Chapter 20 Prime
PRIME
The smell of turkey sausage, cinnamon pancake batter, and cheesy eggs filled the room.
I was prepping breakfast for the family while Zainab slept in and Yusef had an early session with Sloane on the tablet.
If someone would’ve told me over a year ago that I would be cooking breakfast, taking care of a kid, and gotten a woman pregnant, I would’ve slammed them in the jaw for their blatant lie.
But here I was. Mr. Family Man.
It was a far better look than who I used to be—just a weapon of destruction. I felt like if I could do right by family then I could redeem myself. So here I was, making sure they ate well.
“That smells delicious,” Zainab spoke when she entered the room.
She was wearing a pink kimono robe that draped gloriously over her round belly. She looked so perfect. If I thought she was a Goddess before—I knew it now. There was nothing more precious and divine than a pregnant woman.
I played a small part, but she was doing the heavy lifting. I would never be able to repay her for the sacrifice she was making bringing my baby girl into the world.
“Come have a plate, but first drink your smoothie,” I commanded as I set the green drink in front of her.
Spinach, cucumber, mango, pineapple, coconut oil, and sea moss made up the concoction.
She hadn’t been getting her nutrients while she was locked away, and I wanted to make sure her and my baby were nourished.
“Thank you,” she said as she picked the glass up.
“Yu!” I called down to him. It was ten in the morning, so his session with Sloane should be over.
“Sloane said he’ll talk when he’s ready,” Zainab said as she glanced to the side in sadness.
“I just wanna know what the fuck happened at Rashid’s place. What he saw that made him so spooked out.”
“You of all people know how Rashid was. You can imagine,” she replied.
She was right. I could imagine what unthinkable shit he saw at Rashid’s place that traumatized him into a paralyzed voice.
Rashid was a monster. I knew that better than anybody.
Whatever that boy witnessed in that basement was probably worse than anything I went through during my training. And I went through hell.
In a matter of seconds, Yusef rushed downstairs. He gave Zainab a hug and me a head nod before sitting down at the table. We ate breakfast together—quiet, but together. That was enough for now.
Once that was complete, he went to do his homeschool work. Zainab went to take another nap. And I received a call that I had been waiting on.
Creed.
“Talk to me,” I answered.
“It’s done.” His voice was flat. Professional. “My connect in Panama handled the situation. Kasim won’t be a problem.”
I exhaled slow. One less threat to worry about. Rashid was dead and rotting, and now his son—the one he’d been grooming from a Panamanian prison cell to come back and seek revenge—was handled too. Permanently.
“Good looking out,” I said. “I appreciate you.”
“It’s all good. Family looks out for family.” He paused. “But I might need a favor in the near future. Something’s brewing on my end. Nothing urgent yet, but when it pops off, I’ma need a nigga who knows how to move.”
“You got me,” I said without hesitation. “Whatever you need.”
“Bet. I’ll be in touch.”
The line went dead.
I stood there for a minute, processing. Kasim was gone. That whole bloodline was finished. Rashid. Farah with her one ear. Meech still missing—probably starved to death in that basement nobody knew about. And now Kasim, taken out before he could ever step foot back on American soil.
The Muhammad legacy was extinct.
Good riddance.
But there was still one problem that needed handling. One snake that was still slithering around, thinking she was untouchable.
Vivica.
I pulled up Quest’s number and hit call.
“Yo,” he answered on the second ring.
“Wha’s good.”
“Been busy but I ain’t forget about you.”
“Good. You got them phone records from Vivica’s office?”
“Already sent them to your email. Just came through about an hour ago.” I could hear him moving around.” I had to call in a few favors to get those. IT guy at City Hall owed me one.”
“I owe you.”
“Nah, you don’t. This is family business. Somebody came for your woman. That means they came for all of us.”
I pulled up my email on my phone while we talked. There it was—an encrypted file from Quest’s secure server.
“I’m looking at it now,” I said, scrolling through the records.
