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I didn’t intend to, but my voice seems to have communicated irritation just now. Frustration is beginning to gnaw at me as we brainstorm solutions for each challenge. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but this level of difficulty I did not account for in my plans.
When you have money and all your life, all you have to do is snap a finger, and things happen; this is hard to take. I have always gotten what I wanted. Even in prison, my life didn’t change much.
Some people were bought to keep me safe; some people were threatened, and some were nice for the sole purpose of piling favors for when they got out.
Money can buy a lot of things . . . even a Moroccan-Delights vacation-like prison sentence. Mine turned out to be like a twelve-year-long spa day.
That was then . . . this is now, and for a project that is barely a day old, it doesn’t look good.
As the meeting draws to a close, I glance around the room, feeling both exhausted and invigorated. My team and I have our work cut out for us. We’ll face countless obstacles on this journey, I am sure, but if there’s even a chance we can make a difference, I’m willing to fight tooth and nail for it.
“Thank you, everyone,” I say, my voice heavy with emotion. “I appreciate your contributions.”
Chapter eight
THE GHOSTS OF MY GREAT, GREAT, GREAT GRANDPA’S VISION.
LIAM
I leave the war room a vessel of trashed dreams. Yesterday, I was so sure it could be done. Today, my mind churns with doubts about the feasibility of my pet project—The Sundown Project.
Even after the major blow-up with my father last night, a frequent occurrence nowadays, I was still very confident that this could be done. The hubris in me.What were you thinking? That you are God ?. . .That all you have to do is snap your finger and say, “Let There Be Light,” and BOOM!!!
I just walked into the study just now, and Dad just threw his thousand-dollar Scotch Whiskey at me, aiming for my head. Thankfully, he missed.
Till the day I die, I will never understand the satisfaction people get from smashing breakables against walls. If you asked me, I think a well-placed knuckle against the skin is a lot more expressive and effective . . . that is if all words fail. When herealized that he had thrown wide and missed my head, he had roared.
“What is wrong with you? You have a vendetta against this family? If it is not one thing with you, it is another.”
“What is this bullshit about ‘Project Africa’?
“How in God’s name did you hear about that? Everybody privy to that information has signed an NDA.”My God. Is he spying on me? Does he have a plant in my team? I wouldn’t put it past him.
“How can you not see what this project says out loud to the world? You ONLY offer reparations if you have directly wronged someone. Who have you wronged? You doing this opens us up to all sorts of liabilities.”
“A smart lawyer in Africa could easily start a class action against us, and how will we defend ourselves if you have already gone out there and started offering reparations for wrongdoing? We have worked hard for what we have, and no animals died in the process.”
When Mom said that she had never seen my father really mad, she should have been in the library today. She missed her chance.
Dad’s disapproval was bare to see, screaming obscenities when referring to “the moral high ground you seek,” as he labeled my vision.
I had expected a lot of headwinds from all corners, but the one barreling toward me from my father took me completely by surprise. It feels like, lately, I can’t do anything right in his eyes.
It is like, once people have labeled you, that is all they see. My father and I are definitely going through something lately, but I have no idea what it is. All I know is we seem to be fighting about one thing or another all the time.
A week after we “broke ground” in the conference room and set the ball rolling, I finally came face-to-face with my father’s might. He had reached out to his diamond cronies, and before you knew it, powerful entities that felt threatened like him came out of the woodwork to play, and they were not playing nice.
A clandestine consortium of energy giants came out of nowhere to oppose my venture, viewing it as a disruption to their lucrative status quo. Their opposition isn’t just a hurdle; it’s a looming storm ready to unleash financial and legal tempests.
Over the years, people have lovingly referred to my father as Genghis Khan behind his back, for when he is mad, you would rather face a pack of hungry lions than him.
He is most certainly not happy with me, and I know it, but backing down or showing fear is not my style. He can come after me with all he’s got, but even he is not foolish enough to push me over the edge. I could bring this empire down with just one word, and he knows it . . . they all know it.
Even so,Dad has certainly shown that he has balls and is calling my bluff. He thinks I don’t know it, but I can see his handiwork written all over the unexpected legal hurdles that Martin notified me of yesterday.
A shrewd legal team hired by some well-known energy conglomerates sent Martin a very long communiqué, stating concerns, objections, and potential legal ramifications.
Martin now finds himself entangled in a web of bureaucratic red tape, threatening to suffocate the project before it gains momentum.
