Chapter 11 Prime
PRIME
At some point, muhfuckas were gonna have to stop testing my patience.
The nerve of some bitch to threaten my Goddess and our baby.
I handled that shit swiftly. It’s amazing what a down-and-out CO will do for an extra ten thousand and a promise of a security job at the new casino when it opens.
Quest helped me get at homeboy—an old friend of his from back in the day.
I told that nigga to leave some Monopoly money on the bed.
Ten thousand dollars worth. Just so everybody knew to stop fuckin’ with what was mine.
Word got back to me this morning. Big Mona was found carved up in her cell, fake money fanned out next to her body like a calling card. Nobody saw nothing. Nobody heard nothing. And nobody was gonna say shit.
Good.
But even with that handled, my chest was still tight. My woman was in a cage. My daughter was in a cage. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to get them out faster.
Camille told me the transport was happening in a couple days.
California. Three thousand miles away from me.
I was already making arrangements to fly me and Yusef out there.
I needed to be as close to her and our baby as possible.
Even if I couldn’t touch her. Even if I could only see her through glass. I needed to be there.
A part of me felt like this was all my fault. If I had just left her alone. If I had never walked into her apartment. If I had never made her mine. She’d still be free. Still be anonymous. Still be safe.
But I couldn’t think like that. Couldn’t go down that road. What’s done was done. Now I had to fix it.
Someone in my circle snitched. Someone made that call to LAPD. Someone dug up a five-year-old case and handed my woman to the cops on a silver platter.
I was sure it was Vivica. I just needed proof.
And when I finally made my move, she wouldn’t know what hit her.
I wasn’t gonna kill Vivica. That would be too easy.
Too quick. Nah. I was gonna destroy her.
Brick by brick. Take everything she built.
Everything she loved. Watch her lose it all piece by piece until she was begging for the mercy I wasn’t gonna give.
That was a promise.
The casino site was coming along.
I pulled up to the construction zone on the waterfront and parked next to Quest’s Maybach.
The skeleton of the building was already up—steel beams reaching toward the sky, cranes moving materials, workers in hard hats everywhere.
This was gonna be the crown jewel of the Banks empire.
A hundred-million-dollar resort and casino that would put us on the map in a whole new way.
Quest was waiting for me near the entrance, two hard hats in his hand. He tossed me one as I walked up and pulled me into a hug.
“How you holding up?”
“I’m here.”
“That’s all you can do right now.” He stepped back. “My boy came through?”
“Yeah. Mona’s done. Monopoly money and all.”
Quest nodded, satisfied. “Good. Bitch should’ve known better than to come for a Banks.”
“Yo, I appreciate you for that. For real. That CO connect saved me a lot of trouble.”
“That’s family, bro. You ain’t gotta thank me for protecting my niece.” He put on his hard hat. “Come on. Let me show you what your money been doing.”
We walked through the construction zone, stepping over wires and dodging workers. Quest pointed out different sections—where the gaming floor would be, the hotel tower, the restaurants, the VIP lounges. He was in his element out here. CEO shit. Building empires. This was what he was born to do.
“We’re still on schedule for the soft opening in eight months,” he said. “Maybe sooner if we don’t hit any snags with permits.”
“Yo, what’s good!”
I turned to see Thad walking toward us, hard hat already on, dapping up one of the contractors on his way over.
“There he is,” Quest said, pulling him into a hug. “I heard about the shit at Upstage. You good?”
Thad sucked his teeth. “Man, some YN shit. Niggas don’t know how to act. Now I gotta keep the spot closed for a month while we deal with the investigation and repairs.”
“That’s money lost,” I said, dapping him up.
“Facts. But it is what it is.” He looked at me. “Yo, how’s your girl?”
My jaw tightened. I didn’t like talking about her situation with people outside my immediate circle. But Thad was family. Cousin. Blood. And he was there when it all went down. They didn’t get a chance to meet each other though.
“She’s being extradited to California in a couple days,” I said. “I’m flying out there to be close.”
“Damn.” Thad shook his head. “That’s fucked up. She seem like good people. I hope it all works out.”
“It will.”
“Aight, well, I came through because I was in the area. I saw y’all cars. I’m heading over to Upstage to check in with some contractors.” He dapped us both up again. “Quest, holler at me later about that liquor order for the club. Prime—keep your head up, bro. Family’s here if you need anything.”
“Appreciate it.”
He walked off toward the other side of the site.
I watched him go. Something about that nigga always felt a little off to me. Couldn’t put my finger on it. But I’d known him my whole life. He was family.
I shook it off.
“Permits shouldn’t be a problem anymore.”
Quest raised an eyebrow. “You handled that too?”
“Vivica’s not gonna be in a position to block shit much longer.”
He nodded slowly. Didn’t ask questions. That was the thing about Quest—he knew when to dig and when to let it go.
We stopped at a spot overlooking the whole site. The sun was setting behind the steel beams, casting long shadows across the concrete. It was gonna be something when it was finished. Something real.
“You think you ever gon’ settle down?” I asked knowing the answer to that question.
Quest let out a laugh and then looked at me with his eyebrow raised. “Bruh, I’m as settled as I’m gonna get. Camille and Lyric. We aight.”
“Sometimes I think you use that poly shit as a buffer to real intimacy. Like you’re scared.”
“After what I’ve been through? I got every reason to feel scared. But that ain’t it. I like what I like. I like both of them.”
“And you sure you don’t want no kids? I see how you are with Justice’s girls.”
“We been through this. I ain’t havin’ no kids. Not ever. I’ll spoil my nieces to death though.”
I laughed a bit but I didn’t believe him. Quest had been through some shit but like so many men he buried his pain under work and sex. Maybe one day he’d see the truth. Now that I’d found my slice of happiness, after being cold for so fuckin’ long, I wanted that shit for everyone.
