Page 94 of Omar

I closed the door behind me and stayed standing. The apartment was small but clean. Rashid kept his space tight, everything in its place, the opposite of how he operated everywhere else. His turntables were against the far wall, vinyl organized in crates by genre. A framed photo of Pops on the bookshelf beside a stack of notebooks.

"Supreme's operation is coming down," I told him. "Kadeem's presenting to the Associates tomorrow. If they approve, we move within the week."

Rashid sat up straighter. "For real?"

"The financial trail connects Supreme to TK. They're running one operation through shell companies. Everything TK's been doing to our territory for the last two years was funded by Supreme's money."

"Shit." Rashid rubbed his face with both hands. "So all those meetings Kadeem had with Supreme, the territory agreements, the handshake deals. Supreme was playing us the whole time."

"Yeah."

"And you're moving on him?"

"We're taking his cash locations first, then his main base. Two nights. Coordinated. Devon's running the intel, James is leading one team, I'm leading the other."

Rashid looked at me. "What about me?"

"You stay here."

"O."

"I mean it. This is operational. After what happened last time, Kadeem doesn't want you anywhere near the field. You went too far in Flatbush and it took weeks to clean up."

"That was different. I was right about who was in that building."

"You shot the place up with civilians next door, RB. Right or wrong, that's reckless. And reckless gets people killed."

I sat down in the chair across from the couch. Rashid was watching me with those eyes that looked so much like Pops' it made my chest tight. Twenty-five years old, stubborn as hell, talented enough to have a future outside of all this. But he'd been in the thick of it since Pops disappeared. Kadeem had pulled him back after the Flatbush incident, tried to redirect him toward the music. Rashid had taken it as punishment.

"There's something else," I said.

"What?"

"The financial trail connects to Pops."

Rashid didn't move.

"The shell company Supreme uses, Greyline Holdings, was set up around the same time Pops went missing. The original signatory was a man named Leonard Pryce. We don't know who he is yet but he was at the Hampton Royal hotel three days before Pops disappeared. The same hotel where Deonte heard Pops arguing with someone before he disappeared."

"So Supreme's money is connected to what happened to Pops?"

"The infrastructure is. Whether Supreme himself knew about Pops or just used the same financial network, we don't know yet. But the connection is there."

Rashid was quiet for a long time. His eyes went to the photo of Pops on the bookshelf. Pops in a suit at somebody's wedding, smiling, his arm around Ma, looking like a man who owned the world and didn't need anybody to know it.

"That thing at the bar," Rashid said quietly. "The guy who said he'd heard about Pops being in chains. You think that's connected to this?"

"Devon's trying to find him. If his cousin really saw Pops alive after the disappearance, that means Pops was held somewhere. And if the same financial infrastructure that runs Supreme's operation was set up right before Pops was taken, then the people who held him might be the same people whose money we're about to take."

"So taking down Supreme might lead us to whoever took Pops."

"It might."

Rashid leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Then you definitely ain't cutting me out of this."

"Rashid."

"Listen to me, O." He looked up and his face was different from the kid brother who argued about music mixes at the studio. This was a man making a decision. "I'm not asking to kick down doors with you and James. I'm not trying to be an enforcer. But I got eyes and ears in places you don't. I'm in studios, clubs, venues every night. People talk around me cos they think I'm just RB. They don't see me as Baptiste business. That's an advantage you're throwing away by telling me to stay home."