a calm so deep it startled her.

Because some deaths don’t break you.

Some deaths set you free.

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