Her side of the bed. Empty. But not for long.
I pulled out my phone. No new messages from Camille. No news was good news.
Tomorrow. Everything would change tomorrow.
“One more day, baby girl,” I said to the empty room. To my daughter. To the future I was fighting for. “Just hold on. Daddy’s bringing Mama home.”
16
VIVICA
Rashid’s compound looked the same as always. Old money vibes that he’d always kept up even though his money was new and dirty as hell.
I pulled into the circular driveway, killing the engine. The security at the gate had waved me through without question—they knew my face. Had known it for decades.
I sat in the car for a moment, gripping the steering wheel. I’d been avoiding this visit for weeks, finding excuses, burying myself in work. But his daughter had called this morning with the update.
He didn’t have much time left.
I checked my reflection in the mirror. Smoothed my blazer. Took a breath.
Then I got out and walked to the front door.
He didn’t have much time left.
I checked my reflection in the mirror. Smoothed my blazer. Took a breath.
Then I got out and walked to the front door.
One of his security opened it before I could knock. Young. Face I didn’t recognize—the old guard was gone, scattered since Rashid started fading.
“Mayor Banks.” He stepped aside. “He’s been expecting you. East wing.”
I didn’t acknowledge him. Just walked past into the house I knew as well as my own. Through the foyer. Past the study where Rashid used to hold court. Toward the east wing where they’d moved him.
The east wing was unrecognizable.
Where there used to be leather furniture and bookshelves, now there was a whole hospice setup. Monitors beeping. IV drips. Oxygen tanks. A hospital bed in the middle of the room surrounded by equipment that said this man didn’t have long.
And in that bed, propped up on a mountain of pillows, was the man I’d loved for forty years.
The man in that bed was not the Rashid I remembered.
The Rashid I knew had been six-foot-two of solid muscle, dark skin gleaming, smile sharp enough to cut. The kind of man who walked into a room and owned it without saying a word. The kind of man who made women stupid and men nervous.
The kind of man I’d fallen in love with forty years ago.
This man was a shadow. Thin. Gray. The cancer had eaten him from the inside out, leaving behind bones wrapped in paper-thin skin. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow, machines beeping a rhythm that felt like a countdown.
I pulled a chair to his bedside and sat down.
For a long moment, I just looked at him. Remembering.
I was fresh out of Howard with a degree in political science and ambitions bigger than my bank account. I’d grown up in Southeast, Section 8 apartments and government cheese, watching my mother work herself to death for men who didn’t deserve her. I’d sworn I would never be like her. Never be poor. Never be dependent. Never be weak.
I met them at a fundraiser. Some councilman who owed people money. And there they were—the two most powerfulyoung Black men in DC, standing on opposite sides of the same room.
Alexander Banks Jr. Old money. Legitimate business. Heir to the Banks Reserve empire his father had built. Polished. Charming. The kind of man whose family had been building wealth for generations.
