Chapter 41 Thad
THAD
Mehar was crying again. I sat on the edge of her bed, rubbing her back in slow circles, making all the right sounds—“It’s gonna be okay, baby” and “I’m here for you” and “your sister is strong, she’ll get through this”—while internally I was counting down the seconds until I could get the fuck out of here.
Why didn’t this bitch just go to LA?
That’s all I kept thinking. When she got that call about Zainab being arrested again, I was ready. Had my supportive boyfriend speech locked and loaded. “Go be with your family, baby. I’ll hold things down here. The bakery can wait.” I practically packed her bags myself.
But nah. She stayed. Because Prime told her to run the bakery. Because Zainab would want her to keep the dream alive. Because family loyalty or whatever the fuck.
So now I was stuck here, playing nursemaid to a woman I was getting real tired of pretending to love.
Don’t get me wrong—Mehar was fine as hell. That body, that face, the way she looked at me like I hung the moon. And the sex was good. Real good. She was eager to please in a way that told me Ahmad had trained her well, even if she didn’t realize it.
But the emotional shit? The crying? The constant need for reassurance?
Exhausting.
I was tired of faking like I cared.
“I just keep thinking about her in that cell,” Mehar sniffled, wiping her nose with a tissue. “Alone. Scared. Eight months pregnant and—”
“I know, baby. I know.” I kept my voice soft. Sympathetic. “But she’s tough. And Prime’s got the best lawyers money can buy. She’s gonna be okay.”
She looked up at me with those big brown eyes, all wet and grateful. “What would I do without you, Thad? You’re always so patient with me.”
I smiled. Kissed her forehead. “That’s what I’m here for.”
Internally, I was screaming.
She’d been like this all night. Ever since she came back from wherever she’d gone, looking pale and shaky, talking about how the phone went dead and she heard Zainab screaming.
Then she’d thrown up twice—some stomach bug she must’ve picked up—and now she was curled up in bed feeling sorry for herself.
Great. A sick, crying girlfriend. Exactly what I needed.
My phone buzzed. I glanced at the screen.
Justice.
Thank God.
“Hold on, baby. I gotta take this.” I stepped into the hallway and answered. “What’s good?”
“Yo, I need you at the warehouse.” Justice’s voice was tight and urgent. “Emergency situation. Can’t explain over the phone.”
“Which warehouse?”
“The one off Miller Road. You know the spot.”
I knew the spot. They used it for storage back in the day. It was a quiet location, no neighbors, no cameras. Good place to handle business that didn’t need witnesses.
“What kind of emergency?” I asked.
“Just get here. Fast.”
The line went dead.
I stood there for a second, processing. Justice didn’t call me for shit usually.
We weren’t tight like that. I was more close to Quest and Prime.
If I had to rank them it would be Quest, Prime, then Justice.
Justice was always busy and cold. Hyper-focused on his daughters.
But if he was reaching out, it had to be serious.
Whatever. At least it got me out of this apartment.
I walked back into the bedroom. Mehar was still curled up under the covers, looking pitiful.
“Baby, I gotta go. Family emergency.”
Her face fell. “What? Now?”
“Justice needs me at one of the warehouses. Something came up.” I was already grabbing my keys, my jacket. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Is everything okay?”
“I’m sure it’s fine. Probably just some business shit.” I leaned down and kissed her forehead again. “Get some rest. Take some medicine for that stomach. I’ll bring you soup on my way back.”
She smiled weakly. “You’re too good to me.”
“I know.” I winked and headed for the door. “Love you.”
“Love you too.”
The words tasted like cardboard in my mouth, but I said them anyway.
The drive to the warehouse took about twenty minutes. I spent most of it thinking about how much longer I wanted to keep this thing with Mehar going. She was sexy and fun. But the constant emotional maintenance was wearing thin.
Maybe another month or two. Then I’d find a reason to end it. Tell her I wasn’t ready for something serious. Let her down easy so she didn’t go running to Prime with some sob story about how I broke her heart.
I pulled up to the warehouse and parked next to Justice’s Range Rover. The building was dark, just one light on somewhere deep inside. I grabbed my piece from the glove compartment, never walked into a situation unarmed, and headed for the entrance.
