Page 44 of Mafia Kings & Wedding Rings

By the time I got to my car, I plopped in the driver’s seat and reached into the ashtray for the blunt I’d rolled earlier.

Jordan hated when I smoked in the car, but I didn’t give a fuck.

I brought that shit to my lips and sparked it with my BIC lighter.

My wife slid inside, huffing and puffing.

I could tell she had a fucking attitude now too.

I was ready to drop her ass off at home so I could go to work.

“Look, Jay?—”

“I don’t want to fucking hear it, Ivo!” she spat, reached out, and pressed the button to let the window down.

“The fuck I do?”

“You tell me.” She tucked her arms across her chest and turned so that we were facing each other. “Are you jealous that she might be seeing someone?”

I sucked my teeth and took a pull of the blunt before starting the car.

“Why would I be?” I asked, keeping my eyes straight ahead as my jaw locked.

“That’s a good fucking question! I would like the answer to that.”

“You know me and Em got history, Jay.”

“History, Ivo. As in the past! But right now, it’s looking like that shit is as present as ever.”

“What you want me to say? I don’t think it’s cool for her to be carrying our child and fucking with some nigga. I’d say that about any woman in that position. Shit ain’t right.”

“It’s our baby. Not hers. She still has needs and should be able to do what she wants as a single woman. Unless that’s a problem for you.”

“I said it wasn’t, aight,” I snapped, immediately shifting gears so we could head home.

“Hmm, yeah. Whatever.” She reached back to buckle her seat belt, yanking that shit hard as hell across her chest when doing so.

“You told her about the creek and me proposing to you there?” I glanced her way.

“Yes, I did. Is it supposed to be some big secret or something?” Jordan demanded. “She asked how long we’d been married and how we got together, and I told her. She was my best friend, and I have missed her, so we were catching up. What’s the harm in that? You were just friends with her, right?”

“We were never together like that. Emerald and I just enjoyed a lot of the same things, so we spent time together sharing that. Her father never liked me, so we had to keep our friendship a secret. I missed her when she left too. She was just one of those people I could always talk to and who seemed to understand me. Having you here when she wasn’t…

I could never forget that, Jay. I want you to know that. I love you.”

“I know. I love you too.” She blinked back tears, and a soft smile curved her lips.

I parked in front of the house when we arrived, and Jordan unbuckled and leaned across the seat to kiss me.

“You making it home for dinner tonight?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll hit you up,” I told her, looking down into my phone at a message I’d just received.

“Okay.” Jordan pushed her car door open and strolled up the walkway to our front porch so she could let herself inside.

I tapped at the message I received and saw that someone had sent a video. Watching the building go up in flames was one thing, but the Marek sign plastered to the side is what had me hotter than fish grease.

“Muthafucka,” I muttered, immediately sending that shit to Brick and Staten.

Today was not the day for this bullshit!

I shifted my car into drive and left skid marks in the dirt when I pulled off.

On the drive, I got a message from Staten to me and Brick telling us to get all hands on deck and arrange a sit down with the other four families in our organization.

He instructed us to meet him at our bunker so that we could talk first. Justus had been gone for almost two weeks, and I knew eventually we would be tested, just not like this.

I’d faced a whole blunt on the drive over to the bunker to meet my brothers.

Between Jordan, Emerald, and this whole surrogacy shit, business was actually a welcome distraction.

I hadn’t told either of them the nature of what was going on.

It was bad enough Rossi was in my business, which meant that so was Sol and Marcella.

I didn’t want everybody feeling like they were entitled to an opinion on my fucking life.

For as long as I could remember, I’d always done what everybody else wanted me to do.

Emerald was the one thing in my life I chose for me.

“Was that one of our fucking warehouses?” Brick asked, letting himself into the bunker and shaking his head.

The minute I arrived, Staten unlocked the storm door and went back to the table where a selection of guns were spread.

Boxes of ammunition were stacked up on the edge, and a fresh blunt dangled off his lips.

He was focused, picking up each weapon and examining it clip by clip.

It smelled like it always did in here, gun powder, oil, and a faint mist in the air.

There was a side tunnel that took you over to the creek.

