And I’d forgotten about him. Put him on hold. Chose surveillance on Vivica’s cheating husband over showing up for a twelve-year-old boy who had nobody else.
The realization cut deep.
I was doing to Yusef what Vivica had done to me.
Making him wait. Making him hope. Then letting him down. Teaching him that people he cared about would always choose something else over him.
The rage that had been building all day finally boiled over.
I slammed my fist into the steering wheel. Once. Twice. Three times. Until my knuckles ached and the horn blared and I didn’t give a fuck who heard it.
This was Vivica’s fault. All of it.
She’d abandoned me as a kid. Let me go to prison at thirteen. Never visited. Never called. Never gave a single fuck until I became useful to her.
And now she was using me. Controlling me. Making me dance like a puppet while she pulled the strings.
Using Rashid—the man who’d actually raised me, who’d actually cared—as leverage to make me do her dirty work.
And I’d let her.
I’d bent. I’d obeyed. I’d put everyone else on hold because she’d threatened the one thing I couldn’t lose.
But enough.
I was done playing her games. Done letting her dictate my life. Done choosing her bullshit over the people who actually mattered.
I had her photos. Had her proof. Had everything she needed to destroy Dante and get her divorce.
But once this was over—once Rashid was safe and those permits were approved—I was cutting her off. Completely.
No more favors. No more blackmail. No more control.
She wanted to treat me like a tool? Fine. But tools got put away when the job was done.
And this job was about to be finished.
I started the car and pulled away from the hotel, my hands still shaking with rage, my jaw clenched so tight my teeth hurt.
Tomorrow I’d make it right with Yusef. Would show up for him. Would be the man he needed instead of the ghost Vivica had turned me into.
But tonight?
Tonight I had to finish this. Had to deliver these photos. Had to secure Rashid’s freedom.
Then I was done being Vivica’s son.
From here on out, she was nothing to me.
Just like I’d always been nothing to her.
35
ZAHARA
The morning started wrong and I couldn’t figure out why.
I was at the stove making breakfast—scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, toast with butter—when Yusef came out of his room already dressed for school.
