Chapter 37
“I’m here,” Reign spoke, walking out of the house as Nia was in mid-knock. “I was trying to finish getting dressed.”
Nia rolled her eyes. “Oh, that’s the story y’all came up with? Getting dressed?”
“I told her to chill,” Svyn spoke from the other side of the stoop, smirking in amusement. “I almost made a cool G off of her. You couldn’t hold off three more minutes?”
“I’m going to ignore that,” Reign rolled her eyes playfully at Nia and then turned to Svyn. “The problem is you keep betting on me, and I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“Feel great because you’re turning my nigga inside out, ain’t seen him like this in a long time,” Svyn spoke.
“Mmhmm,” Nia buzzed. “Look at this nigga.”
Reign’s attention turned to Markus, propped in the door faux irritation on his face. “Y’all did all the gahdamn banging on my door to have my girl out in the cold gossiping about me?”
Nia and Svyn shared a silly look before Nia huffed. “Dammit, Markus, can you ever just shut the fuck up? Huh? Like, at any point does your top lip touch your muhfuckin’ bottom?”
“How do you interrupt us and want me to shut up at my house?” Markus posed, stepping down to drape Reign’s coat over her shoulders. “Cussin’ me out on my stoop? You know I put niggas down for less.”
Markus turned to Reign and gave her a quick kiss. “You know what I’m on when I get home.”
Reign giggled and shook her head.
“Oh, it’s your house now, Money?” Svyn questioned his eyes on Nia. “You hear that, Nia? His stoop.”
“Don’t,” she warned, trekking down the stairs to the awaiting JoyRide. “Come on, Reign.”
“Reign, don’t keep her out too long; she’s got to pay up,” Svyn shared, licking his lips. “I’ll be home before midnight, Nia.”
“It’s not your house!” Nia pushed her middle finger in the air before climbing into the SUV.
“You called me daddy in it. It’s my house,” Svyn chuckled, watching as Nia waited until Reign slid in, reached over her, and closed the door.
Reign looked at Nia, amusement etched on her face. “You called him daddy in it? Where in it so I don’t sit there anymore?”
“I didn’t call that nigga daddy,” Nia lied, trying to nip a knowing smirk. “This isn’t even about me, Susie Come Lately.”
“Susie Comes on Time, thank you,” Reign quipped. “You, your daddy, and your bullheaded brother have got to stop betting on me. You and Markus are losing a ass of money,” Reign spoke with a soft chuckle.
Nia rolled her eyes. “He baited me, now I gotta be up all night taking dick.”
“And you’re complaining?” Reign asked, watching the corners of Nia’s mouth quirk. “Uh huh. Just can’t get enough. Why you playing with him?”
“I’m not playing with him,” Nia huffed. “I’m just…”
“Scared?”
“Out of my mind. And don’t look at me like that,” Nia huffed.
Reign chuckled. “I’m not looking at you like anything. I knew that tough exterior was a front. You soft as cashmere.”
“So was that mute and unassuming one you had,” Nia replied, brow raised. “You got more heart than a lot of these niggas.”
“That wasn’t a front,” Reign spoke up with a shrug. “I hadn’t been safe for years. I wanted to make sure that was the case.”
Nia smiled softly. “Funny how there are similarities here.”
Nia paused and huffed. She was burdened. “Cyn can’t get that. She didn’t grow up like me and Money, or even Svyn and the other two idiots. She can’t get why I’m guarded. Or why these streets in this life and all of its danger are okay with me.”
“I understand,” Reign shared. “This life comes with a lot, and when you have had your heart tattered, you have to be careful. But I’m learning that when it comes to the right hands, you don’t need the guard. Suddenly, danger isn’t front and center anymore.”
“Not you let Money in and you’re getting deep on me,” Nia joked. “I feel you, though.”
“I think Svyn loves you. He knows how to talk to you past your guard,” Reign assured Nia’s silent thoughts with a smile.
Nia looked down at her hands and smiled. “He does. He has, for a long time, I just tried to avoid it at all costs. Like you did in the beginning. That shit is warm, isn’t it? Has Money even been back to his spot?”
