Chapter 2 Prime
PRIME
Twelve hours.
Twelve hours since they put their hands on my woman. Twelve hours since I watched them drag her out of her own bakery in handcuffs, cameras flashing, her eyes finding mine like I could save her.
I couldn’t save her.
I sat in the driver’s seat of my, parked in the lot of the DC Central Detention Facility, staring at the building like I could see through the walls. Like if I looked hard enough, I could find her. Hold her. Tell her everything was gonna be alright.
But I couldn’t do none of that. All I could do was sit here like some lovesick nigga, close as I could get without catching a charge myself.
My phone buzzed. Justice.
“How’s Yusef?”
“He’s asleep.” Justice’s voice was tired. It was almost 6 AM—none of us had slept. “Mehar’s in the guest room down the hall from him. She’ll be here when he wakes up.”
“He say anything?”
A pause. “Nah. Not a word.”
I closed my eyes. Pinched the bridge of my nose.
Yusef had come so far. Sloane had been working with him for months—the trauma therapy, the art exercises, the trust-building.
He’d started making sounds again. Started writing notes.
We thought he was close to breaking through, to finally telling us what Rashid put him through during those weeks he had him.
The “discipline.” The isolation. Whatever else that man did to try to reshape him into a soldier.
Then this shit happened.
Now Yusef was back to silence. Back to that hollow look in his eyes. Back to being a thirteen-year-old boy who’d seen too much and lost too much and couldn’t find the words for any of it.
“Keep me posted,” I said.
“You still at the jail?”
“Where else I’ma be?”
Justice didn’t argue. He knew better. “Camille should be pulling up soon. Quest said she landed an hour ago.”
“Yeah.”
“Prime.” Justice’s voice shifted. That tone he used when he was about to say something I didn’t want to hear. “You can’t sit in that parking lot forever.”
“Watch me.”
“I’m serious. You gotta—”
“I gotta what?” My jaw tightened. “Go home? Get some rest? My pregnant fiancée is locked up for a murder she didn’t commit and you want me to go take a nap?”
Silence.
“That’s what I thought.” I hung up.
I tossed the phone in the cupholder and went back to staring at the building.
This wasn’t me. I didn’t sit around waiting for shit to happen. I made shit happen. I found problems and I eliminated them. That’s who I was. That’s who Rashid had trained me to be—back when I thought he was saving me instead of shaping me into a weapon for his own use.
But this? This was different. This wasn’t some nigga I could put hands on. This was the system. Courts. Lawyers. Evidence. Extradition. A bunch of shit I couldn’t shoot my way through, no matter how much I wanted to.
And I wanted to.
God, I wanted to.
The memory hit me before I could stop it—Zainab’s face when they put the cuffs on.
The way her eyes went wide. The way she looked at Yusef, then at me, and I could see her making the decision in real time.
Deciding not to fight. Deciding to go quietly so she didn’t traumatize that boy any more than he already was.
She protected him. Even in that moment, she was thinking about him.
That’s my Goddess. That’s the mother of my child. And she was in there, alone, scared, pregnant with my baby, and I couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it.
My phone rang. Unknown number.
I almost ignored it. Then something told me to answer.
We talked and I updated her about everything. In the end she sounded a bit more hopeful.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too. Both of you. Now breathe, Goddess. I’ll see you soon.”
The line went dead.
I sat there for a long moment, phone still in my hand, her voice echoing in my head.
You are coming home to me.
I meant that shit. Every word.
Camille pulled up an hour later.
A sleek black Mercedes, because of course.
Quest’s girl didn’t do anything halfway.
She stepped out looking like she’d just walked off a magazine cover—cream-colored pantsuit, heels fresh off the runway, hair laid to perfection.
Gabrielle Union with a law degree and a briefcase full of problems she was about to solve.
Three years she’d been with my brother. Her and Lyric.
The three of them had something that worked, even if I didn’t fully understand it.
She was one of the best criminal defense attorneys on the East Coast. High-profile cases.
The kind that made the news. The kind where people with money and power needed someone who could navigate the system and win. ”
I got out of the Bentayga.
“Prime.” Camille’s voice was calm. Professional. But I caught the concern underneath it. “How long have you been here?”
“All night.”
She nodded like that didn’t surprise her. “I’m going in to see her now. I’ll assess the situation, explain the extradition process, and start building our defense strategy.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Prime—”
“I said I’m coming with you.”
Camille sighed. Stepped in front of me. Even in heels, she barely came up to my chest, but she stood her ground like she was ten feet tall.
“You can’t,” she said firmly. “You’re not on her approved visitor list yet. The paperwork takes days. And even if you were, they’re not going to let you in right now. She’s being processed for extradition. Limited contact. Attorney visits only.”
“I don’t give a damn about their process—”
“I know you don’t.” Her eyes met mine. Steady. Unflinching. “But if you go in there and cause a scene, they will arrest you. And then who’s going to be out here fighting for her? Who’s going to take care of Yusef? Who’s going to find out who did this?”
I clenched my jaw so hard I thought my teeth might crack.
“You are doing everything you can do,” Camille said, softer now. “Being here. Hiring me. Supporting her. That matters.”
No I’m not.
The thought burned through me like acid.
I wasn’t doing everything I could do. I was standing in a parking lot while my woman sat in a cell. I was playing by rules that didn’t apply to people like me.
Someone put her in there. Someone made a phone call, pulled some strings, fed information to the cops. Someone wanted Zainab gone.
And I had a pretty good idea who.
Rashid.
That man had been a shadow over my entire life. Once my savior—the one who’d pulled me out of that prison bathroom when I was thirteen, bloody and terrified, seconds away from being destroyed by Big Sauce. He’d trained me. Made me. Turned me into a weapon. For years, I thought he’d saved my life.
Now I knew better.
Rashid didn’t save people. He collected them. Used them. And when they stopped being useful—or when they got in his way—he disposed of them.
I’d gotten in his way when I took Yusef back. When I chose Zainab over his bloodline. When I stopped being his obedient soldier and started thinking for myself.
“That boy is my blood, Prime. Remember that. Know your place.”
I remembered his words in that prison hallway. The threat wrapped in silk. The possession in his eyes when he looked at Yusef.
And I remembered how I’d responded.
“I know exactly where I stand.”
That was the moment everything changed between us. The moment the mentor and the protégé became enemies.
He’d already tried to take Yusef once. Already threatened Zainab. Already made it clear that anyone who stood between him and what he wanted would be dealt with.
This had his fingerprints all over it.
“Go,” I said to Camille. “Take care of her. Tell her I’m here. Tell her I’m not leaving.”
Camille studied my face for a moment. Whatever she saw there made her nod slowly.
“What are you going to do?”
I didn’t answer.
I got back in the Bentayga. Started the engine.
I thought about the man who’d taught me everything I knew. Who’d shown me how to channel my rage into precision. Who’d made me pray five times a day even though I wasn’t Muslim because he said it built discipline. Who’d turned a fat, stuttering thirteen-year-old into something lethal.
And I thought about what he’d become. What he’d always been, underneath the bow ties and the spiritual affectations and the fatherly advice.
A predator.
Just like me.
If Rashid wanted a war, I’d give him one. And unlike the last time, I wasn’t going to show mercy. I wasn’t going to negotiate. I wasn’t going to trade hostages and walk away.
This time, only one of us was walking away.
I pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward that secluded mansion in NoVa.
Time to pay my old mentor a visit.