27. Chapter 27
It’s over.
Years of hard work that I had been successfully carrying out on my own, now down the drain.
Because of Vertiz Marten.
Fuck him and everything he stands for.
He took everything from me.
When Liezel walks in and see’s us gathered she says, “I got here a little early, but I didn't realize that I was going to be stopping a guillotine.”
“It's not unless Nina can figure out what she's supposed to be doing for the family and what she's not supposed to be doing,” Racquelle asserts and the stab of it is foreign from her. Each time she disregards my small contribution, I get a little smaller. Want to fight back even harder.
“She will—” Vert interjects. He puts a hand over my mouth. “—be doing everything she's told because she doesn't want to be executed on the spot for something so silly.”
This fucking vamp does not speak for me.
I could never understand why they call him that when I can’t get him to stop blabbering about me and ruining my life, it seems. He needs a new nickname. I’m thinking one that starts with ‘fuck’ and ends in ‘er’.
I stand up and move around him so that he can't talk over me again.
“What I'm doing is a noble cause, and it's not for nothing.
It's so that other girls like me don't end up in a similar position.
They don't have badass women around them to save them from the same fate.
Too many girls who look like me, Black and Brown, go missing.
No one ever finds them again. Guaranteed it's because of the kinds of men that I have been targeting.
There's no way that I could possibly give up what I'm doing when the statistics show everything is so stagnant or on the rise. There is no decline.”
Blue questions me, his voice reverberating in the room. “And you think you're gonna be able to take all of these men down by yourself?”
Swallowing, I admit the truth of the weight on my shoulders. “No, I don't think that, but I'm at least putting a dent in the number.”
Racquelle takes a really long sigh, and though I've already had this conversation with her, it appears that most of the other people at this table still look at me like I'm the one in the wrong for what I'm doing.
“All I've done has been sanctioned. Though I am my own boss, and I get to be the one to decide when and who I target, I've still been doing exactly what I've been allowed to do.
There's no reason why I should be punished when I haven't actually done anything wrong.
It's just off of what you suspect could go wrong,” Hot tears prick my eyes but I refuse to let them fall with my abandonment this time.
“Racquelle. I thought that you understood.”
Liezel comes to stand beside me. “She does, sweetheart.” Her hand is soothing on my back, but I don’t want her soothing.
I want my vengeance.
“No, she doesn't, because I've been told to be silent, to give up on all the other women who are having to grow up like me, with memories of trauma and horror that they can't erase. If we even find them again, sometimes they disappear, and we never see their bodies. Their families never get closure. Those women never get to see another day. Those girls never get to see another day.”
I'm trembling with fury because I can't let go of this so easily. Looking at Vert is no longer an option if I hope to keep my cool. My blade isn’t in my cheeks and I’m desperate to do something with my hands to protect me from the betrayal I feel.
I refuse to let go of it so easily. “It's too easy for grown ass men to take advantage of women, and for it to be pushed under the rug. It's even easier when they're not from a wealthy family, or if they are Black, or Brown, or any one of us pushed to the margins.”
The silence that sits at the table with us is heavy with the truth of my passion. There may not be statistics here but there is a truth that we all know is enough to churn your gut. These victims—we—are not just numbers. We’re people and someone should be fighting for us.
Finally Racquelle speaks. “Well, something's got to change, because you've alarmed other people within our families. There needs to be a better method, a better system, or something. I would never tell you that you have to work with the police, because we know that they're not helpful.”
And on cue, Colton comes into the room, the most non-helpful law enforcement of them all.
Liezel holds me closer to her body as Colton takes his seat, and a few other people come into the room.
Blue takes the lead and stands while more of the Griffiths filter in. “We're shelvin’ this matter for now, but since Vert was the one who brought it to our attention, it's up to you two to figure out how to make this a more beneficial task for the families, or to cut it out altogether.”
“What?” I question. “Why is it that he gets a say over what I do when I've been doing just fine this whole time?”
Blue’s jaw ticks with my rebuttal. Racquelle pats his hand and calms him down before she says, “As we've already discussed in this meeting, you haven't, and it's alarmed other people in the family, so it's either find a better solution and work together, since what you've been doing isn't efficient, or you stop altogether.”
“Stopping is not an option,” I assert.
“Okay, well, you and Vert better get real close and figure out how you can make it happen.”
And just like that, everything has been dismissed.
I send Vert a scowl that I hope he can feel down to his fucking toes.
How dare he interfere?
How dare he be keeping tabs on me and putting together some sort of fucking file?
What the fuck is his problem? And to think that I didn't kill him.
