“What’s up with you?” I asked, just wanting to know.
“Nothing,” I expected that answer from her, so I nodded.
“What happened between you, and Gold?” I just went ahead and asked that because I felt like that’s what was bothering her.
I wouldn’t tell her that I’d gotten the hint from Ari because I didn’t want her to get mad at her cousin about it. You could see it in her eyes that she was shocked that I’d asked her that. For the first time since I’ve been over here, she showed a little bit of emotion. Well, she frowned, while tilting her head to the side, wanting to know how I knew that.
“What you mean what happened between me, and Gold? How you know about my business dealings with Gold?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about that. Just answer the question,” I said.
“I don’t know you to be telling you shit about my personal life. Fuck you got going on man? What? You got a wire on you or some shit?” her dumb ass asked me, reaching her hand over, as if she was searching for a wire.
I damn near wanted to pick her lil ass up by her hat and slam her down on the sand for insinuating some stupid ass shit like that.
“Man, watch out! You talking about what I got going on, what the fuck you got going on? What kind of snitching ass nigga you take me for? I ain’t shit on me but my phone, my wallet, and a gun!” I snapped, right after I pushed her hand out of the way, and I stood up, emptying out my pockets, showing her that it was just my phone, wallet, and keys inside. Next, I raised the shirt that I was wearing, so that she could see the gun on my hip.
I just did all this talking while I was at Jazelle’s house, saying how I wasn’t the kind of nigga to overly explain shit to a bitch. Yet, here I was, emptying out my pockets, raising my shirt, damn near getting naked out here in this bitch, so that she could see that I wasn’t wearing a wire. She even knew that she offended me with that shit because the look on her face eventually softened, and she relaxed a little bit. She was uptight like a motha fucka. I was the same way when I was around people that I didn’t know. The shit was just weird watching someone else do it, especially a female.
“My bad,” she said, and then she turned her head, so that she was no longer looking at me.
“I’m living the same life as you. You don’t gotta worry about me wearing no fuckin wire. I need something a little bit more convincing than that. Fuck a ‘my bad’. You gotta tell me you sorry. You offended me,” I said, milking the fuck out of this shit. She turned her head around, so that she could look at me, just to see if I was serious or not.
“I’ll apologize right after you apologize to me for slamming me on the ground,” she wouldn’t let that shit go, so I laughed.
“It ain’t the same though. I protected you,” I voiced.
“And I was injured in the process,” she said, removing the sweater that she had tied around her neck, and she picked up both her arms, showing her elbows.
There were scars that were in the healing process. After she showed that to me, she pulled up the pants leg on the joggers that she was wearing, showing me a bruise that she had on the back of her calf.
“You rather have a couple of bruises or would you rather a gunshot to the head? That could have been an option too,” I said. She thought about what I said, and after a few seconds, that’s when she released a sigh.
“I’m sorry. I lack trust. You asked me something personal, and being as though we don’t know each other, I have no understanding how you know about my dealings with Gold,” she shocked me when she apologized because I didn’t expect her to.
I was prepared to just drop it, knowing that I wasn’t going to get an apology out of her.
“Answer the question that I asked you. What happened between you two? You moving weight for him still or no?” I inquired.
“No,” she answered it short, choosing not to give me a backstory.
“Who you working for right now then?” I wanted to know.
“I’m figuring it out. I’m not working for nobody at the moment,” she said, and I nodded.
I put my hands inside my pockets, looking down at her, trying to see where I wanted to go next with this.
I could smell the hustle on her. When it came to me putting niggas on to my shit, I didn’t give them a seat at the table until I could smell the hustle in them. I had to smell that they werehungry for this shit. Riot had traits about her that I liked. I liked the fact that she was aware. She never got scared when I walked up on her because she had already turned her head to see that I was approaching her. She wasn’t soft, either. That much showed when we were at that listening party, and her ass was trying to run inside the house, where the bullets were flying. She had street smarts, even though she just tried me, and did that goofy ass shit, thinking that I was wearing a wire because of the shit that I asked about Gold.
If I put her on with me, this would be something new for me. Don’t get me wrong, my traps had women. I had women with titles of cooking up work, bagging it, and just doing their parts to help the traps run smoothly. I knew that the position that I gave Riot had to be different. She was used to being on the road, putting major work in with Gold, so if I was going to give her anything, I knew that I had to give her what she was used to, or she was going to turn my offer down.
“I can put you on with us if you want. I mean, I gotta take you up under my wing for a little bit, see what all you know, so that I can know where to put you,” I shared, and there was a look on her face, like she couldn’t believe that I was asking her this.
Being as though she was down on her pussy right now, without work, since Gold let her go, you would think that she would have jumped up, immediately asking me when she could start, but she didn’t do that. If anything, she was hesitant.
“It’s cool. I would rather earn myself a spot at a table. I don’t like shit being handed down to me. When it comes to this drug shit, niggas not just handing you a seat at the table without expecting something in return. I just watched a nigga chew me and spit me out like the shit that I got going on don’t mean shit to him. I don’t ever want to be in a position again where someone has the leverage to get rid of me like that,” that wasreal. I liked her way of thinking. I wasn’t that kind of nigga though.
“Your spot not going to be handed to you. This ain’t a fairytale, love. I’m not going to just easily put you on like that. Like I said, I gotta see the way you work, so I’ll know where to even place you. Shit, I might not fuck with your work ethic and decide to get rid of you within a week. Stay under me, do your part, stand out from the rest, and I’ll give you a real seat at the table. That shit gotta be earned though. Who knows the kind of doors this can open for you. Maybe you’ll become so good at this shit, that you’ll be able to run your own organization one day,” I let her know, and I could see it in her eyes that I was moving her with my words.
