Chapter Two Forced Partners, Open Wounds #3
Jarvis’s eyes stayed on her.
Makayla swallowed.
“One night Amira came home shaking. Her dress was torn at the strap. She said he trapped her in a storage room. She got away, but he made sure everyone thought she had been drinking and chasing him. By morning, there were fake witnesses. By the end of the week, she lost her job. By the end of the month, people were calling her unstable.”
The office felt too quiet.
Makayla continued because stopping would make the pain win.
“She had messages. Pictures of bruises. A voice note. But our old phone got stolen before she could turn everything in. Then this lawyer came in and made it worse. Made Amira look hungry for money. Made our family look like liars. The man kept his life. Amira lost hers.”
Jarvis’s voice came softer. “What was the lawyer’s name?”
Makayla shook her head. “I don’t remember. I blocked out half of it.”
“You remember.”
“I said I don’t.”
“You remember enough to hate her.”
Makayla looked at him.
Her eyes burned, but no tears fell. She had trained them better.
“Selene,” she said finally. “Selene Rusk.”
Jarvis’s face went still.
Makayla caught it. “You know her?”
“I know of her.”
“That means yes in rich-man language.”
“She’s a fixer.”
“She was a monster in heels.”
“She still is.”
Makayla sat back. “You know this woman and didn’t think to mention her?”
“I didn’t know she was tied to you.”
“But she tied to you?”
Jarvis hesitated.
Makayla’s laugh came out bitter. “There it is.”
“Selene worked with Calia after Calia left my company.”
“Your ex-partner and the lawyer who ruined my sister know each other?”
“Yes.”
Makayla stood again. She needed movement. She needed distance from the way the pieces were clicking into a picture she hated.
“Then this is Calia,” she said. “Calia used Selene to find my weak spot, fed fake tips through Vasha, got me to post about you, and now she’s threatening Amira.”
“That’s one path.”
“What’s the other?”
“Selene is using Calia.”
Makayla looked at him.
Jarvis leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Calia wants revenge. She likes attention, money, and rooms she has no right to enter. But Selene likes control. She buries women for men with money, then keeps the dirt as insurance. If your page has been getting close to any of her old cases, she’d have a reason to make you look unreliable. ”
Makayla thought back through the last few weeks. The messages. The tips. The women who had begged her to expose judges, club owners, pastors, school board members, men with clean reputations and dirty habits.
Had one of those cases touched Selene?
Her skin prickled.
Jarvis’s phone rang.
He looked at the screen and answered. “Talk.”
Makayla watched his face as he listened.
Then his eyes moved to her.
“What?” she asked.
He held up one finger, still listening.
Makayla hated that finger.
Jarvis ended the call. “Trevon found the bracelet.”
“What bracelet?”
“The woman in the silver dress from the fake Jarvis post wore a silver-black bracelet. Limited event gift. Came from a private dinner Calia hosted three weeks ago.”
Makayla’s heart kicked.
“Where?”
“Obsidian Hall.”
The same place from the pictures.
“So Calia is in it,” Makayla said.
“She’s touching it.”
“That sounds like in it to me.”
“Touching means traceable. In it means exposed. There’s a difference.”
Makayla stared at him. “You talk like you teach crime.”
“I teach survival.”
“Same ugly class.”
Jarvis stood. “We’re going to Obsidian Hall tomorrow.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
“You got a mouse in your pocket?”
His brows lowered. “What?”
Makayla waved him off. “Never mind.”
“I need you to identify how the evidence came to you. You need me to get access.”
“I need sleep.”
“You need answers more.”
She looked him up and down. “You always this bossy?”
“Yes.”
“How has nobody pushed you down stairs?”
“They’ve tried.”
Makayla believed that.
Her phone rang.
Vasha.
The name lit up the screen like a dare.
Makayla looked at Jarvis.
He shook his head once.
She answered anyway.
Jarvis’s eyes narrowed.
Makayla put the call on speaker. “Vash.”
Vasha’s voice came rushed. “Where are you?”
“Safe.”
“With him?”
Makayla stayed quiet.
Vasha cursed under her breath. “Girl, please tell me you did not go with Jarvis.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s dangerous.”
“Everybody keeps saying that like it’s news.”
“No, Makayla. Listen to me. You don’t know what you stepped into.”
Makayla’s grip tightened around the phone. “Then tell me.”
Silence.
Jarvis watched the phone like it was a live wire.
Makayla softened her voice. “Vash, if you know something, now is the time.”
Vasha’s breath shook. “I didn’t know the Jarvis folder was fake.”
Makayla closed her eyes.
There it was.
Jarvis’s face said nothing, but Makayla felt his focus sharpen.
“You forwarded it,” Makayla said.
“I forward lots of tips.”
“You pushed me to post.”
“Because somebody told me the girl would disappear if we waited.”
“Who told you?”
More silence.
Makayla’s voice hardened. “Vasha.”
“A man named Renzo.”
Jarvis’s head lifted.
Makayla looked at him.
