Chapter 21
Yuna
“I Wasn’t Healing. I Was Being Held”
It had been three weeks already.
Three weeks in a Calabasas penthouse Zay owned. Three weeks of floor-to-ceiling glass, marble counters, and silence so loud it felt like punishment. Three weeks of my mother showing up every morning like clockwork, sitting on the edge of the bed like I was five again.
Only I wasn’t five.
And she wasn’t gentle.
“Get up,” she would say.
“Drink this.”
“Take this.” .
“Eat.”
I didn’t eat.
I barely slept.
I had nightmares, cold sweats, tremors, and mental breakdowns.
I stayed in the bathroom with the water running so hot it turned my skin red. I’d sit in the tub until my fingers wrinkled, then move to the shower and let it hit my back until my thoughts slowed down.
She kept trying to give me methadone.
I kept refusing.
“I’m not trading one chain for another,” I told her.
So instead, I drank.
And smoked up Zay’s weed like it was a savior.
Anything to quiet the itch under my skin for harder drugs.
Today was different though.
Today I had to leave.
It was my favorite aunt’s birthday brunch. The only aunt that didn’t look at me like I was broken glass. She was having it big- pastel dresses and champagne energy. All the IT women from LA that my mom and aunt hung around with would be there.
My favorite cousin heard I was back home.
So she came early to help me get ready.
When she walked in the room and saw me, she froze.
I knew why.
I was ten times smaller than I had ever been. Smaller than when I ran high school track. Smaller than when I played college basketball. My cheekbones were sharp. Dark circles sat under my eyes. My skin was breaking out from stress and detox.
My teeth were all still there.
But they weren’t pretty anymore.
“Yuna…” she whispered.
“Don’t,” I said flatly.
She didn’t push.
She just started pulling out the veils I’d ordered. Expensive ones. Silk. Black. Deep burgundy. Champagne cream.
I didn’t like makeup anymore.
Gloss was enough.
A veil covered the rest.
Dark dress. Fitted. Structured. Elegant enough to look intentional.
I stared at myself in the mirror.
I looked like mourning.
“Ready?” my cousin asked softly.
“No,” I said.
But I walked anyway.
$$$$$
Security was posted at every exit of the building.
I didn’t notice it at first.
But when we got downstairs, and I saw the same two men from yesterday shift positions when I moved, I understood.
I wasn’t staying here for my health.
I was being kept.
And I didn’t even know why they wanted me home so bad.
We drove to the brunch in the back of my father’s Rolls.
When we got there, it was music.
Laughter.
Champagne flutes clinking.
My aunt ran up and hugged me like nothing in the world was wrong.
“Look at you,” she beamed.
I smiled under the veil.
I stayed quiet.
I lasted twenty-seven minutes before my grandfather, Devon Wells Sr., tapped my shoulder.
“Come with us.”
It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
The tone was enough.
They led me down a narrow hallway and into an office at the back of the venue. The door shut behind us with a quiet click that felt louder than the music outside.
My father.
My grandfather.
Three uncles.
Two elders I had only seen at funerals.
Men who did not attend brunches unless something serious was happening.
The room smelled like cigar smoke and cologne. Old money and old decisions.
I stayed standing.
“What is this?” I asked.
No one smiled.
My father stepped forward as if he had rehearsed this speech in his head a hundred times.
“Yuna, my baby girl,” he said carefully, “We have some things to discuss, and your last name is one of them.
I glared at him, confused.
“Your last name is not what you think it is.”
I stared at him, waiting for the punchline.
“Stop.”
“You are a Laveau.”
I laughed once, sharp and dry.
“That’s not funny. Who the fuck are the Laveau’s?”
“It’s not a joke,” my grandfather replied, voice even. “And it is not new.”
The air in the room shifted. I could feel it pressing in on my ribs.
“You were raised under another name for protection,” my father continued. “We kept you removed from the Laveau title so you could grow up outside of it. Outside of what it requires.”
“And what exactly does it require?” I asked.
My grandfather leaned slightly on his cane, studying me.
“It requires strength. And requires you to marry into a prominent family in France that the family has to align with.”
“To marry?” I turned up my nose.
My father exhaled slowly, like he knew this was the part that changed everything.
“Yes, marry. The Laveau name sits at the center of Black organized power on the West Coast, and you hold the key to keep us up and running.”
My throat tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” my uncle said, speaking for the first time, “when disputes happen between sets, between crews, between families, they are brought to us. When money moves through ports and warehouses, it passes through channels we built. When politicians need neighborhoods to stay quiet, they speak to men who speak to us.”
I felt my pulse in my ears.
“You’re telling me my family runs gangs?”
“We run structure,” my grandfather corrected calmly. “Gangs are reckless. We built order. We built hierarchy. We built an empire that does not crumble because one man is emotional.”
“And you kept that from me?” I asked, looking at my father.
“We kept you away from blood,” he said. “You have no idea how many retaliations were postponed because you were alive.”
