Chapter 3 Quest #2
Mehar slid into the row just before the lights went all the way down.
She’d come from the direction of the bathrooms, her face freshly composed, not a hair out of place.
She took the empty seat next to Zainab without looking in my direction once, which I found impressive given that I was directly behind her and she’d have to actively work to avoid my entire line of sight.
Dedicated. I respected the commitment. But it ignited something in me.
It made me want to break her. Not in a bad way.
But I wanted to crack her open and draw her out of her shell.
I could tell by that uptight walk she hadn’t been fucked right—nor loved right.
What the fuck am I talkin’ about? I ain’t got time for no shit like that. But for someone as beautiful as her, I could make time.
Zainab leaned over and whispered something to her. Mehar nodded, squeezed her sister’s arm, and settled in. Back straight. Chin up. Armor on. Like she hadn’t just cursed me out in a hallway over a purse.
A woman in a black blazer walked to the center of the stage and welcomed everyone to the Spring Showcase. She listed off the performers, thanked the parents, reminded everyone to silence their phones. Standard stuff. I tuned out most of it until she said Yusef’s name.
“Performing Frédéric Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G Minor… Yusef Ali.”
“That’s an advanced piece,” Rita whispered.
Prime glanced back at me. I raised an eyebrow. He raised one back.
Yusef walked out from stage left. Suit jacket. Bow tie. Fresh lineup. His glasses catching the stage lights. He looked small out there, the grand piano massive and gleaming beside him, but he didn’t look nervous. He looked focused.
He sat at the bench. Adjusted the height. Positioned his hands.
And then he played.
The first notes were soft. Tentative, almost. Like he was asking the piano a question.
Then the melody opened up and the whole room shifted.
I don’t know how else to describe it. The air changed.
The energy changed. This wasn’t a kid playing a recital piece he’d memorized.
This was a young man pouring something real through his fingers, something that lived in a place deeper than practice and muscle memory.
Rita grabbed my hand. I let her hold it.
I looked at Prime and his eyes were shining. Not crying. Prime didn’t cry in public—or ever. But shining. His daughter resting against his chest.
In front of me, Mehar had gone still. Completely still.
Her hand was covering her mouth. I could see the side of her face from where I sat, and whatever wall she’d built in that hallway was gone now.
This was something else. This was an aunt watching her nephew—her dead sister’s son—play like his mama’s spirit was moving through his fingers.
Zainab reached over and took Mehar’s other hand without looking, and Mehar held on tight.
Two sisters connected through a boy who carried the ghost of a third.
I watched that. All of it. The complete picture of a family that existed because my brother chose to love people he didn’t have to.
A woman whose house he’d broken into. A boy he didn’t make.
Two babies who would grow up knowing they were wanted.
And two sisters who’d survived a father who tried to destroy them, sitting side by side, crying over the beautiful thing their blood had made.
The door in my chest rattled again. Harder this time.
I looked down at my hands. Folded them in my lap. Willed the door to stay shut.
When Yusef hit the final passage—that thundering, devastating cascade that Chopin wrote like he was trying to shake God awake—the auditorium went still. Then the last note rang out, hanging in the silence, and the room erupted.
Rita was on her feet before anyone else. Hat and all. Clapping so hard I thought she might dislocate something. “THAT’S MY GRANDBABY! THAT’S MY GRANDBABY RIGHT THERE!”
Zainab was crying. Not subtle crying either.
Full tears, Idris still in her arms, smiling and sobbing at the same time.
Prime stood up with Kheris still babbling on his shoulder and clapped with one hand against his thigh because he had a baby in the other arm but he damn sure wasn’t going to sit there quiet.
Mehar was on her feet too. Clapping hard, tears on her face, not even trying to hide them.
The Mean-har from the hallway was nowhere.
This was just a woman who loved that boy.
Who’d lost a sister and gained a nephew and was watching him become something extraordinary despite every odd stacked against him.
She wiped her face with the back of her hand and kept clapping.
Something about that undid me more than it should have.
Justice was on his feet next to me, whistling through his fingers. I stood up. Clapped. Slow and steady and real. Watched lil man take a small bow, his face flushed, a shy smile pulling at the corners of his mouth like he wasn’t sure he’d earned the standing ovation but was starting to believe it.
