Page 3 of Suleem and Yahzi (D-Ville Projects #1)

Suleem Jamison

“I don’t give a damn if you leave here like that or not but I’m sure you do. I’m about to open this bay, which means you have five minutes to put that shit on or risk being exposed.” I pointed to the dress she took off before she bent over the side of her ride, offering up pussy I didn’t ask for.

“Who is Yah?”

“You want me to run the card you have on file?”

It annoyed me that she was asking questions like she had the right and it annoyed me even more that Yahzi’s name was on her tongue.

“I asked you a question.”

“And I didn’t answer that shit because nothing about my life is your business. Now you want me to use this card or not?”

My back was to her while I stabbed at my keyboard to finalize the transaction for the repair I did to the Benz. She side swiped someone in a parking lot and didn’t want to hear shit from her man about scratching his car, so I buffed that shit out and removed the damage with touch up paint.

“It is my business when you pull out of me to take a call from whoever the fuck she is then tell me to put my clothes on and get out.”

I didn’t ask Jessica to spread her legs. She wanted to show gratitude by letting me dive in that pussy for fixing her nigga’s car but she was still going to pay for my time. I didn’t work for free and fucking her damn sure wasn’t an all-access pass to my life.

I ignored her and ran the transaction. Once it cleared, I printed the receipt and walked it over. She snatched it from my hand and glanced at the paperwork, frowning at me immediately after. “This is for fifteen hundred. The dealership quoted me eight fifty.”

“But you came here. My price is my price. You also know if the dealership did this it would have been added to the repair history which means your man knowing that your ass can’t fucking drive and no longer trusting you in his whip. Now put your shit on so I can open this bay for you to leave.”

She yanked open the driver’s door, threw the receipt inside, then lifted her dress. After she worked it over her head and down her body, she rolled her eyes. “Dick was mid anyway.”

I chuckled and walked over to the wall to press the button to open the bay. My mid dick had her grabbing her stomach, telling me I was too deep, and currently hissing as she got settled in her car. My dick damn sure wasn’t the problem, her bruised ego and pride were, but I didn’t have time to argue

It was gonna take me at least an hour and forty minutes to get to Yahzi. If she called, something must have gone down, which had me heading to my office—after Jessica was gone and I locked up—to get my piece from the safe in my office.

If a muthafucker put their hands on her, I would be getting another bullet shaded on the clip I had inked on my forearm.

It was a reminder of the bodies I’d dropped throughout the years.

I got the tattoo when I was young and reckless.

I didn’t give a damn about much of anything.

Kill or be killed. Each time I faced off with death and was still breathing, I inked it on my body.

In a sick twisted way it kept me grounded.

No matter how much my life changed, I still had a past that caused me to lose the one person I loved enough to set free.

But tonight, that was changing…

She wanted out and I gave her that. I couldn’t rightly blame Yahzi for walking away and never looking back.

She almost lost her life because of me. That night stayed on repeat in my head.

I was willing to die if it meant she lived; so I took that heat with no hesitation.

We had a deal. I would honor my part and she was going to honor hers.

Yahzi was bringing her ass home, to me, where she belonged.

As soon as I got in my car, I hit my boy Kassir’s line.

He had his son with him so I wouldn’t ask him to ride with me but I wanted to let him know I was gonna be out of pocket for a few hours just in case some shit popped off.

Kassir and I started DP years ago, and with maturity, we both stepped back a lot but there wasn’t much that happened around us that we didn’t keep a tight grip on.

DP was a family, and true enough our people got their hands dirty, but we also had rules that protected the community.

We had respect for those who had roots. Our presence provided order and kept a level of organization amongst the chaos that existed around our community.

It might not have been ideal for bangers to be the leaders, but shit, no one else wanted the position.

They didn’t value the lives that made up D-Ville, so we stepped up.

“Ay, I’m about to make a run.”

“The fuck you mean make a run? We got problems?”

I smirked. This nigga was always chill until he needed to show out, so I made sure to let him know it wasn’t that type of issue.

“Yahzi called.”

“Then it’s not we got a problem, it’s you got a problem, fam.”

“Here we fucking go.”

“I’m just saying, you been waiting on that call for three years.”