I've never had more regrets than right now.
I roll my eyes and follow Liezel to her seat beside Racquelle so that we can make it to our appropriate spots in time for everyone else to come in.
I don't want to be stuck standing. Lidia has already given up her seat so that she could stand behind Liezel, but that doesn't give enough room for all of the people who are coming into the room to have a spot to sit, and that's totally by design.
Only the people who are important enough to deserve a seat have one.
Everyone else who serve as support or security stand.
It takes me a moment to realize that Vert isn't in the seat he was supposed to be in and that he's standing behind me.
Fuck him. He's standing behind me as my security? I question, and it becomes more and more apparent that that's exactly how he stands behind me. What the fuck is his problem?
Blue speaks up once everyone has taken their place inside the room.
“Well, we're here to put this to rest in the matter of decidin’ whether or not we allow this new faction to be its own faction and honor Colton's requests. We need to hear from Liezel. Everythin’ falls on that decision.” He looks to his partner and she nods.
“Racquelle and I have decided that we don't care, as long as you don't interfere with what we have goin’ on any further. You are more than welcome to pursue your own business.” Harry and Will Griffith seem appeased by this decision.
“We'd rather you not come around and be a disruption to the loyalties that lie within our families as of now, either way.”
Harry says to the room, “I care about this family, and I'd do anythin’ to make sure that it continues to work as seamlessly and effectively as it can in its original purpose. And if all it takes to restore order is a simple marriage, then I agree.”
I hear Lidia's teeth grinding, knowing that she disagrees with Liezel's decision.
You don't have to be a long standing member of this family to understand the dynamic of a bodyguard and their charge. Long before Racquelle had decided she was going to take over the family that she knew was hers, Lidia had always stood to guard Liezel first and Racquelle second. It was a given.
“It’s up to Liezel and what she wants,” Racquelle says.
Though there was a great need to have someone who was more trusted close to Racquelle, now that she's formed her own strengths and have had her worthiness of loyalty being shown in full color, I can't imagine why Lidia would not move to guarding Liezel again.
It's been nice to have familiar faces around when we were in Louisiana, but I think there's nothing that's going to stand between Lidia and Liezel from this point forward, not when Lidia looks like she's about to break off the top rung of the chair that she's holding on to.
“I’ve decided that I stand behind my previous decision.
I agree to the marriage.” Liezel's movements are minute, but she moves her head to the side so that her full waves can fall over Lidia's hands.
To anyone, it would not be important or even register as something that should be paid attention to.
For me, someone who sees how much one cares for the other, I know that it's as much as Liezel can show in this room filled with tension.
Harry looks to his father who nods before he says, “Well, good. We'll get it in writin’ and figure out the next steps.”
“Like a wedding?” Liezel asks.
“Is that what you want?” Colton asks. I had almost forgot the man was here. He had been so quiet up until this point
Liezel's eyes narrow on the man, and I get the feeling that she knows Colton better than we assumed. More than a client or a regular at the club.
Far better, actually.
“I don't think what I want really matters at all at this point,” Liezel says flippantly. That's when Colton stands from his spot at the table to come around and stand beside Liezel.
Lidia hasn't released her death grip on the chair, but instead moves to position herself between the man and her charge.
Liezel places a hand over Lidia, and she seems to snap back into her own realization that she's out of line right now, and regardless of whether Liezel is Colton's wife or not, he is a member of this family that ranks higher than her.
I don't know how high, but her not showing the proper deference would look bad on both families.
Lidia steps aside reluctantly to allow Colton to come closer to Liezel.
Though we're in a room full of people, Colton doesn't seem to recognize that the words he's saying are meant for a private conversation instead of one to be had at this table.
“If a wedding is what you want, that's what I'll give you.
If you just want to consummate the thing and keep it moving, I'm cool with that too.
But as long as you're wearing my ring, I don't really give a fuck how we announce to the world that you belong to me.”
He kisses the back of her hand, and it's obvious that she wants to recoil, but doesn't want to make a scene, since this is meant to be an agreement that she is a part of.
I'm not sure what to do. To see someone who I care about so deeply agree to do something she so clearly doesn't want to do—feels like she has to do—twists something in my stomach that I can't make sense of.
Harry isn’t interested in whatever is happening between Liezel and Colton now. To the table he says, “All right. Well, if there's no further matters, let's discuss how we can be of use to each other moving forward.”
In a matter of less than an hour, everything has changed. I’m angsty and desperate to get away from all this. I need a second to process.
Vert’s voice is clear, before I get the chance to have a break down. His warm palm is on my bicep, “Could you give us a minute?”