Page 49 of Deuce

“Look at you. I’m not your wing man.”

“I don’t need you to wing shit. I’m just willing to bet they are a packaged deal. You see one, you see the other.”

I shook my head. As I settled into our drive, I thought to myself. Would it be so bad to have a steady girlfriend? I mean,a nigga wasn’t getting any younger. I was thirty years old. My mama was on my ass about getting out of this life and giving her some grandchildren. She could have one, but it would never be both. I was born and bred for this shit. I got immense gratification from laying down a muthafucka that deserved that shit.

There were too many fucked up people walking around like they couldn’t be touched. Did I think I was playing God? Nah. Was I ridding the world of scum? Was I protecting my people? Absolutely yes. Maybe it was unconventional… unconstitutional even. But somebody had to do it. Why not me?

My family’s legacy dated back generations. My great-great-grandfather was a kingpin. Fuck the city, he had the whole state on lock. He came into the game a corner boy. His family was poor. They barely had a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. At ten years old, he linked up with a local dealer named Jake, trying to make money to feed him and his siblings.

He was a natural in the art of finesse, and he was good with numbers. Jake took a liking to him and paid him to do odd jobs or run errands. Being around Jake meant witnessing shit no ten-year-old should. Gramps was like a sponge; he absorbed everything he saw.

At twelve, he asked Jake to teach him the game. Now Jake was hesitant. He was sure gramps was in over his head, but he wanted to see what he would do. He gave him a small amount of product, dropped him in the hood, and told him to sell it. He sat watching every transaction. The product was gone within two hours. From that day, it was up. Gramps quickly moved up the ranks and by eighteen, he was running the city as Jake’s protege.

When Jake was gunned down, my grandfather took over and leveled up. He used his newfound connections to expand business to the gun trade, diamond mining, fight clubs, and gambling rings. That’s where the real money came in. Foryears my family dominated several angles of the underground world. It wasn’t until my father took over did he want to clean up our image. He said he was tired of pumping poison into our community. Imagine that… criminal with a conscious and morals.

He handed the reigns to the underground shit over to his brother and brought the family into a new era.

Most of us were trained in weapons and hand to hand combat. Our sole purpose was to protect our own. Now, if people wanted to utilize our services, it came with a hefty price tag. The thing about a corrupt muthafucka is they didn’t mind paying you to make a problem go away. Each of my siblings had a special set of skills that were vital to the operation of the family business.

As the oldest, I was the lead henchman, and Maceo was my second in command. Kerrion was certified and trained in hand-to-hand combat and made sure everyone was up on their skills. Devin was the weapons specialist. The nigga could get his hands on any type of weapon you could imagine, but his specialty was guns. If people thought I was trigger happy, they hadn’t met him.

Jaeda was our tech wiz. She could hack anything and could get any information we needed on anything or anybody, no matter how deep it was hidden. She made sure our asses were covered on all fronts when it came to security and surveillance. Then there was my baby sis Mia. She was young but baby girl was a sharpshooter, just like her mama. Maddie was a bad muthafucka, and she taught her well.

I wondered if Salima knew how to shoot. If she didn’t, she was gonna have to learn. I was a feared man, but I also had a lot of enemies. A muthafucka would be stupid to go after her to get at me. It wasn’t wise, but it wasn’t impossible. Lil baby had a smart ass mouth. In any case, I needed her to be able to protect herself.

“Cut the power,” I instructed Jaeda through my headset. “The alarms and cameras too.”

I could hear her clicking away on her computer. The lounge would be opening in a few hours, but I had a few things to take care of before I headed there for the night. At the top of my list was Jasper Stark.

He was one of the many people whose name Jaeda pulled from the pedophile ring data. Good ol’ Jasper was one of their highest paying customers. When shit went down, he conveniently decided to take his family out of town on vacation. It took Jaeda no time to locate him.

I decided to let him sweat for a little. I wanted him to think he was safe before I got ahold of him. I’d been tailing him all day. From breakfast with the family at their beachfront property to the shopping trip he took them on and back to the well-lit property with damn near every light on.

The property was secluded by a bunch of trees and sat at the end of a long road. The nearest neighbor was about a mile away. It didn’t surprise me that he was hidden away for privacy. Jaeda was able to pull his security information and camera footage dating back months ago. He’d been using this place as a personal playground. Every time good ol’ wifey thought he was out of town in business, he was here with a different young girl.

Jaeda had successfully tapped the camera on his phone so she could hear everything. According to her, the wife and kids had taken a drive to her parents’ house which was about an houraway. Jasper claimed he wasn’t feeling well and stayed behind. That muthafucka wasn’t sick at all.

Right now, he was sitting in his living room drinking his beer, thinking he was safe. He just didn’t know he was about to pay the ultimate price for his crimes.

The lights went out approximately a minute later. Through my night vision goggles, I could see him feeling around for.

“Alright,” Jaeda said. “Y’all are good to go.”

“Appreciate you, sis.”

“Mmm hmm. Y’all niggas be careful. I love y’all.”

“We love you too.”

I heard the call drop and turned to my brother.

“You ready?” I asked Maceo.

“Been ready, nigga.”

We came out of the woods and made our way up the front steps. We had no plans of trying to break in. We would walk straight through the front door. When she cut the security, Jaeda also disabled the smart locks. That’s the thing with technology. The safer a muthafucka thought they were the more exposed they make themselves.

I trusted the knob and pushed the door open.

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