NINE #2
Two men stood outside in black suit jackets with earpieces tucked discreetly into their ears.
A small group of women posed near the door, laughing too loudly.
Their dresses too short for the chill in the air.
She hoped that they didn’t catch a cold.
Music thumped from the inside, deep enough to vibrate faintly through the truck, but she wasn’t in the mood to dance.
“Yes,” Nina said, grabbing her purse. “This shouldn’t take long.”
Inside, the club was darker than she remembered.
Security knew exactly who she was, so she figured that someone was alerting the boss that his woman was here.
It was rather difficult to not ask them how many bitches had the same access that she did.
Nina moved through the room with grace. If Mr. Gotti were watching her on the cameras, he wouldn’t be able to tell that she was hurting on the inside.
She couldn’t wait to see his facial expressions in person.
He’d been calling her throughout the day, and each one went to voicemail.
As far as he was concerned, she was busy working.
Nina had to cut back on being so readily available.
The way her mind had wandered all day about his past whereabouts…
the tables were about to turn. Kobie was just a call away.
Jio better buckle up for the ride because payback was a bitch named Nina.
She scanned the VIP sections first.
No Jio.
Her eyes moved toward the bar.
No Jio.
The private lounge.
Still no Jio.
Her irritation increased, but only because she knew that he’d been notified by now that she was in the building. The last text he sent her was, “At the club if you call and I don’t answer. Moving around boo.”
Nina didn’t respond. She was thankful for his location though. She called it a night with Danyelle and headed to VIBES.
She had come ready to burn down a room and the man she planned to confront wasn’t even inside it.
“Nina?”
Her stomach dropped. Not because the voice belonged to a made man, but because it sounded oddly familiar. She turned slowly and saw three people from law school standing near a high-top table with cocktails in their hands and bright recognition on their faces.
There were few things more humbling than running into people from your ambitious era while actively making a fool of yourself.
“Nina Marcelle,” one of the women said, smiling wide. “Oh my god, look at you!” She said it as if it had been years since they last saw each other when graduation wasn’t too long ago.
Nina’s face transformed instantly. The anger disappeared and the hurt tucked itself away.
The polished mask slid into place so smoothly that it almost scared her.
“Metraaaaa,” she said warmly, stepping forward to hug her.
“It’s good to see y’all!”
Nina kicked off a series of hugs, fake kisses at the corners of cheeks, and compliments about each other’s hair, perfume, and shoes, the typical dance for this classification of colleagues.
Nina was good at it. What she wasn’t too skilled in was checkin’ a nigga about another woman.
Was this a reminder from God that she needed to stay in her lane?
The lane that would keep her out of jail.
Nina was about to risk her reputation for him.
Metra was known for her sleek bob and classic red lip.
Christine was always quiet and terrifying in class but now worked in corporate compliance somewhere important.
The third was Carter, who was without a doubt going to be famous one day.
He was going places. She’d never crossed the line with him and she made him stay in his place too, but boy had he tried his best to turn a study session into a date.
“Nina, you look good as always,” Christine said. “How have things been?”
“I’m good, how are y’all?” Nina lied.
“Can’t complain. I’m working at the City,” Carter shared before asking, “Boss life treating you well?”
There it was… another reminder.
Nina was the boss.
The phrase landed against her chest harder than boots stomping at a step show.
For a second, the club blurred around her and the music became distant.
She saw the look of disappointment on her mother’s face.
Along with the revoked access and the boardroom would probably be removed from.
The assistant she would no longer have. The life she had spent years earning was suddenly placed behind a locked door because she loved a man who didn’t gain her family’s approval.
She smiled anyway. “Busy, but amazing,” she said smoothly.
“I can imagine,” Metra said. “I see the direction that you’re going in for your family’s company and I’m so here for it.”
Nina laughed, although she didn’t say anything funny. Truthfully if she didn’t laugh, she would cry.
“You know Nina was the only person in our contracts class who could argue with Professor Whitman and make him reconsider his own syllabus,” Carter recalled.
“That man hated me.”
“No,” Christine corrected. “He feared you.”
