43. Omar
Omar
James parked three buildings down. I called Kadeem on the way.
"Pacific Street was a decoy," I told him. "They moved her to a second location in Crown Heights. Devon's confirmed four heat signatures inside. Supreme's there."
Kadeem was quiet for one second. "I'm fifteen minutes out."
"I can't wait fifteen minutes."
"Omar."
"He's got her in there right now, Kadeem. Every minute I wait is a minute he could move her again."
One second of silence. Then I heard him moving, keys off the table, a door opening.
"Then we go together," he said. "Give me ten. I'll make it in ten."
I couldn't wait ten minutes. But I did because Kadeem going with me was the difference between walking in smart and walking in stupid, and walking in stupid would get Asha killed.
Devon stayed at APEX on comms, feeding us updates on the location. Two guards on the front door, one inside with Supreme, Asha on the second floor. Four people between me and her.
Kadeem met us two blocks from the location. He pulled up in his own car, got out, and walked to ours. He was wearing a dark jacket and his face had the expression I'd seen twice before in our lives. Both times somebody died.
"James takes the outside," Kadeem said. "You and me go through the front."
"Understood."
"Omar." Kadeem looked at me. "She comes out first. Whatever happens in there, she walks out before anything else."
"Yeah."
We moved on foot. The block was residential, quiet at this hour. Street lights casting orange pools on the sidewalk. A dog barking somewhere behind a fence. Normal Brooklyn sounds on a night that was about to be anything but normal.
The building was a low-rise, three stories, the ground-floor unit lit up behind drawn curtains. Two guards flanking the entrance, both standing, both armed. They were talking to each other, relaxed, not expecting company.
James went first. He came up the block from the opposite direction, walking casually, his hands in his pockets.
When he got close enough the guards clocked him, started to react.
James had the first one against the wall before he finished reaching for his weapon.
His forearm across the man's throat, his other hand stripping the gun from his waistband.
The second guard turned toward the noise and Kadeem stepped out of the shadows behind him and put him face down on the concrete with a knee between his shoulder blades.
Both guards zip-tied in under ten seconds. James dragged them behind the stoop, out of sight from the street.
Kadeem and I went through the front door.
The hallway was narrow, lit by a single bulb. A door at the end, closed. Light coming from underneath it. A voice on the other side. Supreme's voice, low and steady, talking to someone who wasn't answering.
Talking to Asha.
The inside guard was halfway down the hall, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
He straightened up when we came through the door.
Kadeem moved before the man could react, pinning him against the wall with one hand on his collar, the other stripping the weapon from his waistband.
The guard tried to push back but Kadeem drove his knee into the man's thigh and he buckled. Kadeem let him drop.
I stepped over him and kicked the door at the end of the hall.
It crashed inward. The room was small, bare, lit by a fluorescent light that made everything look washed out. A table in the center with two chairs. Supreme was sitting on one side. Asha was on the other.
He was holding her hand.
Their heads both turned when the door went in. Supreme's eyes went wide for half a second when he saw me standing in the doorway. Then the mask came back.
"Baptiste," he said. His voice was calm but his body was already calculating. "You making a big mistake."
"Asha." My voice came out flat, controlled. "Get up and walk to Kadeem. He's in the hallway."
She stood. Her legs were unsteady but she moved.
She pulled her hand free from Supreme's grip, pushed back the chair, and walked around the table toward me.
When she passed me in the doorway her fingers brushed my arm.
Then she was through and Kadeem's hand was on her shoulder, guiding her toward the exit.
I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me.
Supreme stood up slowly from his chair. He was wearing the grey suit from earlier, sleeves still rolled. His composure was cracking at the edges but his voice stayed level.
"Let's talk about this, Baptiste." He put his hands on the table, palms down, like a man conducting a meeting. "You and me, we can work something out. We always have before."
"We ain't working nothing out."
"You hit my locations." His voice was tight now, the composure barely holding. "Two hundred grand from Flatbush, more from East New York. My financial records, my laptop, my counting machines. You took everything." He leaned forward. "What did she tell you? What did Asha give you?"
"Everything."
"Everything." He repeated the word like it tasted wrong. "My account numbers? My locations? My guard schedules? Three years she's in my house, eating my food, sleeping in my bed, and the whole time she's memorizing my operation so she can hand it to you on a fuckin' platter?"
"Sounds like you should've treated her better."
"I treated her like a queen!" His fist came down on the table. The sound cracked through the room. "I gave her everything. The salon, the clothes, the apartment, the life. And she was sitting there taking notes like a goddamn informant?"
"She was your prisoner, Supreme. Prisoners pay attention to the locks."
Supreme's breathing was ragged now. He paced behind the table, his hands moving, touching his face, his neck, the back of his head. The controlled businessman was gone. What was left was a man watching his empire collapse in real time.
"My financial pipeline." He stopped pacing. "You gave it to the Associates. Devon's been inside my shell companies. Greyline, the sister entities, the distribution accounts. You've got all of it."
"All of it."
"And TK. You know about TK."
"We know TK's your proxy. We know you've been funding attacks on our territory through his operation for three years while sitting across from Kadeem at meetings pretending to negotiate in good faith."
Supreme stared at me. His right hand was drifting toward the edge of the table again.
"The Associates sanctioned this? All of them?
Cos I got relationships with half the men in that room that go back longer than yours.
Andre Mitchell and I built the Crown Heights corridor together.
Bishop owes me for the Canarsie deal. You think they'll just let this stand? "
"The Associates voted unanimous. Every one of them."
That landed. His face changed, the confidence flickering. He adjusted his weight, his right hand still drifting.