“I’ve been doing me. You act like I pressed pause on my life and shit.”

In a way, I had. A month after Yahzi left I opened my shop. For the first six months she was gone, I stayed in that bitch doing everything by myself. Eventually I hired a few people. Now, most of what I did was custom work, but I still spent the majority of my time there.

As for women, I never fucked with anyone consistently and most of the ones I ran through were one and done.

I had a couple I circled back to but only because they were already committed to someone else and I didn’t have to worry about them romanticizing something with me that would never happen.

There was only one woman who would ever have my heart.

She left with that shit three years ago, and until she was ready to give me hers again, then my chest would remain empty.

“I’m not gonna argue with you about some shit you refuse to acknowledge. I’m assuming you making a run means you’re about to bring your girl home.”

“I’m about to pull up on her.”

He chuckled. “Yeah aight.”

Kassir knew me better than anybody which meant he was well aware that if I pulled up on Yahzi, she was coming back to Diamond Falls with me. She was the only person who had me acting out of character. He was for sure gonna give me shit about it so I changed the subject.

“Lil man sleep?” I asked amusedly.

“Yeah. Knocked out. We stopped by the park to check on the team and they let him flex a little on the court. Kassan thought he was balling and shit.”

Kassan was his father’s son. At five, my lil G had an ego larger than life. So if he wanted to ball, he was gonna fucking ball.

“You trying to say my lil G don’t have game.”

“Nah he did his thing ’cause they were hyping him up. But I watched them run the court for a few.”

“How that go? We got a lot of money on them.”

“Between Tyriq and YaaKov, we gon’ take the championship for sure. But listen, I need to holla at you about Mano though.”

“That lil nigga hit me up about a key today.”

Even though Kassir and I pulled back a lot, we still made sure he kept our guys supplied. With the connect Kassir had in the Dominican Republic, we kept the purest shit in rotation. We weren’t flooding the market but we pushed enough keys to live comfortably.

“Yeah after he tried me in front of Kassan. The nigga was waiting for me outside of Fadez and just walked up on me.”

“That’s a fucking violation.”

“Real shit. I’m cutting his disrespectful ass off too.”

“Say less. I wish you would have hit my line before I sold to him. That shit would have been a hard fucking no from me.”

“I got caught up with Kassan and forgot to get with you about it. That nigga got lucky with you but that was his last key. If these lil niggas can’t respect our rules, how the hell can I trust that he’ll handle business on the low? He’s a liability.”

“And we don’t do those,” I made clear.

“At all,” Kassir co-signed.

“So, you ain’t gon’ say shit about Rebel being home?” He was on my ass about Yahzi but was pretty much in the same situation. She was his one. Most people thought my nigga was foul for how he handled things back then but he was really looking out the only way he knew how.

“Ain’t shit to say that you don’t already know. She’s back and we’re making it work.”

“I’m on the same fucking time.”

“Handle yo’ business with Yahzi, bruh, and hit me when you get back.”

“Bet,” I said and ended the call. Maybe the universe was handing us both a second chance to get this shit right. I damn sure wasn’t about to fumble that muthafucker.

When I pulled into Yahzi’s complex, I laughed at myself for knowing this shit like I was the one who lived here. I had only been to her place once. She never knew because had I seen her that day, we wouldn’t have three years between us. It was a week after I was released from the hospital.

A week later she told me that being with me was too hard. Not even an hour after she told me she was carrying my seed, we pulled up at a spot to grab something to eat. The minute I rounded the car to let her out, two Bedford Boys noticed me and emptied a clip.

I threw Yahzi to the ground and turned, busting shots just as one caught me in my jaw.

I got hit two more times, my shoulder and thigh, but still dropped both them muthafuckers.

She miscarried our child that night. The doctors and Yahzi both swore that it didn’t have shit to do with what happened but I blamed myself.

Deep down inside, I felt like she blamed me too.

That was one of the major reasons why I let her go.

We lost our child that night and I could have lost them both.

I was a selfish nigga with most things in my life but the one thing, or rather, person I would be selfless for was Yahzi.

If having her happy, alive, and well meant not having her then the decision was made without hesitation.

At least it had been back then because I wasn’t ready to pull back from the shit I had going on.