I should’ve closed it. I should’ve put it back in the drawer and let Quest deal with it on his own timeline. But I didn’t. Because Janelle had chained me to a ceiling and used my therapy sessions against me and I wanted to know what else was inside this bitch’s head.
I sat on the edge of the bed and started reading. Most of it was what I expected. Obsessive entries about Quest, about their relationship, about Quindon. She wrote about their son with a grief that was so raw it almost made me feel sorry for her. Almost. Until I got to the entry dated three weeks before Quindon died.
I read it twice because the first time my brain refused to process it.
Quindon was sick. He needed a bone marrow transplant. The doctors had tested Janelle and Quest and neither was a match. But there was another option. The biological father. The man Janelle had slept with, the man whose DNA actually ran through Quindon’s veins. He’d been tested quietly through a back channel Janelle had arranged. And he was a match. A perfect match. The transplant could have saved Quindon’s life.
But Janelle didn’t tell anyone. She didn’t call the father. She didn’t arrange the transplant. She let her son die rather than reveal who the real father was because revealing the father meant revealing the affair and revealing the affair meant losing Quest and losing Quest was worse than losing Quindon.
She wrote it plainly. No code, no metaphor. She weighed her son’s life against her man’s love and chose the man.
I closed the journal and sat there with it in my hands and felt something cold settle behind my ribs. I’d been angry before. I’d beaten a man to death and shot two more in a ditch on Route 50. But this was different. This rage was quiet. It didn’t scream. It calculated.
Quest could never see this.
If he read this entry, he would go to war. He would find Janelle and kill her and Mekhi would come for him and everything they’d rebuilt over the last month would collapse. The truce, the peace, Bryce’s safety—all of it gone because of a dead woman’s journal and a truth that was fourteen years too late to fix anything.
Quindon was dead. Nothing in these pages could bring him back. The only thing this truth could do was create more death. More blood. More broken families and more children growing up without parents. And I was done contributing to that cycle.
I stood up and walked to the bathroom and dropped the journal in the trash can. It landed with a soft thud on top of the pregnancy test I’d taken that morning.
Two pink lines on a white stick. Positive.
I looked down at the trash can. A dead baby’s truth sitting next to a living baby’s beginning. The worst secret I’d ever read lying on top of the best news I’d ever received. I stared at them both for a long time and then I put the lid on the trash can and closed the door on Janelle’s confession forever.
Quest would never know what Janelle did. He would never carry the weight of knowing his son could have been saved. He had enough ghosts. I wasn’t adding another one.
But tonight, when he came home from the casino and walked through the door and kissed me the way he always did, I was going to sit him down and tell him something that would change his life in the opposite direction. Something that started withtwo pink lines and ended with everything he thought he’d never have.
I put my hand on my stomach and stood in the bathroom of a house we were leaving and smiled at a future we were walking into. A penthouse overlooking the river. A ring on my finger. A baby in my belly. And a man who reversed a vasectomy because I asked him to in the dark one night and he said yes before his brain could talk his heart out of it.
Tonight was going to be a good night.
46
Quest
The meeting with the Kings went better than I expected. Creed, Cannon and Riot were in on Freetown from the jump, which didn’t surprise me because they had capital and were forward thinking. We spent three hours in the conference room with Justice running projections on the whiteboard while Prime sat in the corner contributing exactly two sentences the entire time, both of which were “I’m in” and “when do we start.” That was Prime. All action, zero meetings.
The plan was aggressive but doable. The land had been acquired. There was a lot of farmland around and there was an abandoned historic district. It was dubbed the Golden Quarter way back in the day. It had the bones of a place that used to matter. Brick streets. The buildings had tall windows and iron balconies. It all needed a lot of work but we could do it. We’d set it up and have it looking beautiful.
It was going to be a town where people couldn’t wait to buy into. The district would be bustling and around would be several new home developments. This was my legacy. This was the Banks-Kings legacy.
“Aight, so I’ll get in touch with some property development firms I know. We’ll get them to submit proposals and we’ll decide who gets to build what,” I said as we all stood.
“Sounds good. I got a few contractor suggestions,” Riot added.
Everybody dapped up and headed out around eleven. The Kings had a late flight back on a private jet. Prime and Justice headed back to their families. And I couldn’t wait to get back to Mehar. This drive out to the estate was killing me though. I couldn’t wait until the move closed. I sold the penthouse that Camille and Lyric were staying in. I could’ve moved back in after they left but I didn’t wanna deal with the stagnant energy.
Mehar and I needed to start new. And the penthouses near the casino were a fresh new build. No one had ever lived in those before.
I headed to the parking garage alone. The casino was poppin’ off this time of night, but my work day was done. I’d arrived at 7:00 am which meant I left my baby in bed before she even opened her eyes. I hadn’t seen her all day, aside from the nudes she sent me throughout the day.
My footsteps echoed on the concrete and I was thinking about Mehar and how good it felt to come home to somebody who actually wanted me there. Not for the money, not for the name, not for what I could do for her. Just me.
I was halfway to the Maybach when I heard heels clicking behind me. They were deliberate and my senses started to tingle. Getting closer at a pace that told me whoever was wearing them wanted me to hear them before I saw them.
I turned fast and had my gun out and aimed before my brain finished processing the sound. The garage lights cast long shadows across the concrete and standing about fifteen feet away with her hands raised and a smirk on her face was someone I hadn’t seen since Prime sent her packing.
