Page 153 of Can't Get Enough

I close my eyes and pull the phone away from my ear, pressing it to my chest for a moment. “I’ll find out what’s going on.”

“Get back to me as soon as you can.”

After we disconnect, I dial Maverick right away. It’s six o’clock in the evening here, so really early there, but I need to talk to him immediately. It goes to voicemail, and I growl my frustration while I wait to leave a message.

“Mav, what the hell is going on with you and this Vipers team owner?” I ask, hearing the snap in my voice. It sounds like anger, but it’s confusion. Hurt. “Did you know about his involvement with Citizens for Equality? Kashawn is asking me and I feel like…”

A fool.

I feel like a fool for not knowing about Maverick’s proximity to one of the men who has made it his twisted mission to tear down my organization. To tear down Black women. Maverick is days away from this sale going through, and I know he’s been working toward this for so long, not just for him, but for his father. Going through with it, though, funds my opposition.

Would he choose me over his greatest ambition? His crowning achievement?

In my experience with men, especially powerful men, no.

In my experience withthispowerful man… I wish I could say for sure. I steel my voice and brace my heart and finally force out the words.

“Just call me when you get this.”

CHAPTER 50

MAVERICK

There’s an elephant kicking my door down.

If this is Bolt waking me up, his ass is fired.

I mean it this time.

I sit up straight in the hotel suite bedroom to complete darkness, the light blocked by the drawn shades.

“Come in,” I shout, pressing my palms into my eyes. “Shit.”

“I would,” Bolt yells back, “but it’s locked.”

I toss the covers aside and drag my tired body out of bed to yank open the door. He’s standing there holding a cup of coffee like I’m not three seconds away from kicking his ass.

“I distinctly remember saying late last night”—I turn back into the bedroom, leaving him to follow—“emphasis on ‘late’ because we’d been in meetings all day and half the night—that I needed to sleep past eight this morning. Local time, please?”

“It’s seven thirty,” Bolt replies dispassionately. “And you need to check your phone.”

I stride… or try to find my stride… back into the bedroom and grab my phone from the nightstand drawer.

“What’s up? What’d I miss?” I ask around a yawn as Bolt presses the button on the wall to retract the shades covering the giant windows.

“Someone leaked the list of businesses backing CFE’s lawsuit against Aspire,” he says.

All lassitude evaporates and my narrowed eyes snap to his. “Who?”

The one word rolls out low and fierce, and even to my own ears it matches the ferocious rage directed at these people targeting Hendrix.

“The list is extensive.” Bolt walks farther into the room and leans against the wall. “But one name in particular stood out. Andrew Carverson.”

The shock is so great the impact is delayed. The two parts of my life that have consumed the last few months—my relationship with Hendrix and my pursuit of the Vipers—clash like Big Bang meteors, exploding into white-hot rage.

The weight of this conundrum drops on me like a double-wide trailer. When I close this deal, the one I’ve been working on for years and dreaming about half my life, I’ll inadvertently fund the very man trying to dismantle not only Hendrix’s fund, but equity efforts at large.

“I can’t just give up on the team,” I say as much to myself as Bolt. “And I can’t let Andy get away with this.”

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