Page 26

Earlier The Same Day…

“Yo, Reya just posted y’all pictures,” Joey said with his face in his phone. “Damn, Simone must have gotten ahold of this shit. It’s dope as fuck.”

At the same time, Sully and I pulled out our phones.

Notifications were already clogging my phone’s screen.

I made sure I left a comment of my own to get the hos even madder than they were.

I peeped Alexi’s comments. That little bitch’s days were numbered.

It was only a matter of time before she made a severe misstep, and I would be on her ass.

“How does it feel to be married?”

Sully’s grin was bold and wide. I was blessed that he was able to witness me as I took my step into forever. The thought of my wife made a nigga feel soft in every place but one.

“Man, it feels… right. It’s crazy because I feel like all this shit that happened to bring her into my life was divine purpose. Who the fuck would think that the chick that witnessed some shit orchestrated by us would become my wife? I love that fucking girl and lil boy.”

Is this what Geo felt like? There was nothing in this world that I would not do for my wife and son.

Now that I had a wife, it gave me a reason to have a timeline for when I would step back from the game.

Sully already had a timeline, and his step back was slowly approaching.

Joey and now Ethan being stuck to our side was a strategic move.

Joey was only twenty-one and Ethan was nineteen.

Both were young as fuck but wise beyond their years and willing to learn.

We had older men in the organization that felt like because of their age it should be them.

That wasn’t how this shit worked. When Geo passed it down to me, I had to lay a few old niggas down over envy.

I wanted to make sure both of them were ready when that time came.

It would still be at least five years before that happened.

By the time I was thirty-six, I wanted to be out of the game and just receiving residuals.

I made sure that my financial moves were smart so that there would never be a day that I was broke.

My investments were thorough as hell because I made the smart choice to go through Washington-Smith Brokerage Firm .

Those niggas were the best at growing the black dollar.

The week after Reya and I got married, I added her to all my accounts. I made sure she was added to my life insurance policies, will and testament, and all that shit. My boy Jedi is set, too, the same as our next child and next child would be.

“I need to find my forever, but these hos are different now,” Joey said. “A nigga out here scared to get his dick wet because these hos think the dick belong to them immediately. You could tell them it’s just fuckin’, and they still on that crazy shit.”

Sully and I burst into laughter.

“Shit, on some real shit, you know who would have been a good look for you? GeGi.” Sully pulled from his blunt after his comment.

I thought about it. “Damn, you might be right. GeGi really is a good girl. She’s getting her shit together in VA. She found a building for her pole studio too.”

When GeGi got to Virginia, the realtor met her at the house that we bought for her.

When our realtor presented the deed to the house and told her that it was paid for, she called us on video in tears.

She promised to pay us back for something that we didn’t want back.

With the building for her studio, she sent us weekly updates on the progress and how she spent the money.

She was walking proof that there were people deserving of a foot up for a better life.

“GeGi? You serious?” Joey said with wide eyes and a tilted head. “That’s crazy, though, because I had a crush on her, but she was locked in with her bitch ass baby daddy.”

Sully shook his head. “Shit, that’s proof right there that her ass has loyalty. Stupid loyalty but loyalty nonetheless. Yeah, I’m happy we got that baby daddy of hers outta here, though.”

Joey shrugged his shoulders. “Shit, you never know what could happen. VA ain’t too far.”

Joey and Ethan would need a strong woman by their side to have peace in this shit. I wished I had found my peace earlier, but I wasn’t tripping. If I hadn’t experienced an Alexi, then I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate a Tsireya.

My burner phone rang. My face twisted when I recognized the number as Ethan’s burner number. My eyes shot to the clock on the wall. The fuck! There was no reason he should have been calling me from his burner unless something was wrong. I picked the line up on speaker.

“Yo!”

There was some scrambling.

“Man, AK, you-you have to come to Mama Bee house. These niggas, they done fucked up. It’s killing season, AK. Twelve already here.”

We didn’t need to hear shit else before we were all on our feet to buck it out of the office to our cars.

We each got into our own whips because there was no telling how we would need to mobilize.

I broke every speed limit with no concern.

Like any successful big boy, you had to have some twelves on your team.

