Chapter 47 Prime
PRIME
The suit cost three thousand dollars. It was Italian wool, navy blue, tailored to perfection. I looked like exactly what I was pretending to be, a high-powered attorney from one of those Innocence Project organizations that got wrongfully convicted men out of prison.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
I signed in at the front desk using the fake credentials Quest had secured for me. Benjamin Wright, Esq. The guard barely glanced at my ID before waving me through. That was the thing about looking like money, doors opened. Questions didn’t get asked.
They led me to a private interrogation room, the kind reserved for attorney-client meetings. No cameras. No recording devices. Just a metal table, two chairs, and four concrete walls.
I sat down and waited.
Five minutes later, the door opened and they brought him in.
Dwight White. Dubz.
He was bigger than I expected. Broad shoulders, thick neck, hands like cinder blocks. Prison had aged him—gray in his beard, lines around his eyes—but he still moved like a man who knew how to handle himself. The guards uncuffed him and left us alone.
He sat down across from me, sizing me up with flat, suspicious eyes.
“You ain’t my lawyer.”
“No, I’m not.” I folded my hands on the table, keeping my posture relaxed. Professional. “I’m from the Midwest Innocence Project. We’re reviewing cases of potentially wrongful convictions. Your name came up.”
He snorted. “Ain’t nothing wrongful about my conviction. I did that shit.”
“I know. But I’m not here about that case.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Wariness. “Then what you here for?”
I reached into my briefcase and pulled out my phone. Slid it across the table, screen up.
He looked down at the picture.
His whole body went rigid.
It was his daughter. Fourteen years old, braids spread across her pillow, sleeping peacefully in her bed. And standing over her, knife pressed to her throat, was me.
“What the FUCK—” He shot up from the chair, lunging toward the door. “GUARD! GUARD!”
“Aht aht.” I didn’t raise my voice. Didn’t move. “Sit down, Dwight.”
“I’M CALLING THE—”
I swiped to the next photo and held it up for him to see.
His grandmother. Eighty-three years old, asleep in her recliner, television still glowing in the background. And standing behind her with a gun to her temple was Quest.
Dubz froze.
“My brother has eyes on your grandmother’s house right now,” I said calmly. “So if I go down, if anything happens to me in this room, if you make any noise at all… it’s over for granny. You understand?”
He stood there, chest heaving, fists clenched at his sides. I watched the calculation happening behind his eyes. The rage warring with the fear. The understanding slowly dawning that he was completely and utterly fucked.
“Sit. Down.”
He sat.
I put the phone back on the table between us, grandmother’s picture still glowing on the screen.
“What do you want?” His voice was barely a whisper.
“I want you to confess to a murder you committed.”
I swiped to the next photo. Zahara Ali. Alive, smiling, beautiful. The picture was from before everything went wrong.
Dubz stared at it for a long moment. Then his shoulders sagged.
“I was ordered to do that hit.”
“I know. Thad Banks gave the order. But that’s not my concern right now.” I leaned forward slightly. “What I need is for you to confess. Publicly. To the DA. Every detail.”
“And if I don’t?”
I swiped through more photos. His two sons, seventeen and nineteen. Sleeping. Vulnerable. Marked.
“Your daughter dies. Your grandmother dies. Your sons die.” I let each word land like a hammer. “And that money sitting in your offshore account? The one you think nobody knows about? Wiped out. Every penny. Your family won’t have enough to bury you, let alone survive without you.”
He was shaking now. Actually trembling, this massive man who had killed God knows how many people in his life. Reduced to trembling because I’d found the one thing he couldn’t protect.
“Okay.” His voice cracked. “Okay. I’ll confess. Fuck. I’ll do it.”
“Good.” I pulled the phone back and slipped it into my pocket. “Call your lawyer. Have him contact the DA. Full confession. Every detail.”
“What proof do they need? It’s been years—”
“You tell me. What do you remember?”
He closed his eyes, and I watched him go somewhere else. Back to that night. Back to that apartment. Back to the moment he took Zahara away from everyone who loved her.
“She was wearing a yellow t-shirt,” he said quietly.
“Had some writing on it, but I don’t remember what.
There was a big ass bag of flour on the counter.
Like she’d been baking or some shit.” He swallowed hard.
“Little boy’s shoes by the door. Light-up sneakers.
And a sad-looking snake plant in the window. Thing was half dead.”
I kept my face blank even though I wanted to reach across the table and snap this man’s neck with my bare hands.
“That’s enough detail,” I said, my voice steady despite the fire burning in my chest. “The DA will be able to verify. If your confession is accepted and the charges are dropped against my fiancée, you’ll be in the clear. Your family stays safe. Your money stays where it is.”
“And if it’s not accepted?”
I stood up, buttoning my suit jacket. “Then I guess we’ll find out how much you really love your children.”
His face crumpled. For a moment he looked less like a killer and more like a desperate father facing the worst nightmare imaginable.
“Please.” His voice broke. “Please spare my kids. They ain’t got nothing to do with this. They don’t even know what I did. Please.”
I looked down at him for a long moment.
“That’s all up to you, Dwight.”
I knocked on the door. The guard opened it from the outside.
“Nice doing business with you,” I said without looking back.
I walked out of that prison the same way I walked in, calm, collected, looking like a man who belonged in a courtroom instead of a crime scene. Nobody stopped me. Nobody questioned me. I was just another lawyer visiting just another client.
The sun was bright when I stepped outside. I pulled out my phone and texted Quest.
Me: It’s done. He’ll confess.
Quest: And if he doesn’t?
I thought about Dubz’s daughter sleeping peacefully in her bed. About his grandmother in that recliner.
Me: He will.
I got in my car and drove away from the prison, leaving Dwight White to make the only choice he could.
Zainab was going to be free.
And nobody was going to stop me from making that happen.
Nobody.