Page 60

Quasim

Recommendation: Listen to What is Love by Empire Cast ft V. Bozeman

I carried my duffle onto the jet and found a seat near the window. The rain came down as I looked out the window at the rest of the guys boarding behind me. Before leaving, I made sure I spent some time with my boy and let him know that I would be coming home.

He never had to doubt that I would make it back home to him and Anjo.

There was a time when it was uncertain if I would keep my promise, so I was damn fucking certain that I would.

I was mad at myself for letting that bitch knock me off my square.

I wished it was as easy as him trying to end my life.

Polo made me second guess myself, put me in a mindset that had me questioning if I still had it. Had me ruining my marriage because my anger and need for revenge was much stronger than being there for my wife.

“Bunch of hood ass niggas flying private,” Goon boarded, picking the seat across from me.

“What up, Gorgeous?” Capone answered as he sat in the seat across from me with his twin sitting beside him.

“Make it home to us, Winnie… that’s all I’m going to say before I start crying.” She said, her voice cracking in the process.

“Daddy always makes it home, right?”

“Yes.” She replied. “I love you, baby… be safe. You and Cappadonna… remember, you both have families waiting for you.”

I watched all of them facetime their wives, or girlfriends while they all threatened and told them they better had made it back.

Meanwhile, my phone was dry. I really had fucked up this time, and I couldn’t blame anyone but myself. I could blame Polo, but it was my actions that fucked this up, not his. I was the one that ignored my wife because I was too busy being worried about revenge.

Blaze came over and handed me his phone. Anjo was on the screen with the sun caressing her skin. My baby looked refreshed as she sat by the pool with her bikini top on and sunglasses.

“Quasim, you promised me and Elijah that you would never leave us.” She paused, as tears fell down her face. “Please don’t leave us again.” She moved the phone out, and I got a full view of her stomach.

The shit had me choked up as I stared at how beautiful and pure she was. I gave her the nickname Anjo because she was an angel on earth. Sent right to me, and I nearly fumbled her. Hardened her because I was stupid as shit.

“Don’t cry, baby… you hear me?”

“I hear you.” she sniffled.

“Don’t I always keep my promises to you? My love, I’m coming straight to you, even though you not talking to me… okay?”

She giggled through her tears before her face became serious. “The throne ain’t cold no more, the king is inferno and heat rises.” .

“You heard the fucking queen!” Goon hollered.

I smirked. “I hear you, Anjo… I love you.”

“Love you, too,” she quickly handed Capri back the phone, and she came into the camera with a slushie looking drink in her hand. “Uh huh… Dog house doesn’t feel nice, huh?”

“Suga, mind yo damn business.”

“Where my baby cakes at?”

“Gerald… please.” We all laughed when we heard Zoya’s voice. “You’ve owed me a date for a good little minute now, so make sure you make it back so we can have that date, k?”

I ain’t never seen a nigga like Goon blush the way he was right now. “Already know… gonna take you some place real expensive.”

“Nope, I want a Goon date. Been everywhere expensive already, fuck you mean,” she snickered.

“Sug, I’ll call you when we land.”

“Love you, Meer Cat… you better be careful and give ‘em hell, Blaze. I would hate to be looking for a new step-daddy with all these kids… what you said, Cappy? Soul train line of hood niggas?”

“Baby doll, not right fucking now,” Cappadonna looked up from his phone and laughed, while Meer got crazy in the eyes.

“Stop fucking playing with me… love you Mrs. Inferno.”

She giggled. “Love you, Meer… oh, you can bring me?—”

“Breaking up, Sug.” He quickly ended the call.

Capone looked at him. “You hung up on my pregnant sister, nigga.”

“You wanna travel with some weird ass food craving she got?”

He nodded. “You right.”

Goon settled in his chair. “Mark my fucking words… I’m marrying her and putting three babies in her. Changing that last name from Caselli.”

“You wanna be Menace’s brother-in-law? Shit.” Capone whistled.

“He ain’t all that bad, though… you gotta just understand the man.”

I pointed at him. “That’s cause yo ass is crazy… crazy understand crazy.”

Aimee and Zuri entered the cabin. Zuri was racing Polo’s cousin this weekend in Miami, and since Aimee was already going, they were flying with us. Cappadonna told Aimee she wasn’t flying commercial if he was flying private.

“You know your husband ain’t too fucking happy.”

“He has that event with Jaiden this weekend… he’ll be alright.” she plopped down across from Cappadonna, who leaned over to kiss her on the forehead.

“You deserve this weekend, Aim… minute you feel uncomfortable, let me know. I’ll air that whole bitch out behind you, ight?”

“Only one that’s gonna be uncomfortable is that bitch that I’m gonna smoke.” Zuri plopped down in her seat.

Zuri was like a little cousin, because her father had been around since I was a kid. We were family with the Cruzari family, and if she was in my presence, that meant I had my eye on her all weekend.

“Your brothers are coming down?”

Kano was protective of his sister, but he also let her rock. Me and Kano went back, because he was part of KEW, so there was an understanding that we all had, that no one else understood. Benzani was the second oldest and had his own shit going.

That nigga was nuts when it came to cars, and always did some wild shit. Sonny raised them up, and they took it from there. All three of them raced, with Kano teaching his younger siblings.

“Kano and Ben is already down there… I didn’t want to arrive with them.” She rolled her eyes. “Niggas be doing too much. Fucking up my chances of being some rich niggas’s baby mama.”

Aimee sucked her teeth. “As if you don’t have your own money.”

