Page 45 of Mr. Blackwood

“Why?”

“You know that answer too. I told you there’s a high price to pay for betraying me.”

Her shoulders sagged, and all the bravado and hardness that she’d held before slowly seeped out of her. “I haven’t betrayed you. I’ve been nothing but loyal to you, Jabari,” she insisted.

“Meeting with Samuel Bell doesn’t equate to loyalty.”

“You mean your father? Why can’t you say it? Why do you refuse to face the truth? Huh, Jamal Bell?”

My chest tightened with discomfort and fury because no one had called me that in a long time, not even my father.

I took a couple of steps closer to her, and she backed up. “You think you know the truth? You don’t know the truth. You only know the version that he shared.”

“Which is more than you’ve ever given me! All I have given you is the truth, and you haven’t shared a shred of it with me. I told you how I felt about you, and you played me.”

“You played yourself. You used me to get a story to launch your magazine to the next level, and it didn’t work out in your best interest. Yeah, that’s right; just as much digging as you’ve done, so have I.”

“I didn’t get your story to publish it. I got your story because I wanted to know the truth about the man who I was falling in love with.”

I scoffed and shoved my hands in my pockets. “It’s convenient that you want to profess your love for me now. I don’t trust a word out of your lying mouth.”

“If I wanted to publish your story, don’t you think that I would’ve done it by now? We’ve been together for weeks, Jabari, and I haven’t shared a single thing about you with anyone or in public.”

“Why would you? When I’ve let you into my inner circle, why would you jeopardize that rather than waiting for the moment to get dirt on me? Of course you didn’t share anything. You didn’t have anything worth sharing. Now you do. The only reason you haven’t published anything now is that I shut you down.”

“My magazine doesn’t do exposés. I do interviews that paint my subjects in a positive light, help build or bring more attention to their brand, and encourage my readers. I don’t do trash publications.”

“Then why did you promise Sullivan Investments that you could get the truth behind my story? You partnered with my competitor to find out more information on me. They only want my downfall. Mike Sullivan isn’t just my competitor, but he has positioned himself as my nemesis.”

Her mouth dropped, and her eyes grew wide with the realization that she’d been played.

“Your nemesis? I didn’t know, Jabari. I swear that I didn’t.”

“Well, while you were researching me, you should have discovered that too. Then you wouldn’t have lost everything—including me.”

I unlocked my car and hopped inside. She attempted to stand in front of the car to prevent me from moving, but when she noticed the determined glint in my eyes, she backed up just a little. It wasn’t enough for me to get around her, so I drove over the curb on the side of my car. The sound of her yelling my name reverberated in my brain long after I pulled off.

I wanted to give in to her, but I had to erect the walls around my heart again to block out the pain and disappointment. The only way my heart would survive was to pretend we had never existed.

***

“How much do you think she knows?” Regent asked.

“Not as much as she thinks she does. There’s only so much Sam knows,” I replied.

The four of us had met up at Regent’s house to discuss what was going on in my life. It was the first time we had all been in town at the same time since I’d learned about Camilla linking up with my father.

“I just hope this shit doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass,” Kanaan murmured. He turned his whisky glass up and emptied it before he walked to the bar and refilled his glass.

“It won’t. We are the four most powerful muthafuckin men on the East Coast,” Jett pronounced.

“Maybe. But don’t ever forget that we’re black men at the end of the day,” Regent asserted.

We all murmured our agreements.

“What are you going to do about her?” Kanaan asked after a while.

“I don’t think he needs to do much more. He’s all but destroyed her career,” Jett professed.