Page 115 of Omar

I gave her what she needed. Deeper, harder, my hand sliding under her back to pull her closer. She came with my name on her lips and her body arching off the bed and her hands gripping the sheets on either side of her head. I followed her seconds later, pushing deep, a sound coming out of me that wasn't a word but carried everything I'd been holding.

We lay there in the aftermath. Her head on my chest, my arm around her shoulders. The light had changed while we were making love. The stripes across the bed were longer now, the afternoon sliding toward evening.

Her fingers traced the scar on my arm. I had my hand in her hair.

"Asha."

"Hmm?"

"This is real, right? This ain't gonna disappear?"

"This is real, Omar." Her mouth brushed against my collarbone. "This is the most real thing I've ever had."

We stayed like that until the room got dark. Asha fell asleep with her head on my chest, her breathing slow and steady against my skin.

I lay there listening to her breathe. The apartment was quiet around us. The operation was done, Supreme was gone, TK had run. There was still work to do, threads to pull, questions that needed answers. But tonight Asha was safe and sleeping and her hand was over my heart.

Tonight that was enough.

Chapter 46

Omar

Devon called at six in the morning. "We got a location on TK. Queens, off Jamaica Avenue. A second-floor apartment above a bodega. His phone pinged there twice in the last hour."

"How solid?"

"Solid enough. The phone's registered under a fake name but the IMEI matches the one we pulled from Supreme's contact list during the raid. He's been there since last night."

I called James. He picked up on the first ring, already awake, already dressed. His piece clicked on the other end as he checked the chamber.

"Jamaica Avenue," I told him. "Second floor. Devon says TK's been there since last night."

"I'll be outside in ten."

We drove to Queens in the pre-dawn grey. The city was starting to wake up, delivery trucks on the expressway, a few early commuters on the platforms, the sky turning from black to a washed-out purple above the rooftops. James drove. I sat with Devon on speaker, getting the layout.

"The bodega's closed until seven," Devon reported. "Front entrance to the apartment is a side door off the alley. One staircase up. No fire escape on the back, just a window that drops twelve feet to a concrete yard."

"Exits?"

"Just the one. Front door, up the stairs, apartment door at the top. If he's in there, there's nowhere to go."

"Cameras?"

"Nothing I can see on the exterior. The bodega has one over the register but it doesn't cover the alley."

We parked on a residential street two blocks from Jamaica Avenue. The neighborhood was quieter than Brooklyn, smaller buildings, more trees, a block where people walked their dogs at six in the morning and minded their business. We walked to the location, keeping to the sidewalk, two men in dark jackets heading somewhere with purpose.

The bodega was shuttered, the metal gate down, the neon signs off. The side door to the apartment was halfway down the alley, a metal door with a handle that had been replaced recently. The lock was new.

James tried the handle. Locked. He looked at me.

"Breach?"

"Breach."

James hit the door with his shoulder, once, twice. It held. I stepped back, lifted my foot, and drove my heel into the lock plate. The frame cracked on the second kick and the door swung inward, bouncing off the wall behind it.