Mega
If I had known that dismantling the Banks empire would take more effort than just lifting a finger, I would’ve told Vivica to find another soldier. I was fine before she came along. Moving small weight, keeping my head down, and eating enough to stay comfortable without drawing attention. Rashid was dead and BCC was a shadow of what it used to be, but it was my shadow and I was surviving in it. Then this bitch reached out from behind bars with a plan and a promise and now I was sitting in a prison visitation room with shaking hands and a nose that wouldn’t stop running, trying not to look as fucked up as I felt.
I hadn’t slept in two days. The last line I hit was in the parking lot before I came inside, hunched over in the driver’s seat with a key and a baggie because I couldn’t walk in here unfocused. My eyes were bloodshot and my clothes were wrinkled and I’d lost weight that I didn’t have to lose. The guard who processed me at the front desk looked at me like I was on the wrong side of the glass.
Samaya swore her lil boyfriend wouldn’t say anything but that’s not how this shit works. The Banks brothers would press Bryce, threaten him, threaten her and their unborn child to getwhatever information they could squeeze out of him. And Bryce would talk because everybody talks when the alternative is a bullet or a body bag. It was only a matter of time before they connected him to me. And once they had my name, I’d be dead in days.
Vivica came out in her jumpsuit and sat across from me looking rough. She’d aged bad since the last time I saw her. Bags under her eyes, cheekbones poking out, hair pulled back in a tired ass bun like she’d given up trying to look like the put-together politician she used to be. But her eyes were still the same. Cold, calculating, and ten moves ahead of everybody in the room including me. Prison wasn’t breaking Vivica Banks. It was just pissing her off.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. Her voice was flat and her posture was stiff and she glanced at the camera in the corner of the ceiling without moving her head. A small movement that told me everything I needed to know about what kind of conversation this was going to be.
“Yo, I need help.”
“What’s that got to do with me?” She cocked an eyebrow and looked at me with an expression that could’ve been confusion if you didn’t know her. But I knew her. And that look wasn’t confusion. It was a warning.
“Bitch, are you serious right now? I did what you told me to do. And now shit is fucked up. I don’t know where your daughter is. My men are scattered, some are missing, some are under arrest. The Banks brothers got one of my guys in a basement somewhere and he knows enough to lead them straight to my front door. I’m out here drowning and you haven’t called in almost a week.”
I watched her jaw tighten. Her eyes flicked to the camera, then to the guard by the door, then back to me. And it hit me what I’d just done. I walked my dumb ass into a recordedvisitation room and damn near laid out the entire operation in front of cameras and COs because I was too high and too desperate to use my brain. Stupid. That was rookie shit and I knew better.
“I’m just the former mayor who has been falsely accused of a crime,” Vivica said slowly, enunciating each word like she was speaking to a child. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a daughter in trouble. I don’t have men scattered anywhere. I’m in here preparing my defense and trying to return to my life as a private citizen. Whatever problems you’re having, they have nothing to do with me.”
I sank back in my chair and nodded. Aight. I got it. She couldn’t talk freely. Everything in here was being recorded. Her trial was coming up and she was playing the role of innocent victim to perfection, and my crackhead ass just walked in here loud and sloppy and almost blew the whole shit up. I felt dumb as hell.
“I hear you,” I said. “My bad. I just… didn’t know who else to come to.”
“I think you need to go visit Dante Oldsman,” she said.
“Your ex-husband? Serenity’s father?”
“He’s a businessman. He might be able to help you with whatever business issues you’re dealing with. He’s more equipped for that sort of thing than I am. I’m just a woman in here trying to clear my name.” She folded her hands on the table and looked at me with eyes that were saying something very different from her mouth. “Please don’t visit me again. It doesn’t look good for my case to have visitors I can’t explain to my attorney.”
“Understood,” I said.
She stood up and smoothed her jumpsuit and turned to leave. Then she stopped and looked at me over her shoulder withan expression that the cameras would read as polite but I read as a direct order.
“Oh, and I think it would be best if you took a vacation after you see him. Get out of town for a while. Clear your head. The stress seems to be getting to you.”
Get out of town and lay low. That’s what she was really saying. Go see Dante, get whatever he got for me, and then ghost before the Banks brothers kicked my door in. Even in a jumpsuit, this woman was still running shit. Still moving pieces, still three steps ahead while everything around her was falling apart. That was the difference between me and Vivica. She could watch the whole board collapse and calmly redirect traffic. I was standing in the wreckage trying to figure out which way was up.
I walked out through security and into the parking lot and the sun hit me like a slap. My body felt like it was running on battery acid. I sat in my car with the engine off staring at nothing and thinking about how bad I’d let shit get.
Dante Oldsman was Vivica’s ex-husband who worked for a rival liquor company, Wolf & Barrel. I ain’t never met the man. I didn’t even know his name until six months ago when Vivica dropped it during one of our calls. Said he was useful and left it at that because Vivica didn’t explain shit, she just told you what to do. Whatever Dante had for me, money, a safe house, a new connect, whatever, I’d go get it. Tomorrow. Tonight I needed to handle something else first.
I needed to disappear. But you can’t disappear alone because a nigga alone is a nigga that gets found. I needed somewhere to go that wasn’t connected to BCC or the Vipers or any address the Banks brothers could beat out of Bryce. Somewhere off the map with somebody who would let me in without asking a bunch of questions.
I scrolled through my phone. Dead contacts, disconnected numbers, niggas who were either locked up or hiding or tooshook to answer. Scrolled past Serenity, who I still planned on finding. Past Serenity who was useless to me now, but who I still planned on finding. Past every name that had been part of the plan until the plan went to shit.
I stopped on a name I hadn’t hit up in months. Not street family. Not the homies who disappear when the bag dries up. This was blood. The only person I had left who would open their door for me without looking through the peephole first.
I dialed the number and it rang three times before she picked up.
“Well, well. Look who finally remembered my number.”
“I need a favor, cuz. I need somewhere to stay for a minute. Shit got hot and I gotta move.”
“How hot?”
“Hot enough that I’m calling you.”