The room went silent after that.
My stomach dropped slowly instead of all at once.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means your existence prevented war,” my grandfather said. “The Delacroix’s and the Laveaus have not been aligned in decades. There were killings. There were betrayals. There were losses on both sides.”
The name hit.
Delacroix.
“They are not simply a rival family,” my father continued. “They are the European branch of an international network. Ports in France. Real estate holdings across Italy. Shipping routes that move more than luxury goods.”
“And we’ve been at war with them?”
“Cold war,” my uncle answered. “Long, quiet, expensive.”
My mouth felt dry.
“And you think marrying me one of them fixes that?”
“It does more than fix it,” my grandfather said. “It seals it. Blood to blood. Heir to heir.”
I looked at my father as if I didn’t recognize him.
“So this is strategy?”
“This is survival,” he said.
“You’ve survived just fine without me.”
“Barely,” he replied, and that honesty irritated me more than if he had lied. “The older generation are dying. The younger men are impatient. Violence is easier than diplomacy. A marriage binds what contracts cannot.”
“And I’m the contract.”
“You are the bridge,” my grandfather corrected.
“No,” I snapped. “I’m a body.”
“You are the only daughter of the Laveau bloodline,” he said firmly. “Your brothers carry the name forward in power. You carry it forward in permanence.”
The words felt rehearsed.
Like this had been decided before I ever knew who I was.
“You bred me for this,” I said, my voice shaking now despite how hard I was trying to stay steady. “You let me think I had choices. I think you are all more full of shit than I thought.”
“That’s enough,” my grandfather said sharply.
“No, it’s not enough. You don’t get to package this like it’s noble.”
“It is noble,” he replied. “Do you think the Delacroix son has a choice? Do you think their heir asked to inherit blood? This is not a fairy tale. Empires do not survive on feelings.”
“And what happens if I refuse?”
Silence.
Real silence this time.
My father answered.
“You won't.”
“Oh, I will.”
“If you refuse, you’re not just refusing a man. You’re destabilizing two networks. You are inviting war back into neighborhoods that have been quiet because of negotiations already in place.”
“So you’re threatening me with bodies?”
“I am telling you the truth.”
My hands were shaking now, and I hated that they could see it.
“And what exactly does marrying a Delacroix give you?”
“Access,” my uncle said. “Port control. European legitimacy. Federal insulation. A global alliance that makes it very expensive for anyone to challenge us.”
“And what does it give them?”
“A foothold in American territory without resistance,” my grandfather said. “They gain protection here. We gain expansion there.”
I laughed again, but it came out broken.
“Enough of the back and forth. You have to marry, and it’s final,” my father said finally. “You will go to Marseille, France, in a week. You will meet him formally.”
“I am not marrying anybody.”
“This is bigger than you.”
That was it.
That was the crack.
I stormed toward the door before my emotions betrayed me further.
Before they saw tears.
Before they saw fear.
Before they saw that somewhere under the anger, I understood exactly how serious this was.
And that scared me more than anything they said.
I stormed toward the door.
And Zay caught me before I made it three steps outside.
“Move,” I snapped.
He didn’t.
“Yuna, stop.”
“Get out of my way.”
“It’s Ares.”
My body froze.
“What?”
“It’s Ares Delacroix you have to marry.”
Rage flooded in so fast it burned.
“Then that’s even worse.”
He grabbed my arm when I tried to push past him again.
“I’m not doing this,” I told him.
He lost patience and pinned me to the wall. His hand was under my chin, forcing me to look at him.
“Listen to me. You are going to get clean and do as I say from here on out, now that you know what’s happening.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I am nobody’s pawn.”
“You are,” he said coldly. “Now embrace it.”
I stared at him like he had betrayed me.
“This marriage is bigger than you,” he continued. “I got other shit going on. I’m about to take over. Get rid of the old heads. I need you to fall in line.”
He let me go.
Walked away.
I sat in the backseat of my father’s Rolls after that.
Door closed.
Tinted windows.
I cried while smoking a blunt.
Not cute tears.
Ugly ones.
He opened the door and slid in beside me.
“You’re my babygirl,” he said quietly.
I turned my face away.
“But your life does not come before what needs to happen.”
That sentence hit different.
True in his world.
He stepped out of the car and shut the door.
Left me there.
In shambles.
Later that night, I stood on the balcony.
Joint between my fingers.
My body craving meth.
Fighting it.
Losing.
Winning.
Losing again.
I went inside and grabbed my sketchpad.
Sat on the floor.
Started drawing a wedding ceremony.
Long aisle.
White flowers.
Two figures at the front.
I shaded the groom darker.
Made the bride small.
Veil covering her face.
I stared at it for a long time.
But I ripped it out.
Tore it into pieces.
And tossed the paper over the balcony.
Watched it fall.
Like confetti for a funeral.
I wasn’t ready.
And nobody had asked me if I was okay.