Chapter 10 Zahara
ZAHARA
I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, barely recognizing the woman looking back at me.
My eyes were swollen and red-rimmed from crying all night. I’d tried to be quiet about it, burying my face in my pillow so Yusef wouldn’t hear through the thin walls. But the tears had come anyway, hot and relentless, for everything I’d lost and every choice I’d made that led me here.
For the constant running. The looking over my shoulder. The fear that one day I’d be found and forced to be held accountable for my fucked up choices.
I cried for being here, in this tiny apartment in DC, living a lie, and about to take Yusef to see a man who’d done nothing but hurt us.
I splashed cold water on my face, trying to reduce the swelling. Trying to pull myself together. I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart. Yusef needed me. He was all that mattered.
I could cry later. Right now, I had to be strong.
At 6 AM, I knocked on Yusef’s door. “Yu, baby. Time to get up.”
He groaned, pulling his pillow over his head. “It’s Saturday.”
“I know. But we have to go somewhere today. Remember?”
He peeked out from under the pillow, confusion clearing into understanding. Then dread. “Do we have to?”
“Yes.” I sat on the edge of his bed. “I’m sorry. But we have to.”
“I don’t want to meet him.” His voice was small. “Why do I have to meet someone I don’t even know?”
“Because…” I trailed off. Because a dangerous man is making me. Because I’m too scared to say no. Because I don’t know how to protect you from any of this. “Because sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do.”
“That’s not a real answer.”
He was right. It wasn’t. But it was all I had.
“Get dressed. Wear something nice. We’re leaving at seven.”
I didn’t want to do this. Everything in me screamed to pack our bags and run.
But I knew better. Prime was dangerous. I’d seen it in his eyes, in the way he moved, in how easily he’d tracked my every movement.
Running would only make things worse. Besides, I didn’t have much money and I was tired of being on the go.
So I’d do this. I’d take Yusef to that prison. I’d sit in the car while he went inside to meet a man who didn’t deserve to know him. And then I’d figure out how to make sure it never happened again.
At 6:58 AM, there was a knock on my door.
Not a bang. Not a demand. A knock. Polite. Controlled. Like a gentleman.
I hated that it surprised me.
I opened the door and immediately regretted it.
Prime stood there looking entirely too good for seven in the morning.
Dark jeans that fit him perfectly. A black henley that stretched across his chest in ways that should be illegal.
His locs pulled back, showing off that sharp jawline and those eyes.
And the smell. God, that cologne. His scent sent shivers down my spine.
Rather than focus on how good he looked, I forced myself to focus on the anger. On what he’d said the other night about me choosing better. About women like me always picking the wrong men.
“Morning,” he said, his voice still rough with sleep.
“You’re on time.” I didn’t move from the doorway.
“I’m always on time.” His eyes traveled over me, and I was suddenly very aware of my simple jeans and hoodie, my hair pulled back in a puff, my face probably still showing signs of my breakdown. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” I stepped back. “Yusef! Come on!”
Yusef appeared from his room, dressed in khakis and a button-up shirt I’d pressed last night. He looked nervous, his hands fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.
“Yusef, this is Prime. He’s a… friend of Meech’s. He’s driving us today.”
“Hi.” Yusef’s voice was quiet, polite. Always so polite, my baby.
Prime’s expression softened in a way I hadn’t seen before. “Hey, man. Nice to meet you.”
Then his eyes landed on Yusef’s face. On the bruise that had darkened even more overnight. I watched his jaw tighten, watched something dangerous flash in his eyes.
“What happened to your face?” His voice was controlled, but there was steel underneath.
Yusef shrugged, looking at the floor. “Got into a fight at school.”
“A fight?” Prime’s eyes cut to me, then back to Yusef. “Or did somebody jump you?”
Yusef’s silence was answer enough.
I could see the visible distress on Prime’s face, his jaw clenched then unclenched. Like he was trying to control something violent.
“You know how to throw a punch?”
“Not really.”
“I can teach you. I know how to box. I’ll show you some moves. You can’t let these niggas think it’s okay to hit you, lil man.”
Yusef’s head snapped up, his eyes widening with something that looked like hope. “Really? You’d teach me?”
“Hold on,” I cut in, stepping between them. “Nobody’s teaching anybody anything.”
“Come on—” he started to beg.
“Yusef, go wait in the hallway. I need to talk to Prime for a second.”
“But—”
“Now.”
