Ashes of a Good Man

“Malik, you really just gonna stand there? You think pity gonna fix what you messed up?”

Tasha’s tone carried that edge, sharp, cold, the kind of voice that used to flirt, now cutting like glass. She stood on the curb, arms crossed, hair damp but perfect, her heels sinking slightly into the puddles.

Even soaked, she looked like she’d stepped out of a showroom, not a marriage that was crumbling in the street.

He turned slowly. “I didn’t mess up, Tasha. I got played. You know damn well I didn’t lose that money gambling or being stupid.”

Her laugh was soft and cruel. “Oh, I know you didn’t gamble, Malik. You just trusted the wrong people, like always. You’re too nice, too loyal, too” she tilted her head, “naïve.”

Malik’s jaw flexed. “Naïve? I was trying to build something. For us.”

“For us?” she shot back, stepping closer. “You think I signed up to live check to check while you ‘build something’? You had five years to get it right. My mother told me this would happen.”

There it was. The phrase that hit harder than the rain. “My mother told me…”

He looked past her toward the street where a black BMW idled, engine humming. Inside, silhouettes, her brother Derrick in the driver’s seat, smirking through the windshield like a man watching a show he’d paid for.

“You called them,” Malik said quietly. “You brought them here to what, help? Or to watch?”

Tasha didn’t answer. He took a step closer, voice steady but low. “Tell me the truth. You called them because you wanted witnesses when you cut me down.”

Her silence said everything. Inside the shop, the rain drummed harder against the tin roof. Malik could still smell oil and burnt rubber, the scent of every late night he’d worked just to prove he was worth something.

Now, standing there, he realized proof didn’t matter to people who never wanted to believe in him.

“Malik,” Tasha began, brushing a strand of wet hair from her face, “you’re not a bad man. You’re just not” she hesitated, “enough. You’re not the kind of man who wins.”

The words landed like a hammer to his ribs. He blinked, trying to keep his voice from breaking. “You mean I’m not the kind who uses people.”

“Don’t twist it,” she said. “You were supposed to lead. Protect. But you let everyone walk all over you. That’s not strength. That’s weakness.”

“Funny,” he murmured. “Because my weakness was loving someone who measured worth in status.”

The car door opened. Derrick stepped out, umbrella in hand, dressed like he was walking into a boardroom instead of someone’s wreckage. “Alright, sis,” he said smoothly, “I think he gets the picture.”

“Stay out of this, Derrick,” Malik said, voice low.

Derrick smiled. “Man, I’m already in it. You took my sister down with your broke dreams, now you’re blaming her because you couldn’t handle business? Come on, bro.”

“Bro?” Malik’s laugh was bitter. “You scammed me. You and your little partner sold me a fake contract and left me holding the bag.”

“Allegedly,” Derrick said, shrugging. “That’s business, Malik. You should’ve read the fine print.”

Tasha looked away. That tiny motion, guilt in her eyes, told Malik everything. She knew. She’d always known.

“So you knew it was a setup,” he said softly. “You watched them take everything from me, and you said nothing.”

She met his gaze, defiant but trembling. “I was trying to survive.”

“By destroying me?”

“By not drowning with you!” she shouted, the rain muffling her words. “You think I wanted this? You think I wanted to watch my husband fail while everyone whispered I married beneath me?”

Malik stared at her. For a long, hollow moment, the sound of traffic drowned out everything else. Then he said quietly, “No. You just wanted to be proud again. Even if it meant killing what little pride I had left.”

Derrick clapped his hands once. “Alright, show’s over. Malik, be a man. Sign the divorce papers, let Tasha move on. I got a meeting at seven.”

Malik’s eyes never left her face. “That’s what this was about, huh? Clean break. You couldn’t just leave. You needed a scene. You needed to bury me.”

She swallowed hard. “I didn’t want it to end like this.”

“But you still brought an audience.”

Rainwater slid down his cheek, or maybe it wasn’t rain anymore. He couldn’t tell.

When he finally spoke, his voice was calm, too calm. “You know what hurts most, Tasha? It’s not that you stopped believing in me. It’s that you started believing them.”

He turned toward the shop one last time, eyes tracing the ghost of what could’ve been. The silence stretched until it felt like it might break something in both of them.

Then Derrick said lightly, “Let’s go, sis. We’re done here.”

Malik didn’t look back when the car doors shut. He stood in the rain until the BMW’s taillights disappeared down the street, red fading into black. Only then did he let his breath go, slow, controlled, shaking.

Inside the shop, his phone buzzed against the counter. Another notification. The bank. Account closed.

He picked up the cracked screen, scrolled through the zeros that used to mean hope, and set it down again. The shop lights flickered once and went out completely.

He leaned against the wall, the darkness folding around him. “Not the kind of man who wins,” he whispered, the words turning to steam in the cold air. “Alright.”

Outside, thunder rolled low over the city, distant, almost respectful. He reached for his jacket, found the old photograph tucked in the pocket: him and Tasha at the shop opening, grease on his hands, light in her eyes.

For a second, he almost smiled. Then he tore it cleanly in half and dropped it on the counter. A knock echoed from the doorway. Soft. Hesitant.

He turned, frowning. A young courier stood there, hood up, holding an envelope against his chest.

“Mr. Carter?” the kid asked. “You’re Malik Carter, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Guy said to drop this off. Said it was urgent.”

Malik took it, sliding his thumb under the seal. Inside, a simple sheet of paper, printed with a company logo he didn’t recognize. “Notice of Termination – Carter’s Auto & Detail. Property ownership transferred.”

At the bottom, a signature. Derrick Moore.

The room seemed to tilt. Malik read it again, slower this time, his pulse steadying instead of rising. Something inside him hardened, quietly, permanently. The courier shifted awkwardly. “You okay, sir?”

Malik looked up, rain still tracing down his face. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I’m good.”

But his voice carried something different now. Something cold. Something beginning. He folded the paper once, slid it into his jacket, and turned off the last light switch by the door.

The street outside glowed under the rain, neon signs bleeding across puddles like fire. He locked the door behind him and didn’t look back.