Page 5

ADIR

Her aura had me.

As if I was watching a love story from afar, I stood at the entrance of Smooth Brew watching her watch me.

Her face had me. It was delicate, angelic…

Shaped like a soft heart.

It held the most amazing big brown eyes, gentle nose, and full pouty lips that would one day belong to me.

The soft curls of her natural hair were piled on top of her head, with some curls falling forward to kiss the peaks of her eyebrows.

“I can’t believe you embarrassed me like that!” Genika hissed as we moved to sit down.

“Did you really have to take your disrespectful ass to her table? After you stood there staring at her like a damn fool.”

A magnet wasn’t stronger than the pull she had on me.

Truthfully, I was appalled at myself for the way I stared.

Enthralled wasn’t even the word to describe my instant attraction to her.

I just knew it was a nigga somewhere who was willing to crash the fuck out for the smallest reason behind her.

“She’s fine as fuck. When have I ever shied away from admiring a beautiful woman?”

Genika turned her elegant nose up.

“You surely had a wandering eye when we were together.”

I shrugged as my eyes found the answer to a prayer I hadn’t yet prayed strutting across the street toward my building.

“You’re so damn rude, Adir. You haven’t even asked me why I needed you to meet me here.”

“Rude is leaving this table to go run after shawty, which I really wanna do. Also, which I’m free to do since I’m a single man.” As soon as I said that shit, my answered prayer opened the door of Dr. Bell & Associates.

For that reason alone, I was going to cut this lunch meeting short.

Shit.

Her body… I swallowed hard because a nigga was that thirsty.

Like a sculptor, I followed the lines of her slender, yet shapely dark brown figure, committing each dip, rise, and fall to memory.

I checked her fingers for any sign that a nigga had her.

Seeing that it was indeed bare, I was sure my favor had just entered my medical office.

Favor of the Lord… That was surely what I’d consider Pretty, and I didn’t know her.

It concerned me that in all my years, I’d never understood what real instant attraction felt like.

Neither had I ever dissected the scriptures like I was just now.

It wasn’t even a stretch to consider that laying eyes on Pretty, was akin to love at first sight.

Rolling my neck to relieve the pressure in it, I had to abort Pretty from my thoughts.

My life was unconventional and that was putting it mildly.

Occasionally, I liked to paint the streets red.

Especially in times when I felt idle.

Twiddling my thumbs for too long usually resulted in me lurking the streets for somebody to pay for whatever sins I felt they committed.

I went through twelve years of medical school and clinical rotations just to end up in business for myself.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like hospitals, but I made more money out here than I could’ve ever made walking through a hospital’s hallways.

Plus, the streets needed me.

They trusted me. I kept niggas out of the line of law enforcement, which was a big deal out here.

Seeing as how these young dudes were at war with each other, a man like me was revered out here.

There weren’t too many people willing to deal with the shit that came with the streets.

On the other hand, I was born into this shit.

My family built the code out here.

So, not only was I revered, but I was also feared.

Being the head of my family afforded me power in many places.

It afforded me power that occasionally was a curse.

My phone vibrated, bringing my attention to the message I received.

Mama: The boys are done with their homework and about to eat dinner.

Me: I appreciate you.

Mama didn’t respond.

She hated me thanking her for taking care of my sons while I was at work.

She had her own household to tend to, but she made sure mine was in order, too.

Since I didn’t have a woman at home, having her made being at the clinic much easier.

The thought of Pretty surfaced yet again.

Fuck… Her scent had yet to vacate my person.

It clung to me like it was trying to keep the memory of her at the forefront of my mind, as if I could forget her.

Staring into her eyes had rendered me speechless and motionless.

I had literally stopped and stared at her ass.

My office door cracked open.

Humble, my oldest son, poked his head inside the door.

“Ready, Pops?”

Absently, I nodded.

Without another word, he closed the door back.

Standing, I grabbed my cell phone and keys, then went to do one last round before joining Humble and security at the back entrance where my Ghost was parked right outside the locked double doors.

Just as I neared the exit, the intercom crackled with an incoming alert.

Shots fired at the corner of Spring and Dogwood.

Injuries reported. All staff on standby.

I glanced at the two security guards manning the back door.

Dogwood was just a few blocks up the street.

That area of downtown was dominated by a crew led by a nigga named Hakeem.

I wondered who the fuck set that nigga off.

“Sliding off just in time,” Stacy, one of the security guards, said as he dapped me.

Outside, the air was nice for summer and smelled heavily of the different foods being prepared by the restaurants nearby.

Screeching tires alerted us all to a white Honda flying up Spring Street.

After blowing through a red light, it whizzed right by us.

A black sedan hot on its trail crashed into the back of the Honda, sending it spiraling out of control and smashing into the streetlight pole just steps from me.

Immediately, the damaged Honda started smoking.

Foregoing my Ghost, I clutched my Glock in my hand and preceded Stacy and Zel, who went to investigate.

Security, along with Antonias, ran from the front of the clinic to see what the fuck was going on, too.

Two of Hakeem’s crew members that I recognized hopped out of the black sedan with their weapons drawn on the Honda.

“Aye!” I barked, gaining their attention.

“Ain’t none of that over this way!”

Security knew how to move.

They kept their guns trained on Hakeem’s niggas while I moved toward the Honda.

Antonias was right next to me.

Whoever was inside hadn’t moved, which meant they likely had injuries.

