Omar (The Baptiste Brothers #2)

1. Omar

Omar

The man zip-tied to the support beam wasn't dead.

I crouched and put two fingers to the side of his throat.

Pulse was there, a little quick but holding.

His chest was moving in shallow pulls, his chin down, his arms behind him with the tie sitting high enough to put most of his weight through his shoulders.

He'd hurt in the morning. He'd live. That had been the assignment.

I straightened up, picked my jacket off the floor where I'd left it before we started, and walked the length of the loading bay to the roll-up door Devon had left cracked for me.

Behind me the man made a sound. Not words yet. I kept walking.

Devon called before I got to the car.

"He good?"

"He's breathing."

"A'ight." A door opened somewhere on his end, street noise rushing in behind it. "Kadeem need you at a sit-down. Crown Heights, Supreme's warehouse. Tonight."

"What's it about?"

"TK. He been pushing into the corridor between y'all and Supreme's territory. Both sides got a problem with it. Kadeem want everybody in the room."

"Stone coming?"

"Already confirmed it."

James was waiting by the car. He'd been outside the whole time, watching the approach road, clocking the boats in the harbor. He looked at my hands when I came through the door and didn't ask questions.

I got in the passenger side of the Range Rover and looked out at the water through the windshield. The harbor was dark and flat and the far shore had lights starting to come up. "Tell Kadeem I'm on my way."

James pulled out of the lot and headed toward Crown Heights. The knuckles on my right hand were swelling where they'd connected with the man's face. He'd talk tomorrow when the pain settled in and his options narrowed. They always did.

The warehouse was on a block in Crown Heights that Supreme owned from the sidewalk up. His men were out front. They knew the Range Rover before I'd parked. The one on the step gave me a nod and stepped aside, and I went inside and up to the second floor.

The back room was set up for business. A long table, eight chairs, two strip lights overhead running a flat white light onto everything.

No windows. Supreme stood at the head of the table with his hands in his pockets.

Dark shirt, collar open, a watch on his left wrist I put at sixty or seventy thousand.

He wasn't dressed for anybody but himself.

Kadeem sat along one side with Stone next to him, cardigan over his button-down, his reading glasses on the table in front of him.

Two of Supreme's men stood along the far wall.

"Omar," Supreme said when I came through the door.

"Supreme."

I pulled out the chair next to Kadeem and sat. Stone caught my eye across the table and gave me a nod.

Supreme sat down across from me, leaned back in his chair, and took his time before speaking.

"TK's been running supply through the Flatbush corridor," he said. "That corridor runs along the line between my territory and yours. So when I say this is a shared problem, I mean that." He looked at Kadeem. "What's Baptiste got on him?"

Kadeem opened the folder in front of him.

"Devon's been sitting on three blocks in Flatbush.

Vehicle pattern's been consistent for weeks.

Same plates, same times, same contact points.

" He set two pages across the table toward Supreme.

"Three confirmed locations he's been using to move product through the gap.

The volume's higher than what TK's operation should be pushing. "

Supreme picked up the pages and read through them without hurry, his focus settled on the data, the room waiting on him. "Higher how much?"

"Enough that he's either got a backer or he's running for somebody else on top of his own supply."

Supreme set the pages down. He looked at Stone. "You got anything on a backer?"

Stone leaned forward and touched a name near the bottom of the second page.

"This intermediary. He moved money between operations years back, when Malik was still building the outer network.

His name keeps showing up in Devon's peripheral data.

Could be dead paper. Could be nothing." He sat back.

"But I'd pull everything Devon has on him before the next sit-down. Just to close it off."

Supreme looked at the name. Then he looked at Kadeem.

"I don't want a war behind TK's ambition," Supreme said. "That's not good for either of us."

"Agreed," Kadeem said.

"So here's what I'm proposing. Your people take the northern entry points, mine take the southern. Anything moves through that corridor, both sides hear about it within the hour. We share Devon's contact."

Kadeem was quiet for a moment, reading something in Supreme's face. "That works."

Supreme nodded once. "Stone."

"The arrangement makes sense," Stone said. "One thing on the reporting timeline. Within the hour is tight depending on position. Make it two hours, standing exception for active movement, and both sides have more flexibility without losing the thread."

Supreme considered it. "Two hours."

Kadeem nodded.

Chairs scraped. Hands went around the table. I stood and reached for my jacket, and that was when the side door opened.

She came in from the left with a dark coat on, buttons open, a bag on her shoulder, already talking.

"Premie, I didn't know you were still..."

She stopped.

Her eyes came across the table and found me. Her face froze. My hands gripped the back of the chair I'd just stood up from. Fourteen years, and I knew her shape before I'd processed what I was seeing, knew the silence she was holding around her mouth.

She swallowed.

Supreme looked at her. Then at me.

"Y'all know each other?"

She put her eyes on Supreme. "No." Even, steady. "I thought you were done. I came to ask about dinner."

Supreme looked at me.

"Nah," I said, quietly, eyes on Supreme. "Never seen her."

He held the two of us in the same look for a long beat, going from her face to mine. Then he leaned back in his chair.

"Come here," he said, looking at her.

She came around the end of the table toward him, expressionless, her chin up, her bag still on her shoulder.

She stopped beside his chair and waited.

He took his time looking up at her, letting the room watch him take his time, then reached for her wrist and tugged her down onto his lap.

She came down without resistance, with the same easy give I'd seen her use on her father at sixteen when she didn't want a fight.

Supreme settled her against him, one arm around her waist, his other hand going to her thigh.

He said something low against her ear that I couldn't catch.

She said something back. Whatever she said put a slow grin on his face, his hand moving up from her thigh to the side of her neck, holding her loosely with his thumb against her pulse.

The room was moving now, his men off the wall, Kadeem on his feet, handshakes going around the table.

Supreme stood with her still leaning against him, his hand sliding from her neck down to the small of her back to steer her toward the side door.

Just before she went through it, he brought his palm down hard across her ass.

The sound of it cracked across the whole room.

"Y'all see that jiggle?" he said to his boys. "That's mine right there."

Two of his men laughed.

She went through the door without breaking stride or looking back.

I picked up my jacket from the back of the chair and took my time pulling it on. By the time the second sleeve was settled, the heat in my chest was something I'd already buried under a half inch of nothing.

Outside, Kadeem went to his car without a word. Stone fell into step beside me and walked with me as far as the corner.

"Good meeting," he said.

"Yeah."

Stone looked at me for a moment. "You alright?"

"I'm good."

He nodded, not pushing it, and went to his car.

I got in the Range Rover. A man came out of the bodega across the street and turned uptown.

A cab cut the light. The block kept going.

None of it had anything to do with the fact that Asha Cole had just walked through a side door in Supreme's warehouse and told the room she'd never seen me before in her life.

I put my hands on the wheel. My thumb moved along the stitching on the grip, back and then forward.

I thought about the half-second before she'd gotten her face under control.

How her expression had locked the moment she saw me, everything in it going flat and still.

Fourteen years and she'd pulled it off in under a second.

I'd taught her that. We'd been sixteen and hiding something from her pops and I'd told her: give them nothing. Whatever you're feeling, keep it behind your eyes.

She'd kept it there ever since.

She'd kept it there for the man who'd just slapped her ass for sport in front of three of his crew and called her that's mine right there. Kept it there while she walked through the door without looking back, like nothing in that room mattered to her. Like I didn't matter to her.

I knew better.

I started the engine and pulled away from the curb, and I drove in the wrong direction for two blocks before I realized I wasn't headed home.