“You are being targeted,” he snapped back, volume finally breaking.
“Financially. Personally. Online. Offline. The second I stepped next to you, your enemies multiplied when mine joined the line. I am the only thing standing between you and people who would happily watch you burn.”
“Because of you!” I threw back. “Because you bring hurricanes with you wherever you go, Ahmir. You brag about holding them back like that erases the fact that you are the damn storm.”
His face went very still.
“You think this storm exists because of me?” he asked quietly. “The storm started the moment a Black woman with no pedigree put her name on a building in a market full of old money and old men. I didn’t create that. I walked into it.”
“You are the God damn storm,” I said, voice low. “And I opened my