"Aight." He adjusted his tone, softer now, more personal.
"Then let's talk about Asha. I know you got feelings for her, I ain't blind.
But you gotta understand, she was with me for three years.
Three years of me taking care of her, providing for her, keeping her safe.
Whatever she told you about our relationship, she was part of my life. Part of my household."
"She was your prisoner."
"She was my woman." His voice hardened. "I loved her. I gave her everything."
"You gave her a cage. You bought her from her father like livestock and you kept her locked up for three years pretending it was romance."
"That ain't how it was."
"That's exactly how it was. She told me everything, Supreme. Every detail. The shopping trips, the flowers, the oxtail dinners. You think that's love?"
Supreme's face twisted. The mask was gone now. What was underneath wasn't fear or anger. It was wounded pride. He'd genuinely believed his own story and hearing it dismantled was breaking him apart.
"She chose to stay," he said through his teeth. "Nobody forced her."
"She stayed because you told her what would happen to her sisters if she left. She stayed because your people followed her everywhere. She stayed because you made sure she had nowhere to go." I stepped closer. "That ain't a choice. That's a trap."
Supreme's hand moved. Fast, underneath the table, reaching for something taped to the underside.
A gun, a knife, I didn't wait to find out.
I crossed the distance in two strides, grabbed the table edge, and flipped it sideways.
It crashed onto the concrete floor between us, the metal legs scraping.
Supreme stumbled backward, his hand coming up empty.
I grabbed him by the throat before he recovered his balance. Drove him backward into the wall. His head cracked against the plaster hard enough to dent it. His feet lifted off the floor for a second before I brought him back down, my grip tightening.
His hands came up to my wrist immediately, both of them, clawing at my fingers, trying to pry them loose.
His nails dug into the skin of my forearm, drawing blood.
He was strong, stronger than I'd expected, his whole body fighting the hold.
His knee came up toward my groin and I shifted my hips to take it on my thigh instead.
"Get... off me," he managed, the words barely making it past my grip.
I didn't answer. I pushed harder, pinning him flat against the wall, my forearm across his throat now, my body weight behind it.
He tried a different approach. His right hand left my wrist and swung at my face. The punch connected with my cheekbone, snapping my head sideways. My vision blurred for a second. He used the opening to try to twist free, getting one shoulder off the wall before I slammed him back.
"This is for Asha," I said, my face close to his. "For three years you stole from her."
His eyes were bulging now, the veins in his neck pressing hard against my forearm.
He was still fighting, his legs kicking against the wall, one shoe coming off and skidding across the floor.
His right hand found my face again, weaker this time, his fingers pushing at my eyes. I turned my head and pressed harder.
His mouth was working, trying to form words. His lips moved around sounds that didn't come. His left hand was still on my wrist but the grip was loosening, his fingers uncurling one at a time.
The fight left his body in stages. His legs stopped kicking first. Then his hands fell from my wrist to his sides, fingers uncurling. His eyes went from desperate to dull, the pupils widening, the light behind them dimming until there was nothing left.
His body went heavy. The full weight of him hung from my arm, pulling against my shoulder.
I held on for another ten seconds. Counted them in my head. Then I stepped back and let go.
Supreme slid down the wall and landed on the floor in a sitting position, his head tilted to one side, his eyes open and empty.
One shoe on, one shoe off. The grey suit creased and twisted.
The overturned table on the floor beside him.
The man who'd run Crown Heights for a decade sitting on cold concrete seeing nothing.
I stood over him. My cheekbone was throbbing where he'd hit me. My forearm was bleeding where his nails had dug in. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead.
Then I turned, opened the door, and walked out.
Kadeem was in the hallway with the inside guard still on the floor behind him. He looked at my face, looked past me into the room, and nodded once.
"Let's go," he said.
We walked out of the building. James had the car running. Asha was in the back seat. I got in beside her and James pulled away from the curb.
Nobody spoke. The streets passed outside the windows, Crown Heights giving way to the border, then Bed-Stuy. Brooklyn at night, moving around us.
Asha was shaking. Her whole body trembling, her hands gripped together in her lap, her eyes fixed on the seat in front of her. She wasn't crying. She wasn't making any sound at all. She was just shaking.
I put my hand on her knee. She flinched, then went still and her hand came down on top of mine. She held it there.
We drove the rest of the way like that. My hand on her knee, her hand on mine. James driving, Kadeem in the front seat on his phone telling Devon it was done.
When we got to the apartment I walked Asha upstairs. Nene was at the door before we made it to the landing, her face tight with fear until she saw us. She grabbed Asha and pulled her inside.
I stood in the hallway for a moment. Kadeem was still downstairs with James, running the cleanup logistics. Devon was coordinating from APEX. The warehouse operation would proceed as planned, minus Supreme.
My phone buzzed. Devon: Warehouse team is in position. Awaiting your go.
I texted back: Go. Hit it.
The night wasn't over. There was still the warehouse, the product, the records, the remaining crew.
But Supreme was done. The man who'd kept Asha in a cage for three years, who'd funded TK's war on our territory, whose operation connected back to Pops' disappearance through shell companies and a man named Leonard Pryce was lying on the floor of a ground-floor unit in Crown Heights seeing nothing.
I went back downstairs to the car. James was waiting.
"Warehouse?" he asked.
"Warehouse."
We drove to Crown Heights. The night's work wasn't finished.
On the way I texted Devon: Send a secondary team to Supreme's apartment. Bedroom closet, left side behind the suits. There's a safe. Crack it and secure whatever's inside before anybody else gets there.
Devon replied in ten seconds: On it.
But the part that mattered most was done.