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“Loving me and sharing your family with me. For seeing beyond the facade and loving me anyway. Fucking me right… letting me beat that pussy.”

“Landon, enough,” she laughed and shoved me. “Baby, you really are freaked the fuck out… like why?”

“Only for you though.”

She shook her head. “Are you about to leave… I know what that call means.”

“I’m coming right back.”

“Okay.”

The curtain moved, and Greene was standing with food. “I figured you both had to eat.”

“Perfect timing, Greene. I gotta run to do something.”

She came in and sat where her aunt had been sitting. “I can stay with her, and if they discharge her, I will drive her home.”

“Where’s her home, Greene?”

“I know where my cousin lives, Don. Can get there with my eyes closed,” she tried to assure me.

“Her home is at my house.”

“It is not, Landon.” Navy shoved me while laughing.

“You heard me.” I kissed her lips and patted Greene’s head playfully, and she shoved me away from her.

“I’m not a fucking dog.” She rolled her eyes, as I headed out, looking back at my baby. She smiled, as she adjusted herself in the bed.

Pooh.

It was in the early hours of the morning, so traffic was pretty thin.

Beans whipped in and out of the light traffic until we arrived in Jersey.

We pulled down a deserted block filled with old mechanic shops and businesses that were no longer in business.

He pulled onto the gravel and then whipped around the building.

“Mens is here, too?”

“Shit can’t be good if he out the bed and here.” Beans sighed, as he killed the engine and we entered through the side door.

The noisy ass door revealed we were here before our presence.

Everyone was sitting around a wooden table.

Dane Amante, Echelon Valentini, Teflon, and Khaos, Goon’s brother.

The table was in a glass factory. There were large pieces of glass everywhere, some being held with machines, and stored around the warehouse.

“What’s good, Don?” Deuce Amante rounded the corner as his brother sat at the table. Dane Amante was the head of the Amante cartel.

“Ain’t shit... I had to leave my girl at the hospital.”

“She good?” Menace questioned, which surprised the fuck out of me. It took me too long to respond because I was so damn shocked. “I’m sorry, Don. My condolences.”

“Shit, my bad, Don,” Deuce added, feeling bad.

“She didn’t fucking die,” I snapped at them, and they looked at me, like I was the one who said the shit.

I heard a sound above us and looked up. Goon was standing on the walkway above us. “The fuck up, Don?”

“Shit… wanna know what this about?”

Menace looked around the table and stood up. “Don Caselli is now the head of all guns and weapon contracts. Everything will move like it has, he’s just the nigga you speaking to now.”

They all stood up, clapping their hands. “Congrats on the promotion, Big Dawg,” Deuce dapped me up.

“Appreciate it.”

“You know what comes with a position like this?” Dane asked, his ass was as creepy as my brother.

So quiet but always watching you at the same time. “I understand what comes with this shit.”

“Aside from those secret government contracts… these families are priority,” Menace informed me.

“Heard you.”

“Don’t forget fucking Wylie,” Goon added.

“Wy is wild as fuck… nigga… never mind,” Khaos replied, and then went back to messing with his phone.

“In other business…” Menace replied.

Kora came walking into the room, and I was confused. She didn’t get involved with anything. Kora was still dressed in what she had on earlier, while Zoya was now dressed down in a sweatsuit with her hair pulled up.

“Hey Baby Cakes.”

She looked up. “Gerald, what are you doing here?”

“Better question is why the fuck you here?”

“Bring out big mouth… tell us what the fuck you been running your mouth about,” Kora said, as she took a seat beside Echelon and Menace.

“I can walk up this to get up there?” Zoya asked Goon, and he came down the steps midway to help her up there with him.

“Aye, how you doing?”

She shrugged. “Maintaining.”

“Give me a hug, Baby Cakes.”

She put her arms around his neck, and he hugged her tightly. “Want us to leave so you both can fuck?” Menace blurted.

Zoya flipped him the middle finger, as Goon helped her to where he was standing.

Deuce came from the back holding a pale man around his neck and shoved his ass right in the middle of the warehouse.

“I can… I can keep my mouth shut. I won’t say a word,” the man pleaded with his life.

I remained quiet, as my sister stared at him. “You come into my office, tell me about the ghost, the legend Menace Caselli, and think I’m going to want to move forward with bringing him down.”

She was disgusted.

Menace stood up and walked around the table, extending his hand toward the man. “Nice to meet you, I’m Menace Caselli.”

The man damn near jumped out his skin when Menace introduced himself. He slapped his hands over his eyes. “I…I didn’t see nothing. I don’t know nothing.”

