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I took a chance on just opening the front door. It was locked—I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Nothing in my life ever was.

I went back into the middle of the yard and stared at the house with my hands on my hips. There was a lower roof I could probably reach if I had a ladder. I didn’t see one anywhere so I got in my car and parked it inches from the side of the house. I hopped back out and climbed on the trunk of my G6, then the roof, which sunk in a little under my feet. I hoisted myself up by using the gutter, and then I was on Gideon’s lower roof.

I didn’t look down. I stayed close to the siding until I got to the nearest window. Tugging on it, I found that it was locked too. Maybe even sealed closed from the white caulking on the window sill. It looked like it had never been opened, ever.

I’ll pay you back, Gideon, I thought as I kicked the window out. I cleared the rest of the glass out with the heel of my Coach sneaker and then stepped inside.

I was in a bedroom. It was spacious, so I guessed this was the master bedroom. Right where I wanted to be. I looked under his bed for a gun but didn’t find it. I checked under his pillows, in the closet, throwing off lids of shoeboxes, checking all the places I thought thugs hid their weapons. The room was a mess when I was finished. And I was getting frustrated because I hadn’t found it yet. I knew he owned a gun. And I didn’t think he would take it to the grocery store with him.

Out in the hall, I put my hands on the balcony railing and looked downstairs at the living room. I didn’t know if I wanted to start searching down there or try the other two rooms up here. But I was willing to tear this whole house up until I found a pistol to kill Ladykiller.

I started down the steps—and that’s when I heard something.

A woman’s voice coming from the basement.

“Shut up! You think you’re the only one that’s hungry?”

Curiously, I walked closer to the sounds.

“I said shut up!”

I accidentally stepped on something that cracked under my shoe. When I moved my foot, I squatted down to inspect it. It was a chain and locket that was terrifyingly familiar. Popping the heart-shaped locket open, I stared at a tiny picture of myself and Rodrick at prom.

My daughter was here!

In a panic, my mind tried to figure out what was going on. I reached in my pocket and looked at the addresses I had written down. I didn’t put the names down with the addresses. I think I mistakenly came straight to Ladykiller’s house instead of Gideon’s! If I was correct, Ladykiller’s mother was in the basement with my daughter!

Heart racing, I flung open the basement door.

“Deborah Roby, I know you’re down there!” I shouted. “I want my daughter back and I’m not leaving until I have her!”

“Momma! Help me!”

Kylie!

Without thinking, I trotted down the steps, driven by the sweet sound of my baby girl’s voice. Halfway down the steps, a hand shot out from between the steps and tripped me up. I fell to the dirty concrete of the basement. Before I could get up, I was kicked in the gut, which flipped me over onto my back. I held my stomach, cringing in pain.

“Tyesha, I don’t know how you found this house,” the woman taunted, “but you’re gonna regret that you ever did.”

I looked at the woman standing over me, not wanting to believe who I was seeing. But as hard as I squinted, the face didn’t change—it was Deja Michelle.

“Momma!”

My eyes darted to Kylie and I laid eyes on her for the first time in what felt like years, but had only been a little over 24 hours. Her wrists were tied with nylon cable ties fastened to the gas pipe behind the washing machine. Strands of her brown hair were sticking up out of her little braids, her face was dingy and her fingertips were near black, but she didn’t look like she’d been harmed. The whites of her eyes where still bright and innocent.

The sight of her filled me with good adrenaline. I started to push myself to my feet but Deja jabbed me in the rib with a wooden broom handle, then she yelled at my daughter to stop screaming.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked, holding my side in pain. “Why did you take my daughter?”

“You know why,” she said. “This is revenge.”

“What have I ever done to you, Deja? We were best friends. I loved you like a sister.”

She scoffed at me. “Sister’s don’t steal men from each other, do they? Do you remember what you told me when I said I had a crush on Rodrick in high school? You said he wouldn’t like me because he doesn’t date big girls. What kind of fuckin’ sister says that, huh?”

I instantly remembered the comment. It was our junior year, and we were standing by my locker when Rodrick walked past. When Deja said she liked him I had laughed and made the remark about her being too big for him. But always making references to Deja’s weight was my way of helping her lose it. And looking at her now, wearing a form-fitting blue jumpsuit that she would’ve never been able to pull off in high school, it clearly worked.

Never had I thought I was being so harsh on her to make her want to kidnap my daughter. Looking at the pain in her eyes now, I could see she’d been holding in evil feelings about me for all these years. I felt even worse for dating Rodrick. But I hadn’t believed back then that she seriously thought she had a chance of hooking up with him. And that was horrible of me.

“Deja, I’m sorry. You can have Rodrick. I didn’t know—”

With both hands she jammed the broom stick in my stomach harder than before. “You think you can just give Rodrick to me? You can’t give me shit! I took him, just like you took him from me. See, that’s your problem. You still treat me like I’m the fat friend. Like I’m a charity case who can only be helped by you. You even take credit for how I look now. You may have exercised with me, but I put in the hard work to get my body like this.”

“Deja, you’re right, and I’m sorry. You look beautiful. I don’t even know why you would want somebody like Rodrick. Look at you. You can do so much better than him.”

She stooped down and placed the end of the broom stick on the tip of my nose. “Don’t try to play mind games with me. Rodrick is a good man. You ruined him! He would’ve went to college on a football scholarship if you didn’t get pregnant by him. Because of you, he had to hustle in the streets, and that’s why he ended up in jail. If you hadn’t stolen him from under my nose, there’s no telling where me and him would be right now. But you know what, Tyesha? I’m going to make things the way they should have been. I’m going to help Rodrick be the man he was supposed to be, before you ruined his life.”

“He’s just gonna play you like he played me.”

She smacked me across the face. “Shut up! There you go downtalking me again. He treated you like shit because you are shit. I am and have always been a better woman than you, even when I was at my heaviest. Rodrick respects me. Your high and mighty ass is just too stuck on yourself to see it.”

“Deja, please. I just want my daughter. Let her go, please.”

“She stays. You don’t deserve her.” She stood up, gripping the broom stick high above her head. “And people like you don’t deserve to live.”

Deja stabbed the broom end down at my face.

I rolled out the way and she struck the concrete. As I sprang to my feet, she lunged at me with the broom end like a javelin; I tried to duck but it caught me in the shoulder, pushing me back on my ass. Deja’s momentum sent her falling on top of me.

“Kylie was supposed to be my daughter!” she screamed, scratching her nails into my face viciously.

Her nails burned through my skin as I tried to swat her hands away. I got ahold of one of her arms and threw her off balance, rolling her over and straddling her. I started pounding on her face with hammer fists, as I heard my daughter crying behind me—and I think her cries made me pound even harder. Deja’s face grew bloody