He’d earned it. He’d more than earned it. That boy had walked through fire and come out the other side making something beautiful, and if that wasn’t the most Banks thing I’d ever witnessed, I didn’t know what was.
? ? ?
After the show, families gathered in the lobby for refreshments and pictures.
Juice boxes and sugar cookies shaped like musical notes.
I grabbed a water and posted up near the back while Rita held court with the other grandmothers, no doubt informing them that her grandson was a prodigy and that their grandchildren were lovely too. Bless their hearts.
Yusef came out from backstage still in his suit, program rolled up in his hand.
Zainab got to him first, wrapping him in a hug that lasted long enough to embarrass a fourteen-year-old in front of his peers.
Mehar was right behind her, pulling him into her arms the second Zainab let go, pressing her lips to his forehead.
Prime then dapped him up. And pulled him close
I waited. Let them have their moment. Then I walked over.
“Unc.” Yusef straightened up when he saw me coming. He’d been calling me that lately, which I loved. I’d fully accepted my role as his uncle. Blood had never been what made us family. Showing up was.
“Come here.” I pulled him into a hug. This kid was getting tall. Almost eye level. “I’m proud of you, you killed it.
“Thank you, it was tough. But I pulled it off.”
“You had your Rita out here acting like she was at the Apollo.”
“I could hear her from the stage,” he laughed.
“I got something for you.” I reached into my jacket and pulled out the box. It was small and black.
Yusef opened it. Went completely still.
Inside was a Rolex Oyster Perpetual with a silver dial and steel bracelet.
It was a thirty-six millimeter, with no diamonds.
I wasn’t trying to make him a target just yet.
It was a clean, classic watch for a young man who was growing up.
One day when he could defend himself better, he’d get the diamonds. But this was a great starter watch.
“Unc… this is a Rolex.”
“I know what it is. I bought it.” I helped him clasp it around his wrist. It was a little loose. He’d grow into it. “Every man in this family got his first Rolex from somebody who believed in him before the world did. This one’s yours. Wear it in good health, nephew.”
Yusef looked at the watch on his wrist. Turned it in the light. Then he looked at me with those eyes that had seen too much for his age, and for half a second I saw the man he was going to become.
“Thank you, Unc. For real.”
“I got you.”
I caught Mehar watching from a few feet away. Arms crossed. Face unreadable. But her eyes were on the Rolex, then on Yusef’s face, then on mine. And something in her expression shifted. Just barely. Just enough to tell me that whatever she thought of me in that hallway, this moment complicated it.
Good. I liked complicated.
Rita materialized from nowhere—her signature move—and pulled Yusef into her chest. “Baby, you played so beautiful. Your mama would’ve been so proud. Zahara is smiling right now, I know she is.”
Zainab’s face tightened at the mention of her sister’s name. Mehar’s did too. But they both smiled through it. They always did.
I stepped back from the group. Checked my phone.
Two missed calls from Mekhi. One text.
Yo. Call me NOW.
Then a second text. A photo. And when I opened it, the blood left my face.
One of our main Banks Reserve warehouses was on fire. It wasn’t the warehouse where we kept our stash. This one only held barrels of liquor. But it was the amount of liquor that could harm our business for months. This wasn’t a coincidence.
I pocketed my phone. Fixed my face.
“Justice. We got a problem.”
“How bad?”
“Real bad.”
He looked back at his family. At Yusef showing Prime his new Rolex. At Zainab and Mehar laughing about something while Idris tried to eat his mother’s earring. At Rita’s hat bobbing through the crowd like a lavender lighthouse.
Then he looked at me.
“Let’s go.”
I kissed Rita’s cheek. Told her something came up at the office. She gave me that look—the one that said she knew “the office” was code for something she’d rather not think about.
“You be careful,” she said. Same thing she’d been saying to Banks men for sixty years.
“Always, Grandma.”
I walked out of that building the same way I’d walked out of the row house two hours earlier. Suit clean. Face composed. Hands steady.
But this time, something was different. Warehouse fires don’t just happen. Banks Reserve had state-of-the-art suppression systems, twenty-four-hour monitoring, and security protocols I personally designed. This wasn’t an accident.
First the truck. Now the warehouse.
Somebody was coming for us. And they wanted me to know it.
I got in the Maybach. Started the engine. Pulled up Mekhi’s number.
And drove toward the fire.