His daddy just killed me.
The last thing I heard was the front door closing.
Then nothing.
33
RASHID
The photograph stopped my heart.
My daughter. My Farah. Slumped in a metal chair, wrists bound, ankles tied, head lolling to the side like a broken doll. Unconscious. Helpless. At the mercy of a man I had created.
Three words accompanied the image.
Your move, nigga.
Gone was the respect. The reverence. The acknowledgment of everything I had given him. Prentice had reduced our entire history—decades of mentorship, of shaping him from nothing into something formidable—to three disrespectful words and a photograph of my child in captivity.
I never thought he’d have it in him. I assumed he’d respect me and walk away from that child that he had no true claim to. But he was in love with that girl. And the closest I’ve ever seen him in love was with Nala. I had arranged that for him when he was in prison. A boy can’t become a man without knowing the touch of a woman. He cared for her deeply, but he would never disrespect me for her.
This new bitch was different.
My hands trembled as I stared at the screen.
I do not tremble. I have not trembled since I was a boy in Detroit, watching my father beat my mother bloody on the kitchen floor while I hid in the closet, too small and too weak to intervene. I made a vow that day. I would never be weak again. I would never be at anyone’s mercy. I would build myself into something untouchable.
And I had. For fifty-seven years, I had been untouchable.
Until now.
A cough seized my chest. I turned away from the window, pressing my handkerchief to my lips as the fit consumed me. My body convulsed with each hack, each desperate attempt to expel whatever was eating me alive from the inside.
When it finally passed, I looked at the cloth.
Red. Bright red against the white fabric. More than yesterday. More than last week.
I folded the handkerchief quickly and stuffed it into my pocket. Crossed to my desk where the lab results sat in a manila folder I had not yet found the courage to discard.
Stage 4 lung cancer. Metastasized to the liver.
The numbers were damning. Tumor markers through the roof. Liver function declining rapidly. The oncologist had given me six months to a year. That was three months ago.
I was dying.
Every morning I woke up was borrowed time. Every breath was a gift I had not earned. And instead of spending my final days with my daughter—my only daughter, the child I had spoiled and protected and loved despite her many flaws—I was engaged in a war with my own creation.
I swept the lab results off the desk. Watched the papers scatter across the floor like fallen leaves.
This was my fault.
I had made Prentice too well. Taught him too thoroughly. Honed his instincts, sharpened his mind, turned him into the perfect weapon. And now that weapon was pointed at me.
The student had become the master. And the master was dying.
The front door opened downstairs.
I straightened my posture. Adjusted my bowtie. Schooled my features into the mask of composure I had worn for decades. Whatever was happening to my body, I would not let it show. Weakness invited attack. Vulnerability invited exploitation.
