Nothing.
Click. Click. Click.
Empty.
I hadn’t even flinched. Simply stood there, watching him squeeze the trigger over and over, his face contorting with rage and grief and desperate, futile hope.
“I loaded one bullet,” I said calmly. “Did you really think I would hand you a weapon capable of killing me?”
Click. Click. Click.
“I taught Prime that same lesson twenty years ago. Never hand a man a loaded weapon unless you’re prepared for him to use it.”
The clicking stopped. Yusef stood there, chest heaving, the empty gun trembling in his hands. His eyes were wild. Feral. The eyes of a boy who had just lost everything.
“I hate you.” His voice was raw. Broken. “I HATE YOU.”
“Good.” I plucked the gun from his hands. “Hate is useful. Hate can be shaped into something powerful. Hold onto that hate, Yusef. Let it fuel you. Let it burn away the weakness your aunt instilled in you.”
He lunged at me. Fists swinging. Screaming wordlessly, tears and blood flying from his face.
I caught his wrist easily. Twisted. Heard the bones grind together.
Then I hit him. Once. Hard. Right at the temple.
His eyes rolled back and he collapsed at my feet.
I stood over him for a moment, catching my breath. The cough was threatening again, tickling at the back of my throat, but I refused to give in to it.
The boy would wake up in his room. He would remember what he had done. What I had made him do. And he would never again make the mistake of choosing sentiment over obedience.
I bent down and scooped him up. Carried him up the stairs, past the monitors, past the study, up to his room on the third floor.
I laid him on his bed. Checked his pulse. Steady enough.
Then I returned to the basement.
Demetrius was still there. Still chained. Still dead. His blood was pooling beneath him, spreading across the concrete in a dark, widening circle.
I felt nothing.
This was the cost of disloyalty. The price of impulsiveness. The natural consequence of choosing emotion over discipline.
I would dispose of the body later. For now, I had other matters to attend to.
Prentice still had my daughter. Rita had humiliated me. But I was Rashid Muhammad. I was Shadow. I had survived worse than this and emerged stronger.
I would survive this too.
Even if my body was failing me. Even if my enemies were circling. Even if the boy upstairs would never forgive me for what I had made him do.
I would survive.
I always did.
37
PRIME
