Page 41 of Omar

"Kyran asked us to deliver a message. That's all. We wasn't gonna touch him."

"What message?"

"Just... that he needs to watch himself. That what happened at The 4Q wasn't gonna slide."

"Kyran sent you to threaten a Baptiste." I leaned forward, my forearms on the table. Yates's plate of rice and chicken sat between us, steam still rising from it. "You know what I do for my family, Darren? You know what my job is?"

Yates didn't answer. His fork was still on the table beside his plate. His eyes kept going to the curtain.

"My job is to make sure that when somebody threatens my family, they understand the consequences." I picked up his fork, examined it for a second, then set it back down. "You got two options right now. Option one: you tell me where Kyran is and you walk out of this barbershop on your own legs. Option two: you don't tell me, and the next time you walk anywhere it'll be with a limp."

"I don't know where Kyran is. He called me from a blocked number, said he'd pay us two grand each to follow the rapper kid and put some fear in him. That's it. I ain't even met Kyran in person."

"Two grand to threaten a Baptiste. That's what my brother's safety is worth to you?"

"It was just a job, man. We wasn't gonna hurt nobody."

I stood up from the chair. Yates flinched backward, his hands coming up. I grabbed the front of his shirt with one hand, hauled him out of the chair, and drove him backward into the wall behind him. His head bounced off the plaster. The plate of food went flying off the table, rice scattering across the floor.

Mills moved from the corner. I heard him take two steps before the back door crashed open. James filled the doorway with his weapon visible, his eyes locked on Mills.

"Sit down," James told him.

Mills sat down on the floor with his back against the wall. His hands went to his knees, palms up, showing they were empty.

I turned back to Yates. He was pinned against the wall, his feet barely touching the floor, his hands gripping my wrist. His eyes were wide, his breathing fast and shallow.

"Here's what's gonna happen," I told him, close enough to see the sweat beading on his forehead. "You're gonna call Kyran from whatever number he gave you and you're gonna tell him the message was delivered. Then you're gonna tell him something from me."

I pulled him off the wall and drove him back into it again, harder. A picture frame rattled and fell from a nail. Yates made a sound that was halfway between a gasp and a whimper.

"Tell him the next person who follows my brother, watches my brother, threatens my brother, or comes within a hundred feet of his studio will not be having a conversation with me afterward. Tell him I'm done talking after tonight. He's had his warning. This is the only one he gets."

I let go of Yates's shirt. He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor next to the scattered rice, his hands shaking, his shirt stretched and wrinkled where I'd been holding it.

I looked at Mills on the floor across the room. He hadn't moved. James was still in the doorway.

"You too," I told Mills. "Pass the message. Every corner, every block, every crew Kyran's connected to. The Baptiste family ain't asking. We're telling. Stay away from Rashid."

Mills nodded without speaking.

I straightened my jacket, stepped over the rice on the floor, and walked back through the curtain. The barbershop was dead quiet when I came through. The barbers were still cutting, the man in the waiting chair was still reading his magazine, but nobody was breathing normally. They'd heard everything through that thin wall and every last one of them had decided they hadn't.

I walked out the front door. James came around from the alley thirty seconds later, falling into step beside me as we headed back to the car.

"That was quick," he said.

"Didn't need to be long."

"You think they'll pass the message?"

"Yates was crying when I left the room. Yeah, they'll pass it."

James almost smiled. "You Baptiste boys don't do anything small, do you?"

I got in the car without answering. James drove us back toward Bed-Stuy.

My phone buzzed. Rashid: Did you do something?