Sincerely Yours (The Cartier Cartel #5)

Chapter 1

SINCERE BELLAMY

Iwalked the lot, amazed that there was damn near a hundred million dollars under my feet.

To anybody riding past, this dirt was just a large, fenced-off piece of nothing on the South Side.

There was an old warehouse half knocked down on one side, gravel and mud, and a crane in the corner.

There were also a couple of Porta Potties. But that was it.

Yet, to me, it was so much more than that. I was looking at our prosperous future.

As Legend walked a step ahead, his boots crunched over broken concrete. His hoodie was up as he looked around. Icon was beside me doing the same. Saint kept falling back, checking his phone and scanning the block. Big A and Reek flanked us.

“So, here’s where we are,” I told them. “The demo contract is signed. The environmental report came back clean enough. There was nothing crazy, just some pipes we gotta replace. The bank released the first part of the loan yesterday. Langford pushed our zoning hearing up, so that’s a win.

We’re on the committee agenda for next month.

After, we still have to wait on the board vote to make it official.

Then we’ll have the green light to start building.

But that vote won’t come until a few months from now. ”

“Are we finally past all the dramatic residents holding this project up over parking issues?” Icon asked.

“We’ve designed parking spacing in the blueprints. Only thing standing between us breaking ground is politics and weather.”

“Politics meaning Kai,” Saint muttered.

Kai was an alderman who was loud, hungry for cameras, and always screaming about “protecting the community” while he cut deals in back rooms. He was against this project on principle, not because he knew the Cartier’s, but because their name made his speeches hit harder when he talked about crime and “gang influence.”

“Politics meaning Kai,” I agreed with a sarcastic chuckle.

“And whoever’s whispering in his ear. But we have more leverage now than we did in September.

Langford’s on our side publicly. We got letters from businesses that want to rent from us.

And the city can’t say we're not putting back into the block with the community space we’ve included in the plan. ”

Nothing big like this project moves in Chicago without the right alderman on board.

We were trying to turn a low-rise, half-dead block into condominiums, stores, and a community center.

That meant the city had to sign off on us building higher and denser than the block was zoned for.

We needed the zoning committee to schedule our hearing, and we needed permits to move instead of sitting on somebody’s desk.

So, I went to Alderman Harold Langford first, because we had previous business dealings through my investment firm and he chaired the zoning committee.

If he liked a project, hearings got pushed up, city staff stopped dragging their feet, and banks relaxed because they saw a familiar political name attached to the paperwork.

Alderman Langford was on board because he saw the job numbers, extra tax money it would bring into his ward, and the headlines he could get for “revitalizing” a dead block.

He wasn’t stupid, though. He knew exactly who he was dealing with, but he also knew this project could make him look like a hero as long as nobody could prove the Cartier’s were standing behind it.

Alderman Kai Richardson got involved after that.

The land sat in his ward, so once the zoning hearing was on the calendar, he realized how big this could be for him too.

At first, he only asked a few questions and talked about “keeping the character of the neighborhood,” “protecting longtime residents,” and “not letting outside money take over the block.” On paper, he was just doing his job.

But I could feel him testing how much he could slow us down, how much shine he could put onto himself, and how much control he could have over this project.

Langford was the gatekeeper at City Hall. Kai was the gatekeeper on the ground. I needed one to move the paperwork and the other not to turn my building site into a war zone.

Reek walked silently, with his eyes bouncing between the skeleton of the warehouse and the street. I knew his brain was working. He thought three moves ahead the way I did, just in a different lane.

Legend kicked a loose chunk of brick. “And the money?”

“The construction budget is on track,” I replied.

“The investors wired their second chunk. Once we get final approval from zoning, we can lock in the main contractor. I already got three bids. None of them are cheap, but it will be worth it. This will be a thirty-year cash flow and open up credit lines. Your names will be in papers that aren’t indictments.

This right here is what ensures that you aren’t still babysitting drug dealers when you’re fifty.

This is the project that makes banks stop side-eyeing us when we walk in.

