Page 100 of Own It

“You twelve?” His eyes mushroomed, swallowing so hard his Adam’s apple pushed at the barrel of my gun.

“Nah.”

Sighing in semi relief, he replied, “I do on occasion.”

“You ever sell to a nigga named Zaire?”

“Uh, I can’t be sure because I don’t really collect names. What he look like?”

“Almost my height, locs, a G tatted between his eyes.”

Old boy looked off, brows kissing as he pondered before shaking his head. “Nah, I don’t remember nobody like that. He clean? In appearance? Everybody I serve are pretty much down and out, my nigga.”

I surveyed him for a minute, trying to read past the fear he held in his eyes to see if he was bullshitting me.

He liked to fell out due to relief when I dropped my gun, putting the safety back on and locking it back in my waist.

“You know anybody else selling that shit?”

“Nah. I be out here dolo and don’t really be trying to discuss that shit, ’cause that’s some hard time, boss,” he spoke some real shit.

“It is. Stop fucking with that shit, lil nigga.” I kept my head on a swivel before directing my eyes back on him. “I been to prison, and you wouldn’t make it a week unless you became somebody’s bitch.”

His eyes widened in horror before he nodded.

Patting his shoulder, I went down the block and hopped into my whip where Mylo sat in the passenger seat. In a sense, he had sort of taken Talid’s place as my right hand since the latter had been too sick to do shit. While I missed my cousin, Mylo wasn’t a bad stand in.

“What he say?” Mylo questioned as I yielded then pulled away from the curb.

“Nigga ain’t sell shit to Zaire.” I shook my head, frustrated as fuck. Truthfully, I didn’t know what killing the seller would even do for a nigga.

“Maybe that ain’t what did it.”

“The doctor said it was, and he ain’t got no fucking reason to lie.”

Zaire wasn’t no drug dealer, but I was, and he knew a lot of shit just from being in the room. By saying that, he wouldn’t just take some random shit unless done purposefully. A part of me believed he took the shit intentionally out of depression, but I put that into the recesses of my fucking mind.

“True.” Mylo caressed his beard in thought, peering out of the window. “He would recognize that shit too.”

“Exactly.” I pulled up to Tam’s Burgers. “I won’t stop until I find out who the fuck he got that shit from though.”

“I know.”

* * *

Walking into the front of Godfrey Baking Co. with Mylo on my trail, I was surprised to see LaMia emerge from the waiting room off to the side. Her lip was swollen as fuck, and she was sporting a black eye that looked fresh.

“I’ll go start.” Mylo excused himself and went to the back, speaking to Raquel who he must’ve run into back there.

“Ayan?” I queried though I knew the answer already.

She nodded.

“Yeah,” she still stated despite her non-verbal confirmation.

“Aight, so why you here, LaMia?” I peered down at her, thoroughly confused on why the fuck she was in my place of business battered up.

“I was wondering if you can maybe just have a conversation with him about . . .” She took her pointer finger and circled it around her face as if that hadn’t been the first fucking thing I’d noticed about her. “This.”