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“Girl,” I laughed. “When do I ever reach out to these niggas first? You know me better than that. I’m about to go home, take a shower, and go the hell to sleep. We got work tomorrow.”

“Ugh don’t remind me,” she groaned.

She started yapping to me about Tariq on the Uber ride home, and I found myself pulling out the card she gave me.

“Oh you’re interested, aren’t you?” Siani said.

“Not enough to call him,” I replied quickly, slipping it back into my purse.

Siani gave me a look but let it go, probably filing this away to bring up later. She went back to gushing about Riq, and I silently questioned if she was falling for him. Our code had always been money over these niggas, but maybe this one had her reevaluating her stance.

Meanwhile, my thumb kept brushing over the edge of the card while she talked, like some nervous tic. I caught myself doing it twice and stopped. Then I did it again.

Annoying.

The Uber dropped me off first. I hugged her, told her to text when she got in, and took the elevator up to my apartment.

I dropped my bag on the console by the door and poured myself a glass of water. My brain started sorting through the night the way it always does, deciding who was useful and who was a waste of time.

Cute party. The DJs were good. Tariq was nice enough, and Gideon was still Gideon.

Cardez Montague though…

The way he’d grabbed my wrist at the bar. It wasn’t a major violation, and I could’ve pulled away. I do it all the time. I’ve slapped hands off me in clubs, cursed out private equity niggas who thought bottle service came with a side of ass. I set the glass down and dug the card out of my purse.

The smart thing would be to throw it away. I didn’t need another man on my roster, let alone one who looked at me like he saw past the version of myself I allowed people to see.

I took it with me into my bedroom and tossed it on my bed while I took a shower, hoping the hot water would knock some sense into me. Yet, when I returned to my room wrapped in my towel, I picked up my phone and told myself I was just looking. Doing my due diligence. Same thing I did with every man who crossed my radar.

A firm registered in the city under Montague Holdings popped up. They had a few commercial properties in Midtown. Some ventures in Westchester. One photo from a charity gala, him standing next to a city councilwoman.

No LinkedIn. No press. His Instagram hadn’t been touched in over a year, and even that didn’t give me much. It was mostly pictures of his cars, or a nice plate of food from an upscale restaurant. No women. The whole account felt like a placeholder, like he’d made it just to prove he existed and then forgot about it on purpose.

In my experience, people who kept their lives off the internet were paranoid or hiding something worth finding.

I called my cousin Jody. She picked up on the fourth ring.

“It’s 11:00 p.m., Belle.”

“I need you to look into somebody for me.”

“Bitch, this couldn’t wait until morning?”

“You not doing a damn thing but laying in bed and watching TV.”

She sighed and I heard her moving around on the other end. “Send me the name. You lucky you my damn cousin.”

I texted her his name and finished getting ready for bed. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with Cardez Montague yet, which was new. By now, I’d already sorted a nigga into one of two categories—mark or waste of time. There was no in-between, because that gray area required feelings and honesty. Those both were a luxury I retired a long time ago.

I was going to find out what he was hiding. I just wasn’t sure if I was doing it for the bag or for myself. And that alone should’ve scared me.

1 Play Jay-Z’s “Excuse me miss”

3 CARDEZ MONTAGUE

My morning was starting the way I hated the most—with a problem somebody else created and needed me to fix.

I was at the warehouse in Hunts Point by 7:00 a.m., which was early even for me, but Yomi had called twice before six and that was never good. He’d been with me for over a decade, since we were young and my pops had us moving small shit out of East New York. Now, he ran the logistics for every shipment that came through the Eastern corridor. The nigga managed to keep a resting heart rate that would make a monk jealous. So, if he was calling twice, something was off.