“I have too much money… said no one ever.”

“Sonny would fuck you up.” I called her bluff, knowing her father and brothers would be on her ass, and whatever nigga tried to step to her.

It would take a different kind of nigga to approach the Cruzari men about Zuri. How Blaze stepped to the Delgatos about Capri, I knew something similar would have to happen when she started dating.

“Wheels up.” The captain announced and we all got buckled in for this quick ride down to Miami.

I wanted to be in and out, so I could go make it right with my queen. Show her how sorry I was. Eat fucking sand if that was what she wanted me to do, because she deserved that from me.

Cappadonna handed me his phone. “Architect sent me those last week. Answer your fucking phone and you would have known.”

I looked over at the blueprints of the home that I was having built for my family.

It was a surprise for Anjo, because she’d been complaining that the baby would be homeless.

We had the lake house and the option of staying in Ashbourne.

As much as we loved Ashbourne, we were ready to be back closer to family.

Elijah loved his new school, but he couldn’t wait to enroll in the school that both Peach and CJ were in. It was all he spoke about, so the quicker we handled business, the quicker my boy could move back closer to the city.

“Yeah, she gonna like this.”

“Think it might help get you out the doghouse?” Blaze questioned, fucking with something on his laptop.

I shrugged and handed Cappadonna the phone back.

Cappadonna offered to give me land on the compound, and I wouldn’t accept the land unless he let me pay for the shit.

Like he did with Blaze, he went back and forth before agreeing, and even then, he went and put the money into Cherry and Peach’s account, and I was sure it was a matter of time before Elijah and Zayah’s accounts would be laced.

“Michael chased yo’ stubborn ass… I begged you to celebrate pride and you we?—”

“Capp?”

“What up, G?”

“Fuck ya!” I stuck my middle finger up, and his loud ass laugh rumbled through the cabin. His laugh had always been so fucking loud, as he clapped his hands. “She still not fucking with me.”

“Good.” Blaze replied.

“The fuck?”

“Gotta let go of that pride when it comes to your wife, bro. You can’t bring all that hard shit from the streets home.

With her, you gotta shed the armor… she wants different when you are behind those walls.

” He paused. “She already knows what you’re capable of out there…

what you’ve done and carry. What she needs is you… raw, real, and open.”

I took a breath and listened.

“I’m speaking from experience… learned the hard way with Erin. Thought I was protecting her by hiding how sick I was. Didn’t want to look weak, so I shut her out, handled everything on my own like I always had.”

Cappadonna looked away.

“That shit hurt her more than the illness ever did. Ignoring her, moving like she didn’t have to be there in the dark with me…

I caused a kind of pain I swore I never would.

” He continued, as he and his brother’s eyes met.

“Don’t make the same mistake. You can still be strong and still let her in… the king always needs his queen.”

I took in everything that he said as I leaned my head back, feeling our ascent into the air. “We lived to blow another head off.” Blaze said like it was nothing.

“The fuck?” Havoc laughed.

He looked up. “What? I’m blowing that nigga’s head all the way back.”

Karter and Mo were meeting me down in Miami, too. It was the biggest weekend in the street racing scene, so everybody was out this weekend. Polo wasn’t worried about hiding because he thought that because some time went by and money got better that niggas forgot.

He was running with some new niggas, and he just knew that they could protect him. There was no protecting his ass when I got my hands on him. Shooting him was too easy, and he deserved to feel everything I was going to do to him.

I told him to jump off the porch and he did. Had to give the fucker some credit, he knocked me off my game.

I was an Inferno, I may be knocked down, but a nigga never stayed down.

Soon as we landed, Kano had a Bugatti waiting for Zuri, and she wasted no time being excited and calling him to thank him for pulling strings so she could ride around Miami in this million-dollar car.

Cappadonna hugged Aimee and told her where he got her a suite, and to be careful. Aimee was excited to enjoy her weekend. She worked hard to graduate and now she wanted to let her hair down and chill with Zuri.

I tossed my duffle bag in the back seat of the charger while Capone and Cappadonna jumped in the Durango that was parked waiting for us.

We whipped out the private airport and onto the streets of Miami. Blaze couldn’t wait to roll up, as I was in and out of traffic. “You good?”

“Perfect.”

“Whatever goes down, we not leaving without the other, Pop.”

I looked over at him. “I’m getting you home to your wife and kids, Blaze. Fuck all that talk you chatting about.”

He chuckled as he sealed the spliff. “I’m doing the same, too… fuck you think this is?”

“Gods burn the faces of their enemies,” I started.

Blaze smirked. “The flames burn slow because the Gods are Inferno,” he recited as we hit the IG shake, and continued to bend in and out of the cars.

I was here for one reason and the second I handled him, I was back out of here and going to my wife.

Anjo leaving me did something to me. It made me see how fucking strong she was to walk away.

It wasn’t something she would have normally done, because she didn’t do it with Tookie.

This time, when she recognized that she was going down the same path, she removed herself.

As hurt as I was that I hadn’t been able to share a bed with my wife, and I had hurt her, she was standing on her own.

Creating her boundaries and establishing them with me. We continued to the hotel, waiting there until tonight when it really became alive.

Collins Avenue was always alive, but during this weekend, it was filled with supercars, bikes, and bitches dying to be taken back to the room with whoever was racing.

Yawning, I looked over at my brother as he took a long pull from his spliff and then passed it to me. I took a long pull, then smirked because I felt myself coming back.

Felt more like me in this moment than I had for the past few months.

Blaze smirked. “Welcome back, King.”