Page 8 of Collateral Love
“You got someone backing you?” he asked.
I held his gaze.
“No,” I said. “I’ve got myself.”
Something like respect flickered across his face. Not loud. Not obvious. But real.
“You know my brother’s reputation,” he said. “You know mine. You know what happens if you cross us.”
“Yes,” I said. “And you know what happens if you don’t listen to me. We both go fuckin’ down.”
He smiled then.
A predator recognizing another one.
“You always walk into rooms like this?” he asked.
“Only when I intend to own them.”
Silence stretched again, thick and charged.
Finally, he stood.
“You’re an engineer,” he said, more statement than question.
“Yes.”
“And you’re telling me you want to build something,” he continued. “Not just hustle.”
“I’m telling you I already am,” I said.
He nodded once.
“Alright, Kenya,” he said. “We’ll try it your way.”
Try.
The word hung between us, loaded.
He turned to leave, then paused.
“You know this changes things,” he said. “Once you step into this, you don’t get to step back out. You’re collateral now.”
I didn’t look away.
“I’ve been stepping into things people don’t survive since I was a kid,” I said. “This is just math.”
He watched me for another second, then walked off, disappearing between the shelves like a shadow.
I sat there long after he was gone, my pulse steady, my mind already ten moves ahead.
Because this wasn’t about money.
It was about control.
And for the first time, I wasn’t just protecting the world I came from, I was building a new one where I wasn’t ignored but at the center.
I packed my bag, slid my chair back in quiet increments, and folded myself into the stacks as if I belonged there.
