Chapter Six. Asad #4
Which means I have zero doubts those hittas coming after us weren’t from the outside. They didn’t have anything to gain. No, some intuition, sixth sense, insists this originated from within.
Someone from within my own family wants me dead.
Maybe I should start listing the names alphabetically.
“Like I said, this dinner is gon’ be some shit,” Eli murmurs, then sliding me a look, laughs. “You wild as fuck, Prince.”
“No doubt.” Makeda circles the large island in the middle of the kitchen and opens one of the cabinet doors lining it.
She’s been in my house so much, she doesn’t bother asking permission as she removes the box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and sets it on top of the island. “Ain’t no way I’m missing it.”
“You over here sounding like you hope some shit jump off.” I swing open the cabinet door above the stove and withdraw two bowls, and then grab the milk from the refrigerator.
“I’m not not hoping.” Makeda tugs open the silverware drawer and removes two spoons as I set one bowl down in front of her and the other before me.
Neither one of us bothers offering Eli any cereal. He refuses to eat sugar, carbs, or pussy. No wonder he’s a fucking workaholic. His life holds no joy.
Before I can reply, my cell buzzes in my pants pocket. Sliding it free, I glance down at the screen and immediately answer it.
“Ro,” I greet Rochelle Miller, my tech analyst. “You get any name recognition hits off that video?”
“So far nothing, but I’m still working on it,” she says, the clicking of tapping on a keyboard sounding off in the background. This woman works more than Eli does. “I got something else though I think you should look at. I just sent an encrypted file to your email.”
“Aight. I’ll check it out and hit you back.”
“Bet.”
When I end the call and set the phone on top of the island, Eli is already rising from his seat and making his way across the room. Makeda drops her spoon in her bowl and studies me, her body turned toward me, going still, as if bracing for action.
“Do me a favor and grab my tablet off my study desk?” I ask Eli.
With a nod, he disappears from the kitchen, and not a minute later, he’s striding back into the room, coming to stand next to me and Makeda.
“’Preciate it,” I murmur, powering the device on.
As soon the screen blinks to life, displaying a lovely but boring screen saver of ice-capped mountains, I maneuver to the email app. On either side of me, Makeda and Eli shift closer. They didn’t overhear my conversation with Ro, but it’s as if they sense some shit is about to go down.
They wouldn’t be wrong.
The encrypted file sits right at the top of my inbox, and I waste no time right-clicking on it. The tablet’s screen fills with a black-and-white video of what appears to be a lobby. Maybe at a hotel or office or …
“Oh shit. This is Marcus’s apartment building.”
I’ve only visited my stepfather’s Brentwood condo a handful of times, but it’s hard to forget the pretentious-ass stained glass that sits high on the wall above the revolving entrance door.
Other than that one identifying factor, it’s just any other lobby in another building.
Security desk lining one wall, nondescript couches, chairs, and tables creating a fair-sized sitting area, and a bank of elevators just out of shot.
“Look at the date.” Makeda taps the top corner of the screen with a jet-black painted nail.
“Yeah,” I say.
“The night Marcus was killed,” Eli murmurs, flattening a palm on the marble surface and leaning forward, his focus fixed on the device.
For at least five minutes, the lobby remains clear.
Not even a guard stands on post behind the desk.
Impatience scratches at me. Impatience and a …
knowing. Something is coming. I can feel it sitting on my chest. I deliberately slow my breathing so it doesn’t echo in my head, but there ain’t shit I can do about the jumping of my pulse or the acrid aftertaste of trepidation coating my tongue.
Just when I’m about to jab at the fast forward button, the revolving door begins to slowly spin.
A figure steps into the enclosure and, seconds later, walks into the foyer.
A hood covers their head, but the tallish figure strikes me as familiar.
A woman. Neither the material concealing her face or the long raincoat covering her frame can hide those feminine curves.
She steps farther into the camera’s view.
And pulls the hood back.
Ember.
Shock rips through me. I stare at her beautiful face, so clear even in the slightly grainy quality of the video. Gaze still pinned to the video, I shuffle backward a step, away from it. A rush of emotion floods into my chest, threatening to crack my sternum open like the gotdamn Jaws of Life.
Shock, yes. But also disbelief, confusion, anger.
Pride.
Ember had been at her father’s place that night. The night he was murdered. And she never said anything to me. Never so much as mentioned that she’d seen her father hours before his death. There was only one explanation why.
I can’t tear my eyes away from the tablet, watching her disappear from the camera’s view. After continuing to watch the video for another twenty minutes, she still doesn’t reappear. That’s when I pause it.
Silence permeates the room. None of us move or utter a word.
“What’re you going to do?” Eli asks after several tension-thick moments.
There’s no need to discuss if Ember killed her father. We all watched the same incriminating footage. And Ember’s own omission is a testimony to her guilt. Now it’s about action.
Consequences.
I pivot, stalking over to the sink and slamming a hand down on the counter next to it.
Fuck.
Gotdammit. Fuck. Fuuuuck.
Wrapping my stinging palms around the cool, stainless steel edge of the sink, I stare out the window into the trees and mountains in the distance.
As much as I planned and committed damn near every unthinkable act to be right here as the head of HoC, sometimes I just want …
My fingers curl tighter around the sink edge.