They all laughed, and for one brief moment, Nina remembered the old version of who she once was.
She used to chase after challenges. Nina would stay up all night drafting arguments because she just had to win.
Sleep was for suckers, she used to mumble under her breath while she stifled a yawn.
Nina walked through the halls of the Law Department knowing that all of her hard work would pay off and one day it would result in her life being nothing short of remarkable.
She’d worked without excuses to become the woman of her own dreams. So, where was she now?
Nina traded her ambition for chasing after Jio.
But in the words of her new friend, he was not lost.
All she did these days was wait for him to call, come home, and most importantly, change. She’d been waiting for him to choose peace and a new career. She waited for him to become the man that he’d promised she would get one day.
A sick feeling moved through her as she listened to them trade office stories. Nina was always in a rush whenever she was at work, not realizing that Jio never put her before the streets. She refused to throw all her hard work and accomplishments away.
She hadn’t realized just yet that every time she ignored a red flag or defended him when he was clearly in the wrong or chose to sleep in cuddled up in his arms instead of arriving early at the office… things shifted.
She stayed for ten more minutes, which was long enough not to appear rude.
They exchanged numbers, although Nina knew she wouldn’t call them to connect.
Their conversations were filled with engagements, promotions, firm layoffs, potential fellowships, and how they were going to strive every day to become the best version of themselves that they could be.
Their friendship would be too pressuring. She struggled enough on her own.
By the time Nina walked out of the club she felt sober in a way alcohol could never compete with.
Roberto hurried out of the truck to open the door for her, but she didn’t get in right away.
She stood on the sidewalk with the cold air brushing her face and made a decision that felt both humiliating and necessary. She was going to Brooklyn to talk to her father. And if she had to kiss Charles Marcelle’s ass to get her life back, then so be it.
Because Nina could survive heartbreak and survive embarrassment. She could even survive loving Jio. But what would kill her was trying to survive becoming a woman she no longer respected.
“I need to go talk to my parents.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Roberto nodded.
Nina got into the truck and she didn’t look back at the club. It was time for Jio to be in her rearview.
Her whole world had shifted, cracked, and rearranged itself, but the Marcelle home remained untouched. Polished. Quiet. Elegant and most importantly, it wasn’t going anywhere. Ever.
The housekeeper appeared startled when Nina stepped inside after knocking on the door, but she recovered quickly.
“Miss Nina.”
“Is my father here?”
“In the library.”
Where else would he be? Charles Marcelle lived in that library the way some men lived on the golf course, which was the second place he spent all of his free time. It smelled like old books, bourbon, cigars, and decisions that affected people who were never even invited into the room.
Nina paused outside the door for a moment before knocking.
“Come in,” her father called.
When she entered, he looked up from the document in his hand. His glasses sat low on his nose. A glass of bourbon rested untouched beside him.
For a second, neither of them spoke. Charles removed his glasses first and greeted her. “Nina.”
“Daddy,” she followed. Hearing her say his name relaxed his face. Nina was once his precious baby girl until Jio came and changed everything.
“You’re here late.”
“I know…”
He leaned back slowly. “Is everything all right?”
Nina almost laughed.
Was everything all right? No, it wasn’t, but it would be. This too shall pass was her favorite scripture right now. She left the dramatics in the truck, this encounter was super calculated.
“I want my privileges reinstated. Is that possible?”
There was no surprise on his face and that annoyed her. It made her feel like he had been waiting for her to crawl back, and if that was the case, here she was.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“What brought this on?” he wondered.
Nina swallowed the first three answers that came to mind.
Jio’s possible side chick embarrassed me at the bank.
I realized I was losing myself.
I saw people from law school and remembered that I did just go to law school and I didn’t graduate at the top of my damn class for no reason.
Instead, she said, “I built too much to walk away from it.”
Her father’s eyes remained steady.
“Built or building? Because you’ve hardly done anything, dear heart.”
No one humbled her quite like her daddy. Nina would be yearning for his approval until his death.
She swallowed her rude ass comment back and instead decided to feed his ego.