Chapter 7 Zainab
ZAINAB
Monday morning came way too fast. I woke up tangled in Prime’s sheets, his arm heavy across my waist, the Potomac glittering outside those ridiculous floor-to-ceiling windows like everything was sweet.
Like we wasn’t in the middle of a whole entire mess.
Like I hadn’t just trauma-dumped a decade of my life on this man and he’d somehow decided to stay anyway.
Make it make sense.
For a few minutes, I just laid there. Let myself breathe. Let myself feel safe, even though I knew it was probably temporary. Nothing good in my life ever lasted. That was just facts.
Then Prime stirred beside me, his arm tightening around my waist before he pressed a kiss to my shoulder.
“You up?” His voice was all rough and gravelly with sleep and Lord, this man was gonna be the death of me.
“Yeah.”
“Stop thinking so loud. I can hear it from here.”
I almost smiled. Almost. “I’m not thinking.”
“You a lie and you know it.” He shifted, propping himself up on one elbow to look down at me. Those glistening eyes still did something to my insides every single time. It was annoying, honestly. “What’s going on in that head?”
“Everything. Nothing.” I shrugged against the pillow. “Just… Monday. Real life. All that.”
“Monday,” he repeated, like the word personally offended him. “Yeah. We gotta get back to the regular. Keep up appearances and all that.”
“I know.”
He was quiet for a second, then: “I’ma take Yusef to school this morning.”
I sat up, clutching the sheet to my chest. “You sure? I can—”
“Nah, I got it. Me and lil man need to chop it up anyway. Make sure his head is right before he walks into that building.” He sat up too, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, and I tried real hard not to stare at the way his back muscles moved.
This was not the time, Zainab. Focus. “You good here?”
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed on the nightstand. It was Cookie from Grits.
I hadn’t talked to her since before the parole hearing. Before my whole life exploded in that prison hallway. The thought of going back to that diner and pretending like everything was normal made me want to crawl under these expensive-ass sheets and never come out.
But I answered anyway.
“Hello?”
“Z! Girl, thank God you picked up.” Cookie sounded like she was two seconds from a nervous breakdown.
“I know it’s your day off but I’m in a bind.
Tasha called out, Maria’s kid got the flu, and I got a full house with only one person to work the floor.
Can you come in? Just for a few hours? Please, girl, I’m begging. ”
I closed my eyes. The absolute last thing I wanted to do was put on that ugly uniform and serve waffles to people who wasn’t gonna tip me right anyway.
But Cookie had always been good to me. One of the few people at that job who actually treated me like a human being and not just the help. And disappearing completely right after Larry went missing? That would look real suspicious.
“Yeah,” I heard myself say. “I can come in.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, THANK you! I owe you so big, Z. I’ll see you in an hour?”
“I’ll be there.”
I hung up and Prime was watching me with one eyebrow raised.
“Work?” he asked.
“Cookie’s short staffed. Needs help.”
He nodded slowly, that calculating look on his face. “Aight. But listen—after today, I want you to cut back. Go part time. Tell them you’re focusing on your business, Sweet Zin is taking off, whatever you gotta say. Don’t quit right away—not after Larry just disappeared—but start pulling back.”
“And then?”
“And then in a month or so, you put in your notice. You don’t need that job no more. Not with the kitchen I gave you. Not with what we’re building.”
What we’re building.
He said it so casual. Like it was obvious. Like we was partners in this life, not just two people who’d stumbled into each other’s chaos and somehow decided to stay.
This man was going to ruin me. In the best way possible.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “Part time. Then quit.”
“That’s my girl.” He leaned over and kissed my forehead, all soft and sweet, and I had to actively fight the urge to pull him back into this bed and forget about responsibilities altogether. “Now go get ready. I’ll make sure Yusef is up and fed before I take him.”
An hour later, I was standing outside Grits like it had personally wronged me.
The morning sun was already too bright, the smell of bacon and burnt coffee drifting out every time somebody walked in or out. Same cracked sidewalk I’d been stepping over for two years. Same faded sign that Larry was too cheap to replace. Same everything.
But I was different now.
Funny how almost dying a few times and revealing your secret identity will do that to a person.
I took a deep breath, fixed my face, and pushed through the door.
The breakfast rush was in full swing—every booth packed, the counter full of regulars, and Cookie running around looking like she was about to lose her whole mind. She spotted me immediately and damn near sprinted over.
