He'd thought he was so smart in convincing her to go along with his plan. Too bad he hadn't calculated the fact he would become attached to more than just the sex, but to the woman as well.
Until this moment, they'd kept their lives separate, living in the now. But knowing she was holding back on him, especially when he suspected it was because of another man, didn't sit well with him.
If she wanted to run game, she'd chosen the wrong man to do it with. The power and connections he possessed always swayed things in Masaki's favor. Crossing him wasn't a smart thing to do. So, as much as he cared for her, if she wanted to act like a trick, he'd treat her like any other toy he'd possessed. He'd stake his claim, letting her and everyone else know there was a hefty penalty for touching what belonged to him.
He went looking for his phone when he heard it chirping on his nightstand. He picked it up, waiting for the caller to speak.
“Boss, we've got a problem.”
Every time Masaki heard the word “Boss” his brain shifted gears, and the transformation began. Most days, Masaki wore the face of a clean cut real estate developer. He wore crisp button-down shirts, silk ties knotted to perfection with creased suits sharply tailored to fit only him. It was all a persona developed to prevent anyone who watched him too carefully from seeing the truth of who he really was; the head of the Canarsie Yakuza family.
Could this night fuck with my nerves anymore?
His second, Izumitani “Izzy” Hisato, was supposed to be in the middle of a high-priority job Mas had delegated to him. This call instantly pulled Mas from the day-to-day facade he wore for the public and Oshun, and made him sink into the ruthless gangster his organization demanded he be.
“Where are you?” Mas tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder, picking up the shorn clothes Oshun had pulled off him a few hours ago.
“Mother Gaston & Hegeman.”
Masaki ran down the stairs and slipped his feet into his shoes.
“On my way now.”
Masaki opened his door, and took the few steps to the driveway. A few moments ago, he was making love to his woman and asking her to move in with him. Knowing Oshun would balk at being called his woman, his mood soured more. Her skittish ass might be afraid of commitment, but he wasn't. She was his, and he was hers. In his mind, there was no other alternative than for them to be together. All that remained was for him to convince her of that.
But first, he had to deal with whatever this shit was that Izzy was calling him about.
“One problem at a time, Masaki,” he whispered to himself. “One at a time.”
O shun shifted carefully through the massive crowd behind the NYFD barricade as she looked for one face in particular. At six-feet-two, Aesop Jenkins stood above most people in the crowd by at least a head. When she spotted his signature light Caesar haircut, cedar complexion, and the faithful toothpick he kept trapped between his full lips, she made her way toward him.
She said nothing when she found him. There were too many people around for her to express her thoughts openly. Not to mention, with all the emergency vehicles and their wailing sirens, there wasn’t much chance of being heard anyway.
Her lips tightened into a flattened line as she squinted and assessed the blackened destruction of the now-extinguished fire. The row of attached two family houses on Mother Gaston Boulevard were now gaping holes of charred brick and steel. An entire block of buildings was gone in an instant.
She wasn’t angry that AAM Developing had suffered such a loss. She knew by their track record those houses were going to be used as drug dens. But, on the other side of those houses were properties owned by members of her community. People she’d promised to protect if they followed her and adhered to the rules put forth by her council. Now those people would suffer along with AAM, and she couldn't have that.
“Club, now,” was all she said before turning around to begin the two-block walk between the site of the fire and Heaven’s Gate.
She didn’t need to look behind her to know Aesop was following her. She didn't even need to hear the heavy footfalls of his workman’s boots crunching hard against the concrete sidewalk. She knew he followed her, because it was his job to follow her, explicitly and implicitly.
She keyed in the alarm code and entered the doors of the darkened venue. Heaven’s Gate usually brought calm to her restless soul. It was strange that a place usually filled with loud music and boisterous patrons dancing wall to wall could make her feel calm, but it did.
When she was just a club owner, her soul was at rest. It was rare when she didn't have to worry about making certain her community was protected from all threats, that her people were thriving in a system that set them up for failure from birth. But tonight, even inside these hallowed walls, there was no peace.
She headed for the basement, not surprised to see the lights were already on when she opened the door. She took purposeful steps down the staircase, and catalogued each face sitting at the rectangular table in the center of the room.
Big Craig, Chelly, and Uncle Pete ran the prostitution, the gambling, and chop shop rackets on the north side of Brownsville. Oshun controlled the money laundering and protection rings on the south side. With more money from her enterprise, and a larger piece of the territory under her control, Oshun sat at the head of the council. A fact that hadn’t been easily accepted at first, especially by their eldest member, Uncle Pete. However, over time, they each saw her as a worthy leader who kept them paid, and paid people made happy subordinates.
Oshun taught them the way to remain successful was to engage community support. If they did things that placed the community at risk, they would always have to worry about some do-gooder trying to bring them down. They needed to take care of the community, and the community would take care of them.
The first thing she implemented was a community outreach of sorts. No crime was to be perpetrated against members of the community, only against entities that would take from the community. Her council members had to protect Brownsville, and they had to put an agreed-upon percentage of their profits back into the community.
Before Oshun instituted the restricting of how hustles were run in Brownsville, it was a wasteland of death, drug addiction, and crime. Now, the community was beginning to thrive, and if it were up to Oshun, it would remain that way.
The key was organization. The community balked at prostitutes walking the streets, or women sacrificing their health as sex workers, and pimps beating and killing the girls they victimized. Oshun helped Big Craig set up brothels near the business district that only opened when the businesses closed for the day. All Big Craig’s girls received regular healthcare at no cost to them, as well as took a favorable seventy-thirty split in earnings. Craig had balked about the changes in the beginning, but then the cops stopped busting his girls, and he saw his revenue increase rapidly. It was hard to argue with that logic.
When Chelly’s gambling ring kept getting raided because nosey neighbors reported the undesirables hanging out on the block, Oshun formulated a plan. She turned Chelly’s brick and mortar business into a virtual casino whose IP codes were damn near impossible to track. With the cost of overhead going down and the profits pouring in, Chelly happily conformed to Oshun’s business model.
