Chapter 9 Prime
PRIME
I made it two blocks before I slammed on the brakes, cursing under my breath.
What the fuck was I doing?
I’d just left her standing in that parking lot. Didn’t wait to make sure she got inside. Didn’t watch her get to her door safely. It was midnight in the hood and I’d just driven off like some reckless nigga who didn’t have any sense.
That wasn’t how I moved. I didn’t leave loose ends. I didn’t leave vulnerabilities unchecked.
But Zahara had me fucked up in the head, and I didn’t like it.
I pulled a U-turn and drove back, parking where I could see her building. The light in what I knew was her apartment flickered on. Third floor, second window from the left. I watched her silhouette move across the room, and only then did the tension in my shoulders ease.
She was safe.
I should’ve left then. Should’ve driven home and forgot about the whole interaction. But I sat there for another minute, watching that window, thinking about her.
She was beautiful. Not just fine—beautiful.
The kind of beautiful that made you look twice, then a third time just to make sure you weren’t imagining it.
Rich, dark skin that seemed to glow even under shitty fluorescent lights.
Big brown eyes with lashes so long they looked fake but weren’t.
A mouth that was too distracting, full lips that I’d caught myself staring at more than once tonight.
High cheekbones that gave her face structure, made her look regal despite the flour on her clothes and the exhaustion in her eyes.
And that body. Curves that went on for days. The kind of curves that made a man’s hands itch to touch, to hold, to claim.
Her hair was natural, kinky curls pulled back into a puff tonight, but I’d seen it down before when I was watching her. Wild and free and perfect. Everything about her was perfect, actually, in a way that pissed me off because I had no business noticing.
She looked like a goddess. One of those African statues Grandma Rita used to collect, all power and femininity and strength.
I pulled away for real this time, forcing myself to focus on the road, on getting home, on anything but Zahara Ali and her smart mouth and her body and her eyes.
Farah was waiting by the garage entrance when I pulled into my building.
Of course she was.
I closed my eyes, counted to five, then rolled down my window. “What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you.” She was dressed down tonight—jeans, a hoodie, her hair pulled back. Almost looked normal instead of like she was going to the club. “Can we talk?”
“It’s late, Farah.”
“Please. Just five minutes.”
I sighed, unlocking the passenger door. “Get in.”
She slid into the seat, and I drove up to my private parking level, killing the engine but not making a move to get out.
“Talk.”
“I left my watch upstairs. In your apartment.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “From the other night. Can I get it?”
I studied her face, looking for signs of a game. But she just looked tired. And maybe a little embarrassed.
“Come on.”
We took the elevator up in silence. My penthouse was still mostly empty, just the couch, the bed, some basic necessities. I hadn’t had time to furnish it properly, and honestly, I didn’t have the energy to care.
Farah walked straight to the bedroom, finding her watch wedged between the nightstand and the wall. But instead of leaving, she turned to face me.
“I wanted to apologize,” she said quietly. “For how I acted that night. At the club. I was drunk and stupid, and those guys… I shouldn’t have been with them. I shouldn’t have put you in that position.”
I leaned against the doorframe. “You’re right. You shouldn’t have.”
“Thank you for saving me. Seriously. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t been there.”
“Nothing good.”
“I know.” She looked up at me with those big eyes that she knew how to use. “But you didn’t have to throw me in the trunk though. That was excessive.”
“Shit, I warned you.” I shrugged.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked.
“Depends on what it is.”
“Let me decorate this place.” She gestured around at the empty apartment. “You’ve been here for weeks and you still don’t have furniture. Let me help. I’m actually good at it.”
“Farah—”
“Look.” She pulled out her phone, opening Instagram. “This is my portfolio. I’ve done three condos and two houses in the last year. I’m trying to build my business.”
I took her phone, scrolling through the images. She wasn’t lying, the work was impressive. Clean lines, rich colors, spaces that looked expensive but livable.
“I’ll think about it.”
Her face lit up. “Really?”
“I said I’ll think about it. Don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t. I promise.” She stepped closer, then stood on her toes and kissed my cheek. “Thank you, Prime. For everything.”
Before I could respond, she asked the question I knew was coming. “Would you want to go out sometime? Like, on an actual date?”
“No.”
“I’m gonna wear you down one of these days,” she said as she walked away.
I waited until I heard the door close before I moved, walking to the window that overlooked the city. My reflection stared back at me, hard eyes, harder expression, a man who’d learned early that softness got you killed.
But I hadn’t always been this way.
I was thirteen years old and terrified, even if I’d never admit it. Being tried as an adult. Held in jail. Vivica wouldn’t even post bail. The corrections officer had looked at me like I was already dead.
“You’re small. You’re young. You’re fresh meat.” He leaned in close, his breath smelling like coffee and cigarettes. “Keep your head down. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t accept gifts. And boy, you betta pray.”
