“What are we gonna do?”
I looked at her. Really looked at her. Saw the grief and the rage and the desperate need for somebody to pay for what happened to her son.
“I’m gonna kill them,” I said. “Both of them. The boy and his mother. I’m gonna make them suffer the way Nigel suffered. Make them bleed the way he bled.”
I expected hesitation. Expected her to pump the brakes, remind me that Yusef was just a kid, that maybe we should let the police handle it, that murder wasn’t the answer.
But Brandi just nodded.
“Good,” she said. “When?”
Here’s the problem.
I’d been watching them for the past week. Since the funeral. Following up on that feeling in my gut that something wasn’t right about how fast they bounced. And what I saw confirmed everything.
They wasn’t staying in Southeast no more. But the boy was still going to the same school—probably figured switching schools would raise too many questions—and every morning, the same black Bentayga pulled up to drop him off.
Prentice Banks behind the wheel.
And every afternoon, same thing. The Bentayga appeared at dismissal. Yusef got in. They drove off to wherever they was hiding.
That nigga had them locked down tight.
I couldn’t touch him. Not directly. Not without backup, and even then it would be risky as fuck. The Banks family had money, connections, resources. They probably had cops on payroll. Politicians in their pocket. Going at Prentice head-on would be suicide.
But the boy…
The boy was right there. Every morning. Every afternoon. Unprotected for those few seconds between the school gates and the car.
I could grab him. Take him somewhere quiet. Make him tell me exactly what happened to my son. And then I could make him feel every ounce of pain Nigel felt in those last moments.
An eye for an eye. A son for a son.
But even that was risky. Prentice was always right there, watching. And the school had security now—metal detectors, cameras, the whole nine. Snatching a kid in broad daylight would bring heat I couldn’t afford.
I needed a different target. An easier one.
“What about Zahara?” Brandi asked, like she was reading my mind. We was back at her apartment now, sitting at the kitchen table, planning murder like it was a grocery list.
“What about her?”
“She’s the one who raised him. She’s the one who was supposed to be watching him. If that boy killed Nigel, it’s because SHE wasn’t doing her job as a mother.” Brandi’s voice was hard. Cold. “And she’s a lot easier to get to than a twelve-year-old surrounded by Prentice Banks.”
She had a point. “You know where she be at?”
“She works at Grits. That diner over on?—”
“I know the spot.” Everybody knew Grits. Little hole-in-the-wall breakfast joint that had been there forever. “She still working there?”
“Far as I know.”
“I’ll stake it out. Keep my eye on her.”
Brandi’s eyes were bright. Feverish almost. “What are you gonna do to her?”
“Whatever it takes to get the truth. And then…” I picked up the bullet from the table, turned it over in my fingers. “I’ma make sure she knows exactly why she’s dying. I’ma tell her it’sbecause she raised a killer. Because she let that boy murder my son and then helped him hide it.”
“And then?”
