Chapter 31 Prime
PRIME
I couldn’t wait to get back home to my heart.
I missed Zainab and Yusef immensely. As soon as this last string was tied, I was going back to LA to be with them.
I needed to make sure Zainab was drinking her smoothies and taking her prenatals.
And I needed to make sure Yusef was still healing and finishing his school work.
I was officially in dad and husband mode. There was no greater job than that. And everything I was doing was to ensure no one ever brought harm to my family again.
The cigar bar was quiet on a Tuesday night. Just how I liked it.
Me, Quest, and Justice had the back corner to ourselves with leather chairs, dim lighting, a bottle of Banks Reserve on the table between us. The good stuff. Aged twenty-three years, smooth as silk, burned like redemption going down.
Quest was on his second glass, talking shit about some investor who tried to lowball him on a property deal.
Justice sat across from me, quiet as always, swirling his whiskey but barely drinking it.
He’d been like that since Monica passed.
Present but not really there. Going through the motions while grief ate him from the inside.
I understood. I’d been that way too, once. Before Zainab.
“—and I told that nigga, you must not know who you’re talking to,” Quest was saying, animated as always. “I said, ‘The disrespect alone is gonna cost you an extra ten percent.’ You should’ve seen his face.”
“You’re petty as hell,” I said.
“It ain’t petty if it gets results, baby brother.” He grinned and took another sip. “But when you heading back to LA?”
“Tomorrow morning. I’ve been away too long.”
“Yeah you gotta go look after my future sister in law. Make sure she healthy and eating well. So my new niece don’t come out lookin’ how Storie did,” he laughed while looking at Justice.
Storie was a lil funny looking at birth but most babies were. She filled out within a few weeks.
“Fuck you, man. My baby girls are both beautiful,” Justice cracked a smile.
“Yeah they are, now.”
“Storie’s head was a lil lopsided,” Justice finally laughed.
I knew that’s why Quest teased him. To get that nigga to crack a smile. It was hard to get him out of his head. The stress he was under raising two girls alone weighed on him. I knew that he missed Monica, but he had to learn to brighten up for the sake of those girls.
The flat screen above the bar caught my eye.
CNN was running some story about a federal investigation and it was the RICO case against the estate of Rashid Ali.
They showed footage of the compound in Virginia, federal agents carrying out boxes of evidence.
A photo of Rashid flashed on screen. It was an old one, from years ago, before the sickness hollowed him out.
I felt something twist in my chest.
“You good?” Justice’s voice was low.
“Yeah.” I took a slow sip of my drink. “Just… thinking.”
“About him?”
I nodded.
Quest leaned back in his chair, watching me. “How you feel about all that? Losing your mentor after everything that went down?”
I thought about it for a minute. Really thought about it.
“Bittersweet,” I finally said. “He taught me a lot. Made me who I am, for better or worse. And in a sick, twisted way…” I stared at the amber liquid in my glass.
“If it wasn’t for him, I never would’ve met Zainab.
She was connected to him, and I was working for him, and somehow we found each other in the middle of all that chaos. ”
“God works in mysterious ways,” Justice murmured.
“Something like that.”
“You feel bad about what happened to his daughter?” Quest asked. “Farah?”
I was quiet for a moment. The ear. The message. The blood. Sometimes I wondered if I’d gone too far. If there was a line I’d crossed that I couldn’t come back from.
But then I remembered why I did it. Farah was collateral when we were trying to get Yusef back. Yusef was in hell while he was with Rashid.
“I did what I had to do to protect my family,” I said. “Same thing I’ll always do.”
Quest nodded. Justice said nothing, but I saw the understanding in his eyes. He’d do the same. We all would.
The news anchor’s voice cut through the low murmurs of the bar.
“Breaking news out of Washington D.C. tonight. Mayor Vivica Banks has been arrested in connection with the disappearance and suspected murder of her assistant, India Coleman.”
Everything stopped.
