Chapter Four Receipts, Rage, and Bad Desire #3
Makayla swallowed.
Amira continued, “I love you. I know why you started that page. But my pain is not your engine, Kayla.”
The words hit deep.
Makayla lowered her head.
“I know,” she whispered, though she was not sure she had known it fully until that moment.
“No, you don’t. You been running on guilt for years.”
Makayla closed her eyes.
Amira’s voice softened. “I’m not saying that to hurt you.”
“It does anyway.”
“I know. But it’s true.”
Makayla wiped her cheek again. “What do you want me to do?”
“Send me the video. Not to post. Not to use. To have.”
“Okay.”
“And I want to talk to a lawyer who is not scared of Selene Rusk.”
“I can find one.”
“You can help me find one,” Amira corrected. “Help. Not take over.”
Makayla almost argued.
She bit it back.
“Okay,” she said. “Help.”
“And Kayla?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful with Jarvis Draven.”
Makayla stiffened. “How you know he’s involved?”
“Because men like him always stand close to mess, even when they didn’t start it.”
Makayla looked toward the door like Jarvis might be standing outside. He wasn’t.
“I don’t trust him,” Makayla said.
Amira was quiet for a beat. “But you want to.”
Makayla had no answer.
Her sister breathed out softly. “That’s more dangerous.”
Makayla looked down at her hands.
“I’ll call you back after I talk to Auntie,” Amira said. “And Kayla?”
“I’m here.”
“I’m angry now.”
Makayla’s chest tightened.
Amira’s voice changed again. Stronger. Older and younger at the same time.
“I’m angry for me. Not scared. Angry.”
Makayla nodded even though Amira could not see her. “Good.”
“No,” Amira said. “Not good. Useful.”
The call ended a minute later.
Makayla stayed on the sofa with the phone in her lap, staring at nothing.
Her sister had been right.
Makayla had built Dirty Little Proof from pain and called it purpose. Some of it was purpose. Some of it helped people. Some of it mattered.
But some of it was guilt wearing lipstick.
A soft knock came at the door.
Makayla did not answer.
Jarvis opened it halfway anyway, then stopped at the threshold. “Can I come in?”
That irritated her.
His asking.
His timing.
The way he had learned too quickly when to be careful.
“No,” she said.
He nodded and began to close the door.
Makayla sighed. “Wait.”
He stopped.
She hated herself a little. “Come in.”
Jarvis entered and closed the door behind him, leaving a respectful distance between them. He did not sit until she gestured vaguely at the chair across from her.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then he said, “How is she?”
Makayla looked at him. “Angry.”
“Good.”
Makayla gave a tired laugh. “She said useful.”
“She’s right.”
Makayla studied him. “Why does everybody around me sound like they took the same class today?”
“Maybe the lesson is obvious.”
“Don’t.”
He leaned back. “I was going to say maybe you’re surrounded by smart people.”
“Oh.”
His mouth curved faintly. “You wanted to fight.”
“I still might.”
“I know.”
That quiet confidence rubbed against her nerves.
Makayla looked toward the garden again. “Amira said her pain isn’t my engine.”
Jarvis did not answer right away.
Good.
A fast answer would have been insulting.
Finally, he said, “What do you think?”
“I think I hate honest people.”
“You like honest people.”
“No. I like receipts. Receipts don’t look at you and tell you about yourself.”
Jarvis’s eyes stayed on her. “They do if you read them right.”
She looked back at him. “Is that what you do? Read people right?”
“I try.”
“You read me?”
“Yes.”
“Wrong or right?”
“Both.”
Makayla’s breath shifted.
That was too honest.
She looked away again, but the room was smaller now. Softer. Dangerous for a different reason.
Jarvis stood and walked to the bookshelf, giving her space or taking some for himself. He ran a hand over the edge of one shelf but did not pull a book.
“My father owned clubs,” he said.
Makayla looked at him.
He kept his eyes on the shelf. “Cheap ones at first. Then better ones. Then rooms behind the better ones that people pretended didn’t exist.”
Makayla did not move.
Jarvis’s voice stayed even, but it had gone somewhere dark.
“He was charming in public. Paid for funerals. Sponsored uniforms for kids. Gave out turkeys every holiday. Women loved him until they were alone with him. Men respected him because they were scared or paid.”
Makayla’s throat tightened.
“I grew up watching people thank a man they should have run from,” Jarvis said. “My mother knew. She stayed until leaving became more dangerous than staying.”
“What happened?”
“She died.”
Makayla’s face softened before she could stop it. “Jarvis.”
“Not from him directly,” he said. “That’s what people like to say when they want the truth to sit down. But he built the kind of life that killed her slow.”
Makayla understood that too well.
