We walked back inside of the warehouse, and out through the foyer that led to the front door. Benelli was still here, talking amongst some of the staff members. I looked out, seeing a black G63 pulled up in the front. I knew that truck belonged to Dolo. I could tell by the big rims that sat up on it. It’s like he had a magnet on Riot because the second we made it out here, he got out of the car, and he walked over to us. He went for Riot, pulling her to him, while he looked at me.
“Fuck you had them doing today?” he asked me, talking shit to me like his ass always did.
“Drills nigga. Conditioning. Why was she late?” I asked him, since I knew that he was the one that was responsible for bringing her here. When I asked him that, he chuckled, and with his free hand, he hugged me and then pulled away.
“Her ass wouldn’t get up. Damn Uzi. I sent her in there clean, and she came back looking like she just fought in a war. She gotta get dirty like this to bust a gun?” he asked me, eyes on Riot, deeply concerned why her appearance had changed in the thirty minutes that she’s been here.
“We didn’t shoot today, Dolo. We conditioned,” I let him know.
“And everybody do the same kind of conditioning? She don’t need to be doing nothing where she going to be losing weight. Make her lift or something. Put more weight on her,” he said itwith a smile on his face, as he looked at Riot. This man was in love, and he couldn’t even hide it.
Riot pushed at his chest, removing herself from his grasp, and she looked towards me, telling me that she would see me Friday.
Once she was gone, getting inside Dolo’s truck, it just left the two of us. Dolo stood in front of me, with his hands in his pockets, looking down at me.
“I need your advice on some shit. I told this story to your husband too, getting his input, and he’s not feeling where I’m coming from. I want to hear your stance on it. You know Mook, right?” he asked me.
“Yeah. Your friend,” I said, looking up at him, following him, waiting to see where he was going with this.
“That nigga not my friend anymore. I found out that he was taking product and getting high off it. Long story that I don’t really want to get into because every time I tell it, I get mad all over again, and I start questioning if I should just go ahead and kill that nigga. After finding out that he had been stealing from me, I decided to just let him go. Cut him out of the business, he’s no longer a member of MBM, none of that shit. Everybody around me feels like I should have killed him. You don’t feel like the loss of being cut from the business going to hurt him more than death? What you think?” Dolo asked me. I thought about his question for a few seconds, just trying to see which approach I wanted to take with him.
“And you didn’t kill him because you felt like he wasn’t a threat?” I asked just to verify.
“Basically,” he said, and I nodded.
“If you going to keep him alive, keep him alive for a reason that’s far bigger than you feeling like he’s not a threat. When you say shit like that, you underestimate the person that is now your enemy. I took four shots to the chest on my 27thbirthday by anigga that I underestimated and didn’t feel like he had the balls to try and kill me. Are you keeping him alive solely because of the love that you still have for him, or because you feel like he didn’t take that much product from you? If he was any other nigga that was working for you, you would have killed him, so you gotta be keeping him alive because of the history,” I went on.
“I’ve killed plenty of niggas in my lifetime Uzi. Went on and did it without any kind of remorse. I can’t pull that trigger on him,” he said, and I looked around, just to make sure that it was just the two of us, and that no one was in earshot to hear what I was saying to him.
I stepped a little closer, just needing him to feel me.
“But if the shoe was on the other foot, do you think a nigga would have spared you? Dolo, the first chance that nigga gets, he’s going to try and mutilate your ass! You removed him from the table. He’s down on his dick, and he’s snorting coke. That combo is dangerous. Coke in your system makes a person become completely out of their body. You know this. You pushing that shit out on the street, so you know what it can do to someone. I don’t want to sound like everybody else, but you going to have to put him down. If you can’t do it, then get somebody else to do it,” I said.
With a suck of his teeth, he ran his hand down his face, and you saw it in his eyes that it wasn’t the answer from me that he wanted.
“What did Loco say to you?” I asked.
“What you think? Cursed me out, called me stupid, and a bunch of other shit before he hung the phone up on me,” he said, and I laughed because that sounded just like my husband.
When Loco was running the streets, he didn’t spare nobody! He would have killed Mook the second he found out that he was stealing supply and getting high off it. By no means did I think that Dolo was soft, and that he wasn’t a menace like Loco used tobe, but I think that Dolo was using his heart right now to guide him. His emotions were taking over. He couldn’t see himself killing a man that was at one point like a brother to him.
“Riot knows? What’s her take on it?” I just wanted to hear what everybody was saying to him.
“Riot hate that nigga. From the moment I brought her around him, she didn’t like him. Crazy thing is, she was the one that brought up the inconsistencies in the dope to me. She catch shit that might slip through the cracks, so she’s somebody important to have on my team. She thinks I should kill that nigga though. She got on me last night about it,” he shared.
“If everybody telling you what you need to do with him, then Dominique, you have your answer,” I responded, and he just nodded.
It wasn’t an easy decision. I saw it in his eyes that the decision was going to be tough for him, but he had to do it.
He eventually came, and he stood right next to me. His hands were still in his pockets, and we both looked ahead of us. His car is what was in front of us, but the tents were so dark, so you couldn’t even see inside.
“What you about to get into?” I wanted to know.
“Take her back to my crib right quick, so she can change and shit. She going to the doctor at noon, so I gotta take her,” he said.
“Get her a car, Dominique,” I voiced, and when I said it, he laughed.
“Uzi, she can’t drive, and she don’t want to learn. I don’t drive her around everywhere she goes though. Uzi, her ass don’t go nowhere for real. She either here, or she working. She put up, and don’t like coming outside,” he responded.