Quest sat up straight. Justice went still. I turned to face the screen fully, watching as they showed footage of our mother—OUR MOTHER—being led out of her row house in handcuffs. She was trying to keep her face composed, but I could see the cracks. The shock. The humiliation.
“Sources say Coleman was reported missing last week after neighbors heard a disturbance at her Navy Yard apartment. When police arrived, they found significant amounts of blood at the scene but no body. Mayor Banks was taken into custody this evening after forensic evidence linked her to the crime scene, including fingerprints found on the suspected murder weapon.”
The anchor paused, shuffling papers like she couldn’t believe what she was about to say next.
“In a stunning twist, investigators have also uncovered evidence of a secret romantic relationship between Mayor Banks and the victim. Text messages recovered from Coleman’s devices reveal an intimate affair that had been ongoing for several years.”
They flashed screenshots on the screen—texts between Vivica and India, some of them clearly sexual. I caught phrases like “can’t stop thinking about last night” and “I need to taste you again” before they blurred out the worst of it.
Quest damn near spit out his drink. “Yo! They put her freaky texts on the NEWS?!”
“That’s crazy,” Justice muttered, but I caught the slightest hint of amusement in his voice. The anchor continued.
“The nature of this relationship has led investigators to theorize that the alleged murder may have been a crime of passion. Federal investigators also discovered falsified travel documents at the mayor’s residence, suggesting she may have been planning to flee the country.
Due to the severity of the charges and the flight risk, bail has been denied. ”
Justice raised his glass slowly. “Checkmate.”
I clinked mine against his. Quest damn near knocked the table over trying to join in.
“To the downfall of Vivica Banks,” Quest said, loud enough that the bartender glanced our way. “May she rot.”
“Keep your voice down,” Justice said calmly. “We’re not supposed to be celebrating.”
“Man, fuck that. I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life.
” Quest was grinning like a kid on Christmas.
“That woman made our lives hell. Manipulated us, controlled us, tried to tear apart everything we built. And now?” He gestured at the screen.
“Now she’s gonna spend the rest of her days in a cell, thinking about how she fumbled. ”
I didn’t say anything. Just watched the footage replay—Vivica in handcuffs, Vivica being put in the back of a squad car, Vivica’s mugshot flashing across the screen.
My mother.
The woman who gave birth to me but couldn’t be bothered to raise me. I’d spent my entire childhood trying to please, trying to earn love from, trying to understand her.
And now I’d destroyed her.
“You good, Prime?” Justice asked quietly.
“Yeah.” I took a long drink. “Just processing.”
“You regretting it?”
“Nah.” I set the glass down. “She came for Zainab. She came for my family. I just returned the favor.”
Quest leaned forward. “Walk him through it again. He needs to hear every detail.” He looked at Justice. “You wasn’t there for that part.”
Justice nodded, settling back in his chair to listen. I glanced around the bar, making sure no one was in earshot.
Then I started talking. “It started when me and Quest went to see India.”
Justice already knew the broad strokes, but he wanted the details. The full picture.
“After we gave her the choice—flee or die—she chose to flee. Smart girl. But we couldn’t just let her disappear. We needed Vivica to take the fall.”
It was a big move. The planning. The precision. The way every piece had to fall into place exactly right.
“So we waited. Told India to call Vivica, get her to come over. Make it sound urgent. Scared.” I smiled slightly. “Which wasn’t hard, since she WAS scared. Of us.”
“Where were y’all when Vivica showed up?” Justice asked.
“Closet. Bedroom closet.” I shook my head. “You know how hard it is to stay quiet for forty-five minutes while your mother is twenty feet away? I could hear everything. Vivica asking what was wrong. India crying. Vivica getting suspicious, asking if someone put her up to this.”
“She didn’t check the closet?”
“Nah. She was too focused on India. And India played her part perfectly—upset, emotional, saying she was scared but wouldn’t say of what. Kept Vivica there long enough for her to touch everything. The kitchen counter. The couch. The doorknobs.”
“The knife,” Justice added.
