Chapter 23 Rashid
RASHID
The boy looked like a shell of himself.
Good.
I sat at the head of my dining table, watching Yusef push food around his plate with the enthusiasm of a death row inmate facing his final meal.
His shoulders were hunched. His eyes were downcast. The defiance I’d seen two days ago—the fire that had made him push me, challenge me, scream about wanting to go home—had been extinguished.
This was progress.
His knees were blistered beneath his sweatpants. I knew this because I’d inspected them this morning, ensuring the wounds weren’t infected. I wasn’t trying to damage the boy permanently. I was trying to reshape him. There was a difference.
His back was sore from the wooden spoon—I could tell by the way he winced every time he shifted in his chair. But he hadn’t cried this morning. Hadn’t begged to go home. Hadn’t spoken at all, actually.
Silence was the first step toward discipline.
“Eat,” I commanded, gesturing toward his plate. “That liver will put iron in your blood. Build your strength.”
Yusef stared at the slab of cow liver—unseasoned, pan-fried in its own juices—and the two sunny side up eggs beside it. His face twisted with barely concealed disgust.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I did not ask if you were hungry. I told you to eat.”
He picked up his fork, poked at the liver like it might bite him back. Brought a tiny piece to his mouth and chewed with the expression of someone swallowing medicine.
“All of it,” I said. “This is real nutrition. Not the processed garbage your aunt fed you. A man needs protein. Iron. Sustenance that builds muscle and sharpens the mind.”
He took another bite. Gagged slightly. Kept chewing.
The front door opened.
I didn’t turn around. I knew who it was by the weight of the footsteps, the familiar cadence of a walk I’d known since my nephew was a boy himself.
“Uncle Rashid.”
Demetrius stepped into the dining room, and I finally allowed myself to look at him.
Prison had changed him. He was leaner now, the softness of his youth carved away by years of institutional food and yard workouts.
His head was shaved clean. His beard was full and neat.
He wore the clothes I’d sent for him—simple, dignified, nothing flashy.
He looked like a man who’d been through fire and emerged with something to prove.
“Demetrius.” I rose from my chair and embraced him briefly. “Welcome home.”
He pulled back and studied my face with a frown. “You lost weight, Unc. You good?”
“Fasting,” I said curtly. “Discipline of the body sharpens the mind.”
He nodded, accepting the lie. They always did.
“It’s good to be home.” His eyes slid past me to the boy at the table. A smile spread across his face. “There he is. There’s my boy.”
Demetrius moved toward the table, arms open like he expected a warm reunion. Yusef didn’t look up. Didn’t respond. Just kept pushing that liver around his plate like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.
“Yusef.” Demetrius pulled out the chair beside him, sitting close. Too close. “Ain’t you glad to see your pops? I told you I’d be out soon. Now we can finally be together. A real family.”
Nothing. The boy was a statue.
“Yo, Yusef.” Demetrius’s smile faltered. He reached out to touch the boy’s shoulder. “Say something, man. I know it’s been a minute since the prison visit, but—”
Yusef flinched away from his hand like it was made of fire.
Demetrius looked up at me, frustration creasing his brow. “What’s wrong with him? Why won’t he talk to me?”
“He’s being defiant.” I returned to my seat, unfolding my napkin with precise movements.
“He was raised by a woman for twelve years. Single mother. No discipline. No structure. No male guidance. The result is what you see before you—a soft, emotional child who doesn’t know how to conduct himself as a man. ”
“Damn.” Demetrius shook his head, looking at Yusef with something between pity and disgust. “That’s what happens when bitches try to raise boys. They turn them into little bitches, too.”
Yusef’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. So there was still some fire in there after all. Buried deep, but present.
“Sit down,” I told Demetrius. “Have breakfast. There’s much to discuss.”
He took the chair across from Yusef, and my housekeeper appeared with his plate—turkey bacon, scrambled eggs, toast with butter. A proper meal for a man who’d just spent years eating prison slop.
Demetrius dug in without complaint, groaning with satisfaction at his first bite of real food in years, while Yusef continued his slow, painful progress through his unseasoned liver.
The contrast was intentional. Rewards for those who earned them. Discipline for those who required it.
“He needs to eat that,” Demetrius said, pointing his fork at Yusef’s plate. “Build up some strength. He’s skinny as hell.”
“He’s been informed.” I sipped my tea. “If he doesn’t finish, he receives nothing else until tomorrow morning. And then he’ll be served the same meal.”
“That’s smart. That’s real smart.” Demetrius was nodding eagerly. “Gotta break them down before you build them up, right?”
“Indeed.”
“And you’re gonna train him? Like you trained Prime and ’em?” There was something almost wistful in his voice. Envy, perhaps. “Turn him into a real one?”
“I will train him properly,” I said. “Mold him into a man of discipline and purpose.”
“I wish you could’ve done that for me.” Demetrius shook his head, chewing his turkey bacon. “Maybe I wouldn’t have ended up in that cell for twelve years.”
“Perhaps.” I set my tea down. “But your mother—may Allah grant her peace—refused my guidance. She thought she could raise a man on her own. Thought the streets would teach you what she couldn’t.” I fixed him with a hard stare. “And look what it cost you. Look what it cost this boy.”
Demetrius’s face fell. “You right. You right, I know.”
My hand connected with the back of his head before he could say more. Not hard enough to injure, but hard enough to remind him of his place.
“Do not make the same mistakes with him.” I nodded toward Yusef. “He has potential. I’ve seen glimpses of it. But it must be cultivated correctly. No coddling. No negotiations. No weakness.”
“Yes sir.”