Yusef grabbed his jacket and left, but I could see the disappointment written all over his face.
I turned to Prime. “You can’t just offer to teach him how to fight without asking me first.”
“Why not? The kid’s getting beat up at school, and you’re doing what about it? Telling him to just take it?”
“You don’t know what I’m doing. And you don’t get to make decisions about my child. Furthermore, I don’t know you like that, nor do I like you, and I don’t want him around you!”
“He needs to know how to defend himself.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him to stay out of our lives. But Yusef’s face flashed in my mind. That bruise. That defeated look when I’d found him at Brandi’s. Maybe Prime could help Yusef learn to defend himself.
“Fine,” I said finally. “But you ask me first before you make any promises to him. Understand?”
“Understood.”
We stood there for a moment, the tension thick between us.
“We should go,” I said, breaking eye contact first. “It’s a three-hour drive.”
Prime’s car was exactly what I expected. Expensive. Sleek. The kind of whip that cost more than a lot people’s homes. What did he do for work? I knew working with Meech couldn’t be paying that much. The leather seats were soft, the interior immaculate. Everything about it screamed money.
Yusef climbed in the back, his eyes wide as he took it all in.
“This is nice,” he said softly.
“Thanks, man.” Prime adjusted the rearview mirror. “You like cars?”
“I don’t know much about them.”
“I’ll teach you.”
I shot Prime a look, but he just smirked and started the engine.
The first hour was quiet. Yusef looked out the window, I stared at my phone, and Prime drove with one hand on the wheel, completely relaxed.
“Do you play any sports?” Prime asked, even though I knew he knew the answer. He had been all up and through my damn apartment.
“Not really. I play chess. And piano.”
“Chess, huh? I play too. Makes you sharp. Takes real strategy.”
“Yeah.” Yusef perked up a little. “It’s like… you have to think three moves ahead. Anticipate what your opponent’s gonna do.”
“Sounds like boxing, too.”
“I guess.”
“What kind of music you play?”
“Classical mostly. Some jazz. I’m learning some R&B stuff too. And I compose my own pieces.”
“You compose?” Prime sounded genuinely impressed. “That’s dope. I mess around with guitar and a little piano.”
“You play guitar?” Yusef leaned forward. “What kind?”
“Acoustic mostly. Sometimes electric. I’m not that good, just something I do when I need to clear my head.”
I turned to look at him, skeptical. “You play guitar?”
“Yeah.” He glanced at me. “Why you looking at me like that?”
“Because you don’t seem like the type.”
“What type do I seem like?”
“The type that breaks into restaurants and threatens people. Not the type that sits around playing guitar.”
His mouth twitched. “People are more than one thing, Zahara.”
I turned back to face forward, my mind reeling. Prime played guitar. Prime offered to teach Yusef boxing. Prime was sitting here having a normal conversation about music like he wasn’t the same man who’d pinned me against a wall in my own kitchen.
“I could show you some stuff,” Prime said to Yusef. “If you want. Guitar’s not that hard once you get the basics down.”
“Really? That’d be cool.”
“We could work on your boxing and guitar. Make you well-rounded.”
Yusef laughed, and the sound made my chest ache. When was the last time I’d heard him laugh like that?
I watched Prime in the side mirror. Watched him smile at something Yusef said. Watched the way he seemed genuinely interested in what he was telling him about his music.
When he’s not stalking and threatening women, he plays music.
The thought was unwelcome. Unsettling. Because it was easier to hate him when he was just a villain. When he was just the man working for Meech, forcing me to do things I didn’t want to do.
About an hour into the drive, Yusef’s head drooped against the window. Within minutes, his breathing evened out into the deep rhythm of sleep.
I glanced back at him, my heart squeezing. He looked so young when he slept. So innocent.
“He’s out,” Prime said quietly, adjusting the rearview mirror.
“Yeah. He didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Neither did you.”
I turned to look at him. “What?”
“Your eyes. You’ve been crying.” His voice was matter-of-fact, not prying. Just observing.
I looked away. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t have to be fine with me.”
“I don’t have to be anything with you,” I quipped.
Silence stretched between us, thick and charged. It made me hyperaware of everything. The way his hand rested on the gear shift. The way his cologne filled the car. The way my body responded to his proximity despite my brain screaming at me to stay guarded.
“So what’s your real connection to Meech?” I asked, needing to break whatever this was. “You said you don’t work for him.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why are you doing this? Why are you forcing me to bring Yusef to see a man who—” I stopped myself, glancing back to make sure Yusef was still asleep.
