Sincere tilted his head back and laughed.
“I like you,” he chuckled.
“What? You tryna be my friend or something, Sincere?”
He turned serious, all of a sudden, and said, “Fuck a friend, Shakur, they only have the power to pull you down.”
At least I saw how he managed to be in this shit for so long. He didn’t trust anyone or call them a friend. He was about his money and nothing more.
“We don’t have to be friends, but I think we can come to some sort of an arrangement,” he said, pulling on his cigar again. His dark eyes locked on my face. My mind was running with different possibilities of what this arrangement could be.
“What type of arrangement?” I asked. Fuck it, I wanted to know what he had on the table.
“Like I said, I’ve found my replacement, but I need you.”
I leaned back in my seat and rubbed my chin in thought. The last thing I ever wanted to do was get involved in this shit. It was never on my mind, and that was why I hated the fact my pops and sister were connected, but right now, something in my heart was telling me to take whatever Sincere was offering me.
But what price would I have to pay for whatever it was? Was it a price I could pay, or would it cost me more than I was willing to offer?
Immediately, my mind ran to my pops and Kairi. This man before me had the power I didn’t have. The power I could use to get what I wanted.
“I can see you have something to say, so say it. I’m not a very friendly person, but if someone has what I want, I’m reasonable,” Sincere said. Now his calm attitude toward me made sense.
“If I was to say yes, I need you to do something for me too,” I let him know. There was no use in playing. I wanted something in return too.
“What?” he asked, not hesitating, showing me that this nigga wasn’t playing around. He wanted me.
“I heard some niggas ran up in my crib and fucked with my family. I want to know who.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MAKARI “HAVOC” SANCHEZ
Mama:Makari, are you okay? Please call me, I’m worried about you!
I looked down at my mother’s text message and locked my phone. She’d been texting and calling me for the past two weeks, but I just couldn’t answer her. I was too fucked up in the head to even see her face, let alone talk to her. She said she was worried about me—I was worried about myself.
I hadn’t slept since my brother died. I was in rare form—stuck on a constant loop, not knowing how to get out of it. Every time I tried to close my eyes, all I saw was Kelechi bleeding, lying on the hard concrete floor, so I chose not to. My mind had trapped me, allowing me to relive that night over and over again. There was no peace to be found. A part of me had died that night, and in doing so, something else was left behind. Something else had been released in me. I was lost without my brother. God knew how much I needed him, and knowing I couldn’t stop him from leaving me was killing me slowly inside.
I hadn’t been home either. For some fucked up reason, Orlando was looking to me to fix this shit. The nigga had been hiding in his house since that night, or trying to come to my crib as if he expected me to hold and console him. None of thiswould be happening if he just listened to me and didn’t throw that fucking party. But as much as I hated him for it, I blamed myself too for not fighting him on it when I wanted to. I chose to be quiet. Chose to let him have his way, and that was the biggest mistake of my life.
I closed my eyes and inhaled a deep breath. I could feel my mind falling into a spiral of nothingness—numbness, but I had to stay alert. I had to catch the nigga who put my brother in a casket. He’d been able to slip through the cracks. Disappearing into the night among the chaos he caused that day, but I was relentless. I was going to find him even if it killed me.
I owed Hell that much. He was no longer here, and I was determined to send him some fucking company!
I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye but relaxed when I saw it was an ugly ass bitch looking around all jittery and shit.
She had a fucked-up looking wig on her head that was just drawing my attention because, unless she was a crackhead, who the fuck would walk out of her crib looking like that?
I looked away from her and surveyed around me again. Intel told me that this house was where the nigga could be hiding, but after watching it for hours, I realized I might have been given the wrong information.
The girl wasn’t paying attention and ended up walking into my car. We locked eyes, and I turned my nose up, wondering why she looked like that, until I realized that she was in fact a nigga!
He was the dude who shoulder bumped me outside the club and the one who shot my brother. I attempted to jump out of my car, but he kicked my door closed, slamming it on my leg.
“Ugh, fuck!”
He took off running, and I got out to run after him. The little nigga ran into traffic, just missing a car, which made me stopbecause it almost hit me. I dodged, and by the time I looked up, he was long gone.
