Chapter 26 Quest
Quest
My mother’s bitchass ex-husband opened his front door on the second knock and I hit him before he finished saying hello.
He stumbled backward into the hallway and I followed him inside and hit him again, harder, and he crashed into the wall and slid down to the floor with blood already coming from his nose.
“Where is my sister?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I swear to God, Quest, I don’t know where she is.
” He was holding his hands up, palms out, cowering against the baseboard like a man who had spent his entire life being smaller than the people around him.
“Mega told me to call her. He told me to get her to my house and then he told me to leave. That’s all I know.
I left and when I came back they were both gone. ”
“You set your own daughter up.” I crouched down to his level. “You called her, lied to her, told her you wanted to reconnect, and then you handed her to a man who beats women. Your daughter, Dante. Your flesh and blood.”
“Vivica told me to cooperate with him. I didn’t have a choice.”
“You had a choice. You just made the wrong one.” Vivica? In an instant it clicked that she was behind it all.
“You don’t know what she has on me…”
I hit him one more time because I needed him to understand what that choice cost and his head snapped sideways, his eyes rolled back and he went limp against the wall. I stood up and looked down at him and felt nothing because men like Dante didn’t earn emotions. They earned consequences.
Prime and Justice were standing behind me. Prime’s face was blank. Justice was checking his phone.
“Please let me go,” Dante started to cry.
“You got his number?”
“Just a burner but he probably ditched it.”
As those words left his mouth, I received a call from Lyric. What the fuck did she want? Hadn’t she caused enough drama in my life?
Shortly after that I received a text message from her.
If you’re looking for a nigga named Mega, he’s been staying with Camille. He’s her cousin.
“The fuck?” I muttered.
“What?” Justice asked.
I’m not playing. Camille’s cousin Mega has been hiding at our condo for the past week. I just found out. Here’s the address.
I stared at the screen and let the words rearrange everything I thought I knew about Camille.
My ex-girlfriend was Mega’s cousin. She’d been hiding him in her condo while I was turning DC inside out looking for him.
While Mega was kidnapping my sister, Camille was giving him a couch and a borrowed car and cover.
Every interaction I’d ever had with Camille ran through my head in about three seconds. The three years together, the pregnancy lie, the breakup, the paternity question she’d left hanging. Was any of it real or had she been connected to the people trying to destroy my family the entire time?
“What is it?” Prime asked.
“Mega is Camille’s cousin. He’s been staying at her condo.”
Prime’s jaw tightened. Justice looked up from his phone. Neither of them said anything for a second because the weight of that sentence needed a moment to land.
“Let’s move,” Prime said.
I drove to Bethesda in twenty minutes. The condo was in a nice building off Wisconsin Avenue. It wasn’t as nice as the spot I almost let her have but it was luxurious. With her salary as a lawyer she could afford a nice spot. Lyric buzzed us up from the intercom without hesitation.
She was waiting at the door when we stepped off the elevator. She rushed toward me and threw her arms around my neck before I could stop her and I stood there with my arms at my sides and let her hug me without returning it.
“Oh my God, Quest. As soon as I found out I had to tell you. I couldn’t believe Camille would do something like this. You know I would never betray you like that. I’ve always been loyal to you, even after everything. I just want you to know that.”
“I appreciate you telling me,” I said. I peeled her arms off my neck and stepped past her into the condo. “Where is Mega?”
“He left a couple days ago. I don’t know where he went.” She followed me into the living room, hovering close. “But Camille should be home soon. She went to pick up some things for the baby.”
I looked around the condo. Nice furniture, clean, smelled like one of those expensive candles Lyric always bought in bulk.
There was baby stuff in the corner, a car seat still in the box, a stack of onesies on the dining table.
Camille was nesting. Eight months pregnant and harboring a fugitive between assembling a nursery.
“Quest, can we talk for a second?” Lyric sat on the arm of the couch and crossed her legs.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I miss you.
I miss us. And I know you’re with Mehar now but I was thinking maybe we could work something out.
You were poly before. Maybe if Mehar is open to it, we could try again. The three of us.”
“No.”
“Just hear me out.”
“My heart belongs to Mehar. There’s nothing to hear out.”
“So I don’t get anything after looking out for you? After being the one who called and told you where Mega was?”
“I said thank you. And after that robbery stunt you pulled, I don’t owe you shit.”
Her face flushed and her arms crossed and she stood up from the couch with the energy of a woman who had just been told no for the last time and couldn’t figure out how to process it.
“Whatever. I’m moving to Atlanta next week anyway.”
“Good for you.”
She stomped toward the back of the condo and disappeared down the hallway. Prime looked at me with one eyebrow raised.
“Don’t,” I said.
“I ain’t say nothing.”
“Your eyebrow said plenty.”
We waited. Justice posted up by the front door.
Prime sat on the couch scrolling his phone.
I stood by the window watching the parking lot below.
Forty-five minutes passed before a silver Audi pulled into a spot near the entrance and Camille got out carrying shopping bags from Buy Buy Baby.
She walked toward the building entrance oblivious to what was waiting for her on the other side of the door.
The front door opened and Camille walked in and saw me standing in her living room with Prime and Justice flanking the exits. The shopping bags hit the floor and her hands went to her belly instinctively.
“Quest. What are you doing here?”
I pulled the gun from my waistband and pressed it against her temple. She made a sound between a gasp and a whimper and her whole body went rigid and her hands pressed tighter against her stomach.
“Quest, I’m pregnant. Please.”
“Where is your cousin?” I asked.
“How did you…”
I pushed the barrel harder against her temple. “I’m not asking twice. Where is Mega?”
“Q.” Justice’s voice came from behind me. Quiet but firm. “She’s about to pop, bro.”
“She should’ve thought of that before helpin’ that nigga. Where is he, Camille?”
“I don’t know,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “I swear I don’t know. He left two days ago and said he had to handle something. He didn’t tell me where he was going. He doesn’t tell me anything. He just shows up and leaves and I let him because he’s family and he needed help.”
“He needed help. That’s cute. Did he tell you what he did to Serenity? Did he tell you he kidnapped my sister and has her tied up somewhere right now?”
Camille’s face collapsed. “No. I didn’t know that. I swear, Quest, I didn’t know.”
“Call him.”
“What?”
“Pick up your phone and call your cousin and get him back to this condo. Right now.”
I lowered the gun from her temple but kept it at my side. She wiped her face with shaking hands and picked up her phone from her purse on the floor and dialed. It rang three times.
“What’s up, Camille?”
“Mega, I need you to come back. Please. I don’t have anyone else to help me and the baby is coming next month and I need help putting the nursery together.
The crib is still in the box and I can’t do it alone.
” Her voice was trembling but she held it together enough to sound convincing.
“You owe me for letting you hide from Quest under my roof.”
Silence on the other end. Then: “Aight. I’ll be there tomorrow morning. But I can’t stay long.”
“That’s fine. Just come.”
She hung up and looked at me and I could see her calculating whether cooperation was enough to keep her alive. It was. For now. She wasn’t the target. Her cousin was.
“He’s coming tomorrow morning,” she said.
“Good.” I tucked the gun back in my waistband and looked at Prime and Justice. “We’re staying tonight.”
Justice nodded. Prime was already moving furniture to clear sight lines from the front door. We were setting up an ambush in a nursery-in-progress surrounded by shopping bags and onesies and a car seat still in the box.
I sat in the living room and waited. Somewhere in Virginia, my baby sister was tied to a bed in a motel room, pregnant and alone and drugged. And the man who put her there was driving back to this condo tomorrow morning thinking he was going to build a crib.
He was going to build something alright. But it wasn’t going to be furniture.