When No One Is Watching(70)
“Yeah. And when I looked them up, a lot of the headlines were people calling them out for offering subprime loans to minorities in the lead-up to the 2008 housing bubble bursting.”
“Gaining how many houses when the foreclosures started rolling out,” Sydney says bitterly. She expands the circle around BVT Realty so that a pixelated name in a smaller circle takes up most of the screen: Good Neighbors LLC.
“Those are the people who stole Mommy’s house. Drea—” She takes a deep breath. “Drea once told me that BVT got special treatment, which is why they’re building here more than anyone else. She also said someone had pulled lots of strings for the VerenTech deal.”
“I’m no Robin Hood, but one of the reasons I felt okay stealing from my job was because so much of the money coming in was graft, pure and simple,” I say. “They laundered more cleanly than the job I had before, but people who have money use that money to make more of it, and they don’t care who they hurt while doing that. VerenTech has more money than most of us can imagine.”
“They chose Brooklyn, out of all the places vying for their new campus,” Sydney says. “The most expensive place, but the one that would make them the most money once they got us all out of here. If they’ve been collecting houses since the earlier housing crises . . .”
“Yeah. It’s possible that this has been years in the making.”
Sydney meets my gaze, and I confirm what she said a minute ago, because something like this bears repeating to make it real.
“Something shady is going on here, and it’s connected to them.”
Chapter 18
Sydney
I WRAP MY ARMS AROUND MY KNEES.
“You know, sometimes my mother used to send me these illuminati videos she got from her friends—she barely knew how to text but could forward those—and I would shake my head like she was being foolish. But this whole situation makes those videos seem quaint.”
I squeeze my eyes shut as the connections keep forming in my head, lighting up as they do.
The police presence has exploded over the last few years, with cops stationed en masse at subway entrances and stepped-up foot patrols that were supposed to increase safety, but haven’t for the people who lived here. Preston and the many other people in the neighborhood who’ve been arrested over the last couple of years have likely been taken to VerenTech’s jails and prisons. All the new condos going up in any available slice of land are owned by BVT. Veritas Bank, the biggest lender to the new businesses opening—and the owner of so many of the defaulted loans of the past—is part of VerenTech.
And all the people who moved away and never checked in with old neighborhood friends. Where were they?
“We can’t tell anyone this, can we? This is lock-you-up-and-sedate-you shit.” I shake my head, trying to stop the conspiracy theory domino rally. “Even if it’s true.”
“Especially if it’s true,” Theo says.
I never want to see the inside of an institution again. I was only at the one in Seattle for three soul-breaking days, trying to explain that I was fine, that Marcus had lied, that I wouldn’t hurt myself or him.
Just the thought of being ignored while I screamed the truth, again, makes me want to vomit. It took months to assure myself I wasn’t actually crazy after Marcus’s final act of humiliation, and all of this is making me start to doubt again.
“What am I supposed to do?” I get up and pace. “I’m not walking into a police station and announcing there’s an organized movement to kill Black people and steal our land. Even though it’s been happening in this country for generations and it shouldn’t be hard to believe. Can we even call this a conspiracy theory? I mean . . . that’s why the police exist in the first place. Of course they won’t help!”
The last of my good nerves fray, so that I’m hanging on by a thread. Theo stands and steps in front of me, blocking my restless stride and forcing me to look up at him.
“We’ll figure this out, okay?” He runs his knuckles over my jawline, gently, and I take a deep breath.
“How?” I want to believe him. So bad. But at this point I don’t see any way this ends well.
“Sydney.” Theo is grinning as he calls my attention back to him, though his eyes are somber. “I need you to channel the confidence of a mediocre white man. I’ll give you mine. We’ll figure it out because we don’t have any other choice.”
“Right. Right.” I take a deep breath, steady myself a bit. “Do you have chamomile tea or something? I prefer scotch, but I need something that won’t affect my thinking.”
“Let me see,” he says, then heads down the hallway to the kitchen. I hear the hiss and catch of a stove being lit, and jump out of my seat ready to fight when it’s followed by a curse and a metallic crash.
“I’m okay!” he calls out.
I drop back onto the couch pillows and take a deep breath. There’s no chance in hell that I can actually relax, but I try to collect my thoughts, which have scattered like fish in the koi pond at Prospect Park running from an off-leash dog.
My gaze darts back and forth around the living room, really absorbing the differences between my house and this one. The paint is new, and looks like the thousand-thread-count sheets of paint. There are little glass terrariums everywhere—when I stopped in one of the new boutiques that’s opened up, the smallest one with a tiny succulent was fifty bucks.