47. Omar
Omar
The call came through while I was at APEX going over the warehouse inventory with Devon.
James's number on the screen, which was wrong because James was supposed to be with Kadeem running a follow-up operation on one of Supreme's remaining assets in Canarsie.
A storage facility Asha had identified during the debrief.
Small operation, light security, should have been a routine hit.
I answered. James's voice was tight.
"Kadeem's been hit."
Everything in the room stopped. Devon looked up from his laptop.
"How bad?" I asked.
"Vest caught two rounds to the chest. Third grazed his arm, took a chunk but it ain't deep.
He's conscious, he's talking, he's furious.
But Omar, it was an ambush. Three shooters set up inside behind cover, positioned to take out whoever walked through that door first. Kadeem was point.
If he hadn't been wearing the vest he'd be gone. "
My hand tightened on the phone. "How'd they know you were coming?"
"That's what I'm saying. They were ready. Somebody called ahead."
"Where is he now?"
"Ma's house. Shanay's with him. I got him out clean but we lost the location."
"I'm on my way."
I drove to Ma's house running every light between APEX and Bed-Stuy. Parked crooked on the street and took the front steps two at a time. Shanay opened the door before I knocked. Her face was composed but her eyes were red and her hand was gripping the door frame.
"He's in the kitchen," she said. "He won't go to the hospital."
"That sounds like him."
Kadeem was sitting at the table with his shirt off.
Ma was wrapping a bandage around his left arm where the round had grazed him, her hands steady, her face set in the expression she wore when she was scared but refusing to show it.
The vest was on the floor next to his chair, two impact marks visible in the front panel, the fabric shredded around the entry points.
He looked up when I came in and his face was pure fury.
"Somebody set us up," he said before I could speak.
I pulled out a chair and sat down. Ma finished the bandage, pressed her hand against Kadeem's shoulder for a second, then left the kitchen without a word. Shanay stayed in the doorway.
"Walk me through it," I said.
"We pulled up to the Canarsie location at the time Devon scheduled.
Front entrance, the approach we planned.
Two minutes in, we took fire from inside.
They were already positioned. Three shooters, set up behind cover, waiting.
" He touched the vest on the floor with his foot.
"If I hadn't been wearing this I'd be dead. "
"Who tipped them off?"
"That's what I been sitting here trying to figure out." Kadeem leaned forward, his good arm on the table. "The Canarsie location was in the operational brief I put together after the Associates meeting. Five people had that brief. You, me, Devon, James, and Stone."
The name landed in the room like a stone dropped into water. Shanay's arms crossed tighter in the doorway. I sat there looking at my brother.
"You, me, Devon, and James were all accounted for," Kadeem continued. "Devon was at APEX on comms. James was with me. You were at APEX too." He paused. "That leaves one person."
"Deem."
"I don't want to say it either. But I need you to think about this with me."
The front door opened downstairs. Footsteps on the stairs, fast. Rashid came into the kitchen breathing hard, still in his studio clothes, a jacket thrown on over whatever he'd been recording in.
"I just heard." He looked at Kadeem's bandaged arm, the vest on the floor. "You good?"
"I'm good."
"What happened?"
"Ambush. They were waiting at the Canarsie location."
Rashid pulled out a chair and sat down. His face was working through something, his eyes going between me and Kadeem. Then he said, "I need to tell you something."
The kitchen went quiet.
"I been sitting on this for a few days cos I wasn't sure if it meant anything. But after what just happened..." Rashid looked at Kadeem. "I seen Stone coming out of a building on Sutter Avenue in East New York. Late at night. The building with the green awning, the one past the laundromat."
"Sutter Avenue is TK's block," Kadeem said slowly.
"Yeah. Stone was coming out the side entrance, got in his car, drove off. This was the same week TK got tipped off and bounced before we could get to him."
Kadeem looked at me. I looked back.
"There was only one person who knew about the Canarsie location today who ain't family," Rashid said quietly. "I think we got our guy."
The kitchen was silent. Ma's clock ticked on the wall above the stove. Outside, a car passed on the street, its headlights sweeping across the ceiling.
I sat there and let everything fall into place.
Every breadcrumb Stone had mentioned first then dismissed as coincidence.
The Greyline registration timing he'd waved away as infrastructure recycling.
The account number in his cross-reference document that matched Pops' dormant files.
Leonard Pryce at the Hampton Royal three days before Pops disappeared.
Stone suggesting which location to hit first on night one.
Stone offering to stay with Asha and Nene during the operation while everyone else was in the field.
Stone always having the right advice at the right time, always steering us in a direction that looked smart until you realized what it was steering us away from.
Twenty years of trust. Gone in sixty seconds of Rashid talking.
Close. Real close.
The brother of the man wearing Pops' watch had said that. The money behind TK was connected to Pops' disappearance and the person behind it was close. Real close.
I stood up from the table.
Kadeem looked at me. His face was tired, bandaged, furious. Underneath the fury was something I recognized because I was carrying it too.
"You already knew," Kadeem said. It wasn't a question.
"I've been putting it together for weeks." I pushed my chair in. "The financial documents, the account numbers, Devon's data. It all points the same direction. I just didn't want to believe it."
"None of us did."
"But now we know."
Kadeem stood up from the table, wincing as the movement pulled at his injured arm. Shanay moved toward him but he waved her off gently.
"What do you want to do?" Kadeem asked me.
I looked at my brother. At Rashid sitting at the table in his studio clothes, too young for all of this but here anyway. At Shanay in the doorway with her hand resting on her stomach. At Ma's kitchen, where Pops used to sit, where Stone used to sit right next to him.
"Get Kadeem patched up proper," I told Rashid. "Then meet me at the warehouse."
"When?" Rashid asked.
"Tonight."
I walked toward the door. Kadeem's voice stopped me.
"Omar."
I turned back.
"We do this together," he said. "All three of us."
"Wouldn't have it any other way."
I walked out of Ma's house and down the front steps to my car. The street was quiet. Brooklyn at night, the same streets I'd driven a thousand times, the same blocks Pops had built his empire on before he disappeared.
I got in the car, started the engine, and pulled out my phone. Dialed Devon.
"I need everything you got on Stone," I said. "Every phone record, every financial transaction, every location ping for the last two years. And Devon."
"Yeah?"
"The building on Sutter Avenue. Green awning, side entrance. Find out who owns it."
I hung up, put the car in drive, and headed toward Bed-Stuy.
Bout time we bring this motherfucker down once and for all.