“Mm mm, actually no,” Reign shared. “Every night like clockwork in the kitchen with food and demands.”
“I told you,” Nia said with a smile. “You did something to him. He loves you.”
“Alright, that’s enough,” Reign refuted the statement with a wave of her hand. She was refusing to even let her mind run off on that tangent. “A girls’ lunch with Aunt G and Cyn isn’t invited, what’s that about? Is this issue with Cyn that deep?”
“It’s that deep, along with the fact that Aunt G can’t stand her. It’s a consensus between my aunts and Ms. O. They feel like Cyn is a weak link.”
“What do you feel about it?” Reign asked, leaving her personal feelings or the lack thereof about Cyn out of it.
“I feel like up until now I knew my best friend. Now, I’m not sure if I ever knew her at all. What I hate the most is that if I’m right, I’ve exposed all of us.”
“Is that what this lunch is about?” Reign quizzed.
“Yes and no. With the mayor out of the way, we need to control the next one, especially if Money is getting this pipeline,” Nia shared.
Reign’s brows fuse. “So I need to be there because?”
“You can sell a tree air,” Nia replied. “I’ve watched you with clients. Numbers don’t lie, and I’m not going to let you play small. You got a superpower. The only one who can’t see it yet is you. That, and also you love him.”
“I-”
“That’s between you two. I said that to say you’ll move with his best interest at heart, and I’ve learned what’s best for him is what’s best for all of us.
And you’re a leader. There’s only so long you can be in the shadows.
That brother of mine might have all the power, but you have vision, and he’s been blind for a long time.
Fueled by rage. You calm his system, and you do it for nothing in return. So you’re in it.”
“Like in it?”
Nia smiled. “In it, deep.”
When the pair arrived at the restaurant, they were immediately greeted and escorted to Aunt G and her guest.
“Ladies,” Aunt G crooned, standing to greet Nia and Reign as the receptionist escorted them over to the crisp white linen-covered table where Aunt G and another woman were seated.
The Majestic Club was for the elite. It was where deals were made, laws were conjured up, and the city's movers and shakers came up with their next plans and pivots. For Aunt G to invite her niece and Reign here for lunch only meant she had something up her sleeve.
Nia hugged her first, and Reign followed suit.
“Thank you for having me,” Reign spoke as if she had years of etiquette training.
In a sense, she did. Javier would parade her around, make the men he wanted to do business with dote on her beauty, but there was always a class she held, even when put in public situations that were set to control her.
Funny how she held the power this entire time and never knew it.
“I’m happy you could join us. Both of you work so much,” Aunt G said before taking a seat. “This is Roslyn Harper, our candidate for Mayor.”
Reign couldn’t ignore how Aunt G emphasized our.
Reign was quickly learning that these women she was surrounded by weren’t just playing their roles, they were the role, the table, the house, the motion, and motive behind the men in the forefront.
Aunt G’s husband may have been the chief of police, but she was his chief. The controller.
Nia smiled politely, knowing where this lunch was going. Most lunches with her aunt were about the business. While the men handled the streets and the undertow of the current, Aunt G was going to teach them how to keep things flowing.
“I’ve heard a lot of good things about your work,” Nia shared.
Roslyn smiled. “I did a lot of it with your aunt’s help. Decreasing homelessness, placing battered women and their children in safe houses.”
Reign’s ears turned up. “Excuse me if I’m overstepping, but what’s the punishment for their abusers?”
“If I’m mayor, I plan on prosecuting them to the full extent of the law,” Roslyn shared with an amused chuckle.
Reign was starting to like that, being underestimated.
Aunt G smirked into her glass of water. “Roslyn, this is Markus’ lady. She’s going to be a force.”
Nia chimed, “already is if we’re being honest. And her question is valid. The full extent is only five to ten years, while the homes of men and women are being raided for simple possession. Under Mayor Norman’s agenda, crime was actually higher than it was before.”
