Page 38 of Collateral Love
And the other version of me woke up.
Not reckless.
Not loud.
Just inevitable.
Our phones began ringing.
Mine rang first, then X’s.
That meant the soldiers were ready.
Despite my anger, I couldn’t help but admire what Kenya and I built, an empire with lieutenants and fixers. Men who owed favors that they wouldn’t forget they owed.
Kenya and I paid for hundreds of our crew’s kids to go to college. We paid for braces, weddings, and Maseratis to take their ungrateful ass kids to prom. YaYa believed that when you were good to people, they remembered, and they returned the favor. Our village believes she was the kind, doting wife who begged me to help when she was the Queen who controlled and protected everyone on the chessboard.
This wasn’t a street call.
It was a recall.
“Lock the ports,” I said. “Freeze anything tied to Charles or his crew’s money.”
“Pull his safe houses.”
“Done.”
Charles’ family were attorneys above ground, well-respected and revered in Crestwood, but behind closed doors, they moved weapons and traded them for millions. They weren’t just in the business of guns. They moved heroin and coke, too.
“Safe houses have already been hit,” X replied.
“Anyone he loves?” I asked.
Channy answered that. “He loves control.”
“So we take that first,” I said.
Kenya would’ve approved.
I stared at the wall-sized screen that played a video of Kenya’s face from earlier today. The screen showed her face mid-motion—jaw clenched, eyes alive, calculating.
“She’s not broken,” Channy said quietly.
“Channy, your sister is a lot of things,” I said. “But weak has never been one of them.”
“I know.”
“She’s buying time.”
X looked at me. “You ready to do what comes next?”
I thought of the twins asleep at their grandparents house with my niece, Genesis. I thought of Kenya’s laugh echoing through halls that felt hollow now. I thought of a man who believed nostalgia made him dangerous.
“I never stopped being ready,” I said. “I just stopped needing to be seen.”
The room already knew what time it was.
“First pressure point?” I asked.
