I stayed silent to make him think he had put a little fear in me, but inside, I was calculating my next move.
I stood slowly, buttoning my jacket. “I’ll talk to my partners.”
He nodded once.
As I turned to leave, he added casually, “And for the record, I wasn’t the one who leaked that the Cartiers were behind the project.”
I paused.
“There’s still a leak,” he continued. “Someone else wants you exposed. It’s not me.”
That part mattered more than that goofy ass thirty percent The Crown would never fucking get.
But I just nodded and walked to the elevator without looking back.
After the meeting with Kai, I went straight to Cartier headquarters to update Saint, Legend, and Icon.
“Kai confirmed it. He’s backed by the Crown.”
Saint stopped pacing near the window in the office. “I’m killing that pussy ass nigga.”
“They want thirty percent,” I continued. “And if we don’t give it to them, Kai will stall zoning, trigger audits, and start whispering to the feds.”
Legend’s jaw flexed. “He really said that?”
I nodded once. “In plain English.”
Saint barked out a laugh that wasn’t funny. “Thirty percent? Of what we built? I’ll put thirty percent of them in the ground then. Bet.” Saint’s nostrils flared as he started to pace quickly while punching the palm of his hand. “They think they can extort us? In our city? I’ll kill every one of them motherfuckas and bury them right on that land. They wanna be part of the project? I’ll make sure they never leave it. We can build on top of their dead bodies since they want to be a part of it so fucking bad.”
“Saint,” I said calmly.
“No, don’t ‘Saint’ me,” he shot back. “You already know I don’t take threats lightly.”
Legend leaned back in his chair, watching Saint spiral.
“I’ll make it so expensive to breathe in this city they beg to leave.”
I stepped forward slightly. “Listen to me.”
Saint pointed at me. “This is why we should’ve handled this a long time ago. We should’ve killed them. These motherfuckas think we pussy now.”
“You wanted us to start a city-wide war over some protests?” I probed.
He stepped closer to me, eyes wild. “It ain’t about protests. It’s about respect.”
I corrected, “It’s about leverage.”
Saint’s chest was rising and falling hard now. “Leverage? They’re trying to tax us.”
“They’re trying to bait us. They want us to overreact so they can ruin us.”
That made him pause.
“Bodies won’t fix this type of war. We gotta think with our heads,” I told him. “If we turn this into a bloodbath, we’re validating everything they want said about us.”
Saint looked at his brothers, who only shrugged and nodded in agreement with me.
Saint clenched his fists. “So what? We just sit here?”
