“I love you too,” I whispered.
And I meant it.
That’s what terrified me most.
39
PRIME
I woke up before Zahara.
For a minute, I just lay there watching her sleep. The way her curls fanned across my satin pillow. The way her lips parted slightly with each breath. The way she’d curled into me sometime during the night, her hand resting on my chest like she belonged there.
Because she did.
I slipped out of bed without waking her and threw on some sweats and a hoodie. Checked my phone—7:43 AM. Early enough to grab breakfast and be back before she woke up. I checked on Yusef in the guest room before I stepped out. He was still out like a light, the stress and fear gone from his face as he slept. Despite what had happened, he was a good kid. I’d let him down once, but never again. I would be there for him, for Zahara, for always. I swore it.
The morning airhit me as I stepped outside, crisp and cool. DC in the fall. My favorite time of year.
I walked the three blocks to the café I liked, the one with the good croissants and the fresh-squeezed orange juice. My mind wandered as I moved through the streets, replaying last night.
The way she’d looked at me when I played for her. The tears on her cheeks. The way she’d kissed me in the kitchen like she couldn’t hold back anymore.
The way she’d felt underneath me. Around me. The sounds she made when she came.
I shook my head, trying to clear it.
This wasn’t me.
I didn’t do domestic. Didn’t do breakfast runs and lazy mornings and playing house with a woman and her kid. I was a hitman. A killer. A man who’d spent the last decade moving through the world like a ghost, never staying anywhere long enough to care.
But here I was. Thinking about what kind of eggs Zahara liked. Wondering if Yusef was a pancakes or waffles type of nigga. Planning breakfast like I was somebody’s man.
Somebody’s stepfather.
The thought stopped me in my tracks.
Yusef.
That boy had been through more in the last forty-eight hours than most people experienced in a lifetime. He’d taken a life. Carried that weight home with him. Put a gun to his own head because he didn’t think he could survive what came next.
And I’d looked in his eyes and seen myself. Thirteen years old. Blood on my hands. No one to help me.
I wasn’t gonna let him end up like me. Wasn’t gonna let him spend years in a cage, getting harder and colder until there was nothing soft left inside him. He had his music. Had his mother. Had a future that didn’t involve violence and death.
I was gonna make sure he kept all of that.
These feelings were foreign. Uncomfortable. I wasn’t used to caring about people like this. Wasn’t used to my thoughts being consumed by someone else’s wellbeing. For years, my mind had been a cold, efficient machine—focused only on the job, the money, the survival.
Now I couldn’t stop thinking about them. About her. About him.
It was unusual. Unsettling.
And I didn’t know what to do with it.
My phone rang as I was leaving the café, bags in hand.
Rashid.
