Fosso sat up straight and his eyes went bright with an energy that made my stomach tighten. “The hospital? Blow the whole thing up. Send a truck through the fucking lobby. End this shit tonight.”
Every person in the room looked at him. Gabriel. Mooki. Me. The silence lasted about four seconds and it was the most eloquent response anyone could’ve given.
“You fuckin’ idiot! You blow up a hospital,” I said slowly, “and every federal agency in this country puts our names on a list we can never get off. We’re not terrorists, Fosso. We’re businessmen who happen to kill people when they deserve it. There’s a difference and the difference is what keeps us out of Guantánamo.”
“Then what’s the play?” Gabriel asked.
“We need an in. Someone inside that hospital. A nurse, an orderly, a custodian, somebody on that floor who we can pay to give us access or information. We don’t go in loud. We go in smart. We find someone who needs money. That should be easy. Everyone can use more money. They get cash and we get what we need.”
“I’ll handle it,” Mooki said. “Give me forty-eight hours. I’ll find someone on that NICU floor who’s got a debt, a habit, or an ex they’re trying to get away from. Everybody’s got a price.”
“Go.”
Mooki went back up the stairs and I sat at the table and stared at the map on the wall. Red pins for Banks properties,blue pins for confirmed family locations, black pins for targets we’d already hit. There were a lot more red pins than blue and that gap was the problem. We were swinging in the dark while the Banks operated with precision and intel that we couldn’t match.
The truth I didn’t want to say out loud was that we were losing. Not just the war. The business. The family. The foundation our father spent his life building was cracking. A family of niggas from DC who made liquor and ran a casino were dismantling a cartel piece by piece, and I still couldn’t figure out how they had the firepower and the intel to pull it off.
I thought about Manny. Not the strategy of his death but the reality of it. My little brother tied to a chair in our own restaurant, smelling the gas, hearing it hiss, knowing what was coming. Did he call for me? Did he think I was coming to save him? Did he die thinking his big brother had let him down?
That thought was going to live inside me forever. Right next to Mateo. Two brothers gone. Both because of Quest Banks. Mateo underestimated him and paid for it with a bullet in his own living room. I’d been more careful, more patient, more strategic. I’d used Zephyr. I’d used Gabriel. I’d played the long game. And the long game got my baby brother burned alive in Mamá’s restaurant.
Fosso was sniffing again. Gabriel was staring at the wall. The compound was quiet except for the hum of the generator and the distant sound of traffic on the highway. Somewhere upstairs my mother was knocked out while I tried to figure out how to take down a family. Mateo got us into this mess when he tried to kidnap Mehar. If he knew what the fall-out would be, would he have done it?
“Gabriel,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“When we find a way in, you’re the one who goes.”
“Fosso,” I said.
“What.”
“If you snort one more line in front of me tonight I will break your fucking nose. Go upstairs and sleep.”
He looked at me for a second like he wanted to argue. Then he pushed back from the table and went upstairs without a word. The door closed. It was just me and Gabriel in the basement with the maps, the pins, and the silence.
“We can still win this,” Gabriel said.
I didn’t answer because I wasn’t sure he was right. But I couldn’t say that out loud because the head of the family doesn’t get to say that out loud. The head of the family holds it together so everyone else can fall apart.
That was the rule. And I was so tired of following it.
37
Mehar
“What’s on your mind?” I asked Quest as he sat in the chair next to my bed staring straight ahead at nothing. Something was off with him and I couldn’t figure out what. I knew the war was eating at him. I knew he wanted to be out there with Justice and Prime putting in work instead of sitting in a hospital room watching me heal. But this was something else. Something he was carrying behind his eyes that he wasn’t giving me access to and that bothered me because Quest didn’t keep doors closed with me. That was our whole thing. No walls, no secrets, no hidden rooms. At least that’s what I thought.
“Nothing. Just this shit with the Rios.”
“Do you blame me?” The question came out before I could filter it. “If Mateo was never my client, none of this would’ve happened. He would’ve never come into our lives and his family wouldn’t be trying to kill us.”
“I don’t blame you.” He shifted in the chair, leaned back, crossed his arms. Body language that was trying to look relaxed but wasn’t. “I had beef with Mateo outside of you.”
“Then what is it? She’s doing better. The nurses say she’s improving every day. We’re going to be okay.” I reached for hishand because I needed him to look at me and when he did I needed to see the truth. He took my hand but something in him snapped to attention, like I’d tripped a wire he was trying to hide.
“I promise there’s nothing wrong. I just got shit on my mind. We’ve been through a lot, Mehar. I’m worried about you. I’m worried about Aziza. This war with the Rios isn’t going away and I need to handle it but I can’t leave y’all here alone. That’s it. That’s all it is.”