“Come on, open your eyes… I’m nice now.”

He knew seeing Menace meant that he wouldn’t walk up out of here. The man slowly peeked between his fingers, shaking in the process. “Detective Trent has been investigating you for a while.”

“Don’t even know what you saw in him.” Kora rolled her eyes.

“Not too fucking much,” Zoya added.

Goon kissed the top of her head. “It’s all good… you got better taste now, right?”

“Wait, Sigel is a fucking cop?”

“Undercover cop, and he has been for years. He’s so deep into his assignment I’m not sure he even knows what is real, and what is fake,” the man explained, hoping that it would save his life.

“What does he know?”

“Nothing. He always wanna have deep conversations about our families and I don’t like that… just have sex and go,” she shrugged.

“Zoya?” Menace replied.

“What, Mens?”

He messed with his hands. “Keep that shit to yourself… don’t wanna hear that, K?”

“Noted.”

Goon whispered something in her ear, and she had this flirty ass smirk on her face. He then kissed her ear and then returned his attention to the man in the middle of the floor.

“What the hell do we do? Kill his ass, right?”

The man gulped and looked around at all of us staring at him. “As much as you wanna be helpful like you’re just doing your job, you’re not. Jasper was your brother, so this is personal. Don, I need you and Corleon to do a sweep of my office, too.” Kora said.

“Dane, you staying out of trouble?”

“You already know, Gold.” He winked at Zoya, and she smiled.

Goon leaned over the rail. “Yo, Dane?”

“What up?”

“I’m shooting behind this one… keep that Gold shit to yourself.”

Dane let out a hearty laugh. “My bad, my bad… didn’t know that was all you.” All the men here had a high respect for each other. They could check each other and laugh, but the minute someone outside the circle tried that shit, they tasted bullets immediately.

Jasper was the special agent Menace killed at the dinner party Zoya was at with Capri and Blair. “Jasper was close to solving who Menace Caselli is… a ghost, but one we wanted to reveal.”

I could tell this was personal to him with how his voice changed as he spoke about how close he was to solving who Menace was, and that was impossible.

Everyone that knew who Menace was, knew to keep their mouths shut.

His fucking Social Security number never stayed the same.

Corleon had it where the numbers changed frequently.

We all worked hard to make sure no one ever found out who he was. As I was being welcomed into the folds, I was realizing just how dangerous this job was, and how you had to be protected.

Kora walked around the table, and she looked at him. “Not him… never him.” She stepped away, walking toward a control panel. Everyone removed themselves from the table, and Goon moved Zoya back.

She hit the button, and a full panel of glass fell from the holder, ripping pieces of the man, as we sat there and watched. “Fuck… that was brutal.” Beans looked away, while I couldn’t look away.

Pieces of his skin hung off and shards penetrated all of his body.

“I am my brother’s keeper. I take that oath more serious than the one I took to sit up on that bench.

He put me in that position to protect this…

us. Sigel can’t be touched because he has eyes on him from his own division.

He’s safe for now… I’ll give you the greenlight when you can handle him, Gerald. ”

“Heard you, Ms. Judge Lady.”

“As far as Kevin Robinson, I don’t trust him, Maverick.

I let you handle your side, and I handle mine, but trust me on this.

He’s playing both sides, and he has to go.

That egg farming is far from over, and they are still building their case behind the scenes, and he’s been in a lot of those conversations.

Case House has been mentioned as well, more than once. ”

“A lot of people involved in that egg farming have been retaining counsel from my office,” Zoya said.

“Including your new client. Preston Vance… drop him, Zoya.”

“What?” she blurted.

Kora wasn’t going to do the back and forth with Zoya. She headed toward the exit, and Menace nodded for security to follow behind her.

“I don’t tell her what to do with her career… we all agreed we wouldn’t step on each other’s toes,” Zoya was pissed.

Her eyes were different.

“You heard her.”

“Y’all can kiss my ass,” Zoya snatched away from Goon, and headed down the steps. “Don, can you drive me home?”

“Yeah, I got you.”

“I’ll get up with you, Don,” Teflon told me, and I nodded, leaving with Zoya.

Beans got into the back, while I held the door open for my sister. Pulling away, she sat with her arms folded. “I’m sick of all of this shit.”

“Zoy, you good?”

“I wish everyone would stop asking me that. I am fine, damn, Don,” she snapped, and I left it alone.

I knew when to push and when not to push when it came to her. “Tell me if you not, right?”

She looked at me. “Yes, Don.”

Ever since we were younger, we both could trust each other to hold up to that promise. This was the first time I didn’t believe my sister.