Page 67 of Rose
He turned slowly, eyes locking onto hers like a steel trap. “Savior Khaos Carter. Husband to Ahzii Carter.”
“Khaos?” She blinked, then scoffed. “Your parents really named you that?”
“Yeah,” he said without missing a beat, “and you’ll find out why if you keep playin’ with me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Nigga, fuck you. I’ll fuck whoever I want.”
“You don’t even like the nigga,” Savior said with a knowing smirk, moving to the next tire—one that didn’t need changing, but he wanted to keep her here longer.
“I don’t gotta like him to fuck him,” she snapped.
He paused, looking at her now like he saw straight through her. “You really not that type of woman.”
Her arms folded tightly across her chest. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you’re guarded,” he said, calm as ever, eyes still focused on the tire. “I know somebody broke you, maybe more than once. And you’re scared of feeling anything real again. So you sleep with a nigga who makes you feelnothing...because it’s safer than feelingeverything.”
His words sliced deeper than they had any right to. Ahzii froze, heart hammering in her chest as memories she’d buried rose up uninvited. Her fingertips drifted to the necklace around her neck—her wedding ring hanging from the chain—her grounding piece when the past came crawling back.
“Don’t speak on shit you know nothing about,” she said, her voice low and uneven.
Savior didn’t say a word.
He kept working, letting the silence speak for him. But she stood there behind him, unraveling in real time, his voice echoing in her head like a prophecy. She wasn’t mad because he was wrong.
She was mad because he might be right.
Ahzii was so lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t even noticed her car was back on the ground—four brand-new tires, not one. Savior stood nearby, arms folded, watching her with calm intensity.
“You back with me?” he asked. “You zoned out for a minute.”
She blinked, realizing just how long she’d been frozen, trapped in the weight of everything she refused to say. Her shoulders straightened. She defaulted to defense.
“Look, you don’t know me,” she said flatly. “So don’t pretend that you do.”
Savior didn’t flinch. He leaned back against her car, arms still crossed, gaze soft but unwavering. “I’m not pretending shit, Allure. Since the day I laid eyes on you, you’ve been stuck in my fucking head. You already got me doing wild-ass shit behind you, and I don’t even know why.”
He sounded calm, but his voice carried weight. Like even saying the words aloud scratched an itch inside him that had been eating him alive.
Ahzii stared back at him—expression unreadable, eyes screaming everything. “That sounds like a personal problem,” she said coldly. “I’m not somebody you need to be thinking about or trying to figure out. I’m not a fucking puzzle to solve. And I damn sure don’t want to be looked at the way you’re looking at me right now.”
Savior took a slow step forward, towering over her, but not in a threatening way—just enough to make her feel seen.
“How am I looking at you?” he asked, voice low.
“Soft,” she replied, lifting her chin, refusing to back down. “Like you care. Like you yearn or whatever the fuck. Only one man ever looked at me like that… and he left.”
The lie scratched her throat on the way out. William didn’t leave. He was taken. Gunned down and buried, leaving her to pick up the shattered pieces alone. But Savior didn’t need to know that. No one did.
“I don’t ever want to feel that again,” she said. “So whatever you think this is, whatever you’re feeling? Let that shit go.”
She snatched the keys from his hand, cold and distant, her tone void of emotion, but her body rigid with everything she refused to say. Savior watched her, heart pounding, jaw tight. He wanted to tell her how wrong she was. That whatever he was feeling—it wasn’t temporary. That he didn’t know what the hell this was, but it was real. That she wasn’t just in his head. She was under his skin. Etched into his chest.
But all he said was: “That shit not happening, Allure.”
She turned away, counting out ten hundred-dollar bills and slapping them onto the tool cart like a challenge. “This should cover the tires and labor,” she muttered.
Savior’s expression darkened. “Allure, stop fucking disrespecting me.”