We stood there for a minute. Two brothers. Two kings. Building something bigger than both of us.
“I think Vivica’s behind it,” I said finally. “The arrest. The tip. All of it.”
Quest’s jaw tightened. “You sure?”
“Not yet. But my gut’s never wrong.”
He was quiet for a second. I knew this was complicated for him. His relationship with Vivica had always been different than mine. She didn’t treat him like shit the way she treated me. Didn’t throw him away like garbage. I looked like our father and well—he looks more like her.
“Look,” Quest said slowly. “I know my relationship with her has always been… different. I don’t know why she singled you out.
Why she treated you the way she did. But that don’t mean I’m blind to who she is.
” He turned to face me fully. “Zainab is real family now. Her and that baby. And if Vivica did this—if she really went after your woman like that—then she went after all of us.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying whatever you need to handle her, I’m in. She’s our mother by blood, but blood don’t mean shit when you move against family.”
I looked at my brother. Saw the truth in his eyes. He meant it.
“I need phone records,” I said. “From her office. The day of the arrest and the weeks before. I need to know who made that call.”
Quest nodded. “I got you. I know a guy in city IT who owes me a favor. Give me a few days.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Don’t mention it.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Now go get my sister-in-law and my niece out that cage. Whatever it takes.”
We dapped each other up—that grip that said more than words ever could. Then I headed back to my car.
The penthouse was quiet when I got back.
Yusef was back at home with me. I wasn’t about to leave him at Justice’s house while I was running around handling business. He was my responsibility now. Mine and Zainab’s. And until she came home, I was gonna make sure he knew he wasn’t alone.
Mehar holds down the bakery and I hold down everything else.
I found him in the living room, sitting on the couch with his headphones on watching videos on Youtube.
“Yo,” I said, pulling off my jacket.
He looked up. Took off the headphones. Didn’t say nothing, but his eyes tracked me as I sat down across from him.
“How you doing?”
He shrugged. Picked up his pen. Wrote something.
Okay I guess.
“You eating?”
Yes. I made a sandwich.
“Good. That’s good.” I leaned back, trying to figure out how to do this. How to be what he needed. “Listen, Yu. I gotta fly out to California in a couple days. Your aunt’s being transferred out there.”
His face changed. Fear flickered in his eyes.
Are you leaving me?
“Nah. Never.” I leaned forward, made sure he was looking at me. “You’re coming with me. I’m not leaving you behind. We’re gonna be close to her. Both of us. That’s how this works. We’re a family. And family sticks together.”
He stared at me for a long moment. Then he wrote:
Promise?
“Promise.”
Something shifted in his expression. Relief, maybe. Or just the comfort of knowing he wasn’t gonna be abandoned again.
I looked at him sitting at that keyboard. Then at my guitar in the corner. It had been a minute since I played. Life had gotten too heavy for music.
“You know any Stevie Wonder?” I asked.
Yusef nodded slowly.
I got up and grabbed my guitar. Sat back down across from him. “Let’s run it.”
Yusef looked at me like he wasn’t sure I was serious. I raised an eyebrow at him. Waited.
He turned back to the keyboard. Positioned his fingers. Took a breath.
Then he started playing.
We ran through a few Stevie joints. “Superstition.” “Isn’t She Lovely.” Stuff we both knew. Stuff that felt good to play.
We were rough at first. Off tempo. But after a minute, something clicked. He adjusted to me. I adjusted to him. And suddenly we weren’t just two people playing the same songs—we were playing them together.
Yusef’s whole body changed. His shoulders dropped. His face relaxed. He wasn’t just going through the motions. He was feeling it. Lost in the music the way only someone who really plays can get lost.
I watched him while I strummed. This kid had been through so much. Seen too much. Lost too much. But right now, in this moment, he was just a thirteen-year-old boy making music.
When we finally stopped, neither of us moved for a second. Just sat there in the quiet, the last notes still hanging in the air.
Then Yusef looked at me. And smiled.
Not a big smile. Not a grin. Just a small, real thing that reached his eyes for the first time in weeks.
He picked up his notebook. Wrote something. Turned it toward me.
That was fire.
I laughed. Actually laughed. “Yeah. It was.”
He wrote again:
Can we do this tomorrow too?
My chest got tight. But not the bad kind of tight. The kind that reminded you why you were fighting in the first place.
“Yeah,” I said. “We can do this every day if you want.”
He smiled again. Then turned back to the keyboard and started playing something else. Something softer. Just noodling around, finding melodies.
I sat back and listened. Let the music wash over me.
This was what Zainab would want. Me and Yusef, holding each other down. Making something good out of all this pain.
I was gonna bring her home to this. To us. To a family that was still standing despite everything trying to tear us apart.
Later that night, Yusef was asleep in his room.
I stood in the doorway for a minute, watching him. He looked peaceful for once. Not haunted. Not scared. Just a kid, sleeping.
I closed his door softly and headed to my bedroom.
Zainab’s side of the bed was cold. Her pillow still smelled like her—that shea butter and vanilla she always used. I pulled it close, breathed her in.
“Hey, baby girl,” I said out loud. Talking to my daughter even though she couldn’t hear me. “Daddy’s coming. Okay? I’m gonna be right there when they move your mama. I’m not gonna let nothing happen to either of you.”
Silence. Just the hum of the city outside the window.
“I know you can’t hear me. But I need you to know—you’re already the most important thing in my life. You and your mama. And I’m gonna spend every day proving that. Whatever it takes. However long it takes.”
I closed my eyes. Held her pillow against my chest.
“Just hold on, baby girl. Daddy’s coming.”