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“Shit, when Lyric gets back, Ima ask her if she want to hang out somewhere. I ain’t looking to get married and shit like you. I just want to vibe with her. Lyric wild. Her ass not looking to marry me either,” he told me.

“Whatever ya’ll do tonight, just keep her safe. You know that though,” I told him.

He nodded, and we waited a little longer for Deja, and Lyric to make it back out.

Once Deja walked over to me, I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and we headed out. My brother was behind us with Lyric. I could hear him asking her what she was getting into tonight. I wasn’t sure what her response was because we were passing the casino, and as we were walking by, I felt eyes on me.

I looked in the direction where I felt the stare coming from. I spotted Hitta. He was walking away from a table with the same nigga that he came into my store with that time. He looked irritated. I wasn’t sure if it’s because he saw me with Deja, or the nigga might have lost some money from gambling. All I know is he was mugging me, as he walked.

Because of the direction he was walking in, we were going to have to walk past him to get out of the casino. Deja was in her own little world, so I know she hadn’t spotted him yet. If she did, I’m sure she would have gone out of her way to avoid him. She hated him for the way he put his hands on her. She told me about him popping up on her a few nights ago at her job. When she told the story to me, she was angry. I hated the fact that he was even still breathing after that. I was supposed to kill him over some shit like that.

We neared him, and that’s when Deja finally noticed him. She tried to steer me in another direction, but we were already standing right in front of him. The way she reacted irritated him even more because he clenched his jaw, showing his irritation.

“Girl, ain’t nobody going to say shit to you. Fuck you gotta do all that shit for?” he spat.

“Ay nigga, walk around. We not doing that,” I shot, removing my arm around Deja, making her stand behind me.

Before he could respond, my brother had already walked over and here he was, standing on the side of me.

“I ain’t gotta walk around shit. You don’t scare me, nigga! Fuck is you saying?” Hitta roared, showing off because he was in front of his dawg. I laughed in his face because he was pathetic.

“I don’t scare you because you got company. Show off in front of company, and you’ll get your ass beat like you did the last time,” I was calm with what I said to him.

I didn’t have to do all the extra yelling. Veins didn’t have to start bursting out of the side of my neck to prove that I didn’t fear him. He knew what was up. He knew I would put his ass on his head for the second time.

“You got it big dawg. I make too much money in this casino and spend too much time here to risk that shit going at it with you. You got it,” he finished, throwing his hands up as if he didn’t want any smoke with me.

“Yeah, play it safe. You ain’t gotta say shit to her when you see her. She told me you popped up on her at her job the other night. I let you have that one. I know your chest gotta hurt because of what you lost, so I spared you. I’m only going to do so much sparing though. Play it safe my man,” was all I had for him.

He had a look in his eyes like he wanted to kill me. Trust me, I was sporting the same look. Standing in a million-dollar building with top-of-the-line camera footage, I’ll be a fool to beat this nigga to death in here with my bare hands. That wasn’t going to prove I was gangsta and truth be told, I wasn’t the kind of nigga that had to prove shit anyways.

There was nothing left to say after that, so him and his homie left. My brother kept his eyes on the two of them the entire time. Demarco looked at me with a mug on his face, while stepping a little closer so only I could hear him.

“I don’t like a nigga like that to be left lingering. I feel like that’s a situation you going to have to handle,” my brother said to me. I was taller than Demarco, so I looked down at him, waiting for my chance to respond.

“I beat his ass weeks ago. If him and his boy wanted to come and spin behind that shit, they would have done it already. I ain’t hiding. I got two stores in Miami. They could have picked either store and came looking for me. I’m not a hard nigga to find,” that was all I had left for this conversation.

Besides, Hitta was the kind of nigga to put his hands on women. Why the fuck would I fear a clown ass nigga like that?

CHAPTER 18

JAVARIS ‘HITTA’ MITCHELL

“Man, them niggas playing like they got some good pussy last night! That’s what the fuck I’m talking about Offense! I got six figures on the line! Keep playing the game like that!” Ced yelled at the TV, as he sat beside me in my living room area.

We were watching our ticket. Shit was looking good. We put in a six-leg ticket that Preston texted over to me first this morning. So far, five out of the six players have already done what they needed to do. The only thing left was 30 more passing yards from the quarterback. Once that happened, our shit was going to hit for one hundred thousand. The reason our payout was suspected to be so high is because the ticket that Preston gave me was filled with aggressive lines that weren’t expected to hit tonight.

I don’t know if that white boy knew them niggas in the NFL personally, but he gave us a parlay tonight that I would have never put in, just due to lack of trust. He told me to trust him, and that it would work. Here we were in the 4th quarter of the game, and it looked like he might have known what he was talking about. So far, every ticket that Preston has given us has smacked. It was worth giving him that twenty percent because my luck has been the best it’s ever been since I started working with him.

“Chill the fuck out. You getting too excited. I ain’t trying to have you jinx the ticket,” I told Ced, and he waved me off like he wasn’t trying to hear shit I was talking about.

I had my superstitions when it came to this gambling shit. I’ve been gambling for so long, so I just lived by certain rules. One of them was that I wouldn’t celebrate too early because anything could happen. So many times, in the past, I was convinced my ticket would hit once we got to a certain point in the game, and all my players on the parley were doing what they were supposed to do. I would celebrate early, just like Ced, talk my shit, only for the ticket to flop.

“I’m still thinking about that shit last week at the casino. I wish we would have been in another setting. Damn I wanted to stomp the fuck out of that nigga!” Ced cursed, bringing up Wolf.

“He too cocky. He over there getting some of that good pussy and he letting it go to his head. Nigga won one little fight against me, and he think he’s somebody to fear. When niggas speak on him in Miami, they speak on him about his shops. They call that nigga pretty. Nobody knows him for killing niggas. I don’t know what would make him think we would ever believe that he’ll kill us,” I replied, looking at the TV screen, focusing on the game, but still in tune with the conversation I was having with Ced.

“Then, his brother going to step up like his bitch ass was going to do something. Miami ain’t but so big though. We going to run into him again. You gotta put your foot in his ass the next time. If you don’t, he going to keep throwing it up in your face that he beat your ass. You don’t want him to have all that power over you,” Ced responded.