Demetrius watched from the covered patio, arms crossed, nodding approvingly.
A cough tickled my chest.I turned away from both of them, suppressing it through sheer will. I would not show weakness. Not in front of the boy. Not in front of Demetrius. Not in front of anyone.
Then Yusef made it halfway across the courtyard before his foot caught on a slightly raised stone. He stumbled. The buckets swayed violently.
Water splashed onto the pathway.
The switch whistled through the air and connected with his lower back.
He cried out—a sharp, wounded sound—but didn’t drop the yoke. Didn’t fall. Just stood there, trembling, tears streaming down his face.
“Continue,” I said calmly. “When you spill, you are corrected. When you succeed, you are not. The choice is yours.”
He continued. Step by agonizing step. More water spilled when he reached the far wall and had to turn around. Another correction. More tears. But he kept going.
By the time I allowed him to stop, his shoulders were raw from the wooden pole, his back was striped with welts, and the buckets were less than half full. But he’d completed the exercise. He’d endured.
“Better,” I said, taking the yoke from his shoulders. “Tomorrow we will do it again. And you will spill less. And eventually, you will spill nothing at all. That is how excellence is achieved. Through repetition. Through consequence. Through the refusal to accept mediocrity.”
Yusef stood there, swaying slightly, his breath coming in ragged gasps. But he didn’t speak. Didn’t beg. Didn’t ask to go home.
Progress.
Later that evening,my phone buzzed with a message.
I pulled it from my pocket and read the words on the screen.
Prime:Cigar bar. Tonight. 8pm. Just us.
I stared at the message for a long moment.
Prentice had been calling repeatedly since I’d taken the boy. I’d ignored every attempt, letting him stew in his helplessness, reminding him that he was not in control of this situation.
But now he wanted to meet. Face to face. Man to man.
The wise move would be to ignore this as well. To let him come to me on my terms, when I was ready, when I had fully established my dominance over the situation.
But I found myself… curious.
Curious to see what kind of man Prentice had become in my absence. Curious whether the soldier I’d trained would approach this as a negotiation or a confrontation. Curious whether he still remembered who had made him, who had shaped him, who had taken a fat, stuttering child and forged him into a weapon.
I typed my response.
Rashid:I’ll be there.
I pocketed the phone and returned to the courtyard, where Yusef sat on a stone bench, staring at nothing. His spirit was nearly broken. A few more days and he would be ready for the real training to begin.
But first, I had a meeting to attend.
I changed into one of my better suits—charcoal gray, tailored, with a burgundy bowtie that complemented my complexion. Adjusted my glasses in the mirror. I was in my late 50’s but lately I looked every year of it. The weight loss was becoming harder to hide. The hollows beneath my cheekbones more pronounced. I straightened my posture, refusing to acknowledge what the mirror was telling me. Discipline kept a man young. Purpose kept him sharp. And I still had purpose. Still had work to do.
The drive to the cigar bar took forty minutes. A jazz club in the basement of a building I owned through three layers of shell companies. The kind of place where powerful men discussed powerful things away from prying eyes and listening ears.
When I arrived, the bar was quiet. A few of my soldiers were present—they always were—but they knew to keep their distance when I was conducting business.
I selected a booth near the back. Ordered a glass of bourbon—top shelf, neat—and a Cuban cigar from my private reserve.
And then I waited.
