“When I find out who’s behind this…” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
I thought about Vivica. That smirk at my grand opening. The way she’d been standing in the back, watching it all go down. Like she knew exactly what was about to happen.
Did she do this? Was she behind my arrest?
I wanted to say it. Wanted to ask Prime if his own mother could really hate me that much. But I didn’t have proof. Just a feeling. Just a smirk. And accusing Vivica Banks without evidence? That was a move I couldn’t take back.
So I kept it to myself. For now.
“Yes.”
“Good. Camille’s going to explain everything when she gets there. The extradition process, what to expect, all of it. And Zainab?”
“Yeah?”
“You are coming home to me. Do you understand? I don’t care what I have to do. I don’t care who I have to go through. You. Are. Coming. Home.”
I closed my eyes. Let his words wash over me like armor.
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I love you too. Both of you. Now breathe, Goddess. I’ll see you soon.”
The line went dead.
I stood there for a moment, phone still pressed to my ear, trying to hold onto the sound of his voice. Trying to believe thateverything he said was true. That I would come home. That this nightmare would end.
Then the guard cleared his throat, and I handed the phone back, and I walked back to my cell on legs that didn’t feel like mine.
“Your man soundslike he got money,” Adrienne observed.
I didn’t respond. Didn’t confirm. Didn’t deny. I’d been around long enough to know you don’t advertise nothing in a place like this.
She read my silence anyway. Sucked her teeth. Shook her head slowly. “Money don’t mean shit in here, sis. In here, you on your own.”
Adrienne glancedtoward the cell door, then back at me. Lowered her voice.
“And do yourself a favor. You see a big bitch named Mona? Built like a linebacker, got a crew that follow her around like she the warden? Don’t look at her. Don’t talk to her. Don’t owe her nothing.”
“Why?”
“Because she runs commissary, runs book, runs damn near everything on this block. And she got a nose for money.” Adrienne’s eyes dropped to my ring finger. To that tan line. “She probably already clocked you.”
My hand curled into a fist, hiding the evidence.
“Keep your head down,” Adrienne said. “That’s the only advice I got.”
I didn’t respond.Just sat there, hand on my belly, her words settling into my bones.
California.
They were sending me to California.
The same place I ran from five years ago. The same city where I found my sister’s body, cold and stiff in that apartment, her eyes open and staring at nothing. The same streets where a man watched me run and let me live.
I’d spent five years building a new life. A new name. A new me. I’d buried Zainab and become Zahara and convinced myself that the past couldn’t touch me anymore.
But now the past wasn’t just touching me.