My heart dropped when I pulled up on Ma’s block at the sight of twelve everywhere and yellow tape around Ma’s house.

“No, no, no!”

I jumped out of my car. Ethan met me midway to the house.

“AK, when I got here, twelve was already here. The neighbor called them when she heard gunshots.”

“Gunshots! Where the fuck is my mama and my son? SJ? Where are our boys?” My skin was on fire.

“They just took Mama Bee to the hospital. She was in bad shape. Corp said that they killed the other two workers.” Ethan had tears in his eyes, but I knew they wouldn’t fall.

Corp was one of the cops on our payroll. He gave us most of the inside information that we needed.

“Fuck this shit!”

I moved toward the house with Sully right behind me. Corp was the first to see me.

“AK, man, come talk to me.”

When he started to walk over to the side, I knew it was some bullshit. There was something that he wanted me to know that he didn’t want anyone else to know. Sully, Joey, Ethan, and I circled Corp, which was his last name. He huffed before he started to report.

“Man, I don’t know who the fuck had the nuts to do this shit. From the neighbor’s account, masked gunmen ran up in her house and killed the workers. They beat and shot Mama Bee, but I don’t think they wanted to kill her.”

My hands flew to my head. What the fuck! I felt like I could pass out at any fucking minute. I heard Sully ask about the kids.

Corp stepped in closer. “Mama Bee was responsive when I got here. When I checked on her, she wanted me to tell my colleagues that all of the children are accounted for. She wanted me to tell y’all that they took Lucas and SJ. She said she fought hard.”

Sully let out a booming holler. I had to bend over with my hands on my knees. So many would be in the obituary section of the newspaper in the next week. When I stood to my feet, I watched Joey pace back and forth. Ethan stood there with vengeance written on his face.

“Ethan, go to the hospital. We gotta go get Reya and Simone,” I told him.

I knew this hurt Ethan just as much as it hurt me. Mama Bee started watching Ethan when he was five years old. His mom wasn’t shit, so he spent a lot of time with Mama Bee.

“Alright, what you wanna do about twelve?”

“I’ll handle this shit here. Y’all go handle y’all shit,” Corp told him. He patted me and Sully on the shoulders. “Go get y’all fuckin’ boys. My team will keep the streets clear for y’all.”

Back to the Present…

I cupped Reya’s face in the palms of my hand. “Baby, we have to go to the hospital.”

“Why do we have to go to the hospital?” Simone was on her feet. “Sully, where is SJ?”

Sully moved to his wife. The wetness in his eyes tore my soul up.

“Baby, we’re going to get him back. We already got people on it.” His eyes bounced between me, Reya, and his wife. “We will get our boys back by the time the morning sun kisses the sky. I put that shit on my life. Right now, we’re going to the hospital to check on Mama Bee.”

Simone tittered, then pointed her finger at Sully’s face. “Sullivan Carson, this is it. You have a year to wrap this street shit up.” Tears poured down her face. “If anything happens to my son, I’m killing everyone, including you.”

When she stepped around Sully to move toward the door, his head dropped. His back lifted, then fell. The tears fell from his eyes when his head came back up.

“We’re going to get them back, Reya. I swear to you.” He rushed behind his wife.

“I don’t understand, Lo’ak. Wh-why would someone take our kids? They hurt Mama Bee?” Reya’s words came out slowly and her breathing was shallow.

I felt like a fucked-up individual. Someone touched the people that I loved.

I slipped somewhere, and I knew it. I got so caught up in my personal love shit that I was too derelict when it came to getting that nigga Jeremy off the streets.

There was no one but him that could have done this stupid, reckless shit.

I kissed my wife’s forehead before I pressed mine against hers.

“I swear on my life that everything will be alright.”

The closest hospital to Mama Bee’s house was Presbyterian Hospital.

When we got there, the people on my team who weren’t out in the streets on assignments were there.

I dapped them all up. I knew in my heart that they were here for me, but more so because of the impact that Ma had on the community around her.

On top of her childcare center, she did school supply giveaways, family angel trees, turkey giveaways, and a bunch of other positive things.

She also had a non-profit that assisted people in the community with bills.

A lot of these niggas’ households had been impacted by her before they came onto my team to make a better life for themselves and their households.