Just the thought of her going on with her life made Zone want to flip the table over. “Is this about your uncle, or is it about the fact that you can’t keep your legs closed for fourteen years?” He glared at his gorgeous wife with her honey-colored skin and doe shaped eyes. She was thirty-five but looked every bit of twenty-five. Yohana was a vegan, she did yoga, and she hit the gym 4-5 times a week. Her skin was flawless, and her shape was one that women paid for. She was extremely big on self-care and took vitamins daily, ate as clean as she could, and got monthly massages and facials.
Yohana scoffed at his comment. “You have a lot of fucking nerve,” she hissed. “This goes way deeper than sex. If I got fourteen years, would you keep your legs closed?! Regardless of if I had sex or not, I would have kept it hot with the visits, accepted every phone call, wrote hella letters, and kept your books stacked. Now, you don’t deserve that shit. You’re a fuckin’ rat,” she shook her head at him.
Hearing his wife talk to him like he was nothing wasn’t sitting well with Zone. Even though he got six years taken off his time, he still knew he had a lot of years to sit. Doing that time without his wife by his side would be hell. He didn’t even know what to say, so he remained quiet, which was good because Yohana wasn’t done.
“My family is loyal. So loyal that my uncle isn’t going to have you killed just off the strength of you being Kari’s father, but you’re dead to me. It’s me and my son keeping you alive, so watch how you talk to me.”
Yohana’s uncle was powerful indeed, and Zone knew that all too well. “I panicked. My back was up against the wall, Yohana.”
His excuses fell on deaf ears as she got up and walked out of the visitation room. She meant every word that she said. Zone was dead to her. With her head held high, she walked out to her BMW 430. Zone was held in jail for ten months before he went to trial. He had been gone for almost a year, so she was pretty much past the severe heartbreak that she had endured when he first got snatched. His betrayal made missing him easier. He got her favorite uncle knocked and husband or not, she wouldn’t forgive him for that shit. Morris didn’t put him on simply because he was married to Yohana. For weeks, Zone begged to be put on. He swore he was built for this shit, and his hoe ass folded under pressure. Out of six niggas that had been picked up, he was the only one that snitched. Yohana was embarrassed. It was hard for her to look her family members in their eyes after she’d vouched for him.
Yohana headed to her uncle’s house to check on his wife. Morris had a wife and four kids ranging from ages sixteen to six. The feds had swooped in and taken everything, but Morris was smart. He had a whole team of people that didn’t indulge in illegal activities. They’d rather take a field trip to hell than to cross him, so when his house was seized, one of his standby guys gave Morris’s wife $700,000 that he’d been keeping safe for Morris, and she moved into a nice home. Smaller than the original but still nice. Three more people came forward giving her a total of 1.5 million that they’d been holding for Morris in the event that anything ever happened to him, so his wife and kids were going to be straight. His children all had trust funds that the feds didn’t touch and on their 18thbirthdays they’d have access to one million dollars each. That was only two years away for his oldest child.
When Yohana rang the bell, Jade let her in the house almost immediately. The woman that had been in love with Morris since they were in middle school. She was having a hard time coping without the love of her life, but she had four children to be strong for. Despite the bullshit that Zone had pulled, no one blamed Yohana for his actions.
“Hi dear,” Jade smiled and let Yohana inside.
“Hi. Have you talked to Uncle Morris today?”
“Yes, earlier. He normally calls four times a day, so he has three more calls. He should be making the second call any minute now.”
“Well, he normally only calls me twice a week, so when he calls, tell him that today was my last visit to Zone, and that I’ll come see him soon.”
Jade let out a defeated sigh. “Everyone is in such a frenzy. I’ll never for the life of me understand grown men that act like they can’t make it without another person’s directions. Morris has been gone for three months, and the panicking has gone into overdrive. Money is drying up, and niggas act like he was the only plug in the city.”
Yohana knew that Jade was referring to her brother, her cousin, and a few more people that Morris used to sell heroin to. The feds didn’t seize her property like they did Morris’s, but she was in a bind herself, and something had to shake. Zone was the breadwinner for their family. He had been since she had a high-risk pregnancy with Kari and was on bedrest for seven months. She quit her job in a jewelry store and never went back. Back then, Zone was seeing mediocre paper. They lived okay, but they were barely middle-class. Once Morris put him on, life was forever changed.
