Page 53 of The Princess and the P.I.

“She came home days ago, and I thought…we all thought we’d be relieved about it. But she’s…” Esi shrugged. “She’s different.”

“It’s two months of her life. She’ll get over it.” Maurice said this knowing he would never recover from the hard reset his life was in. A table swiped clear of dishes, china crashing to the floor.

“Three days, three years, the heart doesn’t know the difference. Love tends to come when it comes.”

“Then she’ll appreciate why it has to be this way. They killed Sara, right after we left the club, and they ripped that hotel room apart looking for me. The church won’t stop until—”

“I know what the church is capable of. I was a young wife,” she said, trying to sound like she was reading a grocery list, but her voice sputtered like she was running out of gas.

The blood pounded in Maurice’s temples. His mind reeled back to Tameka’s file.

The words young wife bringing goose bumps to his skin .

“You—” he began, so tentatively voice cracking. “You were?”

Esi hugged herself and nodded quickly. “They put me in charge of…discipline. A program called Chastisement.”

Another alarm bell. Holy hell. It was right here the whole time . Maurice pulled out a notepad slowly, so damned slowly, and wrote Chastisement.

Esi continued. “My job was to break wives who didn’t…submit. To the Word of God.”

Maurice didn’t react. Didn’t even breathe. She needed space to scrape the poison out of her belly at her own pace.

“They’d send us the rebellious ones.” Her throat bobbed.

“We were supposed to ‘restore’ them through correction. We lived together, worked together, prayed together—but only after…” She swallowed hard, her gaze locked somewhere beyond him.

Eyes wet but tears not falling over. There was something she wasn’t ready to say.

Maurice didn’t push, though his mouth opened to ask one hundred questions.

Esi continued, “There were…pictures. Videos. They kept records.”

Of course they did. He thought of Sara, who had clawed her way out of blackmail only to find it the only thing she knew how to do.

Esi pressed her lips together, eyes darting to the door as if someone might overhear. Then she exhaled shakily, suddenly in a rush to get it out. “I never met Tameka. But I know the patterns of bruising on the body. It was us.”

Maurice stared at Esi; she’d emailed him first. God, the bravery that must have taken—she must have been desperate.

Something inside Maurice twisted, a terrible, coiling guilt. Dear god, Tameka, I am so sorry. His breath caught.

Esi’s eyes shone with unshed tears. “I tried to reach you. I tried.”

Maurice lowered his head, swallowing the thickness in his throat, feeling raw. He’d built entire walls around Tameka’s tragedy, and now Esi’s confession was tearing those walls down.

The overhead fluorescent lights buzzed. The queasy combination of exuberant go-go music blaring next door and the sick images of Tameka’s body beaten beyond recognition was making his stomach swim.

“We were thugs. And they kept proof of how twisted we’d all become under their system. If anyone crossed them? They’d leak it. Ruin every last one of us,” Esi said. “So we kept that story under wraps, neat as you please.”

Maurice exhaled slowly. A rush of memories slammed into him—shredded case files, turned-away witnesses, polite phone calls that led nowhere.

He was chasing his own tail for years. To finally hear it confirmed.

To hear that he hadn’t been going crazy or getting sloppy like the podcasters tried to claim.

To hear that there was a concerted effort to block him made his temples pulse like he might go blind from the sudden-onset migraine.

“Thank you.” He was shocked that his voice broke. He blinked back wetness from his eyes. “They’ll come after you,” he said finally. “I think you need to lay low.”

Esi smiled bitterly. “I’ve been laying too low. Like a snake.” Esi reached into her dress and withdrew a tiny mic, laying it on the desk with a muffled thunk.

“They wanted me to compromise you and to report every detail, and if you ask me, it’s not about you at all.

Somebody wants to hurt Fiona,” she whispered, “but I am so tired of being their enforcer.” Esi’s face looked like it might crack.

“Let them have my practice. Let them take it. I’m not going out like Sara. I will not.”

Esi handed the wire to Maurice, and he rummaged for a pair of scissors to cut the cords.

“Can you tell me who has the photos of you? I could recover them too.”

Esi reeled back. “Why would you do that?” She gathered herself. “I mean…I’ve not been very…” She let herself trail off while pulling two gel pads from the deep V front of her dress. The nippled silicone pieces bounced hypnotically on the table. “See, I had your number,” she said with a wink.

Maurice tried to pull his eyes away from the jiggling attachments. “Uh, I owe you. It must have been scary as hell to send that email all those years ago. I didn’t answer your bravery well.

“Can I ask you another question?” Maurice said. He was afraid he knew the answer but he pushed forward anyway.

“Sure,” Esi said. She pulled off her wig to scratch her braids, and Maurice handed her a tissue to wipe her wet face.

“Who was in charge of that program back then?” Maurice asked. His voice was as delicate as lace. “Was it your father?”

She recoiled and Maurice knew he’d lost her. “Oh my god. I can’t—I can’t believe I fell for this…Oh my god. You know what? Fuck you, Maurice.”

Esi kicked her high heels off at him and ripped off her lashes, and Maurice was prepared for her to pull off a leg at this point. How much more was there to go?

“Does Fiona know you’re obsessed with fucking our dad over? Does she know that’s the only reason you’re doing any of this? I’m gonna recover your pictures. ” She mimicked in a sing-song voice. “Something you should know…If it’s between you and our dad, Fiona’s not gonna fucking choose you.”

It stung more than Maurice expected. “Oh, I know.” His eyes flicked to the ceiling. Fiona was good for Maurice. She made him think deeper, speak softer, and sleep soundly, but the hard truth of it was this: Maurice wasn’t good for Fiona .

“Esi. Before you go, I have one vital piece of information for you. It will save your life.” Esi was gathering up her heels and stopped in her tracks. “Tell whoever asked you to do this that you did it.”

“No, I said I was done. And it will get to Fiona,” Esi said.

“I agree. This is an attempt at control. Just tell them this.” He scribbled a sentence on a Post-it note.

Esi squinted at the words. “This makes no sense, Maurice.”

“It will to Fiona. Trust me.”

Esi folded the paper. “I do not—”

Esi’s face went from determination to confusion as she squinted at the video Maurice had been watching on a loop.

The CCTV footage of the TechXpo before the iVest presentation.

“Is this her?” She pointed at Sara, then made a wide loop at the people milling around, getting a seat.

“Who is that? That fool don’t know when to take a seat?

” She pointed to someone standing in the haze, face and body mostly obscured by the fog effects and strobing lights.

Under the greenroom hallway camera.

His heart slowed down to what felt like zero beats a minute.

“Get out,” he said softly to Esi, eyes still on the screen.

She grabbed her purse, pulling her short dress over the half-moons of her ass as she stood, but she continued to squint over the image.

“Maurice, wait…”

But he was already taking stills of the video.

“Maurice,” she said, “you son of a bitch, wait!” She sounded panicked.

She should be.

“Get out,” Maurice hissed. He closed his documents and was already shoving on his shoes. Something big and terrifying had clicked into place.