Chapter 41 Quest
QUEST
I was shaking hands with the acting mayor and smiling like my whole world hadn’t been flipped inside out seventy-two hours ago.
I was still in disbelief that my mother would do some shit like that.
Keeping that big of a secret all these years.
She knew that man was my pops while he was on his deathbed.
I was angry and confused. I wanted to wring her neck. I would wring her fuckin’ neck.
“Incredible venue, Quest. You and your brothers should be very proud,” the mayor said to me as he looked around the room.
“We appreciate the support. Banks Reserve has always been committed to investing in DC.” Corporate autopilot.
I could do this shit in my sleep. Probably was doing it in my sleep because I hadn’t really been awake since that courier opened that envelope and read a dead man’s name and told me my whole life was a lie.
Rashid Muhammad. Every time I thought about it, my jaw would tighten, something behind my eyes would go hot, and I’d have to redirect the energy into something that wasn’t putting my fist through a wall.
Tonight I was redirecting it into handshakes and champagne toasts and small talk about zoning permits and tax incentives while the city’s elite walked through a casino I’d built on top of a foundation that apparently wasn’t even mine to build on.
Alexander Banks wasn’t my father. And I was standing in a building with his name on it, pretending that information hadn’t rewired everything I understood about myself.
Prime found me at the bar about an hour in. Justice was behind him. They flanked me, and I could tell by their energy that they were about to ask me about it.
“How you holding up?” Prime asked, keeping his voice low.
“This ain’t the place.”
“I know it ain’t the place. But you’re hidin’ from us.”
“I’m pissed. I’m processing. And I’m not ready to talk about it.”
“Rita’s been calling you,” Justice said.
“I know.”
“She’s worried.”
“I know that too. I’ll call her tomorrow. Tonight is about the casino. That’s it. Everything else can wait.”
They glanced at each other with looks that said pushing will make it worse. Prime nodded once. Justice adjusted his watch. The conversation was over without officially ending.
“Go check on your wife,” I told Prime. “Make sure Zainab’s straight.”
“She’s with Mehar. They’re fine.”
Hearing her name did something to me that I wasn’t ready to examine.
She’d been at the hotel every night since the overlook, showing up without being asked, sitting in my silence without trying to fill it.
That woman had spent her whole life running from men, and now she was running toward one who was giving her every reason to keep her distance.
I didn’t deserve her. But I wasn’t giving her back.
“Go mingle,” I said to my brothers. “This is our night. Let’s act like it.”
They dispersed. I took a sip of Banks Reserve cognac and scanned the room cataloging every face and every movement.
That’s when I saw them.
Two young niggas near the entrance who didn’t belong.
Everything about them was wrong. Their energy was too tight for a celebration.
Their eyes were moving too fast, scanning the room the way I was scanning it, but for different reasons.
One of them was in a suit that didn’t fit right.
It was too big in the shoulders, too short in the sleeves, borrowed or bought in a hurry.
The other one had a hoodie under a blazer like he’d been told to dress up and compromised halfway.
I noticed Viper tats on hands and necks.
I set my drink down. My hand moved toward my waistband where I kept the Glock, because Quest Banks didn’t attend events unarmed, not even his own. I started to signal the security team near the front.
Two seconds too late.
The one in the bad suit pulled a pistol from his waistband and fired into the ceiling. The sound cracked through the room like a thunderclap and every single person in the casino froze for half a second before the panic hit.
“THIS IS FOR DIMONTE!” he screamed, and then both of them opened fire.
Dimonte. I knew exactly who that was. And now I knew exactly what this was about.
These little niggas were here for revenge over a body I’d already forgotten about.
A body that needed dropping because that nigga was robbing my trucks.
And now his boys had walked into my casino on the biggest night of my life to make a statement.
They were about to regret that statement.
The room exploded into chaos. Guests screaming, running, diving behind tables and overturned chairs.
The DJ abandoned his booth. Champagne glasses shattering on the floor.
The acting mayor’s security detail was already rushing her toward the back.
My security team was moving, but they were spread across the floor and these two kids had started shooting before anybody could close the distance.
I had my Glock out and was moving toward them when I saw Zephyr go down.
He’d been near the bar when the shooting started. Took one in the shoulder and then one in the back and spun sideways, his drink flying out of his hand, his body hitting the floor hard. Mekhi was on him in a second, pressing his hand against the wound, screaming Zephyr’s name over the gunfire.
