“Don’t worry about that,” he said with a sly smile that told me everything his words weren’t.
“Boy, I oughta beat your ass.”
“You can’t take me. You gon have to get the strap.” He laughed.
We both laughed at that, real laughter that came from the belly and made the couple at the next table glance over. It felt good to let go for a second and not think about all the shit I had going on… the cage, the dungeon, the therapy sessions, the man whose cologne was still haunting my jacket.
“Listen, boy. Whatever you’re into, you need to be careful. Aight? And if you need help—any help at all—call me. I know people that can help you.”
“Oh shit, you got some mafia connections?” His eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas.
“I know people in high places. But now that you’re in the area, I should hook you up with Zainab. She’d love to see you.”
“Hell yeah, I’d love to see her.”
“And with you having a baby on the way, maybe she can give you some pointers. How far along is your girlfriend anyway?”
“Samaya is four months pregnant. I’m excited, but I’m scared as fuck.”
“Yeah, you need to be.”
He laughed again and it hit me that this was probably the most normal afternoon I’d had in months. Sitting in a restaurant with my little brother, eating cornbread, talking about babies and the father who broke all of us. No switchblades on the table. No cage waiting across town. No therapist unpacking my trauma or parking lot confrontations with men who smelled too good and held me too gently.
Quest. There he was again, sliding into my thoughts uninvited like he had a key to a door I didn’t remember leaving unlocked. I thought about what he’d said at dinner—I’m not going to sit here and pretend my pain was worse than yours. But it was mine.I thought about his arms around me in that parking lot, how my body had stopped fighting before my brain gave it permission.
I shook it off. Picked up my water. Looked at my brother.
“Give me your number before you leave. And I mean it about being careful.”
“I will, sis. Promise.”
I didn’t believe him. But I smiled anyway, because sometimes that’s all you can do with the people you love who are determined to learn everything the hard way.
13
QUEST
Silk and Sin sat on a corner of H Street that used to be nothing but check-cashing spots and liquor stores before Mekhi got his hands on it. Now the block had a rooftop bar, a vegan soul food restaurant, and a boutique hotel that charged four hundred a night. Gentrification with a conscience, Mekhi called it. Gentrification with a profit margin, I called it. Either way, the man had vision and the money to execute, and Silk and Sin was the crown jewel—a two-level nightclub that pulled politicians and street niggas under the same roof every weekend without either side feeling out of place.
But the real business happened in the basement.
I parked the Maybach around back and took the service entrance down a narrow staircase. Mekhi’s office was underneath the main floor. It was soundproofed, windowless, with a steel door that required a code and a fingerprint. Two monitors on the wall ran live feeds from the club’s cameras. A mahogany desk sat in the center with papers and a laptop and an ashtray that was never empty. Leather couch against the far wall. A bar cart with Banks Reserve cognac because Mekhi didn’t drink anything else, and I respected that deeply.
Mekhi was behind the desk when I walked in, leaning back in his chair with a toothpick between his teeth. Zephyr was on the couch with his phone in his hand, scrolling through something with that quiet intensity he brought to everything. The brothers looked alike in the jaw and the build. Both of them broad and dark-skinned with sharp eyes.
“Yo,” Mekhi said, sitting up when he saw me. “That was quick. You were already on this side of town?”
“I wasn’t too far.” I dropped into the chair across from his desk and loosened my tie because the cemetery always made me feel like I was suffocating in my own clothes. “You won’t believe who popped up today at the cemetery. Today would’ve beenhis14th birthday. ”
“Who?”
“Your sister.”
Mekhi’s face shifted. The easy energy disappeared and something more guarded took its place. He took the toothpick out of his mouth and set it on the desk. “Peanut was at the cemetery?”
“Standing there with flowers like she comes every year. Talking about ‘maybe we just miss each other.’” I shook my head. “I ain’t seen that woman at Quindon’s grave in fourteen years and she just happens to show up today? On his birthday?”
Mekhi rubbed his jaw. “I haven’t talked to her in months, bro. She was supposed to come to Caleb’s birthday party last month and she flaked. Didn’t call, didn’t text, nothing. Caleb was asking about his auntie and I had to make up some excuse.” He leaned forward.
