But right now, I had this. Had him. And that would have to be enough.
35
RASHID
The boy was eating when I found him.
Seated at my kitchen table, hunched over a plate of liver, spinach, and boiled potato. Almost the same meal I had prescribed for him every day since his arrival. Protein. Iron. Sustenance that built strength and discipline.
He did not look up when I entered. Simply continued chewing with the mechanical obedience I had instilled in him. His spirit was nearly broken. A few more days and there would be nothing left of the soft, crying child who had begged to go home.
“Yusef.”
“Yes, sir.” He still did not look up. Good. Eye contact was a privilege that had to be earned.
“Your father is in the basement. He has not eaten since yesterday.”
Now the boy’s head lifted. Something flickered in those hollow eyes. Hope, perhaps. Or fear. It was difficult to tell anymore.
“I want you to prepare a meal for him. Liver. One boiled potato. Water.” I adjusted my bowtie. “You will take itdownstairs. You will feed him. Then you will return to your studies. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
I turned to leave, then paused at the doorway.
“Yusef.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Do not disappoint me.”
I left him there and retreated to my study.
The security monitors were already active. Six screens showing different angles of my home. The kitchen. The hallways. The basement where Demetrius sat chained to the wall like the animal he had proven himself to be.
And one camera pointed directly at the stairs leading down to him.
This was a test. The boy did not know it, but I would be watching every moment. Every interaction. Every word exchanged between father and son.
If Yusef simply delivered the food and left, he would pass. He would prove that my training had taken root. That obedience had replaced sentiment.
But if he tried to free his father. If he searched for the key. If he showed any sign of the weakness I had worked so hard to eradicate…
Then stronger measures would be required.
I settled into my chair and watched the screen as Yusef prepared the meal. His movements were slow. Deliberate. The liver sizzled in the pan. The potato sat in its pot of boiling water.
He was stalling.
I made note of it and checked my watch. I had business to attend to. A message to deliver. But I would review the footage upon my return.
And then we would see what kind of boy Yusef truly was.
The driveto Rita Banks’s home took forty minutes.
She lived in a massive estate in one of DC’s most exclusive neighborhoods. Gated entrance. Manicured grounds. The kind of property where you could go days without seeing another person if you wanted to. She’d bought it decades ago with money from helping build Banks Reserve from the ground up. Prentice’s grandfather’s business partner in everything but name, even if he’d never given her the credit she deserved.
The grandiose home loomed ahead as I pulled up to the gate. Most people would assume a woman like this—elderly, partially blind, living alone—would be an easy target.
