31. JUSTICE
JUSTICE
Skye had been getting good at avoiding me and it was starting to irk me. But life was dragging me in different directions. We were making headway with the Freetown construction and would soon have a ground-breaking party.
Even though things were picking up with the business, I couldn’t keep her off of my mind. And damn I wanted her gone. I hadn’t felt these kinds of feelings since Monica. I hated the way that woman got under my skin and stayed there.
In an effort to bridge the gap between me and Storie, I decided to let her in on what we were building. She hadn’t seen Freetown yet, but she needed to since she was my legacy.
“I’m so excited to see it! I tell my friends all the time that you’re building a new city,” she said as we eased down the highway.
“Yeah, I’m doing this for you and Dream. I don’t want you to ever struggle or want for anything. Freetown will set you up for generational wealth.”
“How many buildings will they’ll be?”
“Right now, we’re starting with two high-rises, 50 single family homes and five garden-style apartments.
Then there is the downtown district, we’re rehabbing.
They’ll be a bank, grocery store, pharmacy, office buildings, restaurants and boutiques.
But the land is huge and will continue to grow over the years. It’ll become its own little enclave.”
“Can I be the mayor?” She laughed.
“One day,” I winked. “You know, Rita is at the heart of this. She and my grandfather’s business is why we’re able to do this. It started as bootlegging and numbers running. Then grew into Banks Reserve and now look at us. Banks Reserve is international. The casino is booming.”
“Wow. I’m apart of that legacy, huh.”
“Yep. And you need to know something. Family looks out for one another. If you don’t take care of family, you fail. You fall. So always look out for Dream. Look out for your lil cousins. And always protect the Banks name because it’ll protect you,” I said to her.
The site itself hit different once we turned off the main road.
Chain-link fencing wrapped the perimeter, and every twenty feet a banner hung off it with HARLOW CONSTRUCTION stamped across it in bold black letters, the same logo stitched onto every hard hat lined up on the folding table near the entrance.
Seeing our name and his name both up on that fence at the same time did something to my chest I hadn’t expected.
Freetown wasn’t a dream anymore. It was steel and permits and a man’s name standing right next to ours, which meant it was real.
Quest and Prime were already out there when we walked up, both of them in hard hats that looked ridiculous on men who usually wore tailored everything, laughing about something between themselves before they caught sight of us.
“There he is.” Quest clapped my hand and pulled me in for a shoulder bump. “And look who he brought.”
“Hey uncle Quest.” Storie gave him a hug.
That’s when Roman Harlow came around the front of his crew, hand already extended before he even reached me.
“Justice. It’s a big day.”
“Been a long time coming.” I turned Storie toward him. “This is my oldest, Storie.”
“Pleasure.” Roman shook her hand too, warm about it, nothing off in his face at all. “You have a good father. I see that you got his ways.”
Storie smiled up at him, polite, said thank you, nothing more than any well-raised kid would say to a grown man being kind to her at her father’s job site.
I felt my chest swell watching it, a man I respected complimenting my daughter without a single ounce of the slick, oily energy I’d learned young to watch for in men who came around family.
Roman didn’t have a drop of that in him.
Just good business, good manners, a partner worth having.
Quest had three shovels leaned up against the site trailer already, still wrapped in plastic, and he handed one to me and one to Prime.
“Storie can do the honors,” Prime said, holding the third one out to her. “Somebody under thirty ought to be the one to break this ground.”
She took it, a little unsure what to do with it, and I found myself grinning wider than I had in longer than I wanted to admit, watching my oldest child stand on ground her great-grandmother’s moonshine and numbers money had bought us the right to build on.
“Grandma Rita would want you to do it,” I told her. “Go on.”
She dug the shovel in, turned over one clean scoop of dirt, and looked up at the three of us like she wasn’t sure if she’d done it right. Quest let out a laugh and clapped once. Prime shook his head, smiling.
“That’s it, baby girl,” I said. “That’s Freetown, right there.”
My voice caught a little on the last part, thinking about Rita at home instead of standing here with us, her mind slipping a little more every week, missing the one afternoon she’d probably worked the hardest in her life to see happen.
Quest caught it too. He put a hand on my shoulder and didn’t say anything.
Roman found me again before we left, shook my hand a second time and told me Harlow’s crew would break ground for real come Monday.
I thanked him, told him the Banks family didn’t forget who showed up when it mattered.
We talked timelines another few minutes, nothing that needed remembering past the day itself.
Storie was quiet on the drive home, staring out the window with her phone in her lap, and I let her have the quiet.
Legacy day. My grandmother’s empire going all the way legitimate, dirt in the ground with my own name on the deed and my brothers standing shoulder to shoulder with me to see it happen.
My daughter beside me acting like a daughter again, the one who turned the first shovel of it herself.
We got home a little after seven, and once Storie disappeared upstairs I went looking for Skye.
I found Skye out back, sitting on the porch steps with a cup of tea she hadn’t touched, staring off at nothing in particular. This was the first time I’d gotten her alone in days. I’d been working late and then she was straight up avoiding me by always being near Dream or Rita.
“You good?” I asked, easing down onto the step beside her.
“Long day with Rita.” She glanced over at me, and whatever she saw on my face made her sit up a little straighter. “Something’s got you looking lighter.”
“Broke ground on Freetown today. Storie turned the first shovel herself.”
“Justice, that’s huge.” Her face opened up, genuinely happy for me, and it hit different than anybody else’s congratulations had all day, because this was a woman who had no reason on this earth to care about my business and cared anyway.
“I’m surprised you all didn’t have a party for this.”
“We will. There’ll be so many celebrations in the future for that place. But we’ll have a ground breaking party soon.”
“This is so exciting.”
“Come here.”
She didn’t argue. She climbed into my lap right there on the back steps, her arms going around my neck, and I kissed her slow at first, then not slow at all, a day’s worth of wanting her finally getting somewhere to go.
She kissed me back just as hungry, her fingers already working the buttons on my shirt before I’d even gotten both hands full of her.
“Somebody could see us out here,” she said against my mouth, not stopping.
“Then let’s not stay out here.”
“I can’t. One of those days…” she said, alluding to her period. Which I didn’t give a fuck about, but I let it slide.
“Stop fighting me.”
“I’m not.”
“Uh huh,” I said as I leaned back. She was building a wall up around me and I would stop at nothing to tear it down.