“His uncle Rashid is a good friend of mine,” Prime said, his eyes on the road. “He asked me to do him a favor. Bring a family back together. That’s it.”
I scoffed. “Family. Right. Because nothing says family like a man who’s been locked up for ten years.”
“You don’t think people can change?”
“I think prison doesn’t make you a better person. It just makes you better at hiding who you really are.”
Prime’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t respond. Good. Let him sit with that.
He changed the subject smoothly. “Tell me about you.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know.”
“You’ve been stalking me for weeks. I’m sure you know plenty.”
“All I know is your DC life. Where you work, where you live, what you do. But I don’t know you.”
I studied his profile. Strong nose, sharp jaw, those damn eyes that seemed to see too much. “What do you want to know?”
“Where are you from originally?”
I hesitated. Giving him information felt dangerous. But what was the point of lying now? “Baltimore. Born and raised.”
“How’d you end up in DC?”
“My twin sister Zainab and I moved to LA when we were about eighteen. Wanted to get away from home, start fresh. Then I moved here a few years ago. Needed a change of scenery.”
“Your twin still in LA?”
“Yeah.”
“Must be hard. Being away from family.”
There was something in his voice. Something raw and unguarded. I looked at him again, really looked at him.
“What about you? You close with your family?”
“Some. My siblings and I are close.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “My father is dead, and my mother and I don’t speak.”
“At all?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Damn. What happened?”
“She’s a terrible mother.” The bitterness in his voice was familiar. I recognized it because I carried my own.
“Ohhhh,” I said, understanding clicking into place. “That’s what your problem is. That’s why you hate women. Your mommy didn’t hug you enough.”
He cut his eyes at me, but there was a hint of amusement there. “You think you’re funny?”
“I think I’m right.”
“Maybe. But you’re wrong about me hating women. I love women.” He shifted in his seat, and suddenly his voice dropped lower, more intimate. “You wanna help heal me, Goddess?”
The nickname hit me like a physical touch. Goddess. The way he said it, slow and deliberate, made my stomach flip.
“Don’t call me that,” I said, but my voice came out breathier than I intended.
“Why not? It fits.”
“It doesn’t.”
“It does.” His eyes flicked to me, then back to the road. “You don’t see yourself clearly.”
Heat flooded my face. I turned to look out the window, trying to ignore the way my pulse had kicked up. “You don’t know me well enough to call me anything.”
“I’m learning.”
“Well, stop.”
He laughed. Actually laughed. The sound was rich and unexpected and did things to my insides I refused to acknowledge.
“You’re attracted to me,” he said casually, like he was commenting on the weather.
“I am not.”
“You are. I can tell.”
“You’re delusional.”
“Your body language says different. The way you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention. The way you respond when I get close.”
“That’s called revulsion.”
“Nah. That’s called attraction. And you don’t like it because you think you should hate me.”
“I do hate you.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Goddess.”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Make me.”
The challenge hung in the air between us, electric and dangerous. I wanted to snap back, to put him in his place, but the truth was he was right. I was attracted to him. And I hated myself for it.
The rest of the drive passed in charged silence, both of us pretending the conversation hadn’t happened.
The prison loomed ahead, all concrete and razor wire and despair. Prime pulled into the visitor parking lot, killing the engine.
“We’re here,” he said quietly.
I looked back at Yusef, still sleeping. I reached back and gently shook his shoulder. “Yu. Wake up, baby.”
He stirred, blinking groggily. “We there?”
“Yeah.” I tried to smile. “You ready?”
“No.” But he unbuckled his seatbelt anyway.
Prime got out first, then opened Yusef’s door. But I stayed put, my hands gripping my phone in my lap.
Prime noticed. “You’re not coming?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because Meech only needs to see his son. Not me.”
His eyes narrowed, studying my face. Then he leaned down, his voice low. “Has he hurt you?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“Zahara—”
“He hasn’t hurt me,” I said firmly. Not physically, anyway. “Just take Yusef in. I’ll wait here.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he straightened up. “Come on, man. Let’s go.”
I watched them walk toward the entrance, Prime’s hand resting protectively on Yusef’s shoulder. He looked so small next to him. So young.
Once they disappeared inside, I pulled out my phone and opened my text messages. Found my sister’s name.
Ugh, so I’m here taking Yu to see that piece of shit…
I hoped they didn’t take too long inside.