Zephyr
By now that bitch-ass nigga and his pregnant bitch should be shark food.
Because of them I lost my legs and because of me they lost their lives.
I was so tired of those two walkin’ around all high and mighty.
I got shot at the casino because of her brother’s friends.
And Quest refused to kill her brother. It made no sense to me.
That’s why when Rodrigo approached me, I was quick to jump at the chance of revenge. Being confined to this wheelchair had destroyed me. But I was going to make up for it.
So, I gave them niggas everything. The gate code to the estate.
The camera layout, including the fact that the hangar had no direct coverage.
The departure time. The destination. The flight path.
All of it gathered during the truce that my stupid brother thought was real.
Mekhi walked into Quest’s casino and shook hands and smoked cigars and talked about peace, and while he was doing all that kumbaya bullshit, I was sitting in this chair collecting information and passing it along to men who actually had the balls to use it.
I agreed with Mekhi’s bullshit truce, because I needed to be back in Quest’s circle.
I needed the access, the invitations, the casual conversations where Quest would mention his travel plans or his schedule without thinking twice about who was listening.
And it worked. One day at the casino after hours, while we were discussing business, Quest announced Mehar was going to some private island near Bonaire for a babymoon, and I had the departure window and the destination before I rolled out of there. I texted Rodrigo that same night.
Quest’s ass thought he was untouchable. Thought his money and his name and his big-ass estate in Middleburg made him safe.
But he forgot something. I used to be in those rooms with him.
I used to run transport with him and Mekhi when we were all broke and hungry and riding together.
I knew how he thought, how he moved, how he secured his shit.
I knew the layout of that property because I’d been there a dozen times before the wheelchair.
And I knew, because I paid attention while everybody else was getting drunk at his engagement party, that the hangar had a blind spot on the south perimeter camera that was wide enough to drive a truck through, let alone a motorcycle.
So yeah. By now, that nigga was at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea with his girl and his unborn baby and his twenty-million-dollar airplane. And I was sitting in my wheelchair in Silver Spring eating a ham sandwich and feeling better than I’d felt since the night my legs stopped working.
Good riddance.
“Zephyr, your brother is here.”
Bella was standing in the doorway of the bedroom with Amara tagging behind her, with a doll in her hand.
She had that look on her face. The careful one.
The one she started wearing after the first time I hit her, when she realized the man she fell in love with was gone, and what was sitting in this chair was something else.
She didn’t flinch around me anymore. She just moved carefully, spoke softly, and kept Amara between us like a shield she didn’t want to admit she needed.
“Then wheel me out there to him. Shit.”
She flinched at my tone. I didn’t care. “Stupid bitch,” I muttered under my breath as she positioned the chair and pushed me toward the living room.
She heard it. I know she heard it because her grip tightened on the handles for a second before she let go.
But she didn’t say nothin’. She never said nothin’ anymore.
Just took it and kept moving and fed Amara and cleaned the apartment and did whatever I told her to do.
Even suckin’ my dick. Which wasn’t as fun as it used to be before I got paralyzed.
Now, my nerves ain’t work the same. She had to stroke and suck a while before I finally got hard.
I couldn’t just do that by looking at her anymore.
And to make matters worse, a nigga had to pop viagra to stay hard.
She tried to please me but I wasn’t even feelin’ that shit no more.
And I blamed Quest for it.
Mekhi was sitting on the couch in a matching Polo set, scrolling his phone.
He looked up when Bella wheeled me in and his face did that thing it always did when he saw me in the chair.
That half-second flicker of grief that he thought he was hiding but wasn’t.
My big brother. The one who set up this apartment, paid for my physical therapy, made sure the building had an elevator and wide doorframes and a shower I could roll into.
He loved me. I knew that. And I was using his love to destroy the one friendship he valued more than anything else in his life.
I didn’t feel no ways ’bout it.
“What’s good, bro?” Mekhi asked, putting the phone away.
“I’m good. Livin’.” That was a lie and a truth at the same time. My legs were dead but the rest of me—aside from my dick—was more alive than it had been in months. Purpose does that. Gives you a reason to open your eyes in the morning even when your body don’t cooperate.
“You eating? You look thin.”
“I eat when I’m hungry. What you need?”
Mekhi leaned back, prepared to tell me something important.
I could tell by the look in his eye. “I got some good news. The Freetown contract is locked in. Quest gave us the development deal before he left. We’re building the first phase, residential units, townhomes, and a mixed-use retail strip.
It’s a multimillion-dollar contract, Zeph.
This is the come-up we’ve been working toward. ”
The come-up. Quest throws us a construction contract and my brother calls it a come-up.
Like we were supposed to be grateful that the great Questor Rufus Banks decided to let the Black brothers build some apartments on his land.
Like we didn’t help him get money while he was rebuilding that bullshit liquor company.
Like we weren’t the ones driving those trucks and moving that product and taking the same risks while he sat in an office counting money and planning his empire.
We helped build Banks Reserve and our reward was a construction contract.
A subcontract, basically. We were working FOR him instead of WITH him and my brother couldn’t see the difference because Mekhi had always been content being second.
I wasn’t content being second. I wasn’t content being anything in Quest’s orbit.
The man had everything. The casino, the liquor empire, the properties, the money, the woman, the baby on the way.
And legs. He had legs. He could stand up in the morning and walk to the bathroom and take a piss without somebody lifting him onto a toilet seat.
He could pick up his child. He could walk across a room without asking for help.
He could run. He could fuck standing up.
He could do every single thing I used to do without thinking and he did it all while sitting on top of a fortune that my family helped him build.
And now he was dead. And my brother wanted to build houses for a ghost.
“That’s good, Khi,” I said, keeping my face neutral. “When do we break ground?”
“When Quest gets back from his lil vacation. He wants to iron out the final details in person. Should be a couple weeks. Him and Mehar are out on some island doing the babymoon thing.” He smiled when he said it.
Actually smiled. Like he was happy for the nigga.
Like Quest deserving happiness was a given and not a debate.
I almost laughed. Almost blew the whole thing right there in the living room because the irony was so thick I could choke on it.
When Quest gets back. My brother had no idea.
He was sitting on my couch planning a future around a man who didn’t have one.
Making schedules around a dead man’s calendar.
Projecting revenue off a corpse’s handshake.
Quest wasn’t coming back. And when the world figured that out, the contract, the casino, the liquor, all of it, was gonna be up for grabs. And I was gonna make sure the Black family was positioned to take what we were owed.
“Can’t wait,” I said. “Tell Quest I said what’s up when he calls.”
Mekhi nodded and stood up and gave me a hug that I returned with one arm because the other one was resting on the armrest of the chair that had become my throne. My brother loved me. And I was going to use every ounce of that love until there was nothing left to use.
Bella watched from the kitchen doorway with Amara on her hip and said nothing. She knew better.