Chapter 9 Zainab
ZAINAB
My feet was screaming at me like I owed them money by the time I clocked out of Grits.
Cookie thanked me about seventeen hundred times before I finally grabbed my bag and made my escape, promising I’d be back for a few shifts later in the week. Part time—that was the plan Prime and I agreed on. Ease out slowly so nobody started connecting dots about Larry’s little disappearing act.
I pushed through the front door and the late afternoon sun hit my face like a warm hug from Jesus himself.
After being trapped in that greasy diner breathing bacon fumes all day, the fresh air felt like a whole spiritual experience.
I stretched my neck, rolled my shoulders, started looking around for my bus stop—
And that’s when I peeped the black Bentayga sitting pretty at the curb.
Prime was behind the wheel, window down, watching me with those beautiful eyes that still made my stomach do somersaults no matter how many times I told it to get a grip.
And in the backseat, I could see the top of Yusef’s head bent over his phone, thumbs flying, probably deep in some game or scrolling through TikTok videos he was gonna try to show me later whether I wanted to see them or not.
I walked over to the car, confused. “What are y’all doing here? I was gonna catch the bus.”
“You know damn well, your bus days are over,” Prime replied. “In fact, what kind of car do you want? I’ll get it the end of the week. I ain’t bothering to fix that hoopty that’s been sittin’ since before I met you.
Well okay then. I wasn’t about to argue with this man who wanted to give me the queen treatment. Scratch that, the Goddess treatment.
I walked around and slid into the passenger seat, dropping my bag at my feet with the heaviest sigh my body could produce. Lord have mercy, this leather felt like a cloud after standing on that concrete floor all day. I let my head fall back against the headrest and just existed for a second.
“Hey baby,” I called back to Yusef without opening my eyes.
“Hey.” He didn’t look up from his phone—typical—but I caught that little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He looked lighter somehow. More like the kid he was supposed to be instead of the traumatized mess we’d been dragging around for the past week.
Good. At least one of us was keeping it together.
I turned back to Prime as he pulled away from the curb, smooth and easy, merging into traffic like he owned every lane on this street.
He was quiet. Calm. Wearing that same unbothered energy he always carried, like the whole world could be on fire around him and he’d just shrug and ask if anybody wanted s’mores.
But something was different.
I studied his profile—that sharp jaw, the way his fingers wrapped around the steering wheel just a little too tight. Then my eyes dropped to his hands.
His knuckles was bruised. Swollen. The skin split open in a couple places, angry and red, like he’d been beating on something. Or more likely, someone who didn’t get a chance to hit back.
“Prime.” I kept my voice light, but my pulse was already starting to race. “What happened to your hands?”
He didn’t even flinch. Just kept those eyes on the road, cool as a fan in December. “Had to handle something.”
“Handle something like what?”
The silence stretched out between us, filled only by the hum of the engine and the tinny sound of whatever Yusef was listening to through his AirPods in the back.
Then, casual as anything: “I handled your father.”
I’m sorry, come again? Run that back? WHAT did he just say?
Every molecule of air evacuated from my lungs at the same damn time. I stared at him, jaw on the floor, brain doing backflips trying to process what this man had just said to me. Like he was telling me he’d stopped for gas. Like he was mentioning he’d picked up milk from the store.
Handled. My father. Shamir Ali. The boogeyman of my entire existence. The monster who’d lived rent-free in my nightmares for over a decade. The man I’d been running from since I was sixteen years old.
“You… WHAT?”
“Found him.” Prime’s voice was flat. “Drove up to Baltimore this morning. Paid him a visit at that lil health food store he runs.”
My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my teeth. “Prime. What did you DO?”
“What needed to be done.” He glanced over at me, just for a second, and his eyes—
His eyes was cold.
Not cold toward me. Never toward me. But cold like he’d had to flip a switch inside himself. Turn off all the soft parts. Become something else entirely to do whatever he’d done.
“He’s alive,” Prime continued, and I realized I’d been holding my breath. “Barely. But he’s gonna spend the rest of his pathetic life remembering what happens when you hurt people that belong to me.”
I whipped around to check on Yusef—but he had his AirPods in, head nodding to some beat, completely zoned out from this conversation. Thank you, Lord.
