Page 86 of Omar

We picked Devon up at APEX at eleven. He had his laptop, two phones, and a scanner running frequencies from Supreme's crew communications. We drove to Crown Heights in my car, parked four blocks from the location on a residential street with no cameras.

Devon stayed in the car. He had eyes on the building through a long-range feed from a camera he'd placed on the block two weeks ago during the surveillance phase. The feed showed the front entrance, the side alley, and most of the street.

"Two outside," Devon confirmed, his eyes on the screen. "One sitting on the steps, one leaning against the car on the corner. Front door is closed. Lights on inside."

"Back entrance?" I asked.

"Alley access. Metal door, probably locked from inside. No camera coverage on the back."

James and I looked at each other. He nodded.

"James takes the back," I said. "Give him three minutes to get in position, then I go through the front. Devon, you flag anything that moves on that street."

"Got it."

James got out of the car without a word and disappeared into the dark between two buildings. I checked my phone. Asha hadn't texted. She was sitting in the apartment waiting and that was the hardest thing I'd ever asked her to do.

Three minutes. I counted them in my head, my hands on the steering wheel, my breathing steady.

"James is in position," Devon said, looking at his phone. "He's at the back door."

I got out of the car.

The walk to Sterling Place took ninety seconds. I came up the block from the east side, keeping to the shadows under the trees. The guard on the steps saw me first. He was young, mid-twenties, sitting with his elbows on his knees scrolling through his phone. He looked up when my footsteps hit the sidewalk and his hand went to his waistband.

"Yo, who the fuck...?"

I was on him before he finished the sentence. My hand closed around his wrist and twisted until the bone ground against itself. He yelped and the gun came loose. I caught it with my free hand, flipped it, and cracked the butt across the side of his head. He went down on the steps, his phone clattering to the concrete.

The second guard was at the car on the corner. He'd heard the sound, was already reaching inside his jacket. I crossed the distance between us in four strides. He got the gun out but I grabbed the barrel, pushed it upward so the shot would go into the sky, then drove my elbow into his throat. He gagged, his grip loosened on the weapon. I ripped it free, hit him twice in the face with my fist, short compact shots that split his eyebrow open and dropped him to his knees. A knee to his face put him on the ground.

Both guards down in under fifteen seconds. Neither one conscious. I zip-tied their wrists with the strips I kept in my jacket and left them where they fell.

The front door was unlocked. I pushed it open slowly. The hallway inside was narrow, lit by a single overhead bulb. A door on the left, closed. A door at the end of the hall, also closed. Somewhere in the building James was at the back entrance waiting for my signal.

I texted him one word: Go.

The sound of the back door being forced open came from the far end of the building. A crash, metal on metal, then James's voice saying "Get down" to whoever was on the other side.

The door on the left opened. The inside guard came out fast, a pistol in his right hand, his eyes going to the sound from the back. He didn't see me until I was already moving. I grabbed his gun arm at the wrist and the elbow simultaneously, driving the elbow joint backward until something popped. He screamed and the pistol hit the floor. I swept his legs and he went down hard, his head bouncing off the tile.

I picked up his gun, checked the chamber, and moved to the door at the end of the hall.

Kicked it open.

The room was small. Concrete floor, bare walls, a single chair under a fluorescent light. Nene was sitting in the chair with her wrists zip-tied to the arms. She looked up when the door crashed in, her eyes wide for half a second before they locked onto me and the fear turned into something else entirely.

"Get me out of here," she said. "Quickly!"

James appeared from the back corridor. He scanned the room once, confirmed it was clear, and nodded at me.

I crouched in front of Nene and cut the zip ties with the knife from my belt. Her wrists were raw where she'd been pulling against them. She rubbed them once, stood up, and looked me dead in the eye.

"Where is she?" Nene asked.

"Safe. At my apartment."

"Thank God. The way they spoke about her..." She trailed off, rubbing her wrists.