Page 25 of Omar

The document didn't give me anything I didn't already have. Two names and a gap where an explanation should've been.

I was getting closer though. The pattern was there. I just had to see it.

I closed the file and shut the laptop.

I sat in the dark for a while after that. My phone was on the table next to me. The building was quiet. Outside someone's car alarm went off and stopped a minute later. A siren went past a few blocks over and faded.

The Malik thread didn't leave. It never did. But neither did Asha.

I got up and went to bed.

Chapter 10

Asha

Supreme brought up the driver situation three nights after the Holt thing, right when I was fixing his collar before we left for some fundraiser in Manhattan. His hands settled on my hips and he pulled me close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look at him.

"Baby, I been thinking," he started, his voice all warm and reasonable. "You out there moving around the city by yourself, taking trains and cabs and all that. I don't like it."

I smoothed the collar flat and stepped back to grab his jacket. "I'm fine getting around. Been doing it for years."

"I know you can handle yourself." He slipped into the jacket and adjusted the cuffs. "But I'd feel better if you had Cee driving you around full time. Someone I trust. Just to make sure you safe."

I handed him his watch from the dresser and kept my face open and receptive, nothing but a woman listening to her man express concern. "Cee's fine. I know him."

Supreme looked pleased, like I'd just handed him something he wanted. "See? That's what I love about you. You smart. You think things through." He kissed my forehead and grabbed his keys. "I'll set it up tomorrow. Cee gon' take good care of you, baby."

I smiled and told him thank you and followed him downstairs to the car that was waiting to take us to Manhattan.

The fundraiser was in a hotel ballroom on the Upper East Side. Chandeliers, white tablecloths, a jazz quartet playing in the corner. An event where men in expensive suits talked about community investment while their money came from places nobody mentioned in polite company.

Supreme walked in like he owned the room. His hand found the small of my back before we'd made it past the coat check, steering me through the crowd like a rudder, his fingers pressing into my spine through the fabric of the dress he'd picked out for me that afternoon. Green silk, low back, heels that made my feet ache before we'd been standing for ten minutes.

"There's my man!" A heavyset man in a grey suit crossed the room with his arms open. Supreme shook his hand, pulled him in for a half-hug, turned to me.

"You remember Asha. My better half."

"Of course, of course." The man looked at me the way men at these events always looked at me, his eyes dropping to my neckline before coming back to my face. "Beautiful as ever."

"She keeps me honest," Supreme said, squeezing my waist. Everyone laughed. I smiled.

We moved through the room in a circuit. Supreme knew everyone and everyone knew Supreme. He talked about a youth center he was funding in East Flatbush, about job programs, about giving back to the community. His voice was warm, sincere, completely convincing. The men shook his hand. The women smiled at me.

One of them, a tall woman in red with diamonds at her throat, leaned in close while Supreme was talking business with her husband.

"How long have you two been together?" she asked me.

"Three years."

"Three years." She sipped her champagne and looked at Supreme across the circle. "And he still brings you to these things? Mine stopped including me after the first year." She laughed like it was a joke. It wasn't.

Another woman joined us. Shorter, older, wearing a dress that cost more than my savings account. She looked me up and down without pretending she wasn't doing it.

"I love that dress," she said. "Supreme has such good taste."

"Thank you," I replied, because saying he picked it, I didn't want it, I'm wearing it because refusing would have started a conversation I can't afford to have wasn't an option.

"You're lucky," the shorter woman continued. "My husband can't tell silk from polyester." She turned to the woman in red. "Remember that anniversary dress he bought me? The one from..."