Kane was vice president of human resources for a logistics company, and since he and some of his colleagues were entertaining out-of-town clients for dinner, Raven was home alone this evening. To be honest, she wasn’t all that sad about it. Because had Kane not been so busy with work, he would’ve already seen her Facebook video. He rarely viewed them live, but he almost always watched them the same evening she recorded them and definitely by the next day. The reason she knew he still hadn’t seen it was because if he had, he would’ve immediately called to let her know how upset he was. He would’ve gone on and on about how wrong it had been for her to go public with something so personal when she hadn’t even had the courtesy to share it with him first. But it wasn’t like she’d had time to call him. She’d decided on a whim that she needed to shake things up a bit with her online viewers. Still, she knew it wouldn’t be long before she would have to explain herself to Kane, but she wouldn’t worry about that until she had to.
Now, she sat watching one YouTube video after another. Instead of looking at her own, though, she watched those of Reverend Curtis Black. She did this regularly, seeing what she could learn from him. It was true that she had zero respect for Pastor Black, but she couldn’t deny his natural-born charisma, his complete knowledge of the Bible, his great gift for delivering sermons, or his exceptionally good looks. The man had children in their thirties—at least his two eldest were, anyway—but he was still as handsome as always. He was the kind of successful pastor Raven aspired to be, and she was well on her way. The only difference was that she was a woman, and as it was with any other career or calling, a woman had to work five times as hard and be ten times as good in order to receive even similar respect as a man.
This made Raven angry, but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do to change the backward, sexist way some men thought. And interestingly enough, some women didn’t believe women should vie for positions that were mostly dominated by men, either. But Raven wasn’t going to let that kind of foolish thinking stop her from becoming who she wanted to be.
She watched another video and then came across one that she hadn’t listened to in a while. Because of yet another very public scandal that Pastor Black had gotten himself involved in, he’d decided to step down from his position as senior pastor. But this sermon had been delivered years ago, on the first Sunday he’d returned to his post. Raven clicked Play and turned up the volume.
“My, my, my. Well, today is the day the Lord hath made, so let us rejoice and be glad in it. And I guess it goes without saying that today I am a very happy man, and I am also a very humbled and grateful man of God. As my wife mentioned earlier, this has been one of the toughest years of our lives, but thank God it has also been a wonderful learning period for all of us. It has been a learning process that we truly needed to experience. A little over a year ago, I stood here, letting you know that because I’d made a ton of mistakes it was time for me to step down as your pastor. And that’s exactly what I did. I attended service each week the same as you, I participated in Bible study on Wednesday evenings as a member, and I read and studied my Word daily. Sometimes I studied from my home office for hours on end, and I’m here to tell you, it was very much worth it. Then, there were days when I turned out all the lights and closed the shutters in my office and got down on my knees so I could meditate. I did this so I could listen and hear from God without any distractions. I spoke to Him regularly, because I still had a lot of repenting to do. And it is because of all of this that I am totally recommitted to God’s work and this entire ministry. I now see things completely different than I did before. I’ve learned so much and improved so many things in my life, I really wish more pastors would step down and take a backseat when they know they’re not walking in God’s purpose. When they know they’re not doing all that God wants them to do and what He expects from them. I finally feel as though I’m not just on the right path this time around, but instead, I’m now on an eternal path when it comes to my relationship with God. And believe me when I tell you that there’s definitely a difference.”
Raven pursed her lips. He’d sounded sincere enough, she gave him that much, but who was to say whether he’d kept his word and hadn’t done any more dirt? In all fairness, she had to admit that since that particular year, she hadn’t heard any rumors about him, not even while she was in prison, but she still didn’t trust a man who’d slept around on three different wives and who’d had two of his children with mistresses. The whole family was crazy if you asked Raven. Because for the life of her, she couldn’t believe Curtis’s current wife, Charlotte, had accepted that child and was raising Curtina as her own daughter. It was true that Curtis’s former mistress had died, but there was no way that Raven would have even considered raising a child that her husband had conceived with another woman—while he was married to her. Every time she looked at that child, it would’ve reminded her of her husband’s affair, but maybe Charlotte was different. Either that or she was willing to accept any- and everything if it meant she could keep her position as first lady of the largest church in Mitchell. Or more important, she could continue being married to one of the most well-known pastors worldwide, a man who made sure she wanted for nothing. Charlotte and Pastor Black were so wealthy, Charlotte would likely never want for anything ever.
So the more Raven thought about it, the more she realized that Charlotte had done what she needed to do. It was exactly what Raven would’ve done, too, if it had meant living the kind of lifestyle she longed for. Although there was something else that Raven had forgotten as well. Charlotte’s son, Matthew, had been conceived with Pastor Black while he’d still been married to his first wife, Tanya. So maybe this was the real reason she’d been able to accept Pastor Black’s outside daughter and move on. Maybe she felt guilty about what she’d done to Tanya. And now that Raven kept thinking about it, Charlotte had also gotten pregnant by a man she’d had an affair with on Pastor Black. She’d had a daughter who Pastor Black had raised as his own child, but that little girl had passed away when she’d been very young. So maybe this was the primary reason Charlotte had no problem with Curtina. But with the Black family, there was just no telling.