“Prime…” I turned back around, and I could feel my hands trembling in my lap. “We literally JUST talked about this. No more secrets. And you went and—”
“This ain’t a secret.” He cut me off, but his voice softened. Warmed back up. The cold was receding, the man I knew sliding back into place. “I’m telling you right now, ain’t I? I just didn’t tell you beforehand because you would’ve tried to stop me. And I wasn’t trying to hear all that.”
He wasn’t wrong. If he’d told me he was planning to drive to Baltimore and confront my father, I would’ve begged him not to go. Would’ve given him a thousand reasons why it wasn’t worth the risk, why Shamir wasn’t worth the energy, why we should just let the past stay in the past where it belonged.
But the past never stayed put. That was the whole problem. It always found a way to dig itself up and show up at your door.
“Is he gonna die?” I swallowed hard, my throat tight.
“One day, but not today.” Prime’s jaw flexed. “Death was too easy for him. Too quick. I wanted him to suffer. The way y’all suffered.”
The tears came before I could stop them. I didn’t even know what I was feeling anymore—fear and relief and shock and gratitude and horror all swirling together into something I couldn’t name if my life depended on it.
“What did you do to him?” I whispered.
“You don’t need those details, Goddess.” He reached over and took my hand, his busted knuckles rough against my fingers. “Just know that he ain’t ever gonna hurt nobody again. And he knows exactly why it happened. I made sure he understood. Told him it was for you. And for Zahara.”
The sob that ripped out of my chest caught me off guard.
For you. And for Zahara.
This man. This terrifying, complicated, beautiful, dangerous man had driven forty-five minutes to Baltimore and nearly killed my father with his bare hands.
Not because I asked him to. Not because anybody asked him to.
Just because he’d heard what Shamir did to us and decided on his own that it wasn’t gonna stand.
I was scared of him. I was grateful to him. I was in love with him. I was shook by him. All at the same time, all tangled up together until I couldn’t tell where one feeling ended and another began.
I didn’t know whether to cuss him out or kiss him or throw up.
So I just held his hand. Squeezed it tight. Let the tears roll down my cheeks in silence as he drove us home.
The penthouse felt different that night.
I took a long shower, letting the hot water beat down on my shoulders until my skin turned pruny.
Scrubbed that diner smell off me—the grease and the coffee and the slight scent of desperation that came from serving people who treated you like you was invisible.
By the time I got out and wrapped my hair in a towel, I felt almost human again.
I could hear Prime and Yusef in the living room before I even made it down the hall.
“Aight, show me what you got. Let’s see them push-ups.”
“How many you want?”
“How many you been doing?”
“I’m up to seventy-five now. No breaks.”
“Seventy-five?” Prime sounded genuinely impressed. “Bet. Let me see it.”
I leaned against the hallway wall, peeking around the corner to watch. Yusef was already on the floor in position, and Prime was sitting on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees, watching like a coach.
“Remember—chest to the floor, full extension at the top. None of that halfway mess.”
“I know, I know.” Yusef started knocking them out, his form tight, his breathing controlled.
“That’s twenty. Keep going. Don’t slow down.”
“I’m not slowing down.”
“Thirty. Good. Breathe through it.”
I smiled, watching them. This is what normal looked like. This is what family felt like. A man invested in a boy who wasn’t even his, pushing him to be stronger, better, more capable of surviving in a world that wanted to break him.
“Fifty. You’re almost there. Push through.”
Yusef’s arms were trembling now, sweat beading on his forehead, but he didn’t stop. Didn’t quit. Just kept pushing, his jaw set with that determination Prime had been building in him since their first session at the gym.
“Seventy-three… seventy-four… seventy-five!” Yusef collapsed onto the floor, chest heaving, a huge grin spreading across his face. “TOLD you!”
Prime laughed and reached down to dap him up. “Aight, aight. I see you. That’s growth right there. When I met you, you couldn’t even do twenty without crying about it.”
“I wasn’t crying!”
“You was close.”
“Whatever.” But Yusef was still grinning, proud of himself in a way I hadn’t seen in too long. “When can we go back to Pharaoh’s gym? I wanna work on my combinations.”
“This weekend. We’ll get you on the bags, work on your footwork too. You been practicing that slip I showed you?”
“Yeah, watch—” Yusef jumped up and demonstrated, bobbing his head to avoid an imaginary punch, then throwing a counter. His form wasn’t perfect, but it was better. Way better than when he started.