26. Asha
Asha
Icalled Ray from the bathroom with the tap running and Supreme's TV loud enough through the door that he wouldn't hear me.
He picked up on the fourth ring. "Hey, baby girl."
"Don't call me that."
He sighed. "Asha, what you need?"
"The man who connected you to Supreme's people. The one you called 'the connect.' I need his name."
Ray went quiet for a long time. Long enough that I checked the screen to make sure he hadn't hung up.
"Why you asking about that?"
"Because I need to know."
"Asha, that was years ago. That situation is done. You don't need to be digging into..."
"Ray." My voice stayed steady. "You traded me to clear your debt. The least you can do is tell me the name of the man who made that happen."
More silence. Then his voice came back smaller, weaker, the voice of a man who knew exactly what he'd done and had spent three years pretending he didn't.
"I only met him once," Ray said. "He came to the apartment. Sat at the kitchen table, drank my coffee, told me there was a way to make the debt go away. Said Supreme was looking for someone and that you'd be taken care of, that it wasn't like I was selling you, it was more like..."
"Like what, Ray?" My voice cracked. "Like what?"
He sighed again. "I wish you would just call me dad." He stopped for a moment before continuing. "He said it was an arrangement. A partnership. That you'd have a good life."
"A good life." I closed my eyes. A good life with a man I despise. "What was his name?"
"He never gave me a full name. Just said to call him Len. That's all I got. Len."
I texted Omar one word: Len.
His reply came in seconds: You sure?
Ray confirmed. Said he only met him once. Called himself Len. Never gave a full name.
Omar didn't reply for a while. When he did it was just: Thank you. Be safe.
I deleted everything, flushed the toilet, and went back to the living room where Supreme was watching a game. I sat next to him on the couch, tucked my legs under me, and let him put his arm around my shoulders.
I thought about what Ray had said. He wasn't street. He was something above it. A man who moved between worlds. Who brokered deals between fathers and criminals. Who sat at kitchen tables and drank coffee while arranging the trade of a twenty-seven-year-old woman for a debt.
I thought about the way Omar had gone quiet when I told him about the connect. The way his face had changed in the car when he'd said your story and mine are the same thing.
I sat there next to Supreme watching a game I didn't care about and I made a decision.
I was done waiting. Done calculating exit strategies and saving cash and planning logistics. I was leaving. Today.
Supreme left for a meeting after the game. I heard the front door close, heard the elevator, heard the car pull away from the building. I stood in the hallway for a full minute listening to make sure he was gone.
Then I moved.
I pulled a bag from the top shelf of the closet.
Small, leather, the one I'd brought from Atlanta.
I packed fast. Two changes of clothes, underwear, my phone charger, my makeup bag.
I went to the bathroom and took my toothbrush, my moisturizer, the small things that were mine and not his.
I left everything he'd bought me. Every dress, every piece of jewelry, every shoe. None of it was mine. It never had been.
I opened the banking app on my phone and transferred everything from the savings account to my checking. The number wasn't where I wanted it to be. Two thousand one hundred short. But it was enough to get somewhere. Enough to start.
I put on sneakers, jeans, a hoodie. Clothes that said leaving, not dinner. I picked up the bag, checked the apartment one more time, and walked out the front door.
The elevator took forty-five seconds. I counted every one. The lobby was empty except for the doorman, who nodded at me on the way out. I nodded back and pushed through the glass doors onto the street.
The air hit my face and for three seconds I was free. Three seconds of Brooklyn sidewalk under my sneakers, the sound of traffic, the sun on my arms, the bag on my shoulder, the future in front of me.
Then I saw them.
Two men I didn't recognize came off the wall twenty feet ahead. They were leaning against a parked car like they'd been waiting there the whole time. One of them was on his phone. The other was looking directly at me.
I kept walking. Maybe they weren't Supreme's. Maybe they were just two men on a street corner doing nothing.
The one with the phone stepped into my path. He wasn't aggressive, wasn't touching me. Just standing there. The other one moved to my left side, cutting off the route to the intersection.
"Miss Asha," the one with the phone said. "We need you to wait here for a minute."
He was already dialing. I stood on the sidewalk with my bag on my shoulder, the sun still on my arms, normal life flowing around me while I stood there rooted to the concrete.
"Yeah, she's here," the man said into his phone. "Just came out the building with a bag." He listened. "Aight. We'll wait."
He hung up and put his phone in his pocket. Neither of them spoke. Neither of them touched me. They just stood there, one in front and one to the side, and we waited.
Supreme's car pulled up nine minutes later. The window came down and he looked at me from the back seat. His face wasn't angry. It was concerned. Worried.
"Baby," he said softly. "Get in the car."
I got in. He sent the two men away with a nod. The driver pulled into traffic.
Supreme didn't raise his voice. He took my hand, held it on his thigh, and talked to me in the softest voice I'd ever heard from him.
"You scared me," he said. "When they called and said you came out with a bag, I thought something happened.
I thought somebody snatched you up, tried to hurt you.
" He squeezed my hand. "Brooklyn ain't safe for you out here alone, baby.
You know I got enemies who would love to get to me through you. "
I stared out the window.
"I know this ain't easy," he continued. "Being here, being with me, all the security, Cee following you everywhere. I know it's a lot, ma. But everything I do is cos I love you, Asha. I can't have nothing happen to you. You hear me? I can't."
His thumb rubbed circles on my knuckles. The same circles he always rubbed. The same soft voice, the same concerned face, the same hand on mine.
"Let's go home," he said. "And we ain't doing this again, aight?"
I didn't answer. The car drove us home.
Upstairs, Supreme took the bag from my shoulder. He carried it to the bedroom. I followed him and stood in the doorway.
He set the bag on the bed, unzipped it, and started unpacking.
He took out the first change of clothes, folded them neatly, opened the drawer and put them back where they'd been.
He took out the second change, folded those too and put them back.
He took the underwear, put it in the underwear drawer.
He carried the toiletries to the bathroom, set them on the counter in their usual spots.
My toothbrush back in the holder. My moisturizer back on the shelf.
My phone charger back on the nightstand.
He moved through the room calmly, quietly, putting everything back exactly where it had been. He wasn't angry. He wasn't rough. He was careful and precise and that was the most terrifying thing about it.
I stood in the doorway and watched him do it.
When he finished he zipped the empty bag, put it back on the top shelf of the closet, and turned to face me. His expression was gentle.
"There," he said. "Everything's back where it belongs." He crossed the room and kissed my forehead. "Including you."
He left the bedroom and I heard him go to the kitchen, heard the fridge open, heard him pour himself something. The TV came on in the living room.
I stood in the doorway looking at the room. The drawers closed. The closet organized. The bathroom neat. Everything in its place, exactly as it had been before I'd tried to leave, as if the last hour hadn't happened at all.
He hadn't hit me. Hadn't yelled. Hadn't threatened my sisters or mentioned what happened to the last girl who tried to run. He'd just put everything back.
That was worse than anything he could have done.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and put my hands in my lap. My phone buzzed in my pocket. Omar. I didn't look at it. Couldn't look at it. Not yet. Not with Supreme twenty feet away watching TV and acting like nothing had changed.
Because to him, nothing had.
I sat there until my breathing steadied. Then I got up, changed into something he'd recognize, and went to join him on the couch.
"There she is," he said, lifting his arm so I could tuck myself against his side. "My baby."
I smiled.
I performed.
And somewhere inside me, a door closed that I wasn't sure would ever open again.