Raven watched the rest of the sermon, paying attention to the way Pastor Black read scriptures and the way he worded his sentences. But then she snickered. She wasn’t sure why she suddenly thought about those two times she’d tried to seduce Pastor Black: once when the two of them had stayed behind in one of the church conference rooms after a meeting to discuss more financial business, and once when she’d pretended her car was in the shop so he would give her a ride to work. She’d known he would eventually be on his way to the church, so she’d called him bright and early. But after all these years, what she still didn’t understand was why he’d turned her down on both occasions. It didn’t make sense, not when he’d always loved smart, beautiful women—not to mention, he had certainly been unquestionably attracted to her. But rejecting her was exactly what he’d done. Then he’d also had the nerve to have her arrested and sent to prison.
Raven still hated him for that, too, and although no one knew this except God and her, getting back at Pastor Black had been the reason she’d married his son, Dillon. Dillon had known that Raven couldn’t stand his father, but to this day, he didn’t know that Raven had ever tried to come on to his dad. Maybe because even though Raven’s initial connection to Dillon had only been revenge related, eventually she had genuinely fallen in love with him. She wished with everything in her that she hadn’t, but it had happened before she’d realized it.
Raven watched sermon videos from five other nationally known pastors. The difference between them and Pastor Black, however, was that while they were each dynamic speakers, too, Raven honestly believed they were true men of God. She could tell just by listening to them, and she also had never heard anything bad about any of the men character-wise. She knew no one was perfect, but these men walked with great integrity. There was no doubt that Raven had different motives than they did for becoming a pastor, something she never lied to herself about, but she still had the utmost respect for pastors who seemed to care about doing the right thing. She loved that these particular men stayed clear of scandal.
Raven slid back from her desk, preparing to head up to her bedroom, but when her phone rang she stopped in her tracks. Her eyes must be playing tricks on her, was all she could think. Because she just knew Dillon hadn’t found the audacity to call her. Although, there was no doubt that he was calling about that video she’d broadcast yesterday, and she didn’t want to hear anything he had to say.
So she waited to see if he was bold enough to leave her a voice message. It took a little longer than she thought, which meant that he either hadn’t left one or he was leaving a pretty lengthy rant.
She looked at her phone a few seconds more but then went upstairs. Not long after, her voice message signal beeped, and she swiped her screen to check it.
“I don’t know whether you’re ignoring my call or if you’re legitimately not available. But either way, I need you to hear me and hear me good. Don’t start something you won’t be able to finish. We all watched that video of yours, and people are already posting comments and saying that they wonder if my dad is the pastor you’re talking about. So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll retract that accusation of yours. My father would never do anything like that to you or any woman, and what a dirty trick you are for trying to insinuate that he would. And you call yourself a pastor. Please! More like some fake harlot standing in a pulpit. You might have those members at your church fooled, but we all know who you really are. We know everything about you, and if you keep playing games, you’re going to regret the day you ever met my father. You’ll regret you ever met me, too, or even heard of the Black family. So I’m telling you now. Either you make a public statement clearing my dad or else. And just so we’re on the same page, these are the kinds of words we expect you to say: ‘While it has come to my attention that some people believe that when I said I was raped, I was referring to Pastor Curtis Black, I just want to say that it was not. Pastor Black never touched me or violated me in any kind of way.’ And I expect you to do it before noon tomorrow. And if you don’t, then consider this your first of very few warnings. Because I’m not playing with you, Raven. It’s bad enough that you dragged my name and reputation through the gutter during that divorce, so I owe you, anyway. But trying to ruin my dad is something different. So I advise you to do what you need to do. And do it quickly.”
Raven clicked the button on her phone and laughed. Was he kidding? Did Dillon actually think she was afraid of him? Did he believe she was going to do anything he told her? Well, if he did, he was crazy, because she wasn’t going to retract anything—unless she would get something out of it. Maybe if Pastor Black wanted to verbally endorse her ministry in some beneficial way, or even better, drop a seven-figure contribution into one of NVCC’s collection plates, she would be happy to tell her viewers whatever the Black family wanted her to. But if not, she was leaving the allegations as is. She would allow all the suspicion and accusatory rhetoric to continue running rampant, because every bit of it was working nicely for her. Since yesterday, she’d gained ten thousand new followers on her Facebook page and nearly the same on her Twitter and Instagram accounts. Plus, there were all those candid and very touching comments that women nationwide were posting about their own sexual assaults. Some were sharing their stories for the first time, and they loved Raven for giving them the courage to do so. They were thanking her across the board, and she wasn’t about to give up such visible attention. Not when she needed this kind of publicity to grow her ministry. Not when the online donations from new viewers were steadily flowing in. But at the same time, it was like she’d just been thinking before: If Pastor Black paid the right price, she would retract whatever he wanted.
For seven figures, she’d do just about anything.