Page 103 of Omar

He pulled out the chair across from me, sat down, and looked at me for a long time without speaking.

"Baby," he said finally. His voice wasn't soft. It was flat, controlled, the voice he used when he was past anger and into something colder. "My Flatbush spot got hit last night. East New York too. Same night, same time, coordinated. They knew the guard schedules, the cash rotation, the account numbers. They knew everything."

I didn't answer. My hands stayed locked together in my lap.

"I been looking for you for days, Asha. You know that? Days. Got my people out there searching, calling everybody, checking every location. And this whole time you been hiding out in Bed-Stuy with Omar Baptiste." He paused to let the name land. "Feeding him every piece of my operation you could remember."

My stomach dropped. He knew. Not just about Omar. About the intel. About Kadeem. About all of it.

"You know what kills me?" He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. "I gave you everything. The apartment, the clothes, the salon, the life. I cooked for you, Asha. I took you shopping. I held your hand in public cos I was proud to have you next to me. And you were sitting at my table memorizing my business so you could hand it to the Baptistes on a fucking platter."

His voice stayed low. That was the danger. Supreme didn't get loud when he was angry. He got quiet.

"Three years," he continued. "Three years you been in my house, in my bed, at my dinner table. Listening. Watching. Storing it up. Guard schedules, Asha. Cash rotation. You gave them the keys to my operation and they used every single one last night."

He reached across the table. His hand was open, palm up, waiting for mine. I looked at it sitting there on the table between us. The hand that had held mine at dinner, rubbed circles on my knuckles, cupped my face when he kissed me. The hand attached to a man who ordered people killed without raising his voice.

I put my hand in his because there was a man with a gun standing by the door and I was alone in a room in Crown Heights with no phone signal and no one who knew where I was.

Supreme closed his fingers around mine. His grip was gentle. His thumb started rubbing those familiar circles on my knuckles.

"We gonna talk about this properly," he said. "Figure out what went wrong, how we fix it. Cos I love you, Asha. I ain't ever stopped loving you. And whatever this thing is with Baptiste, it's done. You understand me? It's over. You're coming home."

His thumb kept rubbing. Circle after circle on my knuckles. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead. The guard stood by the door with his hands folded.

"Say something, baby," Supreme said softly. "Please."

I looked at him. At the face I'd been lying to, sleeping next to, smiling at for longer than I wanted to count. At the man who'd unpacked my bag without raising his voice and called it love.

"Okay, Premie," I said. "Let's talk."

His face relaxed. He squeezed my hand.

I sat there in that bare room with the buzzing light and the guard at the door, and I didn't know if anyone was coming for me. I didn't know if this room was the end of everything I'd been building since Shanay walked into my salon.

I held on to one thing. Omar would come. He always came.

It was all I had.

Chapter 41

Omar

James pulled the car onto Pacific Street at two in the morning. The block was quiet, residential, parked cars lining both sides. The building Devon had flagged was halfway down on the north side, a ground-floor unit in a low-rise with a rusted fire escape and a light on behind a curtain on the second floor.

"That's the one," Devon confirmed through the earpiece. "Cell tower ping puts Asha's phone inside that building as of forty minutes ago."

"Guard count?"

"Two on the front. One inside based on the thermal scan. No movement on the upper floors."

I looked at James. He checked his piece, tucked it back, nodded once.

"Devon, cut the exterior lights when I say."

"Ready."

We got out of the car and moved up the sidewalk, keeping to the shadows under the trees. The two guards on the front steps were young, both of them sitting on the railing scrolling their phones, weapons visible in their waistbands. They weren't expecting trouble. They were babysitting a location, pulling a shift, waiting for morning.