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“Cardez, I’m grown. There’s nothing wrong with taking the train, just drop my stuff⁠—”

“The fuck I look like dropping you off at the train station?” I snapped. “You already know that’s not how I move. I’m taking you home, and then I’m gonna go handle what I need to handle. Period.”

“I don’t know who the fuck you feeling like, but don’t talk to me crazy because you’re upset,” she spat. A scowl formed on her face as she turned her body toward the window.

My hands squeezed the steering wheel as I pinched my lips together to stop myself from lashing out. I wasn’t even mad at her, but it was too much happening at once. I needed her to just listen to me instead of pushing back all the time.

A few minutes passed before she looked over at me again. Whatever she saw in my face made her uncross her arms.

“Can you at least tell me what’s going on?” she asked.

“My father got shot.”

“Oh my God! Is he going to be okay?”

My nostrils flared as I kept my eyes on the road. “He’s on his way to the hospital. He’s stable.”

We rode in silence as I sped down the freeway and prayed I wouldn’t run into any cops.

When I pulled up in front of her building, she got out and went to the trunk for her shopping bags.

She came around to my window and leaned in. “Call me later,” she said. “I don’t care what time it is.”

“I will.”

I called Marco as I merged onto the West Side Highway.

“I’m already at the hospital,” he said when he picked up.

“How bad is it?”

“He got hit in the thigh and stomach. The leg was through and through, but it’s his stomach that they’re worried about.”

“Fuck. What exactly happened? Where the fuck was Davis?”

Marco sighed. “Orlando was sitting at a table at the front of the restaurant, when two niggas with shiesties rolled up and opened fire. Jerome got off a shot on one of them, and Davis was in the bathroom.”

This nigga Solomon was clearly declaring war. Trying to execute my pops and moving in on my shipment in the same night meant he was trying to gut the family. He had to know Deonte would tell me about the Castellano shipment. He probably knew I was gonna kill him for it too.

I underestimated his reach. I expected him to hit one of our stashes, but he’d moved harder than I anticipated. The miscalculation cost me my shipment, four men, and possibly my pops’ life.

“Dez?” Marco’s voice pulled me out of my head.

“Yeah, I’m here.” I was breaking every traffic law known to man trying to get downtown. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

I hung up and pressed down on the gas.

Marco was standing in the waiting area when I reached the ICU.

“He’s still in surgery,” Marco said.

I flexed my hands, resisting the urge to punch the walls. Things with me and my pops were tight, but he was the only living parent I had. I wasn’t ready for him to go. Not like this.

Marco placed a hand on my shoulder. “The boys are trying to get info. The shooters ran out the back. They’re checking the footage now.”

“Call in whoever owes us a favor in NYPD,” I said in a low voice as a nurse passed. “I want eyes on all the traffic cameras in the whole fucking borough.”

I found a corner and pulled out my phone to call Luther Duvall, a senior member of the High Table.