Chapter 26 Farah
FARAH
The brightness of LA almost gave me some hope—almost. It was hard not to feel good underneath the West Coast sun and palm trees. Seeing the abundance of attractive people was a relief from all the ugliness I faced back home.
I stepped out of LAX and the heat hit me like a slap. Virginia had been cold when I left—gray skies, bare trees, the kind of weather that matched the deadness inside me. But California? California was mocking me with its palm trees and blue skies and bullshit optimism.
A part of me hated it. A part of me wanted to relish in it. It almost made me want to give up my thoughts of revenge, and just go to the beach and enjoy a new life out here. But how? I was dead ass broke.
The car Vivica arranged was waiting at the curb. It was a black Escalade, tinted windows, a driver who didn’t ask questions. I slid into the backseat and pulled out my phone.
Vivica: You land?
Me: Just got in the car.
Vivica: Good. The rental is stocked. Everything you need. Address is in your email.
Me: And hers?
Vivica: Also in the email. Along with her court schedule and the monitoring company’s check-in times.
Me: Perfect.
Vivica: Don’t do anything stupid, Farah. We need to be smart about this. The goal is to get her bail revoked, not to catch a case yourself.
Me: I know what I’m doing.
Vivica: Do you? Because you just buried your father. Grief makes people sloppy.
I stared at the screen, my jaw tight. She didn’t get to talk about my father. She didn’t get to say his name. Vivica Banks was a means to an end—nothing more. Once Zainab was rotting in a cell and Prime was destroyed, I’d be done with her.
Me: I said I know what I’m doing.
Vivica: Fine. Keep me updated.
I tucked my phone away and stared out the window as the city rolled by.
Daddy was gone.
I still couldn’t wrap my head around it.
He was a man who built an empire from nothing, who commanded respect from killers and politicians alike, who taught me everything I knew about power and survival.
And now he was dead. Losing his son broke something inside him that couldn’t be fixed.
He had been dying for months, but his heart couldn’t take that news.
Now, I was all alone and I had absolutely nothing.
Nothing but rage.
The compound in Virginia was being seized.
There’s a RICO investigation. Federal agents crawling all over Daddy’s legacy like roaches, picking apart everything he built.
The lawyers said I might be able to keep my condo and whatever is in my accounts.
But the businesses, his accounts, the connections? Gone. All of it.
Prentice Banks and his family took everything from me.
My ear. My family. My future.
And for what? For some bitch who wasn’t even worth the air she breathed?
I touched the side of my head without thinking. The scar tissue was still tender where my ear used to be. I’d gotten good at styling my hair to cover it, but I knew it was there. Every time I looked in the mirror, I saw what he did to me. What he took.
He thought cutting off my ear would make me disappear. Would make me crawl into a hole and die.
He was wrong.
The rental was a small house in Culver City, nondescript, and forgettable.
It was a place no one would look twice at.
Vivica had stocked the fridge, left cash on the counter, and set up a laptop with everything I needed.
Satellite images of Zainab’s neighborhood.
Her court documents. The schedule for her ankle monitor check-ins.
She really had thought of everything.
I spent the first night studying. Learning the layout of the streets. Memorizing the position of every camera, every neighbor’s car, every possible escape route. By morning, I knew that neighborhood better than the people who lived there.
Then I went to see for myself.
I parked three houses down, on the opposite side of the street, hidden behind a delivery van that had been sitting there since yesterday. The house was nice—not just nice, it was a damn castle. Stone archways, turrets, stained glass windows. A BELL TOWER. And a pair of luxury cars in the driveway.
Prime’s cars.
He was in there with her. Playing house. Acting like they were some happy little family while my father rotted in the ground and my brother’s body was dumped in some Panamanian prison.
I watched for hours. Saw movement behind the curtains. Saw her shadow pass by the window once—that pregnant belly unmistakable even from a distance.
She was huge. Ready to pop any day now.
Good.
That meant whatever happened next, she’d be going through it alone. No Prime to hold her hand. No comfortable house to recover in. Just a cold cell and the consequences of stealing a life that was never hers to take.
My phone buzzed.
Vivica: Anything?
Me: She’s home. He’s with her. The boy too.
Vivica: Good. Keep watching. Learn their patterns. We need to find the right moment.
Me: And if the right moment doesn’t come?
Vivica: It will. Just be patient.
Patient. I hated that word. But she was right. Rushing this would only get me caught.
Me: Fine. I’ll keep you posted.
I put the phone down and settled deeper into my seat, eyes fixed on the house.
I could be patient. I’d waited this long. A few more days wouldn’t kill me.
But it might kill her.