“It’s on the news.” Rosalina spoke before hanging up. She was my ride or die sister and kept me afloat about a lot of things. She too loved when any spectacle I made went on the news. We loved how the media tried to spin it knowing damn well they had no idea what they were talking about.
Hanging up the phone I rushed the guys to hurry up. I was tired as hell and didn’t want to do nothing but go home to my bed.
CHAPTER 3
Cairo
Two YearsLater
“This way Mr. Rogers.”I heard my secretary outside the conference room speaking to another wanna be kingpin that requested to sell product in the Midwest. I could care less about who sold where, as long as my cut was sent over every month. My pops who used to be in charge was the one who put in place that people needed to get permission.
“Mr. Romano, Mr. Rogers is here and I brought him to this conference room as requested.” My cousin Jackie said, using her arm to gesture for him to enter.
The people who worked in this particular building were family members only and it would remain that way forever. Once you allowed outsiders in they created problems and I’m not about to deal with that.
I did use her best friend Nicole every once in a while when Jackie was out or on vacation. She worked at one of the other buildings so I use her instead of not having anyone. Thatbuilding held people who weren’t related but knew not to fuck with me.
My grandmother had twelve kids and my grandfather had four before he met her. She helped him raise those kids as well because their mom died from cancer when they were young. They knew who their real mother was but my grandmother allowed them to call her mom as well. We never considered them step aunts or uncles because they still came from my grandfather.
Long story short, we had a huge family and once some got married, they had kids which extended the family even more. The ones who wanted to work here had to either get a college degree or I found a position for them, even if it meant working in the mail room, the cafeteria or mini stores downstairs.
In my eyes, as long as I had the money there was no reason for any of my family members to be struggling. They were all paid great salaries and lived comfortably.
Of course there were some lazy and disrespectful family who thought they’d come here and do nothing. Showing up late to work, sitting on their phones all day and even had their friends come to play video games in one of the offices. I shut that shit down immediately and let them go. This wasn’t no damn arcade or hang out spot.
“Hi Mr. Romano. It’s an honor to meet you.” He seemed to be overly excited and I wasn’t feeling it. Anyone who appeared too happy was a red flag for me.
“I can’t say the same because I have no clue who you are or why you thought meeting with me was necessary.” Manny or Felix were the ones who did the so called intake of new business owners. I considered him that due to finding out how many spots he wanted to open to distribute out of and clean money.
Matter of fact, I only took this meeting because my pops said this man was making money in Jamaica and decided to comehere to try and do the same. Plus, our pops met a few years ago and they’ve been cool ever since. This was a favor and my pops was definitely going to return one; especially if this nigga fucked up.
“Do you mind if I sit?” He appeared to be respectful as he reached his hand out to shake mine. I did return the gesture and offered him a seat.
“Mr. Rogers what can I help you with?” Staring at the television behind him, I saw an explosion took place at the plant a mile down from one of my other business’s. It had me wondering why no one called to tell me.
Picking up my phone to make a call, the guy must’ve realized how pissed I was because he excused himself before anyone answered. Walking behind to close the door, I waited for this dumb motherfucker to answer.
“What the fuck happened and why didn’t anyone call me?” I snapped on one of my stupid ass cousins who I let run that specific warehouse.Mario went to school for accounting and was smart as hell. It was the exact reason he ran the warehouse without anyone looking over his shoulder. Looks like that may have to change.
I always said his downfall were women and trying to be everybody’s friend.
Motherfuckers used him for money as well as clout with the family. They assumed being cool with my cousin automatically made them cool with all of us and it didn’t work like that. I could see straight through leeching ass niggas and I bet it’s the exact reason he had no idea about the fire. He probably had some of those people there working and made him lose focus.
“Cairo, what are you talking about?” I hated that he had no sense of urgency or the fact he wasn’t concerned about anything, knowing a lot of business was handled damn near twenty-four hours a day at that exact warehouse.
“Nigga, ain’t no way in hell you’re about to tell me that there’s no smoke smell there.” At this point I was pacing back and forth attempting to calm down.
“Oh word. Let me check it out.”Was this nigga really acting like it’s not that serious? How the fuck didn’t he know a something was on fire?
Hanging up on him, I snatched the door open storming out the conference room and heard the glass shatter due to how hard it hit the window on the other side.Going upstairs to my office, I called Raul and told him to meet me at the warehouse.
Once he heard what happened his reaction was the same as mine. Granted, it was another building on fire but it’s windy as hell outside and from what the news showed there were hella cops and fire trucks on the scene. Thinking about the fact there was also fucking security in a booth at my warehouse pissed me off more because why didn’t he call.
Grabbing what I needed out my office, I sprinted down the ten flights of stairs to go out the back door. I felt as if my feet weren’t moving fast enough and that whatever had my cousin and security occupied wouldn’t still be happening when I arrived.
“You good Boss?” One of the guards asked. Jumping in the black suburban without
responding, my driver took off like a bat out of hell and I expected nothing less. Especially since I sent him a message to be waiting with the car running.
