Chapter 33 Quest
QUEST
“How are we looking for security?” I asked as I lined up a shot on the pool table.
Justice, Prime, Mekhi, and Zephyr were all there, spread around the basement of Silk and Sin with drinks in hand and the energy that comes from five men who built something together and were about to watch it open its doors.
The casino. Our casino. Years of planning, months of construction, and enough under-the-table maneuvering to give a federal prosecutor a heart attack. But we were finally here.
“We’re straight,” Justice responded, leaning against the bar with his arms crossed.
“Everyone has to be vetted. Guest list only. No walk-ins on opening night. I’ve got three layers of security—front door, floor, and VIP.
Nobody gets in without being on the list and nobody gets close to us without being checked. ”
“Good.” I sank the seven ball in the corner pocket. Smooth.
“You heard from Rios?” Justice asked.
“After that nigga tried to ask for a piece of the pie? Fuck no. I had that cash delivered to him the next day. Two point three million plus ten percent. His ass needs to be satisfied with that and get the fuck on.”
“What if he’s not satisfied?” Mekhi asked from the couch, toothpick between his teeth.
“Then he can take it up with my lawyer. Or my pistol. Either way, he’s not getting a seat at our table.” I chalked the cue and lined up the next shot. “The casino has three names on it—Banks, Banks, and Banks. That’s how it started and that’s how it stays.”
“Yeah this shit is for us, by us,” Zephyr said, raising his glass.
And he was right. Zephyr and Mekhi were family in every way that mattered except blood.
We’d come up together, gotten our hands dirty together, and pulled Banks Reserve out of a hole so deep that most companies would’ve declared bankruptcy and called it a day.
They were part of the reason I was able to save my family’s legacy twenty years ago, and I never forgot that.
But that legacy was on the line again. Not because of predatory loans or my father’s debts this time.
It was because liquor sales in general were down.
Nationwide. People were drinking less, choosing weed over whiskey, and plenty of spirit companies were struggling.
We weren’t struggling yet, but the warehouse fire hadn’t done us any favors.
Insurance was still dragging their feet, product was destroyed, and the revenue dip was starting to show up in the quarterly reports.
The casino was supposed to fix that. A new revenue stream. Clean money. Legitimate growth. But I’d been thinking bigger than that.
“We gotta get this casino rolling and then pivot,” I said, sinking another ball. “I’ve been thinking about real estate. Not just investing—building. I’ve got a vision for something.”
“What you talkin’ about?” Prime asked, picking up his drink from the edge of the table.
“A community. A whole development. Black-owned, Black-built, Black-occupied. I’m talking residential, commercial, retail—a full ecosystem.
Houses, apartments, a school, a grocery store, restaurants, a community center.
Everything. A place where Black families can own property, build wealth, and not get pushed out by gentrification in ten years. ”
The room was quiet for a second. Not skeptical quiet. Thinking quiet.
“Where?” Mekhi asked, leaning forward.
“I’ve been looking at some land outside the city. Close enough to commute but far enough that the prices aren’t insane yet. We buy the land, develop it ourselves, control every aspect of it from the ground up. We name it. We own it. We build it into something that outlasts all of us.”
“You got a name for it?” Zephyr asked.
“Freetown.”
Mekhi nodded slowly. “Freetown. I fuck with that heavy.”
“That’s ambitious as hell,” Justice said, but he had that look on his face that he got when the numbers were already running in his head. “We’d need significant capital. Development permits. Zoning approvals. Environmental impact studies. We’re talking years of work.”
“I know. That’s why the casino has to hit first. It generates the revenue.
The revenue funds the development. And the development builds the legacy.
” I looked around the room at these four men who had been in the trenches with me since we were teenagers.
“Banks Reserve saved the family. The casino saves the company. Freetown saves the community. That’s the play. ”
“The American dream built on the American hustle,” Prime said with a grin.
“Something like that.”