“Check the outgoing calls from the week before Zainab got arrested. Specifically from India Coleman’s extension.”
India. Vivica’s assistant. Her secret lover. The one I caught with her face buried between Vivica’s legs that morning in Georgetown.
I filtered the records by her extension and started scanning.
And there it was.
Three calls to the LAPD Cold Case Unit. Two calls to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office. One call to a Detective Morrison—the same detective whose name was on Zainab’s arrest warrant.
All from India’s phone. All within a five-day window. All right before the feds showed up at Sweet Zin and dragged my pregnant fiancée away in handcuffs.
“You seeing what I’m seeing?” Quest asked.
“Yeah.” My jaw was tight. “I’m seeing it.”
“India made those calls. But we both know she ain’t do that shit on her own. She don’t got no reason to come for Zainab.”
“She was following orders.”
“Exactly. And there’s only one person who gives India orders.”
Vivica.
My own mother.
The woman who birthed me, abandoned me, let me rot in the system, then tried to play mommy when I came back successful.
She’d done a lot of foul shit over the years. Manipulated my brothers. Cheated on her husband. Used her political power to crush anyone who got in her way. But this?
This was personal.
She went after Zainab because she couldn’t control me. Because I chose a woman she didn’t approve of. Because her precious family image was threatened by a girl from the hood who had the audacity to love her son.
So she made some calls. Dug up Zainab’s past. Found out about the identity theft, about Zahara, about the murder case that had gone cold in California. And she served my woman up to the authorities on a silver platter.
All because she couldn’t stand not being in charge.
“What you wanna do?” Quest asked.
I was quiet for a long moment. Thinking. Planning. Running through scenarios in my head.
“I need to dismantle her,” I said finally. “Piece by piece. Everything she’s built. Everything she loves. Her career. Her reputation. Her secrets. All of it.”
“That’s a big play. She’s the mayor. She’s got connections everywhere.”
“And I got patience.” I walked to the window, looking out at the California hills. “She think she untouchable because she got a title. But titles don’t mean shit when your skeletons start falling out the closet.”
“You talking about India?”
“I’m talking about everything. The affair. The backroom deals. The kickbacks she’s been taking from contractors for twenty years. All of it.” I let out a slow breath. “She wanted a war with me? She got one. But she ain’t ready for how I fight.”
“You need me to do anything on my end?”
“Not yet. Just keep digging. I want everything—financial records, emails, text messages. Anything that ties her to corruption. And keep this between us. Get Justice hip to what’s going down. I want him involved.”
“Understood.” Quest paused. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I know she’s our mother. But what she did to Zainab… that’s unforgivable.”
“She stopped being my mother a long time ago.” I turned away from the window. “Now she’s just a problem that needs solving.”
“Bet. I’ll be in touch.”
I hung up and stood there in the silence of the California morning.
Zainab was upstairs sleeping, our daughter growing inside her, innocent to all the bullshit swirling around us.
Yusef was doing his schoolwork, still trapped in whatever hell Rashid had put him through.
And here I was, the man who was supposed to protect them both, finding out that the biggest threat to my family wasn’t some street nigga or some old enemy.
It was my own blood.
Vivica Banks was about to learn a very important lesson.
You don’t come for the people I love and expect to walk away clean.
I learned from the best how to destroy a person from the inside out. How to be patient. How to find their weaknesses and exploit them until there was nothing left.
Rashid taught me that.
And now I was about to use everything he taught me against the woman who gave me life.
Poetic, when you think about it.
I went back to the kitchen and started cleaning up the breakfast dishes. Normal shit. Domestic shit. The kind of thing a family man does.
But in my mind, I was already planning.
Vivica’s downfall wouldn’t be quick. It wouldn’t be messy. It would be slow and methodical and absolutely devastating.
By the time I was done with her, she wouldn’t just lose her job.
She’d lose everything.
And she’d know exactly who took it from her.