“Tell them not to worry. Just give me a few days, and I’ll have what they need.”
Jade’s eyebrows hiked up. “You’re going to get into the game?”
“Just until I can figure something else out.”
Jade’s lips parted but no words came out. Yohana could see how shocked the woman was.
“I don’t have a choice. I need money fast. Even if I get a job tomorrow, it won’t help me right now. It would have been an easier pill to swallow if the police had taken everything. Jade, Zone had enough money in his stash to last me for six months. All that money he was seeing and wherever he left it, it wasn’t with me.”
“I can loan you money. The feds came and took half the males in our family. You can’t be serious about risking your freedom.”
Yohana’s heart was pounding just from the thought of selling drugs, but she would never admit it. “I’m not trying to be Queen pin status. I need to pay the bills up for at least three months and have a little cushion. Once I have that handled, I’ll gladly clock into someone’s job. I’ve been around drugs all my life. I can stretch some dope, and I can move it. Those are two things I can do for sure.”
Jade was with Morris for a long time. So she’d known Yohana for a long time and one thing she knew was once she had her mind made up, there was no changing it.
CHAPTER 2
Amar noddedhis head at a few people that he knew as he made his way through the club. What used to be a weekly thing for him was now something he only did once a month if that. Amar was starting to outgrow the club, but it was still something that he did every now and then. It was his nigga Diric’s birthday, so he decided to show his face for a few hours. He had spotted a few familiar faces on the way to Diric’s section, but there was only one that mattered. Heiress. Amar had been fucking with her for the past nine months and she had him feeling things he had never felt before. Karma for the hearts he’d broken had come to his ass like a thief in the night because Heiress truly was one of a kind. She came with the kind of baggage that made her emotionally unavailable and normally, Amar would love that shit, but men always wanted the challenge. The more adamant that Heiress was that she didn’t do relationships, it seemed the deeper he fell.
She was smiling at her friend. Then, she laughed. Her sun kissed skin had make-up on it, but he told her all the time that he preferred her natural. He felt almost weird for staring, but then she looked over and noticed him. Heiress smiled and waved at him, and he chucked his chin up at her. Inside the section,he gave Diric dap. He nodded a greeting at Diric’s female companion of the night, and he gave their big homie Canyon dap as well.
Those were the only guests that he acknowledged. Canyon had been taken from his mother when he was five and placed into foster care. He bounced around for a bit and when he was thirteen, he went to a couple that changed his life forever. The man had very heavy connections and was a king pin. He took to Canyon immediately because Canyon’s biological mother was Dominican, and so was he. Him and Canyon both had rich dark skin and jet-black hair that lay like silk. His spouse was a stay-at-home wife that wanted nothing more than to have children, but she couldn’t have any. After Canyon was in their home for a year, they adopted him, and he had three adopted siblings. When Canyon was eighteen, he was introduced to the family business. When Canyon was twenty-one, his adopted father was murdered, and he took over.
Diric and Amar were younger than Canyon, but he met them at a park that he used to hoop at. He was in his early twenties, and they were kids, but their basketball skills were nice. When they were old enough to decide that they wanted to dabble in the streets, he was there to take them in and guide them. Together, they supplied a good portion of the south with heroin. There was a time when Canyon was making a million dollars a month, and that went on for almost a year so wealthy was an understatement. He always said he would retire by forty but that was five years away, and he saw himself leaving the game before then. He just wasn’t sure if he was going to pass his plug down to Diric or Amar.
Amar got a drink and spoke with Canyon and Diric for a bit. Even at a birthday celebration, it was hard not to talk about business. By the time he had downed drink number one, Amar peeped Heiress walking by the section clad in her nude catsuit.Her curly weave was up in a messy bun, and the Cartier watch he got her as a just because gift shone heavy on her wrist. Amar neared the entrance of the section. When she looked up and saw him, she paused. “Having fun?”
His eyes slid up and down her frame. “It’s aight. This club shit doesn’t excite me anymore, but you have an hour and a half to continue your fun.”
Heiress raised one eyebrow. “And then what?”
