Page 2 of Love & Vendettas

“Who is her best friend, Kim?” Parker grits out.

“The former D.A., Miss Essence Hamilton.”

“I thought she gave up politics to return to private practice because it was too much for her,” Hakeem remarks.

“Apparently, she was, but for some reason, she’s changed her mind,” Kim confirms.

My blood runs cold, and a pounding starts at the base of my neck. It quickly lights its way around to my temples and then my frontal lobe like a match lit to a line of gasoline. It explodes so violently that I can barely see.

Tiny explosions of lights go off behind my closed eyelids, and I massage my temples, mentally telling myself to unclench my teeth.

The room is getting too hot, and my tie feels like it's choking me. I stand from my place at the head of the table and walk to the wall of windows overlooking my city. My team continues to talk behind me, discussing whether we should get behind her or not, and how we can leverage her for our purposes.

“Essence Hamilton.” I pull my fingers through my beard as I look out over downtown Chicora Falls.

Large buildings look like glass statues in the night, with indoor lighting giving the appearance of twinkling fairy lights.

I walk to the right of my office and stare out the wall of windows at the waterfall at the end of the street.

“You know her, Z?” Jamal speaks up from his place at the glass conference table.

I breathe through my nose and change my face into a cool mask of composure before I turn back to face the room.

“Who's on her campaign team?” I ask Aris.

In her usual, soft-spoken voice, she gives me a rundown of every member of Essence’s campaign team.

“Kim, I need a comprehensive background check on each of them. Credit, criminal, finances, education, family, health, fetishes, weaknesses, any history of drug or alcohol abuse, and any family members with drug addictions,” I command.

“So, the usual?” Kim quips with a slight smirk, tapping away on her laptop.

My steely voice is unfair to her. She has no way of knowing how personal this shit is to me.

“Fuck the usual. I want you to go back as far as their great-grandpappy. I want to know who their neighbors are and if they have kids, where their kids go to school, who their kids’ friends are, and if they’ve got any extracurricular activities. I want to know what color draws they’re wearing every day and when they sit down to take a piss and shit.”

Kim’s eyes widen before she glances back at her computer. I feel every eye in the room on me, aside from hers.

“Noble.”

I turn to my intelligence ops guy.

“Yes, Bossman?”

“I need you to do the same for Ms. Hamilton. I want to know everything. If she’s ever had any STDs, who her last sexual partner was, and anything else that you can find out about her.”

“Gotcha, Bossman.”

“Is it safe to say that she won’t be our next mayor?” Parker asks.

I roll my eyes at him, and he holds his hands up.

“I look like a muthafuckin’ joke to y’all tonight?”

“No, sir,” everyone answers in a serious monotone at once.

I walk back to the giant wall of windows overlooking downtown Chicora Falls. Three of my walls are nothing but floor-to-ceiling windows. I can lighten or darken them to my pleasure so that people can see inside or not.

“Y’all get prepared to work hard for the next year.”

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