Chapter Five” Dirty Games and Dangerous Truths #4
His face closed slightly.
She leaned toward him. “No. We are done with doors shutting in my face. I just gave the city my real name in a warehouse after almost getting snatched. You owe me the truth.”
Jarvis looked out the window.
For a long moment, she thought he would refuse.
Then he said, “Maribelle Dane worked at one of my father’s clubs when I was twenty-three. She was nineteen. He hurt her. Not once. Not quietly. The way men like him do when everybody around them is paid to look away.”
Makayla’s chest tightened.
“She came to me because she thought I hated him enough to help her,” Jarvis said.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I collected evidence. Names. Ledgers. Videos. Payments. Everything she could give me. Everything I could steal.”
“To take your father down.”
“To take his empire.”
Makayla heard the difference.
Jarvis did too.
He looked at her. “I wanted justice, but I wanted power more than I admitted back then.”
That honesty cut through her anger.
“What happened to Maribelle?”
“She got scared before the testimony. My father’s people were watching her apartment. Selene was not his lawyer, but she was already cleaning messes for men around him. Calia was close enough to know movement patterns. I had one chance to get Maribelle out.”
“So you hid her.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
His eyes returned to the window. “Away.”
Makayla frowned. “Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
The breath left Makayla in a rush she had not known she was holding.
Jarvis continued, “Maribelle chose to disappear. New name. New state. Money in an account only she could access. I cut contact because contact could lead them to her.”
Makayla looked down at the folder in her lap. “Then why does Selene have this?”
“Because somebody found the old trail.”
“Calia?”
“Maybe.”
“Selene?”
“Maybe both.”
Makayla studied him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His mouth tightened. “Because Maribelle’s life is not my story to hand out.”
Makayla blinked.
The answer stopped her.
After everything, after every secret, that one had weight she could respect.
Jarvis looked at her. “And because I knew Selene would twist it. She always does.”
Makayla leaned back slowly.
“Amira said her pain wasn’t my engine,” she said.
Jarvis looked at her.
Makayla held the folder carefully now. “Maribelle’s pain isn’t yours either.”
Something moved across his face.
Pain.
Recognition.
Maybe the same lesson coming for him from another direction.
“No,” he said quietly. “It isn’t.”
The SUV rolled through Morrow Bay as the city started eating Makayla’s video alive.
By the time they returned to Jarvis’s residence, the statement had crossed a million views.
Auntie Zella met Makayla in the foyer with Vasha behind her.
Vasha’s eyes were red. She looked like she had cried all the makeup off her face and most of the pride out of her body.
Auntie Zella’s face changed when she saw Makayla’s torn sleeve and limp.
“Lord, girl.”
“I’m okay,” Makayla said.
Zella looked at Jarvis. “She don’t look okay.”
Jarvis said, “She got out of the car.”
Makayla turned on him. “You snitching already?”
Zella pointed at Makayla. “Sit down.”
Makayla sat on the bottom stair because auntie voice still worked, even during crime.
Vasha took one small step forward. “Makayla…”
Makayla looked at her.
The foyer went quiet.
Vasha wrung her hands. “I saw the video. I didn’t know Selene had all that. I swear. Renzo told me it was business dirt. He said we could make money and help the page grow. I was stupid. I was greedy. I was scared about rent, and I let that matter more than loyalty.”
Makayla listened.
Her heart was too tired to explode.
Vasha cried again. “I gave him access to tips. I forwarded folders. I pushed you to post. But I never gave your address. I never gave Amira. I never gave Auntie. I swear on everything.”
Makayla’s voice was quiet. “You sold a door, Vash. You don’t get to control who walked through it.”
Vasha nodded, crying harder. “I know.”
“No, I need you to really know. Because I loved you like family.”
Vasha covered her mouth.
Makayla looked away before grief made her soft too soon. “I don’t know what we are after this.”
Vasha whispered, “Okay.”
“That doesn’t mean I want you dead.”
“I know.”
“And it doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
“I know.”
Auntie Zella nodded slowly, like that answer was fair and sad all at once.
Jarvis’s phone rang.
He stepped away, answered, then went very still.
Makayla noticed immediately.
“What?”
Jarvis looked at her.
The expression on his face made the foyer cold.
“The video worked,” he said. “Too well.”
Trevon appeared behind him, phone in hand. “Selene just responded through a proxy blog.”
Makayla stood despite her ankle. “What did she post?”
Trevon looked at Jarvis.
Makayla snapped, “If one more man looks at him before answering me—”
“She posted part of Amira’s video,” Trevon said.
The room stopped breathing.
Makayla felt Auntie Zella’s hand grip her arm.
Trevon continued quickly. “It’s edited. Just like Renzo said. It cuts out the man grabbing her and starts with Amira stumbling out. Caption claims your family fabricated the case years ago and that you built DLP from a lie.”
Makayla’s ears rang.
Auntie Zella whispered, “That devil.”
Vasha started crying again.
Makayla did not.
Something inside her went quiet.
Too quiet.
Jarvis stepped closer. “Makayla.”
She lifted her eyes to him.
He had seen that look before. She could tell.
Cold rage.
Useful rage.
The kind that did not scream because it had already chosen a direction.
“Call Amira,” Makayla said.
Zella nodded. “I’ll do it.”
“No,” Makayla said. “Speaker. She hears from us while we move.”
Jarvis’s gaze sharpened. “Move where?”
Makayla looked at Trevon. “We have the full video backed up?”
“Yes.”
“Selene’s old notes?”
“Yes.”
“Renzo alive and willing to talk?”
Renzo’s weak voice came from behind Trevon. “Willing is strong.”
Makayla turned her head slowly.
Renzo sat in a side chair holding an ice pack to his face.
He swallowed. “But yes.”
Makayla looked back at Jarvis.
“She wanted a dirty game,” Makayla said. “Now we stop playing defense.”
Jarvis’s eyes held hers.
“What are you going to do?”
Makayla stepped closer, her torn sleeve hanging from her arm, her phone buzzing nonstop, her real name already loose in the city.
“I’m going live,” she said. “With the full receipts.”
Trevon straightened. “Makayla, once the full video goes out, there’s no taking it back.”
“It doesn’t go out unless Amira says yes.”
Auntie Zella was already calling.
The phone rang once.
Twice.
Amira answered, voice tight. “I saw it.”
Makayla closed her eyes.
The pain in those three words almost took her knees.
“I’m sorry,” Makayla said.
Amira breathed hard through the speaker. “She edited me.”
“I know.”
“She made me look drunk.”
“I know.”
“She cut him out.”
Makayla’s voice broke. “I know.”
For a moment, all anybody heard was Amira breathing.
Then Amira said, “Play the real one.”
Auntie Zella covered her mouth.
Makayla opened her eyes. “Mira…”
“Play it,” Amira said, stronger now. “Not because she forced me. Because I’m done letting that woman hold my life hostage.”
Makayla’s throat tightened. “Are you sure?”