“Oh thank the Lord!” She pulled me into a hug that was way too tight for 8 AM. “Girl, you are a lifesaver. A whole entire lifesaver. I don’t know what I would’ve done—”
“It’s fine, Cookie. I got you.”
“Bless your heart.” She shoved an apron into my hands. “Section three. Coffee’s fresh, we’re almost out of the berry syrup, and Table 12 been waiting on their check for ten minutes. They look mad.”
“When don’t they look mad?”
“Facts.” She cracked a small smile. “Thank you, Zahara. For real.”
I tied the apron around my waist and got to work.
It was autopilot at this point. Two years of the same routine meant my body knew what to do even when my brain was somewhere else entirely. Pour coffee. Take orders. Smile at people who don’t smile back. Run food. Wipe tables. Refill drinks. Repeat.
But my head was a million miles away. Thinking about Prime. About Yusef sitting in that school, trying to act normal when nothing about his life was normal anymore. About Zoo and Meech and Rashid and all the threats circling us like sharks who smelled blood.
“You hear anything about Larry?”
Cookie’s voice yanked me back to reality. She was standing next to me at the coffee station, her face all pinched with worry.
“No,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Nothing. Why? Still no word?”
“Girl, nobody’s heard from that man in weeks.
His car is gone. His apartment looks like he just up and left.
Police came by asking questions but they ain’t got nothing.
” She shook her head. “It don’t make sense.
Say what you want about Larry—and Lord knows I got plenty to say—but he loved this diner. Wouldn’t just abandon it.”
I kept my face neutral. Nodded in the right places. “That’s wild. I hope he’s okay.”
“Me too.” She didn’t sound convinced. “His daughter Chantel is taking over for now. She’s coming by later to look at the books and figure out what’s next.” She sighed, heavy and tired. “I just pray he turns up soon. This whole thing got me stressed out.”
“I’m sure he will,” I said, because that’s what you say when you know damn well somebody is never coming back because your boyfriend disposed of his body after you killed him in self-defense. “Probably just needed to get away for a minute.”
“Maybe.” Cookie squeezed my arm. “Thanks again for coming in, Z. I appreciate you.”
She hurried off to deal with some drama at Table 7, and I stood there with the coffee pot in my hand, thinking about Larry’s body rotting wherever Prime put it.
I should’ve felt guilty.
I didn’t.
That man tried to rape me. He got what he deserved.
The bell over the door chimed and I looked up out of habit.
And my whole body went still.
Mehar.
My little sister was standing in the doorway looking around the diner until her eyes landed on me.
She was still wearing hijab, still had that same delicate face, but she wasn’t twelve anymore.
She was grown. A woman. Beautiful and serene, just like the last time she’d showed up here looking for me.
This girl was relentless.
The first time she walked into Grits a few months ago, I damn near had a panic attack.
Hid in the back and made Cookie tell her I wasn’t working.
The second time, I ducked out the service entrance like a whole coward before she could spot me.
Both times, she’d left looking disappointed but not deterred.
And now here she was again. Third time’s a charm, I guess.
The last time I’d actually seen her before all that—like really seen her—she was twelve years old, standing in our father’s living room, tears streaming down her face while she watched me and Zahara get beaten and thrown out into the street.
She couldn’t do nothing to help us. She was just a child herself, trapped in that house with that monster.
But she wasn’t a child anymore. And apparently, she wasn’t giving up.
She walked toward me, steps careful, like she was approaching a stray cat that might bolt at any second.
“Zahara,” she said softly. “Please. I know you’ve been avoiding me. But can we just talk? Just this once?”
I set the coffee pot down and really looked at her. The dark circles under her eyes. The tension she was carrying in her shoulders. The way she was clutching her hands together in front of her like she was praying I wouldn’t disappear on her again.
Something in me shifted.
I was tired of running. Prime was right about that. And maybe… maybe it was time to stop hiding from the people who actually gave a damn about me.
“You’re persistent,” I said. “I’ll give you that.”
“I had to be.” Her voice cracked a little. “I missed you. Both of you. For so long. And when I finally found you, you kept avoiding me. I didn’t understand why.”
I sighed and glanced around. Cookie was busy. The other servers were handling their sections. Nobody was paying attention to us.
“Come on.” I nodded toward an empty booth in the corner. “Let’s sit down.”