Dima.
His face showed up in my head. He curved those sexy lips into a smile. Erotic sensations shivered through me.
I hugged myself.
Stop thinking about him.
I made myself breakfast and forced myself to eat it. Then, I did my best to fall into some form of work.
Off the Diamond Syndicate, I returned to looking into Paradise history. That had me back on Dream Lake and the flooded black town.
By lunch time, I made a quick sandwich and filled Barbara’s bowl with food.
She must’ve truly been annoyed with me. She never appeared.
After I ate, I returned to researching Dream Lake and all the atrocities that had occurred to the black folk in the West—many who ended up creating the Killer Crows.
In fact, Chanel and Romeo’s parents formed the gang to protect and serve their community, since the police and Paradise officials weren’t doing that.
It was self-defense. Not criminal.
I made notes.
When dinner time arrived, I ordered Chinese for Mr. Mole, Sunglasses, and me. They ate at my table in silence. When they finished, they hurried back to their posts.
I instantly missed Sid and Banks, and even the Twins.
Forget about all of that.
The evening arrived, I drowned in my research.
It appeared that even in these recent years Paradise continued to bother, oppress, and discriminate against the West. The Killer Crows paid triple the amount for land that was already owned. Last year, the Killer Crows’ property taxes were doubled and was higher than any other section of the city.
Even more horrible, the city was currently planning to expand and building a new exit for Caviar Lime Highway—one that would put a large road through the West, wiping out tons of Killer Crow land.
Jonathan lied. This is more than about a scenic route. They’re not only targeting the Killer Crows, but. . .something else is going on.
Somewhere in the pile of articles, I discovered that Jonathan fired his deputy mayor due to her not delivering several eminent domain letters to fifty Killer Crow property owners. The article was put in a small local paper put out by a black-owned press in the West.
Damn it. Not many people know about this.
Further discussion of eminent domain explained that it was the power of the government to take private property and convert it into public use. The Fifth Amendment provided that the government could only exercise the power if they provided just compensation to the property owners.
The deputy mayor, Melissa Gorga, argued that Paradise was not giving the Killer Crows a proper price and they were cruelly being targeted. I checked her picture and realized that she was a black woman. I looked Melissa up and found out that she was from the West.
She’s right. This is wrong. And why put the road and highway there?
One idea came to me. I shifted my search to the public records showing any recent sales.
Fuck.
Several corporations had begun buying up land in the West, especially in the area where the road was supposed to be built. My heart stopped when I spotted one of the companies’ names.
Walsh Inc. Dad’s buying up stuff too?
Further browsing revealed my best friend’s name too—Xandi Wild Investments.
What?
There was some back deals going on and definitely more than a highway was going to be built. While my father wouldn’t tell me what was going on, I hoped that Xandi would. As far as I’d known, all these years she’d been trustworthy and a good person. If her name was on this, then she truly didn’t know the mischief that was going on.
No wonder my family has been stressing over my involvement with Dima. They’re also going to have financial investment in Paradise.
I thought back to how excited my father was with me going after the Diamond Syndicate. He’d given me more support on this move, then anything else.
If the Syndicate learned about the highway’s plans, then they would get in the way of the city bothering the Killer Crows. But now with the Syndicate’s division, Jonathan and my father’s plans were flying under the radar.
I have to take a break. This is going to be a mountain of corruption. There’s no need racing to the top.
I stopped researching and decided to get some rest.
What am I going to do? Just. . .forget about it.
I hadn’t seen Barbara the rest of the night. I assumed she fell asleep somewhere in my bedroom. I looked around for her, but still didn’t see her.
“Just wow, Barbara.” Giving up, I changed the litter box, put water in her bowl, and went to my bookshelf, searching for a novel to get lost in.
None intrigued me, besides the two mafia romances that I’d never got around to reading.
Dima’s face hit me.
My heart ached. I picked one of them—the Gangster’s Secret Baby—and brought the novel to bed.
I spent the rest of the night reading it. I never fell asleep. The book thrilled me so much.