“Then I’ll send them to meet you.”
Zoo’s eyes widened slightly. The first crack in his defiance. He’d expected the threat to land. Expected me to hesitate.
He didn’t know who he was dealing with.
“At least you’ll get to see your son again.” I raised the Glock, aimed at the center of his forehead. “Tell Nigel I said hey.”
I pulled the trigger.
The shot echoed through the empty night. Zoo’s body jerked once, then went still. A dark pool spread beneath his head, black in the moonlight, soaking into the dirt.
I stood there for a moment. Listening to the silence. Feeling the weight of what I’d just done settle into my bones.
Another body. Another name on the list of men I’d put in the ground.
It didn’t keep me up at night anymore. Maybe it should have. Maybe that made me a monster. But monsters were useful when you had people worth protecting.
And I had people worth protecting.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Pharaoh.
He picked up on the second ring. “P. What you need?”
“I need a tow truck. Miller Road, about two miles past the Banks Reserve warehouse. Tahoe in a ditch. Needs to disappear.”
“Body?”
“One. I’ll handle it. Just need the vehicle gone.”
“Give me forty-five minutes. Damn nigga, I just moved a whip for you.”
“You know how it is.”
I hung up and got to work.
Zoo wasn’t a big man, but dead weight was dead weight. I dragged him to the Bentayga, popped the trunk, and folded him inside with the efficiency of someone who’d done this too many times to count. Grabbed a tarp from the emergency kit and wrapped him up. Didn’t want blood on the interior.
By the time I was done, my shirt was stained and my hands were slick. I wiped them on the tarp and closed the trunk.
Checked my phone. No messages from Zainab. Good. She was following instructions.
I drove the half mile to the warehouse, punched in the code, and pulled inside. The Acura was parked near the back, looking rough—shattered rear window, missing mirror, cracked windshield. But intact. Functional.
A door opened at the far end—the office that was used for late nights when shipments came in. Zainab stepped out first, then Mehar behind her. Both of them wide-eyed. Both of them alive.
The ladies were safe.
I barely made it three steps before Zainab was running toward me. I caught her in my arms, lifted her off her feet, crushed my mouth against hers like I’d been drowning and she was oxygen.
“You’re okay,” she breathed against my lips. “You’re okay.”
“I’m okay.” I set her down but didn’t let go. Couldn’t let go. “Are you hurt? Either of you?”
“Just shaken up.” She pulled back slightly, her eyes scanning my face, my shirt, the blood I knew was visible even in the dim light. “Is he…?”
“Handled.”
She didn’t ask for details. Didn’t need them. Just nodded and pressed her forehead against my chest.