“Considering that he died by the gun he was trying to eliminate, I’d say his agenda wasn’t strong enough,” Roslyn spoke, making Reign chime in.
“I’d say it was outright weak. While I’m not Majestic Heights born and raised, I’m a victim of his loosely thought-through agenda.
He didn’t pull the rats from the sewers.
They buried themselves in deeper, more crime to make up for the drought on the streets.
More violence for the sake of survival. If you disrupt one part of the ecosystem, you have to be able to stabilize it somewhere else.
It’s science,” Reign shared. “The streets are merely a formula. The business done in the dark funds businesses, dreams, and economies of families who would be homeless without it. Considering you’ve worked so hard to get it to an all-time low, I’m sure you don’t want to start from scratch with a group who would be desperate to escape that reality. ”
Roslyn looked at Reign for a long time before asking, “What do you suggest I do to create balance?”
“First sell the dream. More jobs, more opportunities to propel them and their families from surviving to thriving,” Reign spoke.
“What you’ve done before is great, but it’s more of a neighborhood activist than the mayor of a city with over nine million souls.
How are you going to convert forty-six percent?
That’s four hundred thousand people who need to believe in what you’re selling.
People don’t care about women as much as they claim they do.
Especially black women. You’re a black woman and you need the men in this city to believe what you’re saying and believe that they’re still going to be on top. ”
“What’s second?”
“You’ll need an endorsement from a man they trust, someone who's created jobs for them. Your only opponent is the lieutenant governor, and word in the shop is that no one believes he’s capable of running this city. Do you know who runs this city? Outside of Chief Garrett?”
“Luciano is dead,” Roslyn spoke arrogantly, expecting that to be the answer.
“It’s my understanding that all of Luciano’s territories belong to someone else whose been leading from the trenches longer than Luciano has been in the spotlight.
There’s about to be a surge in business.
You want the mayor’s seat, you let it come in and you support it,” Reign shared before the waiter arrived with items from the preselected menu.
“So I turn a blind eye to crime for the sake of…”
“You let the people on the streets who know the streets regulate the streets. Everyone else, you make them believe that they are safer than they have ever been. New jobs, fresh businesses, tourism increases, more women-owned businesses, less homelessness while stroking the ego of these fragile ass men who can’t see past their dicks.
Make them feel seen, heard, and safe, and that seat is as good as yours.
” Reign could sell water to a whale. It was the years of learning to survive and listening to fast-talking men get their way.
“How do I start?” Roslyn asked, prompting Aunt G and Nia to answer in tandem.
“Accept our endorsement.”
Aunt G added, “And the monthly donations to your campaign. You and I are old enough to remember how Majestic Heights was when our fathers were living and when Slim had everything under control. Money is on the path to do the same. We just need to ensure he can do that without any issue from you.”
Roslyn studied the women as if they’d given her an option.
It may have been sold like a suggestion, but it wasn’t.
If it wasn’t Roslyn, it would be someone else, and they would discard her.
She realized that although she would be in the forefront, she wouldn’t be in control.
The power wasn’t Aunt G or Nia. It was the unassuming woman who was actively coming into her own light.
While Reign held a spark, that fire Markus was fanning would be controlled, and that was the danger.
“Okay,” Roslyn agreed. “Would the seat be guaranteed?”
Aunt G smiled. “I don’t offer empty promises.”
“Then I’ll do it, but all the bodies dropping around you needs to be done silently. We can’t run a clean campaign with dead bodies,” Roslyn shared, prompting Aunt G to counter.
“We can’t run a clean campaign with a hell bent ADA and detective sniffing around. Now, you can use your influence to shut them down, or we can add them to our list of bodies. It’s completely up to you.”
“Yeah, didn’t you and this ADA step together or something?” Nia asked.
“We pledged at MFU together,” Roslyn shared.
Nia buzzed. “Well, you tell her this isn’t MFU or The Falls. We’re in The Heights. Get her together, or we will.”
Roslyn nodded. “I’ll let her know.”
Reign was the last to chime. “Make sure she understands.”