Officer Lebowski was next.
The one with the ponytail. The one who fell into step beside Cooper that night and called Zainab a “drama queen” while she was in active labor. Shook her head and sneered while a pregnant woman was being dragged down a hallway screaming.
I found her at home too. Same routine. Same vial. Same choice.
She made the same choice Cooper did. They always do when the alternative is worse.
By sunrise, I was back in the rental, showered, changed, sitting on the porch with a glass of bourbon, watching the sky turn orange over the Pacific.
My phone buzzed.
Prime:You good?
Me:Handled. Both of them.
Prime:Appreciate you bro.
Me:Go hold your tube sock babies and stop texting me.
Prime:
I pocketed the phone and took another sip.
Two down. Zainab avenged. Family protected.
Another beautiful day in California.
49
PRIME
“What’s that?” Farah asked.
I tossed the manila envelope in her lap. She flinched when it landed. Still jumpy. Good. She should be. Fear was the only language this girl ever respected.
She looked rough. Nah—she looked terrible. Hair matted to one side, dark circles so deep they looked like bruises, lips cracked and peeling. The scar where her ear used to be was out in the open now. She’d stopped trying to style her hair over it around day five. Stopped caring.
Two weeks I kept her chained to that radiator. Fed her twice a day. Water whenever she wanted it. Bathroom breaks morning and night. I wasn’t torturing her—I was waiting. Letting the silence strip away all the manipulation and the scheming and the theatrics until the only thing left was the truth.
“One-way ticket to Bali,” I said. “Bank account with a million dollars. Clean. Untraceable. New identity papers. Everything you need to start over somewhere nobody knows you or your daddy.”
Her fingers were shaking as she opened the envelope. I watched her scan the documents that Quest’s people put together. Thorough work. My brother didn’t miss.
“Take it,” I said. “Disappear. Don’t contact me, don’t contact my brothers, don’t contact Zainab, don’t even breathe in my family’s direction ever again. Far as you concerned, the Banks family don’t exist. And far as we concerned? Farah Muhammad died with the rest of her bloodline.”
She looked at the papers. Looked at me. And I could see it, that little flicker behind her eyes. The wheels trying to turn. The calculator trying to calculate. Rashid’s daughter through and through, always looking for the angle even when there wasn’t one.
It was annoying as fuck.
And it was exactly why I’d already dug the hole.
Wasn’t a metaphor. There was an actual hole. About three miles east of here, off a service road nobody used. Six feet deep, freshly turned earth. I’d dug it yesterday morning while Quest watched from the truck, eating a breakfast burrito like we were at a tailgate.
If she said no, that hole was hers. I’d already made peace with it. Already told Quest don’t wait up. Farah alive and in Bali was a risk I could manage. Farah alive and still in my orbit? Nah. That math didn’t work.
“Fine,” she said.
“I’m serious, Farah. Don’t come back to the States. I got eyes at every major port of entry. Airports. Border crossings. Shit, I got a nigga at the embassy in Jakarta who owes me a favor. You step foot on American soil and I’ll know before your luggage hits the carousel.”
