The music was off. The laughter was gone. The energy that had filled this room twenty minutes ago—the warmth, the joy, the family—had been replaced by something cold and still. Everyone was standing. Prime had Zainab behind him. Justice had his phone in his hand. Mekhi and Zephyr were flanking the door like security. Rita was still in her seat but her face had changed, the playfulness stripped away and something ancient and hard in its place.
And in the center of the room stood a man I didn’t recognize. He was wearing a courier uniform and holding an envelope, and the expression on his face said he wanted to be anywhere on earth except in this room right now.
Quest’s hand tightened on mine.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Nobody answered. Prime looked at Quest. Justice looked at the floor. And Rita, Rita turned her cloudy eyes toward her grandson’s voice and said two words that made the room feel like it had dropped ten degrees.
37
QUEST
The courier was sweating. Young kid, maybe twenty-two, in a standard delivery uniform with a clipboard in one hand and an envelope in the other. He looked like he’d been told this was a simple drop-off and had walked into something that was very clearly not a simple drop-off.
“I was paid to read this,” he said, his voice shaking. “At this event. To this family. That’s all I know.”
“Paid by who?” Prime stepped forward.
“I don’t know. A man contacted my company and paid cash for a private delivery with a verbal reading. That’s all I was told. I swear.”
“Read it,” Rita said from her chair. Her voice was steady but something underneath it had shifted. Something I’d never heard before. Not fear exactly. More like bracing.
The courier opened the envelope with trembling fingers and pulled out a single sheet of paper. He cleared his throat and read.
“To the Banks family. On the occasion of Rita Banks’s eighty-fifth birthday, I thought it fitting to give the family a gift of truth. Quest Banks is not the biological son of Alexander Banks Junior. His biological father is Rashid Muhammad, formerly known as the Shadow of Brick City Crew. This information was confirmedby Vivica Banks prior to Rashid’s death. DNA evidence is available upon request. Happy birthday, Rita.—V.”
The room went silent. Like the air itself had been punched out and replaced with nothing.
I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I stood there with my hand still holding Mehar’s and heard the words play back in my head on a loop. Quest Banks is not the biological son of Alexander Banks Junior. His biological father is Rashid Muhammad.
Rashid. The Shadow. The man who ran Brick City Crew. The man who trained Prime to kill. The man whose entire bloodline my family had systematically destroyed. The man who kidnapped Yusef. The man who threatened Rita in her own home.
That man was my father.
Prime moved first. He was across the room before anyone could stop him, his hand around the courier’s collar, lifting him slightly off the ground. “How did she contact you? Through who? I need a name.”
“I don’t know who she is! A man booked the delivery through our company! Cash payment, anonymous! He gave me the address and the time and told me to read it out loud. That’s all I know! Please!”
Justice was there now too, flanking Prime, his face carved from stone. “What did the man look like? Where did you meet him?”
Mekhi and Zephyr had the door blocked. Nobody was leaving until we had answers. The courier was trembling so hard the paper was rattling in his hand and I almost felt sorry for him because he was a kid who’d taken a job and walked into a war zone.
But I wasn’t looking at the courier. I was looking at Rita.
“Did you know?” I asked. My voice sounded far away, like it was coming from the other end of a tunnel. “Grandma. Did you know?”
Rita’s hands were folded in her lap. The tiara was still on her head. The champagne was still in front of her. But she looked older than she had twenty minutes ago, like the letter had aged her in real time.
“No,” she said. “I did not know.”
I searched her face for the lie the way I searched every face in every room. I didn’t find it. Rita was many things. She was ruthless, strategic, capable of secrets that would make most people’s hair turn white, but she had never lied to me. Not once in thirty-eight years.
“Quest.” She reached for me. “Baby, sit down. Let’s talk about this.”
I couldn’t sit down. I couldn’t stand still. I couldn’t be in this room with everybody.
Alexander Banks Junior. The man whose company I took over at eighteen. The man whose debt I inherited. The man whose name was on every bottle, every truck, every warehouse, every contract. The man I’d bled for, killed for, sacrificed for. The man whose portrait hung in the lobby of Banks Reserve headquarters.
