Page 106 of Omar

Bolo coughed by the door. The younger guard checked his phone. Supreme's phone rang again and he answered with a voice that was getting rougher every time.

I sat on the couch and waited for Omar to find me.

He would. I was sure of that. The same way I'd been sure of him at sixteen, when he told me he'd wait and meant it. He would find me because that's what Omar did. He showed up. Every time. No matter what was between him and the door.

The lock was a deadbolt. It only opened from the outside. But Omar had never let a locked door stop him before.

Chapter 43

Omar

We pulled onto Sterling Place at two-forty in the morning. The Crown Heights address Devon had pulled from Supreme's property records, 1847, second floor apartment. A building owned through a shell company with Supreme's fingerprints on the incorporation documents.

James parked three buildings down. I called Kadeem on the way.

"Pacific Street was a decoy," I told him. "They moved her to a second location in Crown Heights. Devon's confirmed four heat signatures inside. Supreme's there."

Kadeem was quiet for one second. "I'm fifteen minutes out."

"I can't wait fifteen minutes."

"Omar."

"He's got her in there right now, Kadeem. Every minute I wait is a minute he could move her again."

One second of silence. Then I heard him moving, keys off the table, a door opening.

"Then we go together," he said. "Give me ten. I'll make it in ten."

I couldn't wait ten minutes. But I did because Kadeem going with me was the difference between walking in smart and walking in stupid, and walking in stupid would get Asha killed.

Devon stayed at APEX on comms, feeding us updates on the location. Two guards on the front door, one inside with Supreme, Asha on the second floor. Four people between me and her.

Kadeem met us two blocks from the location. He pulled up in his own car, got out, and walked to ours. He was wearing a dark jacket and his face had the expression I'd seen twice before in our lives. Both times somebody died.

"James takes the outside," Kadeem said. "You and me go through the front."

"Understood."

"Omar." Kadeem looked at me. "She comes out first. Whatever happens in there, she walks out before anything else."

"Yeah."

We moved on foot. The block was residential, quiet at this hour. Street lights casting orange pools on the sidewalk. A dog barking somewhere behind a fence. Normal Brooklyn sounds on a night that was about to be anything but normal.

The building was a low-rise, three stories, the ground-floor unit lit up behind drawn curtains. Two guards flanking the entrance, both standing, both armed. They were talking to each other, relaxed, not expecting company.

James went first. He came up the block from the opposite direction, walking casually, his hands in his pockets. When he got close enough the guards clocked him, started to react. James had the first one against the wall before he finished reaching for his weapon. His forearm across the man's throat, his other hand stripping the gun from his waistband. The second guard turned toward the noise and Kadeem stepped out of the shadows behind him and put him face down on the concrete with a knee between his shoulder blades.

Both guards zip-tied in under ten seconds. James dragged them behind the stoop, out of sight from the street.

Kadeem and I went through the front door.

The hallway was narrow, lit by a single bulb. A door at the end, closed. Light coming from underneath it. A voice on the other side. Supreme's voice, low and steady, talking to someone who wasn't answering.

Talking to Asha.

The inside guard was halfway down the hall, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He straightened up when we came through the door. Kadeem moved before the man could react, pinning him against the wall with one hand on his collar, the other stripping the weapon from his waistband. The guard tried to push back but Kadeem drove his knee into the man's thigh and he buckled. Kadeem let him drop.