Jarvis turned from the shelf. “When I took over, I burned down everything I could not clean. Some people called me ruthless. Some people called me ungrateful. My father’s old friends called me weak because I refused to make money the way he did.”
Makayla watched him differently now.
He noticed.
Of course he did.
“That’s why your post hit,” he said. “Not because people talked. People always talk. It hit because for one night, the city looked at me and saw him.”
Makayla’s chest squeezed.
She had not thought of that.
Or maybe she had not wanted to.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
The words came out quiet.
Jarvis looked at her.
“For the post,” she added. “For not waiting. For letting them aim me. I should have checked harder.”
He held her gaze. “Yes, you should have.”
Makayla almost smiled because of course he would accept an apology like a blade.
“But,” he said, “you took it down when you found out. You corrected it publicly. That matters.”
“It doesn’t undo it.”
“No. It tells me what you do after damage.”
Makayla swallowed.
The room went quiet again.
A different quiet now.
The kind that filled with things neither person should touch.
Jarvis crossed back toward her and stopped a few feet away.
“I owe you something too,” he said.
Makayla lifted her eyes.
“I used your identity against you because I wanted control.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“I won’t release it.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Your name. Your address. Your page. I won’t release it.”
Makayla stood slowly. “That supposed to be a gift?”
“No. It’s me removing a weapon I should not have picked up.”
Her anger stumbled again.
“You still have the files,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Delete them.”
“No.”
Her eyes sharpened. “Jarvis.”
“They’re evidence. If Selene or Calia tries to release your identity, we need to prove who had what first.”
“We?”
His eyes held hers. “We.”
Makayla hated that the word felt less forced than it had yesterday.
She stepped closer. “I don’t belong to your war.”
“No.”
“Say that like you know it.”
“You don’t belong to my war,” Jarvis said. “You got dragged into it. Same way I got dragged into yours.”
The space between them tightened.
Makayla looked up at him. “And what are we calling this?”
His eyes dropped to her mouth.
There it was again.
That unfinished thing.
“This,” he said, voice low, “is bad timing.”
Makayla’s pulse jumped. “That all?”
“No.”
“What else?”
“Bad judgment.”
She stepped closer. “That all?”
His jaw tightened.
“Makayla.”
She smiled a little. “You keep saying my name like it’s a warning.”
“It is.”
“For me or you?”
His eyes darkened. “Both.”
The answer went through her like heat.
Makayla told herself to step back.
She did not.
Instead, she reached up and touched the center of his chest with two fingers, right where she had shoved him earlier. His body went still under her hand.
“You think I’m reckless,” she said.
“I know you are.”
“You think I’m loud.”
“Yes.”
“You think I run toward pain.”
“Yes.”
Her fingers curled slightly into his shirt. “Then why are you still standing here?”
Jarvis looked at her like the answer cost him something.
“Because I run toward it too.”
That broke the last clean inch between them.
Makayla pulled him down.
This time nobody interrupted.
The kiss hit like an argument that finally found a better language.
Jarvis’s mouth was firm, hot, controlled for half a second before control cracked. Makayla kissed him with all the rage she had no place to put, all the fear she refused to name, all the bad desire that had been building since rain slicked the sidewalk outside her apartment.
He tasted like coffee and trouble.
His hand came to her waist, but he held there, careful, asking without words.
Makayla answered by stepping into him.
Jarvis made a low sound against her mouth, and that sound burned straight through her.
He backed her against the edge of the sofa without pushing. She went because she wanted to. That was the dangerous part. Not his strength. Not his reputation. Her own want.
Makayla broke the kiss first, breathing hard.
Jarvis stayed close, forehead almost touching hers.
“This is stupid,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“You’re dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“I still don’t trust you.”
“I know.”
She looked up at him. “You always agree at the worst time.”
His thumb brushed lightly over her waist. “I can stop.”
Makayla hated that choice.
Hated it because he meant it.
Hated it because stopping would prove she had sense, and right now sense felt like another room too far away.
She grabbed his shirt again. “Don’t.”
Jarvis kissed her slower the second time.
That was worse.
The first kiss had been fire. This one had patience. This one learned the shape of her mouth. This one took its time like he had all day to ruin her and no plans to apologize.
Makayla’s hands slid up to his shoulders.
For a few stolen minutes, there was no Calia, no Selene, no flash drive with her last name on it. No old video. No city waiting to call her a fraud. No friend who sold access for rent money.
There was only Jarvis’s mouth, his hands careful at her waist, her own heart betraying her by beating like this was safety.
Then her phone rang.
Makayla froze.
Jarvis stopped immediately but did not move away.
The phone rang again.
She pulled it from her pocket with shaking fingers.
Vasha.
The name snapped reality back into place.
Makayla stepped away from Jarvis.