“Justice?” I called out, pushing through the side door. “Yo, where you at?”
Silence.
The hallway was dim, concrete floors, that industrial smell of oil and rust. I kept my hand near my waist, fingers brushing the grip of my gun.
“Justice? You in here?”
I turned a corner and—
WHACK.
Something heavy connected with the back of my skull. The world exploded into white-hot pain and then nothing.
Ice cold water.
That was the first thing I felt. Bone-deep cold, like someone had dumped it straight into my veins.
Then the pain hit, my head throbbing, my shoulders screaming, my wrists burning with a sharp, cutting pressure.
I tried to move and couldn’t.
My eyes flew open.
I was hanging. Literally hanging with my wrists shackled to chains that ran up to a hook in the ceiling, my arms stretched above my head, my feet barely touching the concrete floor.
Heavy chains wrapped around my ankles, weighted down by what looked like a kettlebell, keeping my legs locked in place.
What the fuck?
I yanked against the restraints and the chains rattled, the metal biting deeper into my wrists. I couldn’t move more than an inch in any direction. Couldn’t reach my gun—it was gone, probably taken while I was unconscious. Couldn’t do shit except hang here like a piece of meat in a slaughterhouse.
“What the FUCK?!” I screamed, my voice echoing off the concrete walls. “JUSTICE! JUSTICE, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!”
“Right here.”
I whipped my head around—too fast, pain shooting through my skull—and saw Justice emerge from the shadows. He was dressed casual, jeans and a black hoodie, like he was about to grab lunch with the homies. In one hand, he held a pear. In the other, a knife.
He leaned against the wall about ten feet away and took a slow, deliberate bite of the pear. Juice ran down his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand, unbothered.
“What’s up, Thad.”
“What’s UP?!” I yanked at the chains again, rage and confusion fighting for control. “What the fuck is this, bro? Why you got me chained up like some hoe? This a joke?”
Justice just looked at me. Took another bite of the pear.
“Answer me! Why the fuck am I—”
“Because you disgust me.”
The words landed like a slap. Quiet. Calm. Final.
I stared at him, trying to read his face, trying to find some hint of what this was about. But Justice’s expression was blank. Not angry. Not emotional. Just… done. Like he was looking at something rotting in a dumpster.
“What are you talking about?” I forced a laugh, trying to regain some footing. “Come on, man. Whatever this is about, we can talk about it. We family. I don’t know what you think I did, but—”
“You don’t know.” Justice nodded slowly, slicing off another piece of pear with his knife. “That’s interesting.”
“I DON’T. So why don’t you unchain me and we can have a conversation like—”
“Nah.” He popped the pear slice into his mouth. Chewed. Swallowed. “We’re gonna wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“For Prime.”
Something cold slithered down my spine. Something that had nothing to do with the ice water still dripping from my clothes.
“Prime?” I kept my voice steady. Confused. Innocent. “What’s Prime got to do with this? Come on, J, whatever y’all think I did—”
“Stop talking.”
“But I—”
Justice reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of AirPods. Slid them into his ears. Tapped something on his phone.
“JUSTICE.” I yanked at the chains, the metal screaming against the ceiling hook. “JUSTICE, YOU CAN’T JUST LEAVE ME HERE. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS ABOUT? WE’RE FAMILY, brO. WE’RE BLOOD. JUSTICE!”
He didn’t even look at me.
Just stood there against the wall, eating his pear, nodding slightly to whatever music was playing in his ears, like I wasn’t even in the room.
Like I was already dead.
And that’s when the fear hit. Real fear. The kind I hadn’t felt since I was a kid watching my pops get dragged out of our house by dangerous people.
This wasn’t a misunderstanding.
This wasn’t a joke.
Something had happened. Something they knew about. Something bad enough that Justice—easy-going, mind-his-business Justice—was willing to chain me to a ceiling and wait for his brother to arrive.
Prime was coming.
And whatever he was coming to do, I had a feeling I wasn’t gonna enjoy it.
I stopped struggling. Stopped screaming. Just hung there in the cold, watching Justice ignore me, feeling the weight of those chains pulling at my shoulders, and tried to figure out what the fuck they knew.
The list was long.
And none of it was good.