Something in me went cold. Colder than the Rashid news.
Colder than Vivica’s letter. This was a different temperature, the one reserved for people who touched the people I loved.
Zephyr had been with me since I was eighteen years old.
He’d helped me save this company. He’d helped me build this casino.
And now he was bleeding on the floor of opening night because two young niggas with a grudge and a dead friend had walked into my building and started shooting.
I raised the Glock and put two rounds into the one with the hoodie.
Both hit center mass and he dropped. The other one turned toward me, the screamer in the bad suit, and I saw his face clearly for the first time.
Young, maybe early twenties, with a square jaw and hard eyes and a viper tattoo crawling up the side of his neck.
That viper tattoo told me everything I needed to know. Black Vipers. The crew from Baltimore I’d been hunting for months. One of them was in my casino right now, bleeding on my floor, and the other was pointing a gun at me.
He fired and missed. I didn’t miss. Put one in his leg and he went down screaming, the gun clattering across the floor.
I wanted to walk over there and put the barrel against his forehead and ask him who sent him.
Wanted to stand over him and empty the clip and let God sort out the logistics.
But the room was full of witnesses, cameras were everywhere, the police sirens were already screaming outside, and I was standing in my own casino on opening night with the acting mayor’s security team twenty feet away.
I couldn’t finish it here. Not like this. Not with this many eyes.
So I made the harder choice. The strategic choice. The one that kept me out of handcuffs and kept the investigation alive and kept my family’s name attached to a casino instead of a crime scene.
I lowered the gun.
Justice had Rita. I could see him across the room with his body between her and the chaos, guiding her toward the VIP exit with one arm around her shoulders and his other hand on his piece.
Rita was gripping her cane with white knuckles, but her face was calm because Rita had survived worse than a shooting.
Prime was already texting Zainab. I could see his phone in his hand while he moved through the room checking on people and directing security.
I holstered the Glock and went to Zephyr. Mekhi had his jacket pressed against the wound. Zephyr was conscious, but his face was gray and his breathing was shallow.
“I’m good, I’m good,” Zephyr kept saying, but he was fucked up.
“Shut up and stay still,” I told him. “Ambulance is coming.”
“Did you get them?”
“Both down. One in the chest, one in the leg. They’re not going anywhere.”
“Good.” He winced. “This is a nice-ass casino, though. Shame about the blood on the floor.”
“I’ll send you the cleaning bill.”
He laughed and then coughed and then groaned and Mekhi told both of us to shut up because nothing about this was funny. He was right, but humor was how we processed gunfire and it always had been.
The police came in hot with a tactical team first, then uniforms, then detectives.
The two shooters were still on the floor, both alive, both in bad shape.
Paramedics loaded them onto stretchers and I watched the one with the leg wound get wheeled past me.
He was conscious, staring at the ceiling, and when the stretcher passed me our eyes locked for about two seconds.
I didn’t say a word. Didn’t have to. He saw my face and he knew. The hospital was a pit stop. What came after the hospital was going to be a lot less comfortable.
Zephyr went to the ambulance next. Mekhi rode with him. I stood in the middle of my casino with broken glass on the floor and bullet holes in the walls and blood drying on marble, and I thought about the name that kid had screamed before the first shot.
Dimonte was dead because he robbed my trucks and that was a consequence he earned.
But these Viper boys didn’t walk into a casino grand opening on their own initiative.
Somebody sent them. Somebody was pulling the strings behind a crew of young niggas from Baltimore who had no business being at war with the Banks family.
The warehouse fire, the truck robbery, and now the casino shooting were all connected and all pointing at somebody with enough resources and enough hate to coordinate attacks on everything I’d built.
I was going to find that somebody. And the two kids bleeding on stretchers right now were going to lead me straight to them.
My phone buzzed.
Mehar: I’m safe. Zainab is safe. Are you okay?
Me: I’m good. Stay where you are. I’ll come to you when this is done.
The detective approached me with a notepad.
Wanted statements. Wanted to understand why two young men with gang tattoos had walked into a casino grand opening and started shooting.
Everyone’s weapons were registered and legal.
Nobody on our side was getting arrested tonight. But the questions were just beginning.
I took a deep breath and started talking.