Page 146 of Can't Get Enough

She answers with a breathy sigh. “I miss you, too, andIdon’t even want to be here, but I wish we were together.”

“I’ll send my lawyer to you.”

“See you when you get back. I know it’s a big trip. Hope all goes well.”

I hold the phone for a few minutes after she hangs up, thinking of all the things I should have made sure she knew.

“Hey,” Bolt says, stepping aside for dinner to be wheeled into the room on a loaded cart. “You ready to eat?”

I brush past him toward my bedroom suite, ignoring the food. “Find out all you can about Citizens for Equality and report back.”

“Already on it.” Bolt gestures toward the neglected cart. “You don’t want to eat?”

“Nah.” I hurriedly yank clothes from the closet and look around for my suitcase. “We can eat on the plane.”

CHAPTER 46

HENDRIX

Iknow I’m not supposed to hate,” Kashawn says, casting a baleful glare across the courtroom. “But I can’t stand that man right there.”

The man in question, Lewis Ray, is the lawyer representing Citizens for Equality, the organization suing the Aspire Fund. Nausea stirs in my stomach at the words he’s spewing, the way he’s twisting history and intention to his advantage. He’s doing it brilliantly. I’ll give him that.

“Programs like the Aspire Fund’s grant initiative are not only unjust,” Ray says, his lips thinning even more with the disdain he radiates. “But they are discriminatory and in violation of the 1866 Civil Rights Act.”

When it’s her turn, Michelle Cusch, Maverick’s lawyer, argues our case with vehement expertise.

“Your Honor,” she says, “I trust we all appreciate the irony of Mr. Ray using the 1866 Civil Rights Act as the basis for this case since that law was enacted to protect the descendants of enslaved people from racially based economic exclusion. Mr. Ray is now weaponizing it against the very communities it was designed to benefit. This misguided, ill-conceived effort seeks to strip Black women, the most underserved community in entrepreneurial space, of even that.”

The judge hears both sides, and the tension holds the entire courtroom in a rubber band poised to pop any second. I glance over my shoulder and find my girls sitting a few rows behind me. Yasmen and Soledad glower so hard at Lewis Ray I’m surprised they don’t burn ahole in that man’s head. I give them a weak smile. We have right on our side, but something feels wrong. When you’re a winner, you know how to scent failure, and as the judge reads his decision, I don’t smell victory.

“I’ve heard both sides,” the judge says after less than an hour of arguments, his steel-gray eyes skimming over us like we aren’t even there. “And I’m ruling that the Aspire Fund suspend the grant program for the duration of this lawsuit, and may resume or not based on the ultimate outcome.”

The sheer injustice of it paralyzes me for a few seconds, and I sit in a trance, fists clenched and tears in my eyes. Chaos erupts—activists on our side loudly objecting and those supporting CFE cheering. I stand still as the storm rages around me and close my eyes, overcome by helplessness.

“Hen.” Nella squeezes my hand. “You okay?”

“Nope.” I shake my head, a sad smile twisting my lips. “Not even a little bit.”

“You still good to speak?” Kashawn asks. “You’re the best at this media shit.”

When we agreed I would address the press, I don’t think I truly believed the judge would uphold the injunction. Our court date is months away, and in the meantime, we can’t funnel money to the women who would benefit so much from it. It’s a modest program, less per person than I spend on shoes in a year, and yet so potentially impactful.

“You got this, Hen,” Yasmen says, gripping my hand when I reach their row in the courtroom.

“This isn’t over,” Soledad says, her petite figure brimming with indignation.

“Love you guys,” I tell them, offering a wobbly smile. “I’ll swing through before I fly back to Charlotte tomorrow.”

Nell, Kashawn, and I join hands, but the microphone is set in front of me, and a huge crowd waits on the steps of the courthouse. I swallow my disappointment, my disillusionment with a system that never seems to protect those who need it most, and speak.

“Standing here,” I say, pausing to steady my voice and fix my face. “This ruling feels as personal as a knife through the heart. On the surface, it seems to be about us. A small venture capital fund offering modest grants to Black women trying to start businesses.”

I sweep the crowd, sprinkled with media and their mics and phones held aloft to capture what I’m saying.

“But it’s not about us,” I continue. “If Citizens for Equality was truly concerned about discrimination, they’d look into the overwhelmingly white male firms who supply white men with the lion’s share of venture capital funding, leaving women with under two percent and Black women still with less than half of that. This court is penalizing one of the few groups actively working to close the racial-gender inequities in business, and ultimately working to close the social and economic gaps created by this nation’s disgraceful history around race.”

“I know that’s right!” someone yells from the crowd, and others join in.

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