The Ferrari was still downstairs.
Malik left it there.
By morning, the red paint had turned from a win into a problem parked under his mother's building sign.
Two boys were already taking pictures from across the street.
His mother stood by the kitchen sink with a coffee mug in one hand.
"Don't take that thing today," she said.
"I wasn't going to."
She looked out the window.
"Good."
Malik picked it up again anyway.
Proxy lines.
Outside counsel.
Late fees that had changed shape.
He hated it more in daylight.
His mother took a sip.
"You still look like you're arguing with it."
"I am."
"Then stop arguing with paper and go talk to people."
He looked at her.
"Who?"
"Somebody who stayed here long enough to know the difference between help and performance."
That landed.
He knew why.
Last night had not only been a loss.
It had been a public lesson.
The Ferrari had pulled eyes faster than it pulled trust.
The first thing some people saw when he tried to help was not protection.
It was noise.
His mother put the mug down.
"Go see Rochelle Grant."
Malik knew the name.
Everybody around Overtown knew the name.
Not because she was loud.
Because she owned things people used every week and never thought about until they needed them.
"Why Rochelle?"
"Because Rochelle keeps lights on without making a speech first."
He let that sit.
"And if she doesn't help?"
His mother looked back out the window.
"Then at least somebody honest said no."
Malik left the keys on the counter.
Outside, the air already felt wet.
Traffic hissed on the far avenue.
A bus dragged past with brakes that sounded tired.
The boys with the phones looked disappointed when he walked right past the Ferrari.
One of them said, not that quietly, "So the car just for parking now?"
Malik kept moving.
Rochelle Grant's laundromat sat between a beauty supply store and a tiny tax office with peeling numbers on the glass.
Nothing about the block looked impressed by anybody.
That helped.
Inside the laundromat, machines thumped in steady rows.
Soap smell.
Warm air.
Children half-awake in plastic chairs.
A woman folding scrubs with one hand while she texted with the other.
This was money too.
Quiet money.
Rochelle Grant stood near the back counter in a navy blouse and simple gold hoops, reading something off a clipboard.
She looked up once.
Then at his shoes.
Then at his empty hands.
"Good," she said.
"What is?"
"You came in without the circus."
Malik walked closer.
"My mother said I should talk to you."
"Your mother says smart things."
Rochelle set the clipboard down.
"You here to fix your mother's problem," she said, "or your reputation?"
Malik looked at her.
"Both, if I'm being honest."
"Better answer than lying."
She folded her arms.
"But still the wrong order."
That stung because it was true.
Malik leaned against nothing.
"People think I came back for show."
Rochelle gave him a flat look.
"Yesterday you brought a red Ferrari to a building fight."
"I brought money."
"No," she said. "You brought a picture."
The washers kept turning.
Malik looked at Rochelle.
"So what does money look like in here?"
She pointed at the room without turning.
"Working dryers."
"Paid workers."
"Somebody who answers the phone."
"A business that stays after the attention leaves."
She stepped closer.
"You paid a bill for your mother. Good. You should have. But don't confuse paying one bill with people trusting your whole return."
Malik let the hit land.
He did not defend himself.
Rochelle noticed that.
"That board room wasn't only about Elena," she said.
"I know."
"Do you?"
Malik said nothing.
Rochelle picked up the clipboard again, then set it back down like she had changed her mind.
"People in that building are not only scared of Elena. They're scared of being the next people with cameras at their door, the next people turned into a rich son's project."
"I'm not trying to turn anybody into a project."
"Then stop arriving like an announcement."
"So what do I do?"
Rochelle studied him.
"You listen longer."
"You ask who owned the story before you showed back up."
"And you go see Selena Prado."
There it was.
The second name.
"Why Selena?"
"Because Selena remembers every lot and every grudge attached to it."
Rochelle picked up her mug.
"She knows what got sold, what got stolen, and what people like to rename after the damage is done."
Malik's jaw moved once.
"You think my mother's building is part of something bigger."
Rochelle took a sip.
"I think you are late to a story that started before last night."
She looked at him over the rim.
"Maybe before Elena too."
"Did my mother send you to say that?"
"No."
"Then why help me?"
Rochelle smiled a little.
"Helping you would be solving it for you."
"I'm giving you the next door."
She reached under the counter, tore a receipt in half, and wrote an address on the back.
"Go now."
"And Malik?"
He looked up.
"Leave your wallet in your pocket when you get there."
Selena Prado's address led him to a short block with two restored houses, one empty lot behind chain-link, and a black Tahoe parked half on the curb like it belonged there.
Three men stood near survey stakes talking low.
Selena was the only person not sweating through her clothes.
Silk blouse.
Phone in one hand.
She saw Malik walking up and did not smile.
"You finally found this side again."
No greeting.
No fake warmth.
Just that.
Malik stopped at the fence.
"Rochelle said you know things I need."
"Rochelle says useful things when she wants to."
Selena looked past him once.
"Where's the red car?"
"Not here."
"Good."
She slipped her phone into her bag.
"Yesterday you looked like a ribbon cutting."
Malik could have snapped at that.
He did not.
"Yesterday I looked like a man who thought money moved faster than paper."
That made her look at him differently.
Not warmer.
Just more directly.
"And today?"
"Today I need the truth."
Selena walked to the fence and stopped close enough for him to see the fine lines at the corners of her eyes.
"Truth about what?"
"My mother's building."
"Elena."
"Who moved first."
Selena let out a short breath through her nose.
"That's still too small."
She tapped one red nail against the chain-link.
"Your mother's building is one pressure point. That's all."
"Then give me the bigger map."
"Why?"
That came fast.
"Because I'm in it."
"Being in something doesn't mean you deserve the full map."
Malik kept his voice level.
"Then tell me what I haven't seen."
Selena watched him for another beat.
"You haven't seen how many men come back rich and start explaining home to the people who stayed."
He took that without flinching.
"I'm here now."
"Late," she said.
"Still here."
That got him a second of silence.
Then Selena nodded once, almost annoyed by it.
"Your family's paper problems did not start with Elena Pierre-Louis."
Malik felt something in his chest tighten.
"Start where?"
Selena turned and pointed past the lot, toward a side street lined with old garages and patched roofs.
"Your father had a habit," she said. "He believed one more signature could get back what paper already decided to keep."
Malik said nothing.
She kept talking.
"A lot of men lost little parcels that way."
"Storage lots."
"Corners."
"Titles."
"Cars."
That last word hit different.
Selena saw that too.
"You know about the car?" Malik asked.
"I know your father spent too many years chasing one thing like the city owed him mercy."
"What thing?"
Selena's face stayed still.
"A black Impala."
Malik looked at her.
"He never told me about any Impala."
"He probably thought he was still going to get it back."
Selena adjusted the strap on her bag.
"Men talk different when they think they still have time."
Malik stepped closer to the fence.
"What does that have to do with my mother?"
Selena's eyes stayed on him.
"Everything."
"Because the people squeezing her now did not invent this style of theft."
"They inherited it."
"And your father saw one version of it before you were old enough to notice names on paper."
Malik felt heat rise under his collar.
Not loud anger.
Worse.
The kind that made old blank spaces in family history start moving.
"Where is it?"
Selena shook her head.
"Wrong question."
"Then give me the right one."
She looked toward the side street again.
"Ask who kept your father from bringing it home."
"Ask who made him keep paying toward something already gone."
"Ask why the same kind of paper keeps finding your family."
Malik held her eyes.
"And where do I start?"
Selena answered without softening.
"With the car your father never got back."