Chapter 21 Prime
PRIME
I hadn’t slept in the twenty-four hours since we walked into that penthouse and found it empty.
Twenty-four hours since I pulled up the security footage and watched Rashid walk through my front door like this was his shit, two of his soldiers flanking him, Yusef struggling between them until one of them pressed something to his neck and he went limp.
Twenty-four hours of watching Zainab fall apart.
She’d thrown up three times since last night. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sit still. Just paced the floor of my penthouse like a caged animal, her eyes red and swollen, her voice hoarse from crying.
I’d never felt more useless in my life.
“Have you figured out where he’s staying yet?”
Zainab’s voice cut through my thoughts. She was standing by the windows, arms wrapped around herself, staring out at the Potomac like it might give her answers.
“Still working on it.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Rashid’s got properties everywhere. Houses under shell companies. Apartments under fake names. The man’s been hiding assets since before I was born. He knows how to disappear when he wants to.”
“So what do we DO?” She spun around, and the desperation in her eyes hit me like a fist to the chest. “We just sit here? Wait? Hope he decides to give Yusef back out of the goodness of his heart?”
“No.” I stood up from the couch, my body stiff from hours of sitting in the same position, running scenarios, making calls, hitting dead ends. “I’ve been thinking. Rashid’s careful, but Farah isn’t. She’s sloppy. Emotional. If I follow her, she might lead me right to him.”
Something flickered in Zainab’s eyes. “You think she knows where he is?”
“She’s his daughter. She knows.” I paused, letting the next thought form fully before I said it out loud. “Or… fuck following her. I could take her.”
Zainab went still. “Take her?”
“Snatch her up. Use her as leverage. Rashid wants to play games with my family? I’ll play games with his.” The words came out cold. Calculated. The way Rashid had taught me to think. “He gives me back Yusef, I give him back Farah. Simple exchange.”
For a moment, Zainab’s whole face transformed. Hope. Relief. Like I’d just offered her a lifeline.
“You would do that? For me?”
“I would do anything for you. You know that.” I crossed the room and took her hands in mine. They were ice cold. Trembling. “Rashid crossed a line. He came into MY home. Took that boy out of MY spot. He thinks because he made me, he can control me. He’s wrong.”
She squeezed my hands, tears spilling down her cheeks. But then something shifted in her expression. The hope dimmed. Doubt crept in.
“Wait.” She pulled back slightly. “Let’s think about this.”
“What’s there to think about?”
“The consequences.” She started pacing again, her mind clearly racing. “Let’s say we get Yusef back. Then what? Meech is out now. He’s Yusef’s biological father. And Rashid has money, connections, lawyers. What’s stopping them from going to the authorities? Filing for custody?”
“Rashid doesn’t involve authorities. That’s not how he operates.”
“But Meech might. Or Rashid might use the threat of it to keep us in line.” She stopped pacing and looked at me, her eyes haunted.
“Prime, think about it. I stole my dead sister’s identity.
I have a criminal record from California.
I’ve been raising a child under a fake name for three years.
If this goes to court—if any of this comes out—I don’t just lose custody.
I go to prison. And Yusef ends up with Meech anyway. ”
I clenched my jaw. She wasn’t wrong. The legal situation was a minefield. One wrong step and everything exploded.
“So what are you saying?” I asked slowly. “We do nothing?”
“I’m saying…” She pressed her hands to her temples, like she was trying to keep her skull from splitting open. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I can’t think straight. I can’t—” Her voice cracked. “I can’t lose him to the courts AND lose him to Rashid. Either way, he’s gone. Either way, I fail him.”
“You’re not failing anybody.”
“I already HAVE.” She was crying again, her whole body shaking. “I was supposed to protect him. That was the ONE thing I promised Zahara. Keep her son safe. And now he’s with that man, and I don’t even know if he’s okay, and I can’t DO anything—”
“You can let me handle it.”
“HOW?” She threw her hands up. “You just said yourself you don’t know where Rashid is! And even if you find him, even if you get Yusef back, we’re right back where we started. Waiting for them to make the next move. Waiting for them to take him again, or drag us to court, or—”
“Zainab.” I grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at me.
“Listen to me. I know Rashid. I know what he does to boys he’s trying to ‘shape.’ I lived it.
The discipline. The punishments. The breaking down before the building up.
” My voice dropped. “Every hour Yusef is with him, he’s being hurt.
Maybe not beaten bloody, but hurt. In ways that don’t leave visible marks. I can’t let that go on. I WON’T.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Her voice was raw. “You think it’s not killing me? But if I move wrong—if WE move wrong—I lose him forever. At least if he’s with Rashid, he’s alive. He’s—”
“He’s being tortured.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I DO know that.” I released her shoulders and stepped back, trying to contain the fury building in my chest. “Because Rashid did the same thing to me. For years. Broke me down. Rebuilt me in his image. Made me into a weapon.” I met her eyes.
“Is that what you want for Yusef? You want him to become like me?”
She flinched like I’d hit her.
“That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair.” I started pacing now, too agitated to stand still. “But sitting here doing nothing isn’t an option. Not for me. I can’t watch you fall apart for another day while that boy suffers. I won’t.”
“So what, you’re just going to go rogue? Do whatever you want regardless of what I think?”
“I’m going to protect this family. By any means necessary.”
“Even if it destroys us in the process?”
We stood there, breathing hard, the argument hanging between us like a live wire. I could see her fear. Her paralysis. The impossible choice she was trying to navigate.
And I understood it. I did.
But I also knew what Rashid was capable of. Knew the techniques he used to break down young minds and reshape them. Knew that every minute we wasted arguing was another minute Yusef spent being molded into something he wasn’t meant to be.
“I’m not asking for your permission,” I said finally. “But I am asking you to trust me. I will get that boy back. And I will do it in a way that doesn’t blow up in our faces. But I need you to let me move.”
Zainab opened her mouth to respond—
Her phone rang.
We both froze. She pulled it out, looked at the screen, and her brow furrowed.
“It’s Mehar.”
“Answer it.”
She did, putting it on speaker. “Hello? Mehar?”
The sound that came through the phone made my stomach drop. Hysterical sobbing. Gasping breaths. A woman in complete crisis.
“Zainab—” Mehar’s voice was barely recognizable. “Zainab, please—I need—he found out I left—he’s going to kill me—”
Zainab’s face went pale. “Mehar, slow down. Where are you?”
“Union Station. I took—I took the train—I didn’t know where else to go—” More sobbing. “Please, Zainab. Please come get me. I’m so scared. He’s calling my phone over and over and I don’t know what to do—”
“Okay. Okay, listen to me.” Zainab’s voice shifted into something steadier. Maternal. The same tone she used with Yusef when he was spiraling. “Stay where you are. Don’t answer his calls. I’m coming to get you right now. Do you hear me? I’m coming.”
“Please hurry. Please—”
“I’m on my way.”
She hung up and looked at me. The argument we’d been having was still there, unresolved, but pushed aside by this new emergency.
“I have to go.”
“I know.” I grabbed my keys from the counter. “I’ll drive you.”
“Prime—”
“We’re not done talking about Yusef.” I opened the front door and waited for her to walk through. “But right now, your sister needs you. So let’s go.”
She hesitated for just a second. Then nodded and walked past me into the hallway.
I followed, pulling the door shut behind us.
Yusef was still out there. Still with Rashid.
And Zainab wanted me to wait. To think. To consider the consequences.
But I was done waiting.
The moment Mehar was safe, I was making my move. With or without Zainab’s blessing.
Rashid had started this war.
I was going to finish it.