Page 37 of Rhodes to Love

He laughed more. “If we are watching your back, you have to know that I have an all-access pass to your life. I heard your conversation with Karima. I wasn’t really paying attention until I heard you say Watchful Eyes. I had to rewind the convo to see who the fuck you were talking to. While I invited you to be a part of our crew, you still in your probationary period.”

I nodded repeatedly. “A’ight. I’m not tripping on that. I know how the game works. You just caught me off guard.”

“This ain’t the game though.”

“It may not be the drug game, but it’s the game. You seem to be running it similar to how my dad ran things.”

He gave me a slight smile. “So, Philly is going to have her pack some clothes. With our help, I know you can protect her. She needs to be with you. Ain’t nothing worse than a depressed pregnant woman. It puts her and the baby at risk for all sorts of things. She don’t have to be away from you no more.”

“I appreciate you, man.”

He waved me off. “So, that nigga got released on bond the other day. Chad has connections, though, so we know exactly where he is and were able to get his phone tapped. Surprisingly, his connect at the prison has connections to a nigga that has plenty of street cred in Cali. If it all checks out, I’ll let you in on names.”

I nodded. It seemed these niggas had connections I could only dream about. “Can you tell me what part of Cali the friend has street cred in?”

“Mm-hmm. Watts, basically L.A., but his range is pretty wide.”

“So, let me tell you what I know,” I said, enlightening him, although I was pretty sure he knew this already about me. He probably wanted to see if I would reveal what I knew. “The Hendersons are connected to the rapper, Noah. He has a brother named Ryan that has ties in Cali. Noah is also connected to Sonya, the former video vixen who is from Beaumont. That has to be who you are talking about. If I’m not mistaken, Sonya has a brother that works for the federal prison system, last name Jameson.”

He gave me a huge smile and said, “Welcome aboard.”

I frowned. “I thought I was already aboard.”

He chuckled. “That was a small test to see if you were truly with us… if you would reveal what you knew already. I know that your pops was familiar with Ryan. They both ran for a nigga named Rodney back in the day when they were practically kids. I think Ryan is a little younger than he was though.”

“I didn’t know all that, but I’ve heard his name a time or two. I wanted to know as much about Karima as possible. When I researched her family, their ties to Noah popped up. So because Noah popped up, so did his brother. Then I went down a rabbit hole after that, especially when I saw Sonya was from Beaumont. After researching her siblings and her husband, who also has major connections, I stopped there.”

He gave me a one-cheeked smile. “So what do you know about her husband?”

“He’s very resourceful… has connections all over the country.”

“Okay. If Ryan needs backup, I’m sure that’s who he’ll go to. I can see now that you’ll be even more of an asset to our team than I expected. So what you plan to do with that agricultural degree and that animal science degree?”

“I just wanted to be familiar and knowledgeable about my environment and to know some shit about Karima’s way of living. She wasn’t fucking with me because I was unfulfilled potential. I mean, we were friends. She didn’t want anything more with me though. So I figured, if I was gonna go to school, it had might as well be for something that could benefit me for the area I lived in.”

“Yeah, that’s smart nigga shit. You might can work for her family or at least partner with them. They have plenty of horses and cattle, and WJ said they are about to start putting those chickens to work, mass producing eggs.”

“Yeah, I thought about that before I met her family, using it as a peace offering, but then all this shit popped off. I was scoping out their cattle, seeing they were somewhat on the thin side.”

He slowly shook his head. “You and Rondo gon’ get along well. He live about five minutes from here.”

I nodded as the doorbell rang. That had to be my baby. I glanced at Ali, and he said, “That’s her.”

I quickly made my way to the door, not bothering to even check to see if he was telling the truth. I swung the door open, and her pretty ass hopped into my arms and kissed me long on the lips like them niggas weren’t even here. When I heard the door close, I separated our kiss and lowered her to her feet. Philly was standing there with his lip turned up.

“You know she my niece, right?”

“My bad. I wasn’t gon’ leave my baby hanging though.”

He slapped my outstretched hand and said, “I told you I was gonna be dipping in shit to fix things.”

“That you did. I didn’t know until a couple of nights ago that you worked part-time for Watchful Eyes.”

He smiled and nodded. I gave my attention back to my baby to see she’d gone straight to the bedroom with her duffel bag. Philly set her other bags on the floor by the door, and he and Ali slapped my hand. It looked like she was moving in. I bit my bottom lip at the sight. She refused to be without me, no matter what I said.

“Rondo gon’ be keeping watch tonight. Seneca will be here tomorrow. I’m always around.”

With that, they left. After locking the door, I grabbed Karima’s bags and hit those stairs three at a time to get to her. When I opened my bedroom door, she’d already hopped in the bed and covered herself up to her neck. She gave me the biggest smile as I closed the door behind me. I dropped her things to the floor and pulled off my shirt and sweats.

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