Justice didn’t argue. He knew better. “Camille should be pulling up soon. Quest said she landed an hour ago.”
“Yeah.”
“Prime.” Justice’s voice shifted. That tone he used when he was about to say something I didn’t want to hear. “You can’t sit in that parking lot forever.”
“Watch me.”
“I’m serious. You gotta?—”
“I gotta what?” My jaw tightened. “Go home? Get some rest? My pregnant fiancée is locked up for a murder she didn’t commit and you want me to go take a nap?”
Silence.
“That’s what I thought.” I hung up.
I tossed the phone in the cupholder and went back to staring at the building.
This wasn’t me. I didn’t sit around waiting for shit to happen. I made shit happen. I found problems and I eliminated them. That’s who I was. That’s who Rashid had trained me to be—backwhen I thought he was saving me instead of shaping me into a weapon for his own use.
But this? This was different. This wasn’t some nigga I could put hands on. This was the system. Courts. Lawyers. Evidence. Extradition. A bunch of shit I couldn’t shoot my way through, no matter how much I wanted to.
And I wanted to.
God, I wanted to.
The memory hit me before I could stop it—Zainab’s face when they put the cuffs on. The way her eyes went wide. The way she looked at Yusef, then at me, and I could see her making the decision in real time. Deciding not to fight. Deciding to go quietly so she didn’t traumatize that boy any more than he already was.
She protected him. Even in that moment, she was thinking about him.
That’s my Goddess. That’s the mother of my child. And she was in there, alone, scared, pregnant with my baby, and I couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it.
My phone rang. Unknown number.
I almost ignored it. Then something told me to answer.
We talked and I updated her about everything. In the end she sounded a bit more hopeful.
“I love you,”she said.
“I love you too. Both of you. Now breathe, Goddess. I’ll see you soon.”
The line went dead.
I sat there for a long moment, phone still in my hand, her voice echoing in my head.
You are coming home to me.
I meant that shit. Every word.
Camille pulled up an hour later.
A sleek black Mercedes, because of course. Quest’s girl didn’t do anything halfway. She stepped out looking like she’d just walked off a magazine cover—cream-colored pantsuit, heels fresh off the runway, hair laid to perfection. Gabrielle Union with a law degree and a briefcase full of problems she was about to solve.
Three years she’d been with my brother. Her and Lyric. The three of them had something that worked, even if I didn’t fully understand it. She was one of the best criminal defense attorneys on the East Coast. High-profile cases. The kind that made the news. The kind where people with money and power needed someone who could navigate the system and win.”
I got out of the Bentayga.
“Prime.” Camille’s voice was calm. Professional. But I caught the concern underneath it. “How long have you been here?”
