Chapter 24 Prime
PRIME
I didn’t know what it was about Zahara that had me hooked like this.
I’d been with women before. Beautiful women. Women who didn’t come with secrets and kids and complications stacked so high you couldn’t see over them. Women who made sense. Who fit into my life without requiring me to rearrange everything.
But none of them had ever made me feel like this. Like I was starving, and she was the only thing that could satisfy the hunger. Like I’d been walking through life half-asleep until she showed up and shocked me awake.
The taste of her was still on my lips as I pulled up to Serenity’s house in Chevy Chase. The feel of her body against mine. The sound of that little moan she’d made when I bit her neck.
Fuck.
I needed to focus. My sister was falling apart and I was sitting here thinking about how badly I wanted to go back and finish what we’d started.
I killed the engine and headed to the door. Let myself in with the key she’d given me years ago.
The sound hit me before I even made it to the living room.
Serenity. Crying. No, not crying. Wailing. The kind of gut-deep sobs that came from betrayal so profound it broke something inside you.
And underneath it, voices. My brothers.
I walked into the living room and took in the scene.
Justice was posted up by the window, joint dangling from his fingers, looking completely unbothered by the chaos. He took a long drag, blowing smoke out into the night air, his expression bored. Like our sister having a breakdown was just background noise.
Quest was sprawled on the couch, one arm draped over the back, fighting a smile even while he tried to look sympathetic. “Ren, come on. You gotta calm down.”
“Calm down?” Serenity whirled on him, her face streaked with tears and mascara. “You cut off his finger! You cut off my husband’s finger!”
“Ex-husband,” Justice corrected from the window, not even looking at her. “Technically.”
“Shut up, Justice!”
He shrugged, taking another hit.
I leaned against the doorframe, watching. Waiting to see if she’d notice me.
She didn’t. Too wrapped up in her rage and pain.
“How could you?” She turned back to Quest, her voice cracking. “How could you do that without talking to me first? Without even telling me?”
“Because he was cheating on you with your best friend,” Quest said, his amusement finally breaking through. “What were we supposed to do? Let him keep disrespecting you?”
“He was my husband! My life! You had no right—”
“He was fucking Ivy,” I said from the doorway.
All three of them turned to look at me.
Serenity’s face crumpled. “Prime.”
“He was fucking your best friend,” I continued, walking into the room. “For months. Maybe longer. In your house. Probably in your bed. And you want to be mad at us for handling it?”
“You should have told me first!” Her voice pitched higher, more tears spilling down her face. “You should have let me decide what to do! Not just… not just take matters into your own hands like I’m some child who can’t handle her own life!”
“Would you have done anything?” Justice asked, finally looking at her. “Or would you have cried and forgiven him? Tried to work it out?”
“That’s not the point!” she screamed. “The point is you three always do this! You treat me like I’m helpless! Like I can’t make my own decisions!”
“You’re our sister,” Quest said, sitting up straighter. “Protecting you is what we do.”
“I don’t need protecting! I’m a grown woman!” She was pacing now, her hands shaking. “You didn’t just hurt him, you humiliated me. You made me look weak. Like I can’t handle my own marriage, my own problems. Like poor little Serenity needs her big brothers to fight her battles.”
“You deserve better than a man who’d cheat on you,” I said, my voice flat.
“That was MY choice to make!” She was crying harder now. “My marriage. My pain. My decision about how to handle it. And you took that from me!”
“We didn’t take shit,” I said, my voice dropping. “We gave you your dignity back. Whether you see it now or not.”
“That’s not your call to make!” She sank onto the couch, her whole body shaking with sobs. “I’m not a little girl anymore. I can handle my own life. But you three never let me. You just swoop in and fix everything and never ask what I actually want.”
“What you want?” Quest sat forward. “You wanted to stay married to a nigga who was disrespecting you every day? Who was fucking your best friend behind your back?”
“I wanted to make my own choice about it!” she shouted back. “I wanted to decide when and how to end things. But you didn’t give me that. You just did what you always do. Decided what’s best for me and acted on it.”
The room went quiet except for her crying.
“Ren,” Quest’s voice was softer now. “We were just—”
“Just treating me like I’m five years old. Just like my father does. Just like every man in my life does.” She stood up, wiping at her face. “Get out.”
“Serenity, come on—”
“Get. Out.” Her voice was cold now. Final. “All of you. Get out of my house.”
“Baby sis—” Justice started.
“Now!” she screamed.
Quest looked at me. I looked at Justice.
“You heard her,” I said, pushing off the doorframe. “Let’s go.”
We filed out like scolded children, which was probably exactly how she wanted us to feel.
Outside, standing by our cars in her driveway, Justice lit another joint. “She mad mad,” he spoke.
“She’ll be aight,” I replied.
“Yeah she will. But did you talk to Vivica?” Quest asked me.
“Oh shit… I ain’t tell you what I walked in on,” I announced.
“What happened?” Quest asked, leaning against his Escalade.
Justice took another drag, eyes on me now. “This better be good.”
“I showed up early. Two hours early.” I shook my head, still processing what I’d seen. “Walked in on Vivica eating out her assistant.”
Quest’s jaw dropped. Justice choked on his smoke.
“What?” Justice coughed out.
“You heard me. Head between thighs. Full spread on the couch. Indya Coleman, her assistant.”
“Nah.” Quest was grinning now. “Nah, you lying.”
“Dead serious.”
Justice started laughing. Full body, can’t breathe, doubled over laughing. “Yo, that’s wild! Miss Family Values Mayor got her face in pussy?”
“That’s what I walked in on.”
“So she’s gay?” Quest asked.
“Apparently. Or bi. Don’t know, don’t care.” I leaned against my car. “But she’s definitely fucking her assistant.”
“Dante know?” Justice asked.
“That’s the thing. She wants a divorce from him. Wants me to dig up dirt on him so she can make him look like the villain. That way, when the divorce happens, she’s the victim.”
“And if you don’t?” Quest knew the answer before I said it.
“She’s got evidence on Rashid. Says he killed the former DA in retaliation for his sentence. She gives it to the current DA, Rashid goes back to prison for life. Oh, and of course, she keeps holding up the permits for the casino.”
“Fuck,” Quest muttered.
“Yeah.” I crossed my arms. “So I’m digging up dirt on Dante.”
“You need help?” Justice offered.
“Nah. I got it handled.”
Quest checked his phone again. “I gotta go. Kiki’s blowing me up.”
“Which one is Kiki?” Justice asked with a smirk.
“The lawyer.”
“The uptight one.”
“She’s sophisticated, not uptight.”
“Same difference.”
Quest flipped him off and got in his car.
Justice looked at me. “You good though? You seemed off when you got here.”
Because I was thinking about Zahara. About that kiss. About how she’d tasted. About tomorrow.
“I’m good,” I said.
“Aight. But yo, if you need backup on the Dante thing, holler at me. I’m bored anyway.”
“I will.”
He got in his car, bass already thumping before he even pulled out.
I got in my car and headed home.
But my mind wasn’t on Serenity. Wasn’t on Vivica or Dante or the blackmail.
It was on Zahara. On her lips. On that sound she’d made when I bit her neck. On tomorrow when I’d pick up Yusef and then come back for her.
On finishing what we’d started.
Because for the first time in my life, I wanted something beyond the violence and the empire and the survival.
I wanted her.
And I was done fighting it.