Page 43 of Omar

I told Cee I had a client at a different location, a home visit for a regular who couldn't make it to the salon. He dropped me at the address I gave him, a building on the next block, and I told him I'd text when I was done. He pulled off and I stood on the sidewalk timing everything.

He came back when I texted. Didn't ask how the appointment went. Didn't ask anything.

Cee was loyal to Supreme but he wasn't surveillance. He was a driver. He did what he was told and reported what he was asked to report and nothing else.

I texted Omar: Can you be on Kingston Ave in 20 minutes?

He replied in seconds: Already there.

I told Cee I had the home visit again and he dropped me at the same building. I walked around the corner and Omar was leaning against a car half a block down, hands in his pockets, watching me come toward him. He looked different in daylight without the urgency of stolen minutes. Calmer. Bigger somehow, like the street was too small for him.

"Hey," I said when I reached him.

"Hey." He pushed off the car and looked at me properly. "You look good."

"Don't start."

He almost smiled. "There's a coffee shop two blocks over. Back corner, nobody goes in there this time of day."

I checked my phone. Thirty-eight minutes. "Let's go."

We walked fast, not touching, both of us scanning the street out of habit. The coffee shop was small and mostly empty, just an old woman reading a newspaper by the window and a barista who barely looked up when we came in. Omar ordered two coffees and we sat in the back corner where the wall blocked us from the window.

It was the first time we'd sat across from each other at a table. The first conversation that wasn't standing up or stolen between glances over our shoulders. The quality of it was different. More dangerous and more real.

"Tell me about Atlanta," he said.

I wrapped both hands around my coffee cup. The warmth helped. "Which version you want? The one I tell people or the real one?"

"The real one."

I took a breath. Traced my finger around the rim of the cup, watching the brown liquid instead of his face. "Ray owed money. A lot of money, to the wrong people. He'd been gambling, borrowing, making promises he couldn't keep. When he ran out of options the debt was six figures and the people he owed weren't the kind to write it off."

"How'd Supreme get involved?"

"There was a middleman. A fixer. Ray called him 'the connect.' He came to our apartment, sat at the kitchen table, drank our coffee, and told Ray there was a way to make the debt disappear." I paused. My thumb pressed hard into the side of the cup. "Supreme was looking for someone. A woman. Someone to be with him, live with him, play the part. The connect told Ray that if he was willing to negotiate, the debt would be cleared."

Omar's hands were on the table. His fingers curled inward slowly until his knuckles were white against the formica. He didn't say anything.

"Ray negotiated," I continued. "He negotiated with his daughter's life. Told me it was an arrangement, a partnership. Told me I'd be taken care of, that Supreme was a good man, that it wasn't like he was selling me." I finally looked up at Omar. "I moved into Supreme's apartment three weeks later. I was twenty-seven years old."

Omar's breathing had changed. Slower, more controlled, the way you breathe when you're trying very hard not to react. His eyes were on me but something behind them was working, calculating, filing away every word.

"Did he..." Omar started, then stopped. Started again. "Did Supreme force himself on you?"

"He didn't have to." I looked back at my coffee. "That's what people don't understand. He didn't beat me, didn't lock me in a room, didn't put a gun to my head. He was kind. He bought me things, took me places, told me I was beautiful every morning. He built a whole world around me where everything was comfortable and nothing was mine. And then he made it clear, real clear, what would happen to Ray if I left. What would happen to my sisters."

"So you stayed."

"I stayed. For three years I got up every morning, put on the face, played the part. Smiled when he touched me, laughed at his jokes, made the right sounds when he..." I trailed off. "You don't need the details."

"I can handle the details."

"I know you can. But I can't say them out loud. Not yet." I took a sip of coffee that was already going cold. "The first year I still believed I could talk my way out. The second year I realized I couldn't. The third year I stopped trying to leave and started saving instead. Cash, small amounts, every time Supreme gave me money for the salon or shopping. I skimmed a little off the top and put it in an account he didn't know about."

"How much you got?"

"Almost enough." I looked at him. "I've been building toward a number for two years. A number that would let me disappear. New city, new name, start over."