“The knife.” I nodded. “India handed her a glass of water. Vivica set it down, picked up a knife from the counter—India told her she’d been cutting fruit earlier and forgot to put it away. Vivica moved it to the sink without even thinking.”
“Fingerprints,” Quest said with satisfaction.
“Fingerprints.”
“What happened after Vivica left?”
“That’s when the real work started.” I signaled the bartender for another round. “We had a doctor—someone I knew from my time with Rashid. He owed me. We brought him in, set up in the living room, and he drained damn near two pints of blood from India.”
Justice grimaced. “That’s wild.”
“Had to be realistic. You can’t fake a murder scene with a few drops. So we took enough to make it look fatal, then gave her a transfusion to replace what we took.” I paused. “She was weak for a few days after, but she’ll live. She’s halfway to Cambodia by now.”
“And the blood?”
“Splattered everywhere. The walls, the floor, the couch. Made it look like a struggle. Left the knife—the one with Vivica’s fingerprints—on the floor like it had been dropped.”
“Then you called it in,” Justice said.
“Anonymous tip. Neighbor heard screaming, sounds of a fight. By the time the cops showed up, India was gone. Just blood everywhere and evidence pointing straight at Vivica.”
I looked at Justice and Quest. “And y’all came through with the passports. That was the icing on the cake.”
“We put them in her bedroom safe,” Quest said, looking proud of himself.
“When the feds searched her house after the FBI raid, they found everything.”
“Flight risk,” Justice added. “No bail.”
“No bail,” I confirmed. “Couldn’t have done it without y’all.”
We sat in silence for a moment, the weight of what we’d done settling over us. We’d just taken down our own mother. Framed her for a murder that didn’t happen. Ended her career, her freedom, her entire life.
And I didn’t feel a damn thing.
Well. That wasn’t entirely true. I felt satisfied. I felt like justice had finally been served. Vivica had spent decades manipulating, controlling, destroying. She’d ruined our father. She’d tried to ruin Zainab. And now?
Now she was done.
“What do you think Daddy would say?” Quest asked suddenly. “If he could see this?”
Justice stared at his glass. “He’d probably say we should’ve done it sooner.”
Quest laughed. “Facts.”
I thought about Alexander Banks. The father I never really knew. The man Vivica had broken down piece by piece until there was nothing left.
“I think he’d be proud,” I said quietly. “That we finally saw through her bullshit.”
Justice raised his glass again. “To Pops.”
“To Pops,” Quest and I echoed.
We drank.
The news had moved on to some other story, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that image. Vivica in handcuffs. Vivica in the back of a squad car. Vivica’s mugshot.
My phone buzzed. I pulled it out and saw Zainab’s name.
Zainab: Miss you. When are you coming home?
I smiled. Actually smiled.
Me: Tomorrow morning. Got some good news to share.
Zainab: Can’t wait. Love you.
Me: Love you more.
I put the phone away and looked at my brothers. Quest was already ordering another bottle, talking about how we should frame a screenshot of the mugshot and hang it in the family room. Justice was almost smiling—the closest thing to happy I’d seen from him in months.
We’d done it. We’d actually done it.
Vivica was finished. Zainab’s case would fall apart. And once I got her back home, we could finally start building the life we’d been fighting for.
“Aight.” I stood up, draining the last of my glass. “I’m out. Early flight tomorrow.”
“You’re leaving?” Quest looked offended. “We’re celebrating!”
“You celebrate. I got a pregnant fiancée waiting for me.” I dapped him up, then pulled Justice into a hug. “Love y’all. Couldn’t have done this without you.”
“Family first,” Justice said. “Always.”
“Always,” Quest agreed.
I headed for the door, feeling lighter than I had in months. Maybe years.
Behind me, I heard Quest call out: “Tell Zainab we said what up! And that her man is a certified genius!”
I threw up a peace sign without turning around.
Tomorrow I’d be home. Tomorrow I’d hold Zainab in my arms and tell her that the nightmare was finally over. That our mother couldn’t hurt us anymore. That we were free.
Tomorrow was going to be a good day.