32. Asha
Asha
The voice note came through on my phone. Nene's voice, tight and controlled, the way she sounded when she was scared but trying not to show it.
I was in the kitchen making coffee when the notification buzzed. I picked it up expecting Omar. It wasn't.
Nene's voice. Low, careful, steady in a way that told me she was being watched.
"Hey, Ash. I'm okay. I'm not hurt. I need you to stay where you are and don't do nothing stupid. I'm fine. Just stay put."
The message was eleven seconds long. I played it again. Then again. Then a third time, standing in the kitchen with the coffee forgotten, my hands wrapped around the phone so tightly the case creaked.
Nene's voice was steady but the edges were wrong. She was speaking slowly, choosing her words, the way you speak when someone is standing over you telling you what to say. She said she was okay. She said she wasn't hurt. She told me to stay put.
Nene would never tell me to stay put. Nene would say get your ass over here or call Omar or burn this whole city down. Nene telling me to stay where I was and do nothing stupid was Nene reading from a script someone else had written.
Supreme had her.
I put the phone down on the counter. Picked it up again. Put it down. My hands were steady. My face wasn't.
Omar was at APEX. He'd left two hours ago to meet Devon about the operation planning. I called him and he picked up on the first ring.
"What's wrong?" he asked immediately.
"They got Nene."
Silence on the line. Then: "When?"
"I just got a voice note from her. She says she's fine, she's not hurt, told me to stay put. But it's Supreme, Omar. He took her because of me."
"Don't move. I'm coming to you."
He was at the apartment in twenty minutes. He came through the door already in work mode, his face closed, his body tight. He listened to the voice note twice, then called Devon and put him on speaker.
"Devon, you know that contact you got at the phone company who owes us," Omar told him. "Run Nene's number through him. Last known cell tower ping, anything in the last few hours. And check with your street contacts in Crown Heights. Supreme's people would've used a location they already control."
"On it," Devon replied. "Give me an hour."
Omar hung up and looked at me. "Devon's on it. We'll have a location soon."
"I'm going to her."
"No you're not."
"Omar."
"Asha, listen to me."
"Don't tell me to listen." My voice was louder than I meant it to be.
"That's my best friend. That's the only person who's been there for me through all of this.
She moved to Brooklyn because of me. She helped me get out.
She helped me sneak out, she covered for me with Cee, she did all of that because I asked her to. And now Supreme has her because of me."
"Going back is exactly what he wants." Omar's voice was level but firm. "He took Nene to draw you out. If you show up, he's got both of you. Then I can't help either one of you."
"So what, I just sit here?" I was shaking now, my hands trembling, my voice cracking. "I just sit in your apartment drinking coffee while Nene is somewhere with Supreme's people and it's my fault she's there?"
"It's not your fault."
"The hell it isn't!" I was shouting now. "She's there because she helped me leave. Because she distracted Cee so I could get out, because she covered for me every time I snuck out to see you, because she's my person and she put herself on the line for me and now she's paying for it."
Omar stood there taking it. He didn't flinch, didn't raise his voice, didn't try to hold me. He let me yell because he understood that what was coming out of me was fear dressed up as anger.
"You done?" he asked when I stopped.
"Don't patronize me."
"I'm not. I'm asking if you're done so I can tell you what we're gonna do."
I stared at him. My chest was heaving. My eyes were burning.
"What are you gonna do?" I asked.
"I'm gonna get her."
"How?"
"Devon's tracking her phone. Once we got the location, me and James go in. We bring her back."
"And if she's hurt?"
"She won't be."
"You don't know that."
"Supreme took her as leverage. She's worth more to him alive and unhurt than she is any other way. He wants you to come running, that's the play. So we don't give him what he wants. We go in ourselves, we get Nene, we bring her home."
"When?"
"Tonight. As soon as Devon gives us the location."
I stood there looking at him across the kitchen. This man who'd put together an extraction to get me out, who'd told Kadeem everything, who'd sent Shanay into the salon. This man who was now going to walk into one of Supreme's locations to pull my best friend out because I'd put her there.
"If anything happens to her," I said quietly, "I will never forgive myself."
"Nothing's gonna happen to her." He stepped closer. "I'm bringing her home, Asha. That's a promise."
"You can't promise that."
"Watch me."
We stood there for a moment, the anger draining out of me, replaced by something heavier. I didn't have the energy to keep fighting and he wasn't giving me anything to fight against. He was calm, certain, already planning the operation in his head while I was still trying to breathe.
"What if it was me?" I asked. "What if Supreme had me in that room instead of Nene? Would you be standing here telling me to be patient?"
"If it was you I'd already be in the car."
"Then you understand how I feel right now."
"I do. But the difference is I know how to go in and come out alive. You going back to Supreme's people is a death sentence for both of you." He stepped closer, his voice dropping. "Let me do what I'm good at. Let me bring her home."
My legs gave out. I didn't decide to sit down, my body just stopped holding me up. I slid down the kitchen cabinet until I was sitting on the floor with my back against the cupboards, my knees pulled up, my face in my hands.
Omar looked at me on the floor for a second.
Then he sat down next to me. His back against the cabinet, his shoulder touching mine.
He didn't put his arm around me. He didn't try to comfort me with words or promises.
He just sat there on the cold kitchen floor beside me because I was on the floor and that's where he needed to be.
We stayed like that for a long time. My breathing slowed. The shaking stopped. The apartment was quiet around us, the fridge humming, the traffic sounds coming through the window. His warmth beside me was the only thing keeping me together.
"She's gonna be so pissed when you get her," I said eventually, my voice raw.
"Good. Pissed means alive."
"She'll probably yell at you the whole car ride back."
"Probably."
"And then she'll ask if James is single."
Omar turned his head. "What?"
"Nothing." I almost smiled. "Just... bring her home. Please."
"I will."
His hand found mine on the floor between us. My fingers curled around his and held on tight.
Devon called with a location. Crown Heights, a ground-floor unit in a building Supreme used for holding. Two guards outside, one inside. Nene's phone had pinged from the location three times in the last few hours.
Omar stood up from the floor, pulled me up after him, and held my face in both hands.
"I'll call you when it's done."
"Be careful."
"Always am." He kissed me once, quick and hard, then walked out the door.
I stood in the apartment alone. The voice note was still on my phone. I played it one more time. Nene's voice, steady and wrong.
I'm okay. I'm not hurt. Stay where you are.
I closed my eyes and waited.