” I stopped when Legend went still. His gaze cut past me, toward the street.

“We got eyes,” he said.

Across the street, a small group of people huddled together facing our lot. They weren’t chanting or waving big posters. But they held protest signs, while watching us with that look people give developers, like we were already the enemy, and the building wasn’t even off the ground yet.

On a crooked light pole, I noticed a piece of paper flapping in the wind. The word “LUXURY” jumped out in fat black letters.

I walked closer to the fence line, squinting. Finally, I could make out the words on it.

MEETING: THURSDAY 7PM – COMMUNITY CENTER

#NOTFORSALE

“Look at this shit,” Saint muttered, coming up beside me.

Big A sucked his teeth. “We haven't even started building yet, and motherfuckas already mad.”

“We knew this might come,” Icon replied.

I slid my hand through the gap in the fence and caught the bottom edge of the flyer. The paper tore off the pole easily. I folded it once, then stuffed it in my coat pocket.

“What you on?” Legend asked, watching me.

“Gonna do some homework. People don’t wake up on a random Tuesday mad about construction,” I answered. “Somebody fed them this idea. Somebody is probably out here telling people that we are going to ‘push them out of the neighborhood.’”

Icon frowned. “Kai?”

“Most likely,” I answered. “Or somebody using him. Maybe some other real estate group. Maybe just people tired of getting lied to. Don’t matter yet. What matters is this ain’t random. Did you see that hashtag? They’re trying to make this a thing.”

“Fuck they feelings,” Saint scoffed. “We bought this lot. We can do what the fuck we want to do with it.”

“And that’s the type of attitude that will make us look like the villains,” I told him. “Rich niggas from up the street coming to ‘take’ their block. You know they ain’t gon’ say the part about how we keeping units affordable or building a center.”

Reek eyes cut from our side of the street to the protestors. “They’re recording.”

Sure enough, one of the guys across the way had his phone on us.

These days, whoever recorded the footage controlled the story that got out with the post that accompanied it.

The story people saw decided who the community believed, and how the neighborhood decided to vote.

Those votes would decide if my building went up or if it died on the floor of some council meeting.

“Let ’em film,” I told him. “We ain’t doing shit but standing on our own property.”

Legend scoffed. “I don’t like this shit.”

“You’re not supposed to,” I said. “Change don’t come with everybody clapping for you. It comes with shit like this.”

“What you wanna do?” Icon asked me.

“We find out who's running that meeting. We show up. We listen. We let folks say what they need to say. Then we show them what we're providing this community with. We tell them about the jobs we’re creating, how many apartments will be affordable for the middle class, and what we’re putting in that community center for their kids.”

Saint sucked his teeth. “You really tryna sell this idea to these people? Fuck them. We don’t need their permission.”

“I’m trying to make sure the people in this neighborhood don’t fall for a nigga like Kai’s agenda,” I told him. “If he gets a whiff of this protest, he’ll start grandstanding about ‘saving the community,’ and we’ll be the bad guys. I’m not giving him that.”

Big A chuckled. “Nigga, you’re a politician.”

I shook my head. “Nah. Politicians lie. I’m telling the truth. I want us off them corners for real. I want your wives to never have to continue to worry if they will bury you too soon. I want my kids one day to know ‘portfolio’ before they know ‘plug.’”

I was a long way from that. I didn’t even have a woman, let alone a crib full of kids.

But I’d been in Icon’s house when Livia fell asleep on his chest mid-conversation, and he didn’t move for an hour so he wouldn’t wake her.

I’d watched Saint walk in a room ready to kill something and calm down the second Zahra looked at him.

I was envious of how Legend and Aria meshed so well together, like a dance they’d rehearsed.

I didn’t have that yet, but I wanted it and looked forward to it.

So, I was doing this for their legacy and mine.

I looked back at the group across the street. Our eyes met briefly. One of them shook their head with judgment.

I turned away from them and looked back out over the empty lot again.

This was our way out, and I’d be damned if anybody scared me away from my masterpiece.