Chapter 35 Rashid
RASHID
The boy was eating when I found him.
Seated at my kitchen table, hunched over a plate of liver, spinach, and boiled potato. Almost the same meal I had prescribed for him every day since his arrival. Protein. Iron. Sustenance that built strength and discipline.
He did not look up when I entered. Simply continued chewing with the mechanical obedience I had instilled in him. His spirit was nearly broken. A few more days and there would be nothing left of the soft, crying child who had begged to go home.
“Yusef.”
“Yes, sir.” He still did not look up. Good. Eye contact was a privilege that had to be earned.
“Your father is in the basement. He has not eaten since yesterday.”
Now the boy’s head lifted. Something flickered in those hollow eyes. Hope, perhaps. Or fear. It was difficult to tell anymore.
“I want you to prepare a meal for him. Liver. One boiled potato. Water.” I adjusted my bowtie. “You will take it downstairs. You will feed him. Then you will return to your studies. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
I turned to leave, then paused at the doorway.
“Yusef.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Do not disappoint me.”
I left him there and retreated to my study.
The security monitors were already active. Six screens showing different angles of my home. The kitchen. The hallways. The basement where Demetrius sat chained to the wall like the animal he had proven himself to be.
And one camera pointed directly at the stairs leading down to him.
This was a test. The boy did not know it, but I would be watching every moment. Every interaction. Every word exchanged between father and son.
If Yusef simply delivered the food and left, he would pass. He would prove that my training had taken root. That obedience had replaced sentiment.
But if he tried to free his father. If he searched for the key. If he showed any sign of the weakness I had worked so hard to eradicate…
Then stronger measures would be required.
I settled into my chair and watched the screen as Yusef prepared the meal. His movements were slow. Deliberate. The liver sizzled in the pan. The potato sat in its pot of boiling water.
He was stalling.
I made note of it and checked my watch. I had business to attend to. A message to deliver. But I would review the footage upon my return.
And then we would see what kind of boy Yusef truly was.
The drive to Rita Banks’s home took forty minutes.
She lived in a massive estate in one of DC’s most exclusive neighborhoods.
Gated entrance. Manicured grounds. The kind of property where you could go days without seeing another person if you wanted to.
She’d bought it decades ago with money from helping build Banks Reserve from the ground up.
Prentice’s grandfather’s business partner in everything but name, even if he’d never given her the credit she deserved.
The grandiose home loomed ahead as I pulled up to the gate. Most people would assume a woman like this—elderly, partially blind, living alone—would be an easy target.
Most people would be dead wrong.
I knew Rita Banks’s history. Knew she had been a force in these streets long before her grandson expanded the family liquor empire.
But that was decades ago. Now she was partially blind, well into her eighties, and living alone. Whatever fire she once possessed had surely dimmed with age.
At least, that was my assumption.
I parked down the block and approached on foot. The neighborhood was quiet. A few cars in driveways. No witnesses worth concerning myself with.
My plan was simple. I would knock on her door. Deliver a message for her grandson. Perhaps rough her up slightly if she proved difficult. Nothing permanent. Just enough to remind Prentice that no one he loved was beyond my reach.
If she resisted, I would take her. Add her to my collection of leverage. An elderly blind woman would require minimal security, and the psychological impact on Prentice would be significant.
I climbed the porch steps. Raised my hand to knock.
The door flew open.
And I found myself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.
“You must think I’m stupid.”
Rita Banks stood in her doorway, the weapon raised and steady despite her age. Her eyes, clouded with cataracts, somehow found mine with unnerving accuracy.
“Mrs. Banks. I simply wish to—”
BOOM.
The shot tore past my head so close I felt the heat of it. Splinters exploded from the porch column behind me. My ears rang. My heart, for the first time in decades, actually stuttered in my chest.
“That was your warning.” Her voice was ice. “Next one goes through your skull.”
I stumbled backward. The shock of it, the sheer audacity, had knocked me off balance in a way I had not experienced since I was a young man learning the streets of Detroit.
“You think you the first man to show up at my door thinking he could take something from me?” She pumped the shotgun. The sound was deafening in the quiet neighborhood. “Better men than you have tried. They all in the ground now.”
A cough seized my chest. The worst possible timing. I turned away, trying to suppress it, but my body betrayed me. The fit was violent, relentless, and when I finally pulled the handkerchief from my lips, it was soaked with red.
I spat blood onto her porch. Straightened my posture. Tried to reclaim some semblance of dignity.
Rita had not moved. The shotgun remained trained on my chest.
“Get off my property,” she said calmly. “Before I send you to your maker before that disease does. Your choice.”
She could sense it. Of course she could. This woman was not the feeble grandmother I had assumed her to be.
I had made a critical error in judgment. One that could have cost me my life.
“I have a message for your grandson,” I managed, my voice rougher than I would have liked.
“Then speak it and go.”
“Tell Prentice that Rashid said to release his daughter. Or I will return with reinforcements. And next time, I will not be so courteous.”
Rita laughed. Actually laughed, a low, knowing sound that made my skin prickle.