Yusef had stopped eating. His fork was frozen halfway to his mouth, his eyes fixed on his plate, but I could see his mind working. Processing. Trying to understand the dynamic between the two men who now controlled his fate.
“Finish your food,” I commanded. “And then we train.”
The courtyard behind my mansion was designed for exactly this purpose.
Stone pathways. Manicured hedges. A reflection pool at the center. And along the eastern wall, the training equipment I’d accumulated over decades of shaping young men into soldiers.
Today, we would start simply.
“This is called the yoke.” I held up the wooden pole, approximately four feet long, with notches carved at each end for the bucket handles.
“You will place this across your shoulders. You will carry these buckets—filled with water—from one end of the courtyard to the other. You will not spill a single drop.”
Yusef stared at the apparatus with undisguised dread. He was still in his sweatpants and t-shirt, his feet bare against the cold stone. The December air was crisp but not unbearable. Discomfort was part of the lesson.
“This is how men are built,” I continued. “Through labor. Through discipline. Through the understanding that every action has consequences.” I picked up the thin wooden switch I’d selected for this exercise. “If you spill water, you will be corrected. Do you understand?”
He didn’t answer.
“I asked you a question, boy.”
“Yes.” The word came out hoarse. Barely audible.
“Yes what?”
A long pause. I could see him wrestling with it. The submission. The acknowledgment of my authority.
“Yes sir.”
“Better.” I positioned the yoke across his shoulders, adjusting it until the weight was balanced. Then I attached the buckets—each filled three-quarters of the way with water—to the notches at either end.
He buckled slightly under the weight. The buckets swayed. Water sloshed but didn’t spill.
“Walk,” I commanded. “Slowly. Steadily. Control your movements.”
Yusef took his first step. Then another. His thin arms gripped the pole, his knuckles white with effort, his face contorted in concentration.
Demetrius watched from the covered patio, arms crossed, nodding approvingly.
A cough tickled my chest. I turned away from both of them, suppressing it through sheer will. I would not show weakness. Not in front of the boy. Not in front of Demetrius. Not in front of anyone.
Then Yusef made it halfway across the courtyard before his foot caught on a slightly raised stone. He stumbled. The buckets swayed violently.
Water splashed onto the pathway.
The switch whistled through the air and connected with his lower back.
He cried out—a sharp, wounded sound—but didn’t drop the yoke. Didn’t fall. Just stood there, trembling, tears streaming down his face.
“Continue,” I said calmly. “When you spill, you are corrected. When you succeed, you are not. The choice is yours.”
He continued. Step by agonizing step. More water spilled when he reached the far wall and had to turn around. Another correction. More tears. But he kept going.
By the time I allowed him to stop, his shoulders were raw from the wooden pole, his back was striped with welts, and the buckets were less than half full. But he’d completed the exercise. He’d endured.
“Better,” I said, taking the yoke from his shoulders. “Tomorrow we will do it again. And you will spill less. And eventually, you will spill nothing at all. That is how excellence is achieved. Through repetition. Through consequence. Through the refusal to accept mediocrity.”
Yusef stood there, swaying slightly, his breath coming in ragged gasps. But he didn’t speak. Didn’t beg. Didn’t ask to go home.
Progress.
Later that evening, my phone buzzed with a message.
I pulled it from my pocket and read the words on the screen.
Prime: Cigar bar. Tonight. 8pm. Just us.
I stared at the message for a long moment.
Prentice had been calling repeatedly since I’d taken the boy. I’d ignored every attempt, letting him stew in his helplessness, reminding him that he was not in control of this situation.
But now he wanted to meet. Face to face. Man to man.
The wise move would be to ignore this as well. To let him come to me on my terms, when I was ready, when I had fully established my dominance over the situation.
But I found myself… curious.
Curious to see what kind of man Prentice had become in my absence.
Curious whether the soldier I’d trained would approach this as a negotiation or a confrontation.
Curious whether he still remembered who had made him, who had shaped him, who had taken a fat, stuttering child and forged him into a weapon.
I typed my response.
Rashid: I’ll be there.
I pocketed the phone and returned to the courtyard, where Yusef sat on a stone bench, staring at nothing. His spirit was nearly broken. A few more days and he would be ready for the real training to begin.
But first, I had a meeting to attend.
I changed into one of my better suits—charcoal gray, tailored, with a burgundy bowtie that complemented my complexion.
Adjusted my glasses in the mirror. I was in my late 50’s but lately I looked every year of it.
The weight loss was becoming harder to hide.
The hollows beneath my cheekbones more pronounced.
I straightened my posture, refusing to acknowledge what the mirror was telling me.
Discipline kept a man young. Purpose kept him sharp.
And I still had purpose. Still had work to do.
The drive to the cigar bar took forty minutes. A jazz club in the basement of a building I owned through three layers of shell companies. The kind of place where powerful men discussed powerful things away from prying eyes and listening ears.
When I arrived, the bar was quiet. A few of my soldiers were present—they always were—but they knew to keep their distance when I was conducting business.
I selected a booth near the back. Ordered a glass of bourbon—top shelf, neat—and a Cuban cigar from my private reserve.
And then I waited.
Prentice would arrive soon. Would sit across from me with those ocean eyes I’d watched transform from fearful to cold to calculating over the years. Would make his case. Issue his demands. Perhaps even threaten me, if he’d truly lost all sense of proportion.
And I would listen. I would assess. I would determine whether the boy I’d raised had become a man worth negotiating with—or an obstacle that needed to be removed.
Either way, this would be an illuminating conversation.
The door opened. Footsteps approached.
I drew on my cigar and waited.