That was worse than death.
That was forever.
I turned from the window and walked toward the east wing.
The smell hit me first. Antiseptic trying to cover decay. Medicine masking death. It got stronger with every step with monitors beeping, oxygen tanks humming, the wet rattle of lungs that had given up.
My father’s final soundtrack.
He was awake when I walked in. Propped up on pillows, those sharp eyes tracking me even though his body was failing.
The most dangerous man I’d ever known, reduced to one hundred-twenty pounds of bones and blood and borrowed time.
“He’s gone.” Daddy’s voice was thin. A whisper of what it used to be.
“Yeah.” I sat in the chair beside his bed, it was the same chair I’d been living in for five months. “You really had him thinking you ain’t have nothing to do with it.”
Daddy’s lips twitched. “I told him the truth. I don’t work with law enforcement.”
Daddy laughed, but it turned into a coughing fit. Wet. Rattling. When it finally passed, there was blood on his lips.
“I would never work with pigs,” he said, wiping his mouth with a tissue that came away red. “Prentice knows that.”
“He does now.”
Silence. Monitors beeped. Oxygen hummed. Outside, the sun was setting, painting the room in shades of orange and red.
“Baba.” I leaned forward. “Why didn’t you just kill him? When you had the chance. Why didn’t you let one of his soldiers put a bullet in his head tonight?”
Daddy turned his head slow to look at me. Even now, even dying, those eyes could cut right through you.
“Because death is mercy, baby girl.” His voice dropped low. “Death is a moment of pain and then nothing. Prentice don’t deserve mercy. He deserves to SUFFER. To watch everything he built turn to dust. To feel as helpless as I felt when he sent me that picture of your ear.”
My hand drifted to the side of my head. The plastic surgeons did their best but it was still just a mangled mess. At least Prime left me enough so that I could still hear.
“He’s already suffering,” Daddy continued. “His woman locked up. His baby gonna be born behind bars. His whole family scrambling.” A smile crept across his cracked lips. “And this is only the beginning.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I still got moves, Farah. Plays Prentice ain’t seen coming. People in places he don’t know about.”
“What people?”
He didn’t answer. Just smiled that smile I’d seen my whole life. The one that meant somebody’s world was about to collapse.
“Baba.” I grabbed his hand. His bones felt like twigs under paper. “I’m tired of waiting. I want him to hurt NOW?—”
“I know what you want.” His eyes softened just slightly. “I see it in you. The change. You think I don’t notice you pacing these halls every night? Not eating. Not sleeping. Jumping at every sound.”
My throat tightened.
He knew something was wrong. Could see it all over me.
But he didn’t know the real reason. Didn’t know about Thad. Didn’t know what happened in that warehouse while he was at home waiting for Prime to send more of my body parts.
I couldn’t tell him. Looking at him now that he’s a skeleton in a hospital gown, machines doing half the work of keeping him alive. I knew the stress would kill him faster than the cancer.
And I wasn’t ready to lose my father. Not yet.