“Rashid?! Reinforcements.” She shook her head slowly. “You mean them BCC boys you got running around? I remember you being with Vivica. Yeah I know all about you, Shadow.”
I went still.
“Oh, you ain’t think I knew about that?” Her smile was cold. “I know everything, Rashid. Including who been warming your bed when you in DC. You think your little situation with that detective is a secret? Ain’t nothing secret from me.”
The mention of Vivica sent ice through my veins. How much did this woman know? How much had she shared with Prentice?
“Send your reinforcements,” Rita continued. “Send all of them. I’ll be right here waiting. And I’ll send every last one of them home in a box.” She adjusted the shotgun. “Now get off my porch before I change my mind about letting you walk away.”
I backed down the steps. Slowly. Never turning my back to her. The shotgun followed my every movement.
When I reached the sidewalk, she fired again.
BOOM.
The shot tore through the air inches from my ear. I flinched. Actually flinched, like a child startled by thunder.
“That’s for showing up at my home uninvited.” Rita’s voice carried across the yard. “Come back again, and I won’t miss. That’s a promise.”
She stepped back inside and slammed the door.
I stood on the sidewalk for a long moment. Blood on my lips. Ringing in my ears. Pride in tatters.
I had underestimated her. Badly. And she had made me look like a fool.
This was not over. But for now, I had to regroup. Reassess. Find another angle of attack.
I returned to my car and drove home in silence, rage simmering beneath my skin.
The footage was waiting for me when I arrived.
I sat in my study, rewinding through the hours I had missed. Watching Yusef prepare the meal. Watching him carry it down the basement stairs. Watching him approach his father with the plate in his trembling hands.
“Yusef?” Demetrius’s voice was hoarse. Weak. The chain around his neck rattled as he lifted his head. “Yusef, that you?”
“I brought you food.” The boy’s voice was barely audible. “Liver and potato. Like he said.”
“Forget the food.” Demetrius pulled against his chains. “You gotta help me, son. You gotta find the key and get me outta here.”
“I can’t.” Yusef set the plate down. His hands were shaking. “He told me to feed you and go back upstairs. If I disobey him, he’ll—”
“Forget what he told you!” Demetrius’s voice cracked with desperation. “He’s crazy, Yusef. He’s gonna kill us both. You gotta get me out so I can protect you. So I can kill that old man before he kills us.”
Yusef hesitated. I watched his face on the monitor. Watched the conflict play out across his features. Obedience versus love. Fear versus hope.
“Please, son.” Demetrius’s tone softened. “Please. I know I ain’t been a good father. I know I wasn’t there for you. I wasn’t there for your mama neither. I ran her off to Cali ’cause I was selfish and stupid and scared.”
The boy did not move.
“But I want to make it right. If we get outta here, I swear to God, I’ll be better. I’ll share custody with your Auntie Zai. I’ll be in your life for real this time. No more excuses.”
“You promise?”
“I promise, son.” Demetrius’s voice broke. “I love you, Yusef. I know I ain’t never said it before. But I love you. You my boy. My blood. And I ain’t gonna let nothing happen to you. Just help me get free, and I’ll handle the rest.”
I watched Yusef’s face crumble. Watched the tears spill down his cheeks.
“I’ll find the key.”
He left the basement and began searching. The kitchen drawers. The study. The bedrooms. He moved through my home with increasing desperation, opening every cabinet, checking every shelf.
He found nothing. Of course he found nothing. The key was in my pocket, where it had been since I chained Demetrius to that wall.
Finally, after nearly an hour of searching, Yusef returned to the basement. His shoulders were slumped. His face was streaked with tears.
“I couldn’t find it.” His voice was hollow. “I looked everywhere. It’s not here.”
Demetrius closed his eyes. “It’s okay, son. You tried. That’s all I can ask.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Demetrius opened his arms as wide as the chains would allow. “Come here.”
Yusef crossed the basement and fell into his father’s embrace. They held each other, both crying, the chain rattling with each sob.
“I love you, son.”
“I love you too, Daddy.”
I watched them cling to each other. Father and son. Reunited in chains. Sharing a moment of genuine connection for perhaps the first time in the boy’s life. He stayed down there and talked with his father for a while.
Hope. That was what I saw on Yusef’s face when he finally pulled away. Hope that his father would change. Hope that they would escape. Hope that everything would somehow be okay.
I turned off the monitor.
The rage that had been simmering since Rita’s porch exploded into something darker. Something colder.
I had been humiliated by an old woman. My daughter was being held captive. And now, the boy I had spent a week breaking was showing signs of reconstitution.
Unacceptable.
All of it.
Yusef had failed my test. He had chosen sentiment over obedience. Had searched for a key to free a man who wanted me dead. Had embraced his father and spoken words of love as if love meant anything in this world.
I had been too lenient. Too patient. I had assumed that time and discipline would shape him into something worthy.
I was wrong.
Stronger measures were required.
I stood from my chair, retrieved the key from my pocket, and headed for the stairs.
It was time to teach Yusef a lesson he would never forget.