“Renzo who?” she asked.
“Renzo Kitt. He promotes events. He said he had a source from inside The Black Meridian. He paid me before for a tip that turned out real, so I thought—”
“Paid you?” Makayla said.
Vasha started crying. “It wasn’t like that.”
Makayla laughed, but nothing was funny. “You took money for tips through my page?”
“I was behind on rent.”
“You took money and didn’t tell me?”
“It was one time at first.”
“At first?”
Jarvis’s eyes stayed on Makayla’s face, and she hated that he was seeing this.
Vasha cried harder. “I never meant to hurt you.”
Makayla’s voice went cold. “Did you give him my name?”
“No.”
“My address?”
“No!”
“Amira?”
“I swear on my mama, no. I would never say her name to anybody.”
Makayla wanted to believe her.
She also wanted to go back to an hour ago, before her friend became a crack in the floor.
Jarvis spoke for the first time. “Where did you meet Renzo?”
Vasha gasped. “Is that him?”
Makayla said, “Answer the question.”
“Different places. Clubs mostly. He found me after the liquor distributor post. Said he liked the page and could help send bigger stories.”
Jarvis’s voice stayed even. “Did he mention Calia Morvant?”
Vasha went quiet.
Makayla gripped the phone. “Vash.”
“I saw them together once,” Vasha whispered. “At a rooftop dinner. He said she was just a client.”
Jarvis looked at Makayla. The path was getting cleaner.
Makayla’s heart hurt worse with every answer.
“Where is Renzo now?” Jarvis asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Call him.”
Vasha sniffed. “What?”
Jarvis stepped closer to the phone. “Call him. Tell him Makayla panicked and took the post down. Tell him she wants to meet before everything gets worse.”
Makayla looked at Jarvis like he had lost his mind.
Vasha said, “No. I’m not getting in the middle.”
Makayla snapped, “You put us in the middle.”
“I didn’t know!”
“But you got paid.”
The words hung there, ugly and heavy.
Vasha sobbed quietly.
Makayla closed her eyes again.
Her anger wanted to stay sharp, but underneath it was hurt. Old, familiar, embarrassing hurt. The kind that made her feel foolish for trusting people with pieces of herself.
“Call him,” Makayla said. “Do that much.”
Vasha’s voice became small. “Will you forgive me?”
Makayla looked through the glass wall at the dark lounge below. “Survive first. Ask me later.”
She ended the call.
For a few seconds, nobody spoke.
Makayla set the phone on the table carefully because throwing it would give Jarvis too much satisfaction.
He stood across from her. “You okay?”
She cut her eyes at him. “Do I look like I want that question from you?”
“No.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because I wanted the answer.”
The quiet honesty hit too close.
Makayla looked away first.
Jarvis’s voice lowered. “Betrayal hurts different when it comes through the front door.”
She turned back to him. “That supposed to be comfort?”
“No. Recognition.”
“From who? You?”
“Yes.”
Something in his face shifted again. A door opening one inch.
Makayla should have ignored it.
She didn’t.
“Calia?” she asked.
Jarvis’s eyes cooled.
“Calia came in as an investor,” he said. “Smart. Polished. Knew how to talk to old money and street money in the same breath. I respected that. She helped me expand security contracts, private events, the lounge. I gave her access because I thought she understood loyalty.”
“She didn’t?”
“She understood opportunity.”
Makayla sat down slowly.
Jarvis leaned against the edge of his desk, eyes on the floor-to-ceiling window beyond her.
“She moved money through ghost vendors. Used my name to pressure people. Built side deals inside my business. By the time I found it, she had already turned three men against me and planted stories that I was unstable.”
“That why you started looking for my page?”
“Yes.”
Makayla studied him. “And you ruined her.”
“I removed her.”
“That sounds cleaner.”
“It was.”
“What did she lose?”
“Everything she stole.”
“And everything she wanted?”
Jarvis looked at her. “Me.”
The answer sat between them.
Makayla felt something twist in her stomach that had no business existing. “So she’s an ex too.”
“No.”
“But she wanted to be.”
“Yes.”
“And you let her close enough to think she had a chance?”
Jarvis’s gaze sharpened. “Careful.”
Makayla lifted one shoulder. “You want truth or comfort?”
His own words thrown back at him.
For a second, the room warmed again.
Jarvis gave a slow nod. “Fair.”
Makayla looked down at her laptop. “So Calia hates you because you took away the life she was stealing. Selene hates me because my page could touch her old work. Renzo sells dirt. Vasha sold access. And some unknown person knows enough about me to threaten Amira.”
“That’s where we are.”
“That’s a terrible place.”
“Yes.”
Makayla leaned back, exhaustion finally pushing through the adrenaline. “I need to take the post down.”
Jarvis said, “Yes.”
She looked at him. “You agreeing with me?”
“Don’t get comfortable.”
Makayla opened the page. Her fingers hovered over the post. It had reached nearly half a million views.
Half a million people had seen her mistake.
Her throat tightened.
She clicked delete.