“Aight, I’m in,” Mekhi said. “But I want to be hands-on with the development side. Real estate is my thing.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. You and Zephyr lead the build. Justice handles the finances. Prime and I handle the politics and the protection.”
“Protection from who?” Prime asked.
“From everybody who’s going to try to stop five Black men from building a city. Trust me, they’ll come.”
The room settled into that energy that only existed between the five of us—the understanding that what we were planning was bigger than money, bigger than business, and probably dangerous enough to get all of us killed if the wrong people felt threatened by it.
Zephyr broke the silence. “Yo, I gotta ask.” He was grinning. “Did you really throw your sister in the trunk and drive her to rehab?”
Justice and I looked at each other. Justice’s mouth twitched. Mine did too.
“Yeah,” I said. “We did.”
The room erupted. Mekhi damn near spit out his drink. Zephyr was doubled over laughing. Prime shook his head but he was smiling because he’d heard the story from Justice already.
“Bro, you put Serenity—your baby sister—in the trunk?” Mekhi was wheezing.
“She said she didn’t want to sit next to us. So technically she chose the trunk.”
“She did NOT choose the trunk,” Justice corrected. “You picked her up and put her in there while she was screaming.”
“She was fighting. The trunk was the safest option for everybody involved.”
“Safest?” Zephyr was wiping tears. “Nigga, that’s kidnapping.”
“It’s not kidnapping if you’re saving somebody’s life. It’s an aggressive wellness check.”
“An aggressive wellness check.” Mekhi repeated it slowly, shaking his head. “That’s what you’re going with? That’s your defense?”
“That’s my defense and I’m sticking with it.”
“Did she at least have a blanket in there?” Zephyr asked.
“I keep my trunk clean. There was a blanket from when I was moving stuff from the penthouse.”
“Oh, so she had a blanket. Five-star kidnapping. Luxury abduction.” Mekhi was on the floor at this point. “Banks Reserve presents: The Premium Trunk Experience.”
“I would’ve put the heated seats on for her if the trunk had them,” I said, and even I was laughing now because the image of me carrying a screaming Serenity down Rita’s front steps while Justice popped the trunk was objectively insane.
“How is she though?” Mekhi asked, coming down from the laughter. “For real?”
“She’s in the program. Thirty days. She hates all of us but she’s there.”
“She’ll thank you later,” Zephyr said.
“Probably not. But she’ll be alive, and that’s enough.”
Prime raised his glass. “To Serenity.”
“To Serenity,” we all repeated.
I was lining up my last shot—the eight ball, corner pocket, game point—when my phone rang. I glanced at the screen expecting Mehar or maybe Rita with another demand about her birthday dinner.
It was Camille.
I almost let it go to voicemail because talking to Camille was on my list of things I’d rather not do, right between getting a root canal and watching paint dry. But something told me to pick up.
“What, Camille?”
“Quest, oh my God.” Her voice was shaking.
Crying. Hysterical in that way she got when she wanted maximum sympathy.
“The cops are here. We were robbed. Someone broke into the penthouse—they tied me and Lyric up and took everything. My jewelry, the electronics, cash—Quest, they had guns. I’m scared.
The police are here but I need you to come. Please.”
I looked at the pool table. Looked at my brothers and my boys. Looked at the eight ball sitting two inches from the pocket.
“I’m on my way.”
I hung up and grabbed my jacket.
“What happened?” Prime asked.
“Somebody robbed the penthouse. Camille and Lyric got tied up.”
The room shifted. Laughing was over. Business faces on.
“You need us to come?” Mekhi asked, already standing.
“Nah, I got it. It’s probably nothing.” But I was already thinking about the camera I’d left installed in the penthouse—the one that Lyric and Camille didn’t know about.
The one that recorded everything that happened in the living room and the front entrance twenty-four hours a day to a cloud server that only I had access to.
If somebody really robbed my penthouse, I’d know who did it within the hour.
And if somebody didn’t really rob my penthouse, I’d know that too.