Prime II: The Banks Empire

Chapter 1 Zainab

ZAINAB

“Who the fuck are you really?”

Prime’s voice was so calm it scared me. It put more fear in me than when he first showed up in my apartment. There was a hint of disgust in the way he asked it. This was going to be something he would never forgive.

I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Not a single word. My brain was short-circuiting, stuck somewhere between explain yourself and girl, just RUN. But running wasn’t an option anymore. Meech had made sure of that.

ZAINAB! WHERE IS ZAHARA? WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO HER?

His voice was still ringing in my ears even though the guards had dragged him through those metal doors a whole thirty seconds ago. Thirty seconds that felt like thirty years. Thirty seconds that had completely dismantled the life I’d spent two years carefully constructing.

And now here I was. Standing in this cold, sterile prison hallway with its ugly fluorescent lighting and its industrial tile floors, watching everything I’d built crumble around me like a Jenga tower in an earthquake.

Prime was staring at me with those ocean eyes I’d fallen in love with, waiting for an answer I didn’t know how to give.

Rashid was standing off to the side, looking at me like I was a roach that had just crawled across his dinner plate.

And Yusef—my sweet, traumatized nephew I’d been raising as a son, who’d already been through way too much for a twelve-year-old—was pressed against the wall crying silently, probably wondering why the adults in his life couldn’t seem to get it together for five consecutive minutes.

I wanted to go to him. Wanted to wrap him in my arms and tell him it was going to be okay. But my feet weren’t cooperating, and honestly? I wasn’t even sure it was going to be okay. I’d been lying to myself about that for two years. Might as well stop now.

“I—” My voice cracked like I was a boy going through puberty, which was just fantastic. Really adding to my credibility here.

“SPEAK!”

Rashid’s bark made me flinch so hard I probably looked like I’d been electrocuted.

And I hated that. Hated that this man—this manipulative, puppet-master of a man who’d been pulling strings behind the scenes this whole time—could make me cower like a child.

I’d spent my whole life flinching away from powerful men.

My father. Meech. And now Rashid, with his expensive suits and his calm demeanor and his eyes that calculated everything like the world was just one big chess game and we were all his pawns.

But before I could spiral any further into my daddy issues and general distrust of men in positions of authority, Prime stepped forward.

“Aye.” His voice was pure ice, and it wasn’t directed at me. “Calm all that down.”

Rashid’s head snapped toward him so fast I’m surprised he didn’t get whiplash. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Prime didn’t yell. Didn’t raise his voice even a little bit. He didn’t have to. Prentice Banks could make a threat sound like a lullaby, and it would still make grown men reconsider their life choices. “You ain’t about to be barking at her like that.”

And just like that, something loosened in my chest.

He was defending me. Even now. Even after finding out that everything between us had been built on a foundation of lies and secrets and borrowed identities.

Even knowing that the woman he’d fallen for—the woman he’d killed for, protected, provided for, made love to like she was the most precious thing he’d ever touched—wasn’t who she said she was.

He was still standing between me and danger.

Lord, this man. This frustrating, complicated, beautifully broken man who had no business being this loyal to someone who’d done nothing but deceive him from day one.

I really, truly, absolutely did not deserve him.

Rashid straightened his posture, adjusting his suit jacket like he was trying to physically pull his composure back together.

“Prime,” he said, and his voice had shifted into that patronizing tone that men like him used when they wanted to remind you of your place in the hierarchy.

“This situation is no longer your concern. This is family business.”

A cough rattled through him—deep and wet—and he turned his head slightly to suppress it.

When I glanced at Prime, he was watching his mentor with an expression I couldn’t read.

Not anger. Something else. Concern, maybe.

It was gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by that cold mask he wore so well.

But I’d seen it. Something about Rashid had unsettled him.

“Family business?” Prime laughed, but there was nothing funny about it. That laugh was hollow and sharp, the kind of sound that should’ve made Rashid take a step back. “Nah. Zahara—”

“Zainab,” Rashid corrected, and hearing my real name come out of his mouth made my stomach turn. It felt wrong. Violating almost, like he’d reached inside me and pulled out something private. “Her name is Zainab. And she’s been lying to all of us.”

Prime didn’t even hesitate. “Zainab is my concern.”

The words landed like a bomb in the middle of the hallway.

I watched Rashid’s jaw tighten. Watched the power struggle play out between these two men in real time—the mentor and the protégé, suddenly finding themselves on opposite sides of a line neither of them expected to be drawn.

An officer appeared at the end of the hallway, one hand resting on his belt in that universal cop stance that said I’m about two seconds away from making this my problem. “Folks, I’m gonna need you to take this outside. Now.”

Nobody moved. The tension was so thick you could’ve spread it on toast.

Finally, Rashid smoothed down his tie and fixed his face into that composed mask he wore so well.

The man could be standing in the middle of a burning building and still look like he was about to chair a board meeting.

“Fine,” he said, turning toward the exit.

“I have important business in Brazil that requires my attention. But when I return…” He paused, looking back at Prime with an expression I couldn’t quite read.

“We’re all going to sit down and discuss this. Properly.”

Prime said nothing. Just stared at him with those unreadable eyes.

Rashid’s gaze slid to Yusef, still crying against the wall, and something flickered across his face.

