Page 49 of Collateral Love
Dr. Alan Price from the economics department. He was in his mid-forties, divorced, and had a gambling problem. YaYa chose him for this reason, so we had something to blackmail him with if he got out of line. He taught two of the kids moving for us. The motherfucka thought he was smarter than everyone because he knew how to speak in circles.
YaYa clocked him after noticing a pattern shift in camera coverage near the west parking structure.
“Security didn’t change their routes,” she told me. “But their blind spots did.”
“Are you saying the guards are crooked?” I asked.
“No,” she replied. “I’m saying someone told them where not to look.”
That narrowed the field fast.
She pulled faculty schedules, cross-referenced badge access, and mapped movement during our drop windows. When the professor’s name surfaced, she didn’t react.
She just stared at the screen.
“He’s watching,” she said.
I leaned back in my chair. “You want him scared or gone?”
She shook her head. “I want him contained.”
That was new. YaYa typically wanted no loose ends.
“You sure?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said calmly. “If we remove him too fast, people ask questions. If we box him in, he tells on himself.”
I studied her then.
This wasn't a theory to her.
This was practice.
We let the professor think he was winning.
For three weeks, we shifted drops slightly, just enough to make him think his pressure worked. He started asking questions in class that sounded innocent but weren’t. Dropping hints about ethics and accountability.
Kenya recorded all of their conversations. When he would ask her to stay late after class and make suggestive hints, as if he were cornering her.
One night, she called me to the engineering building after midnight.
Her voice was steady, but tight.
“He followed me,” she said.
That snapped something loose in my chest.
“You good?” I asked, already grabbing my keys.
“Yes,” she replied. “But this is where we end it.”
I found her in a lab, lights low, laptop open. She looked tired for the first time since I’d known her.
“Talk to me,” I said.
“He cornered me outside the south lot,” she said. “He didn’t threaten me, but he did try to scare me. He told me he knew my no good street boyfriend put me up to this and that I was ‘involved’ and that I should consider protecting my future.”
I clenched my jaw. “He touch you?”
