My brother waved me off. It was stressing me out that he wasn’t taking me seriously.
“That was just some out of town niggas trying their luck. They probably saw my big ass chains and thought they’d get lucky that night,” Hell said. I shook my head because I didn’t agree. Those niggas felt like they knew my brother. They’d gone there just for him!
“Please, trust me,” Kelechi said again. I opened my mouth to reject again but wondered if I was just overreacting because my brother must know what he was doing. My eyes moved to Orlando, and I felt like I was starting to behave like him, trying to control what Hell did. That was the last thing I wanted.
“I trust you,” I whispered because no matter what, I did trust him wholeheartedly.
“It’s settled!” Orlando said, coming over to us. “I will handle everything, including security,” he added. I shook my head. I wouldn’t even trust this mothafucker to guard my food, let alone my brother.
“You don’t have to worry or even?—”
“You must be out of your mind if you think I’m not about to come,” I said, cutting Orlando off. I already knew he was going to fix his lips to tell me not to come, but that wasn’t happening.
He opened his mouth to probably object, but Hell beat him to it.
“Hell no, I’m not going without you,” he said, making Orlando close his mouth.
This party wasn’t sitting right with me, but hopefully, I was wrong!
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MAKARI “HAVOC” SANCHEZ
A FEW DAYS LATER
Ithought that the weird feeling in my stomach would go, but it hadn’t. No matter which way I looked at it, I couldn’t settle on this feeling, but nobody wanted to listen.
The only reason why I went through with it was because of my brother. He wanted this more than I could understand, and he asked me to trust him. So, I stayed silent when Orlando spoke about his grand plans. I said nothing when he brought in a security company we didn’t know. I didn’t speak up when he decided to broadcast this party all over social media, making it open for anyone to attend.
Maybe I would have felt a little better if he kept it intimate and exclusively for people we knew, but that was Orlando. That nigga didn’t know what being under the radar meant. He wanted to be the loudest nigga in the room, at all times, and failed to see it was the quiet ones that held the real power. The ones people needed to watch!
When we pulled up at the club, the crowd of people waiting to get in only added to my anxiety.
There’s no way they gonna check everyone for weapons,I thought as I passed the line of people. I looked at the security team Orlando was adamant about having for this event.
One of them looked at me and turned away as if he couldn’t handle looking me in the eyes.
“Kelechi, I don’t know about this,” I said, pulling on my brother’s shoulder. He turned to look at me and smiled.
“We’re good, Makari, come on.”
Suddenly, someone bumped my shoulder. It was a short, young nigga with a fitted so low I almost couldn’t see his eyes. He was fidgeting with something inside his jacket. That made me put my hand on my waist.
“My fault,” he said before scurrying away. I watched him because something felt off with him, but my brother waved his hand in my face, getting my attention.
“There’s something strange about that nigga,” I said to my brother and tried to go after him, but Kelechi stopped me.
“Let’s party, baby brother,” Hell said.
He put his arm around my shoulders, and I followed my brother inside because maybe I was just being too uptight. The Cove was filled to capacity when we stepped inside, and there was still a line of people waiting to get in.
I’d never seen it this full before. I did feel a sense of pride that so many people came out for my brother, but also knew that most of them were just here to watch and not really to support.
Orlando had large portraits of Hell posted up on the club walls. I already knew he had to pay Mr. Blair a lot of money to pull that off. I noticed one of them was of my brother posing with a crown on his head. It didn’t get any more obvious than that!
I couldn’t help but think about Sincere and what he thought about this. He may not be responding to the shit, but I knew he saw it all. That nigga didn’t miss anything. I then thought aboutthe night I went to his mansion. Would he have brought up my brother to me?
I sighed, knowing it was best if I didn’t know. As long as he left me out of it, that was all I truly cared about. There was no way I could tell Hell that he was calling me. I normally told him everything, but that was something I would have to keep from him.