Possession. Entitlement. Like my nephew was a thing to be claimed rather than a child to be protected.

“That boy is my blood, Prime,” he said, and there was a warning in his voice now.

A threat wrapped in silk. “Remember that. Know your place.”

“I know exactly where I stand.”

Six words. That’s all it took to shift the entire dynamic.

I watched Rashid try to recalculate, try to figure out when exactly he’d lost control of the situation.

When Prime had stopped being the obedient soldier and started thinking for himself.

He didn’t find an answer—at least not one that satisfied him—because after a long moment, he just turned and walked away.

His footsteps echoed down the corridor until he rounded the corner and disappeared from view.

He moved slower than I expected. His shoulders seemed heavier somehow. But I didn’t have time to dwell on it—I had my own problems to worry about.

The officer cleared his throat.

“Ma’am. Sir. The exit is this way.”

Prime’s hand found the small of my back—firm, guiding, present.

But it wasn’t gentle. Not like all the times before, when his touch had been soft and reverent, like I was something precious he was afraid of breaking.

This touch was different. Harder. A reminder that just because he was still protecting me didn’t mean he wasn’t furious.

He steered me toward the door and I let him, my legs carrying me forward on pure autopilot because my brain had officially checked out. Yusef fell into step beside us, his small hand finding mine and squeezing tight.

I squeezed back, trying to communicate everything I couldn’t say out loud. I’m sorry. I’ll fix this. It’s going to be okay.

All lies, probably. But they were the only comfort I had to offer right now.

The car ride back to DC was supposed to take three hours.

It felt like it was going to take three centuries.

Prime hadn’t said a single word since we left the prison.

He’d opened my door, opened Yusef’s door, walked around to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel like a man on a mission—though what that mission was, I couldn’t say.

Getting us home? Getting away from me? Driving to a secluded location to dump my body?

At this point, all options seemed equally plausible.

The engine purred to life—because of course Prime drove a car with an engine that purred; the man couldn’t do anything without being extra about it—and the prison shrank in the rearview mirror until it disappeared entirely.

And then there was just… silence.

Heavy, oppressive, suffocating silence.

I could feel his anger like a physical presence in the car.

It was taking up all the space, pressing against my skin, making it hard to breathe.

His hands gripped the steering wheel so tight I could see the tension in his forearms, and his jaw was set in that hard line that meant he was either about to punch something or someone. Possibly me.

Yusef was in the backseat, and I caught his reflection in the rearview mirror every few seconds—red-rimmed eyes, tear-stained cheeks, that haunted expression that no twelve-year-old should ever have to wear.

He kept looking between me and Prime, trying to gauge the situation, probably wondering if his whole world was about to fall apart. Again.

I wanted to turn around and comfort him, but what was I supposed to say?

Don’t worry, baby, I’m sure the man I’ve been lying to for months won’t abandon us completely?

It’s fine that your father just exposed my entire identity in a prison hallway?

Everything’s going to be okay even though literally nothing has been okay since we fled California?

“Prime—” Yusef’s voice was small and hesitant, barely above a whisper.

“Don’t.”

One word. Sharp and final, like a door slamming shut.

Yusef flinched, and my heart cracked right down the middle. I opened my mouth to say something—defend him, comfort him, tell Prime not to take his anger out on a child—but Prime was already speaking again.

“It ain’t your place to explain this.” His voice was stern—more stern than I’d ever heard him be with Yusef—but there was something underneath the harshness. Something protective. “You’re a child. Not the adult. This ain’t on you.”

And just like that, I understood.

He wasn’t angry at Yusef. He was only angry at me. But even in the middle of his fury, even while he was probably mentally composing a list of all the ways I’d betrayed him, he was making sure my nephew knew he didn’t have to carry this burden.

This man was going to be the death of me.

Not literally—at least I hoped not literally—but emotionally? Spiritually? This man, with his complicated layers and his fierce protectiveness and his refusal to let a child suffer for an adult’s mistakes? He was destroying me in the best and worst ways possible.

I turned my face toward the window and blinked back the tears I refused to let fall. The Appalachian Maryland landscape passed by in a blur of gray skies and bare trees, everything dead and dormant, waiting for a spring that felt impossibly far away.

Kind of like my life right now.

The silence stretched on. Mile after mile of nothing but the hum of the engine and the weight of everything unsaid pressing down on all of us.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Let me explain.”

My voice came out hoarse and rough, not at all like the confident, put-together woman I’d been pretending to be. But I guess that was fitting, since that woman had never really existed in the first place.

Prime’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. I saw the muscle in his jaw tick once, twice. But he didn’t shut me down. Didn’t tell me to save it, didn’t pull the car over and demand I get out, didn’t do any of the things I’d been bracing myself for.

He just waited.

And somehow, that was worse than anything he could’ve said.

Because now I actually had to do this. Had to figure out how to explain two years of lies, a lifetime of trauma, and a sister whose identity I’d stolen—all while my twelve-year-old nephew sat in the backseat, listening to every word.

No pressure or anything.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to gather my thoughts into something coherent. Where did I even start? The beginning? The end? The middle where everything went to hell?

“My name is Zainab Denise Ali,” I finally said, and the words felt like broken glass in my throat. “Zahara was my twin sister. My identical twin.”

I paused, staring out the windshield at the endless stretch of highway.

“And she’s dead because of me.”