“What’s he going to do?” Mehar whispered.
I thought about Prime. About the man he used to be. About the things Rashid had trained him to do. About the cold, calculated violence that lived just beneath the surface of those ocean eyes.
“Whatever he has to,” I said quietly. “Whatever he has to.”
28
PRIME
The Tahoe was ass-up in the drainage ditch, front end crumpled against an embankment, steam hissing from the busted radiator.
I pulled the Bentayga onto the shoulder and killed the engine. Checked my Glock. Full magazine. One in the chamber. More than enough for what needed to happen.
The night was quiet out here. No streetlights. No traffic. Just trees and darkness and the distant hum of the highway we’d left behind. The perfect place for this.
I walked toward the wreck, gravel crunching under my shoes, and saw movement through the shattered windshield.
Zoo was alive.
He was trying to crawl out of the driver’s side window, blood streaming from a wound in his shoulder where one of Mehar’s bullets had found its mark. Glass crunched beneath him as he dragged himself onto the dirt, his right hand reaching for something on the ground.
His gun. It had been thrown from the car on impact. Lay about three feet away from his outstretched fingers.
I let him get close.
Let him think he had a chance.
His fingertips brushed the grip?—
I fired.
The bullet tore through his hand, turning fingers into a red mess of bone and tissue. He screamed—a raw, animal sound—and collapsed onto his back, clutching the ruined hand to his chest.
“Fuck!” He was gasping, writhing in the dirt, blood pooling beneath him. “FUCK!”
I stood over him. Watched him struggle. Felt… something.
Not guilt. Not regret. But acknowledgment.
This was a father who’d lost his son. A man consumed by grief, driven to violence by the same love that made me willing to kill for Zainab and Yusef. In another life, under different circumstances, I might’ve understood him. Might’ve even respected the loyalty that pushed him this far.
But he’d threatened my family.
And that was unforgivable.
“You know why this is happening,” I said calmly.
Zoo glared up at me, teeth bared, his good hand still pressed against the destroyed one. “Fuck you. That little nigga killed my son. MY SON.”
“Your son was a bully. He put hands on a kid half his size for months. Took his money. Humiliated him. Made his life hell.” I crouched down, keeping the Glock trained on his chest. “Yusef did what he had to do to survive. Same thing I would’ve done. None of this would’ve happened if you’d raised him better.”
“Don’t you talk about how I raised my boy.” Zoo’s voice was pure venom, even through the pain. “You don’t know shit about?—”
“I know he’s dead because he couldn’t leave a quiet kid alone. I know you’ve been hunting a woman and a child instead of looking in the mirror.” I tilted my head. “I know you should’ve taught him that actions have consequences. Maybe he’d still be alive.”
Zoo spat blood at my feet. “Brick City Crew is gonna know ’bout dis. They gon’ come for you.”
I smiled.
