“He was meeting someone?”
She nodded. “Finally met the New York plug. Some dude named Marcus. He’s apparently a big-time hitter trying to expand down here.”
I racked my brain trying to place the name. It didn’t ring any bells. We never really dealt with niggas from New York like that. Our plug was from Miami—it was closer and less drama.
“Anyway, it was a few niggas from Marcus’s crew, Kyree, and some of your folks that I recognized from the file Fontaine gave me.”
I exhaled through my nose. “So they did tighten up.”
“A little. After y’all handled Rahmel and Daemon, Marcus has been keeping a low profile. But make no mistake—he’s had his eye on Atlanta for a minute.”
“I don’t care where he’s from,” I said. “Shit don’t move here without me giving it the green light.”
Nai stood and drifted over to the pole, hooked an arm around it, and twirled lazily.
“I told you—they think you have too much power,” she said, not looking at me. “What don’t you get, Money? It doesn’t matter how fair you are.”
She stopped spinning to fix her eyes on me. “They’re still salty about what you did to Rahmel and Daemon. And Marcus has them believing he can take you out—or at least carve out a space for them here.”
She plopped back down on the couch and slipped her heels back on.
“You said it was some other BC niggas there. Who?”
“Grizz, Chris, and Derrick.”
My stomach sank. They were dudes I considered family. Grizz ran our trucks. Derrick and Chris had been running with us since they were in high school. They were supposed to be solid. I trusted them. At least I thought I could.
“These niggas,” I muttered, rubbing my jaw.
“Marcus didn’t get into too many details while we were around,” Nai said, adjusting her bra strap. “But… he made a hell of a first impression.”
“How?”
Her brows knitted together. “Poppi’s a little green. Sweet as hell, but was jumpy all night. She accidentally bumped into him and spilled some shit on his shoes. It wasn’t that deep. She apologized, of course. But Marcus blacked out. He grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the wall in front of everybody. He called her everything but a child of God, and was looking around daring somebody to say something.”
“Kyree ain’t say shit?”
She gave me a dry look. “Come on now. You know that bozo didn’t do a damn thing but stand there like a deer in headlights.”
“So, nobody did anything after he put hands on a woman?”
“Me.” She smiled proudly.
Of course she did.
“I hopped in his face and told him he must’ve lost his mind putting hands on one of my girls.”
“Nairobi…”
“What?” She threw her hands up. “Poppi was hysterical, and the rest of them dudes were useless. I wasn’t about to let some crazy-ass man from New York think he can treat those girls any kind of way.”
“He get physical with you?”
“He tried,” she shrugged. “Puffed up his chest real crazy-eyed like that was supposed to scare me. When he realized that wasn’t doing shit, he started laughing. Talkin’ about some‘I like you.’”
She shook her head. “The man’s off, Money. Like dead-behind-the-eyes off. He knows the product he’s pushing down here is dirty. He knows about the overdoses—he just doesn’t care.”
I dragged a hand over my chest and tried to rub out the tightness that had settled there. I didn’t respect men who put hands on women—that was pussy shit.