The first week was hell. I’d killed Tre with my bare hands, but that was rage, adrenaline, a moment of violence I couldn’t take back. This was different. This was survival every single day. Grown men looking at me like I was prey. Testing me. Pushing me.
The second week, one of them made his move.
His name was Big Sauce. Six-foot-five, three hundred pounds, awaiting sentencing for multiple homicide. He cornered me in the shower room when I thought it was empty.
“Hey, pretty boy.” His voice echoed off the tiles. “You know what you gotta do to survive in here?”
I’d backed up until I hit the wall, my heart hammering. “L-leave me alone.”
The stutter was thick as ever. The fat was still there, though I was losing it from stress. I was nothing. Nobody. A thirteen-year-old kid who’d thought killing one bully would make him strong, but who was about to learn what real predators looked like.
“Aw, he stutters. That’s cute.” Big Sauce advanced, unbuckling his pants. “Don’t worry, baby. I won’t be gentle.”
I’d tried to run. He caught me by the arm, spinning me around, shoving me face-first against the tile wall. His body pressed against mine, one hand holding both my wrists, the other reaching down—
And then he wasn’t there anymore.
I heard Big Sauce scream—a sound that cut off abruptly into a wet gurgle. I spun around.
Rashid X stood behind him, one arm wrapped around Big Sauce’s throat, the other hand gripping something that caught the light. A shank—long, sharp, made from God knows what. He’d driven it into Big Sauce’s side, just below the ribs, angled up.
Big Sauce’s eyes went wide. His mouth opened and closed like a fish.
Rashid twisted the blade.
“You don’t touch children,” Rashid said, his voice calm, almost conversational. “That’s the rule.”
He pulled the shank out and Big Sauce collapsed, blood pooling beneath him on the wet tile. Rashid let him fall, then turned to the showers that had suddenly filled with witnesses.
“Anybody touch this boy again,” Rashid announced, the bloody shank still in his hand, “they answer to me. And to my sons. We don’t tolerate this savage shit. You want to be an animal, I’ll put you down like one.”
Sauce stopped moving. Stopped breathing. Rashid let the body drop, then turned to me.
“You okay, young blood?”
I couldn’t speak. Could only nod.
“What’s your name?”
“P-Prentice. But p-people call me Prime.”
“Prime.” He studied me with eyes that saw everything. “You’re that kid who killed his bully. Thirteen years old. They’re trying you as an adult.”
“Y-yes sir.”
“I’m Brother Rashid X. You address as me as Brother from here out.” He held out his hand and dapped me up. “You’re with me now. Nobody touches you. Nobody even looks at you wrong. Understand?”
That was the beginning.
Within a week, Rashid had pulled strings to get me moved to his cell to ensure that he could protect me.
His other “son” didn’t like it but let it go.
Brother X ran the place—everyone knew it, even the guards.
He and his “sons”, a prison gang that controlled everything but operated by a code.
They didn’t deal out violence with rape.
Didn’t tolerate savagery, as Rashid called it.
“We’re men, not animals,” he’d said. “Violence has a purpose. Rape is the violence of the weak and of cowards who can’t control themselves.”
Rashid used to be head of security for the Minister, but left after they bumped heads.
He then became a contract killer as well as a drug dealer.
A drug deal landed him inside. But he never got caught for a murder.
Once inside, he created a network of disciplined men.
Men who would follow him to the edge of the universe.
But I became his prodigy. I became the one with the most advanced skill because he caught me young, when I was the most moldable.
He’d trained me. Every day. Discipline. Control. How to fight properly. How to turn my rage into precision instead of chaos. How to read people. How to kill efficiently when necessary.
But first, he’d made me pray.
Five times a day, he’d wake me up, make me wash, make me kneel beside him. I wasn’t Muslim, wasn’t anything, but he said prayer built discipline. Built structure. Built connection to something bigger than yourself.
“You don’t have to believe in Allah,” he’d said. “But you have to believe in something. Right now, believe in becoming better than what the world expects of a fat kid with a stutter who killed someone.”
Within six months, I’d lost seventy pounds, due to fasting and the workout he provided. The stutter disappeared, replaced by controlled speech. Rashid taught me to pause before speaking, to think before reacting, to breathe through the impulse to let words tumble out wrong.
He’d saved me. Raised me. Made me into someone who could survive. Then thrive.
And Farah was his daughter. His baby girl. The one soft spot in a man who’d killed dozens without blinking.
I could never touch her. Could never even think about touching her. Not after everything Rashid had done for me. He chiseled me into the man I am today.
Some debts couldn’t be repaid. Some boundaries couldn’t be crossed.
Farah was both.
I pulled out my phone, looked at the time. 1:47 AM.
Saturday was two days away.
And I still wasn’t sure what I was doing or why Zahara Ali’s face was the last thing I saw before I finally fell asleep on my expensive-ass couch in my empty-ass apartment.