I wasn’t sure what the hell had gone down.

However, knowing Hakeem’s crew, shit wasn’t going to end well.

The passenger door of the Honda opened.

Out stepped a young nigga, who had his gun trained on Hakeem’s crew.

“The fuck you niggas wanna do?” he blasted.

Hakeem’s crew didn’t take too kindly to disrespect.

However, with my security aiming at them, neither of those niggas were about to pop shit.

“Aye, Jit,” I called, moving closer to him.

He never took his eyes off of Hakeem’s crew although I approached him.

Honestly, I was impressed.

Even though he had the build of a grown ass man, he was a kid.

Still, he looked like he wasn’t about to back down.

The driver’s side door opened, prompting Antonias to aim his gun that way.

“Don’t shoot me.”

That voice .

It trembled, but my brain knew it like it had heard it for millions of years.

My body followed right behind my brain.

A chill ran through me, causing the hairs along my body to stand at attention.

Pretty emerged from the car, her heavenly curls framing her tear-stained, fear-filled face.

For the first time ever in my life, my heart violently stuttered in my chest. The palpitation was so strong, it knocked the wind out of me.

Quickly recovering, I summoned Humble.

He was right there with security, his watchful eye waiting for my word.

“Bring the car,” I told him.

“Give us that lil’ nigga, and we’ll be out ya way.” Marco was Hakeem’s brother and second-in-command.

“Fuck you, nigga!”

That was Jit.

He took a few steps toward Hakeem’s crew.

I grabbed him by his collar and yanked him back.

He mugged me hard.

Pretty whimpered, “Please don’t hurt my brother.”

Sirens went off in the distance just as Humble rolled up next to the Honda.

He emerged from the Ghost with his gun at his side.

He was prepared to shoot this shit out with me, but there wouldn’t be any of that tonight.

Glancing at Jit, I mugged him back.

“Either you gon’ listen to what the fuck I say, or I’ma leave you to these niggas.”

“Fuck y—”

“Please, no!” Pretty pleaded as I jacked her brother up against the car before he could say shit else.

I disarmed him, then shoved him toward the Ghost. “Get the fuck in.”

“Nah, Doc. You know how this shit goes. That nigga took one of ours. He owes Hakeem in blood. That bitch started this shit. She gotta pay us back in blood, too.”

Antonias was already ushering Pretty over to the Ghost. She started crying at Marco’s statement.

“This shit don’t concern you, Doc. If she ain’t yo’ wife, and if he ain’t yo’ son, they belong to us! Especially behind ours.” Marco wasn’t a punk.

With the position he held, he was expected to be ruthless.

However, I glanced at Pretty.

“Pretty Bell…” I was pleased when she caught my bait.

“Get inside the car, baby.”

Humble opened the passenger side door for her.

Without hesitation, she scurried inside.

Only then did that hard-headed jit follow.

The sirens grew closer, and I had to get them out of here.

Marco and the other nigga thought the same shit.

If it wasn’t for the dozen or so guns drawn on them, they would’ve tried to shoot this shit out.

However, they weren’t stupid.

“Get the fuck off my do’ step,” I told them.

“Anybody lay a hand on my jit, or my wife, it’s up.”

Marco growled in anger.

He wanted blood but knew damn well I wasn’t the one to start a war with.

In the distance, a cop car bent the corner, it’s red and blue lights prompting Marco and that other nigga to scatter.

Glancing at Humble, I said, “Get them home. Stacy will go with you.”

Humble nodded and climbed back inside the car as Stacy took the passenger seat.

Staring at the window Pretty sat behind, I followed the Ghost until my attention was averted by the police cruisers arriving at the scene.

My crew knew what to do.

I placed my gun at my back and released the tension between my shoulder blades.

Both Adir and Dr. Bell had almost taken a back seat to that other nigga inside me.

He nearly escaped. Thankfully, prayerfully , I’d go another night without resorting to that other nigga .

I hadn’t seen him in too long, and he needed to stay where the fuck he was.

Seeing those guns trained on Pretty almost made me break my streak.

“Russ,” I called to my day one security guard.

“Strip the car and bring whatever’s in there inside.” He got straight to it.

Going back inside the building, I placed a call as I went to scrub my fucking security cameras.

Russ appeared a few minutes later with Pretty’s purse and two phones.

“Everything else is in the conference room. Judging by the boxes that were in her trunk, she was either in the process of moving, or she just moved here.”

I took the information and tucked it in my brain.

“Good lookin’ out. You down to take lead with her?”

Russ had worked for me since I opened my office.

He was a few years older than me and came from the life.

He knew the streets as well as anyone who’d been born and raised in them.

He grinned. “Of course. I got you.”

After I was done scrubbing my cameras, I walked back out of the building to a cacophony of blue and red lights.

“What you got for me?” I asked as I approached homicide detective, Wesley Gunner.

He stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head at the wreckage.

“Nothing good. An informant just dropped that Hakeem has two million on the kid’s head.”

“Who’s the informant?”

“Come on, Doc. You know damn well I can’t tell you that. Just know that their info is solid. Question is, what the hell are you gon’ do?” As I walked away, he called, “No wars, Doc. The city is already in shambles.”

Yeah, I heard him.

However, as I entered back inside the lobby of my building, I pulled my phone from my pocket and sent a message to my father.

A family meeting in the middle of the night wasn’t on my schedule for the day but fuck it.