I was familiar with it because that used to be me and Jordan’s spot. Sometimes I met her coming from here.

“I talked to Jake. He said he was in the back when somebody tossed a Molotov cocktail through one of the windows and the place went up in flames,” Staten voiced.

“He got him and the rest of the crew out, but all the product is gone. Not up in flames gone either. These niggas came in there and cleaned that shit out swiftly. Which means?—”

“Inside fucking job,” Brick declared.

“So what you wanna do?” I asked, my tatted chest heaving since I’d taken off my shirt.

It was hot as fuck down here in this cellar, and I’d take a couple of shots of whiskey to calm my nerves.

Adrenaline pumped through my flesh, thinking about all the ways I wanted to body niggas.

It was one thing to fuck with my family, but this business shit was a different type of intentional disrespect.

It was something we couldn’t stand for. We had soldiers in the streets ready to get dirty when we said the word, but it had been a while since I’d done so.

“The fuck you think?” Staten pulled from the blunt without even touching it as he picked up a fresh clip and popped it into the .45 in his hand. “These niggas ran up in our shit, tried to hit our crew, and we lost product. It’s on.” He cocked his weapon back and placed it on the table.

“The crew is assembled. They just waiting for the word.” Brick walked up and took the blunt from his lips.

“We waiting until the sun goes down,” Staten voiced.

“I got Moniece looking into the surveillance outside the building so we can find these muhfuckas. She’s supposed to hit me up when she’s got something.

Jake is going through the files to find any discrepancies from somebody already on payroll.

Until then, we load up, ready for anything.

It’s time these muhfuckas know that I’m here and taking over, so we meet with the families tomorrow. ”

“That’s what the fuck I’m talking about.” Brick held the smoke in his lungs and bobbed his head.

“Moniece just hit me back.” Staten peered down at the phone in his hand and scrolled.

The deep furrow in his brow when he squinted at the screen let me know he didn’t like what he was seeing before bringing his eyes up and glancing at Brick then me.

“What you got?”

“See for yourself.” He slid the phone across the table, and I picked it up.

There were a couple of images with this punk muhfucka Levi that worked for us.

He was exchanging words with a man by the name of Chino Lathan.

Chino was the son of Jacob Lathan, one of the heads of the four other families we dealt with.

It was nothing new for us to do business or negotiate with Lathan or his men, but only someone that ran shit like me or one of my brothers were allowed to have a sit down.

If you were a lieutenant like Chino and Levi, you merely made the suggestion and moved on. Levi was trying to backdoor us.

“Shit, I know where Chino’s little trap building is.” Brick rubbed his hands together. “A nigga could use an excuse to blast some muhfuckas.”

“Call Gas and tell ’em to get ready,” Staten ordered.

A message came across his phone screen from Cambrie.

Cambrie: Steak or fish?

“Looks like you got a message.” I slid the device back to bro.

He picked up the phone and studied the screen. At first, he just stared at the message like he was debating on what to say to her. Then he tapped a quick reply and sent it.

“What’s up? Something wrong?”

“Nah.” Staten set his phone on the counter and shook his head.

“Cambrie seems cool,” I insinuated, watching him nod and load a clip with new ammo. “So, what the fuck wrong with you?”

“That nigga like her,” Brick teased, jumping onto one of the counters behind us and taking a seat.

“Fuck you, Brick.” Staten popped the clip into the pistol and cocked it back.

Baby brother laughed so hard he tossed his head back and held his stomach.

Staten picked up one of the vests and put it on over his wife beater.

He’d never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve.

He was pretty much a vault, and if you didn’t have the cheat code, you wouldn’t get access.

Rossi knew it, but outside of her, he kept women at arm’s length.

The closest he got to normalcy was Nadia, and I believe her taking off like she did was the reason he didn’t give a fuck about a bitch or her feelings anymore.

“The only time we move like this after this is if the threat is imminent. This is strictly a reminder.” Staten tucked his gun behind his back.“That’s what the fuck we got soldiers for.”

Snatching up a black duffel bag, he stuffed the remaining automatic weapons inside. Suited up in all black, my brothers and I left our luxury vehicles parked on the bunker site and opted for the buckets we did dirt in.