It was Farah.
Hair swept to the left, covering the side of her head where her ear used to be. Thinner than I remembered. Dressed in all black like she’d come from a funeral or was planning one. Those same sharp eyes that her father had, the ones that calculated everything and gave away nothing.
“Hey, big bro,” she said.
“I thought Prime told you to stay yo’ ass out the country.”
“He did. And I’ve been very obedient.” She lowered her hands slowly, eyes on my gun the whole time. “But my grandmother died and I’m not missing the funeral. Even outcasts get to bury their dead.”
I didn’t lower the gun. “So you came all the way back to DC to pay your respects and just happened to end up in my parking garage at midnight.”
“I came to pay my respects. And to give you something. Consider it a courtesy.” She took a step closer. “Your mother contacted me.”
That got my attention. I kept the gun where it was but my ears were fully open now.
“Vivica reached out through Dante about a month ago. She wanted my help taking you and your brothers down. Said she had information about the business, about the trucks, about the money. She wanted me to connect her with people who could use that information to do damage. Federal people. The kind who show up with warrants and freeze accounts.”
“And?”
“And I said no.” She crossed her arms. “I’m a lot of things, Quest. I’ve done a lot of shit I’m not proud of. But I’m not getting in bed with a woman who’s willing to burn down her own children to keep warm. That’s a level of crazy I can’t work with anymore. I’ve changed. And now that I know we share bloodthrough Rashid…” She paused. “Well. Let’s just say I’m choosing differently these days.”
I studied her face. Farah was a lot of things. She was Rashid’s daughter, which meant manipulation was in her DNA. She’d stalked Prime for years, orchestrated attacks on Zainab, and had her ear sawed off as a consequence. She wasn’t somebody I trusted. But she also had no reason to lie about this. If she wanted to help Vivica destroy me, she would’ve done it quietly. She wouldn’t be standing in my garage warning me about it.
“She’s unhinged,” Farah continued. “Her trial is coming up and she’s panicking because there’s a chance she loses. She’s making desperate moves. If I were you, I’d get my affairs in order before she makes that phone call.”
“She ain’t got shit to be worried about at trial,” I said. Which was true. The case was weak. No body, all circumstantial. Gerald was confident. But I kept my plans for Vivica, because Farah didn’t need to know what I had planned for my mother. Nobody did.
“Maybe not. But a cornered woman with nothing to lose is the most dangerous thing on this planet. And your mother has a lot of information and very little left to lose.” She tilted her head. “Just watch your back. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I appreciate the heads up.”
“Of course.” She smiled and it was the first time I’d seen anything on Farah’s face that wasn’t hostility or obsession. It was almost warm. Almost human. “But the heads-up ain’t free.”
She turned and walked away, heels clicking on the concrete, disappearing into the shadows of the parking garage like she’d materialized from them in the first place. I stood there with my gun still out watching the space where she’d been and processing what just happened.
My mother was trying to have my businesses raided from inside a prison cell. She was reaching out to enemies, pullingstrings, making moves. Even locked up, even facing trial, even abandoned by every member of her family, Vivica was still playing chess. Still scheming. Still convinced she could burn the board and win from the ashes.
I lowered the gun and got in the car and sat in the dark for a minute. Farah said the heads-up wasn’t free. That meant she’d be back to collect. And when she did, I’d have to decide whether my half-sister was an ally or just another problem wearing a different face.
But that was tomorrow’s math. Tonight I was going home to my fiancée. And that was enough.
47
Mehar
The first time I got pregnant it was with a man who didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as me, let alone put a baby in my body. Thad had me out here thinking I was his girl while Kacey was at home growing his actual family. I found out I was pregnant and before I could even sit with what that meant, my body made the decision for me. The baby was growing in my tube and by the time the pain dropped me to the floor, it had already ruptured. I woke up from surgery missing a fallopian tube and whatever was left of my ability to trust that good things could happen to me without something terrible following right behind them.
After that, I was done. Done with men, done with the idea of motherhood, done with wanting things that the universe clearly didn’t want me to have. I’d watched my mother pop out babies for a man who treated her like furniture. Watched Khadijah do the same thing in the same house with the same results. Saw how Kacey build her whole world around Thad and get left holding two kids and a mortgage and no answers about where their daddy went. Motherhood, from where I was standing, was just another cage with a cuter name.
But here I was. One tube, two pink lines, and a man who let somebody cut him open because I asked him to. I didn’t have to walk on eggshells with him. I straight up asked him one night if he’d reverse it and he said yes before I even finished the sentence. If that ain’t God saying “I got you,” I don’t know what is.
I was in the kitchen making his plate while half the house was packed in boxes around me. We were moving to the penthouse this weekend but I wasn’t letting us leave this estate without one last proper meal in this kitchen. I’d made oxtails because that was his weakness and I’d finally gotten Rita’s recipe right after months of trying. She actually told me it was good, which if you know Rita, is basically her handing you a trophy and a key to the city. Yellow rice, cabbage, and cornbread on the side. The whole house smelled like love and seasoning and I was nervous as hell.
Three days. I’d been holding this secret for three days and it was eating me alive. I hadn’t told Zainab even though she would’ve been ecstatic for me. Hadn’t told Serenity even though she would’ve cried because she was hormonal and cried at everything right now including a commercial about paper towels. Hadn’t told Rita even though that woman would’ve probably done a praise dance in her living room. This was Quest’s to hear first. He earned it. He literally went under the knife for this moment and I wasn’t about to let him hear it secondhand.
My hands were shaking while I stirred the rice and I kept telling myself to calm down because this was good news. The best news. But my body remembered the last time I was pregnant and how that ended and there was a part of me, a small stubborn part that lived in my gut and refused to believe in happy endings, that kept whispering “what if something goes wrong again?”
I told that part to shut the hell up and kept stirring.
