Page 11 of Love me Like XO

She giggled. “No, but I’d for sure like the answer to that question.”

“And you’ll get it. After dinner tonight.”

She began shaking her head from side to side. “Um no, I cannot have dinner with you. I have a man.”

“I think we’ve established that you got a man, and I don’t give a fuck. Gimme a valid reason as to why we can’t have dinner tonight.”

There was a knock at the door, then I heard a feminine voice. “Ree, your client is here.”

“It’s open.”

Seconds later the door opened, and Empress was standing in the doorway with a smirk on her face. “Well hello, I didn’t know you had company.”

“I ain’t company. At this point we’re family, shorty,” I responded making her laugh and Taree grimace at me. “So, you finna tell me where I can pick you up or why you can’t make dinner tonight?” By now my attention was back on Taree.

“Be…because I have plans with Empress. Right, Empress? We gotta do that thing at your apartment?”

“Oh the thing. I forgot all about it.” She nodded trying to have her sister’s back, but I had something for that. Then she looked at me and spoke. “I’m painting my basement, and Ree is helping me.” Seconds later Empress exited the room leaving me and her sister.

“You can fight progress all you want, but I’ve already seen it. You’ll be mine.” I was about to leave when she spoke.

“How can I be yours when I’m already somebody else’s?”

“Because you don’t belong to that nigga, Ree. The sooner you accept that, the better it’ll be for you and him.” I walked away from her after that statement, and the entire walk toward the front door I could feel her eyes burning a hole in my back. She needed to resonate with what I said.

“Papi,you don’t care about me anymore.” Suzy, this stripper I messed with from time to time stared up at me from the floor. Her face was littered with the nut I had just busted. Her freak ass loved when I shot it there, then like the nympho she was she’d rub that shit in with her tongue and long ass nails.

“Fuck you say that for?” I stood to my feet fixing my jeans and looking around her empty apartment.

“Your head was somewhere else. I felt it.” Her slanted eyes closed and opened a few times before she too got up and took the warm rag that she cleaned me off with.

I nodded my head. “Yeah, my head was elsewhere.” It had nothing to do with her skills, but everything to do with the fact that she wasn’t the one I wanted like that. Not anymore. I hadn’t even tasted the pussy, but I craved Taree’s ass like a honey bun during a midnight sweet tooth. This shit wasn’t normal at all because no way after the way she played me yesterday at the shop should I have still been thinking about her, but here I was wondering if I should’ve kidnapped her ass or been waiting outside at close.

I spent forever at the fucking warehouse last night, counting then recounting the product for this upcoming expansion. I was ready in more ways than one, but I felt for Zero because as much as this was what he wanted I knew him. My boy couldn’t operate under duress. War and bullets weren’t his shit, but it was mine. It made me go harder knowing that I was pushing through chaos. I guess that’s why I was more of an informer in our business. I did the necessary things while he agreed but bitched about them when it was too much. We lived a dangerous life though, and with the choices we made nothing was promised. Itwas either shit or get off the pot, and that’s why I’m glad he saw that this expansion was necessary without me telling him. He didn’t want to be in this game when we were fifty and neither did I. Out of the four major families that copped in this city only one copped from us, and it had been that way for years. That had to change, so we had to eliminate that competition, therefore making everybody beat down our door. The beauty of all this is that I knew exactly where my competitor brought their work in and how. I was about to destroy it, and that was why everything was here. That was why Zero ordered so much product, so when I created the drought, we had what was necessary to flood the streets. When the Italians looked up, they’ be cut out of the Chicago pipeline for good.

Pulling my phone from my pocket, I dialed up Gram. He was somebody who I trusted to do as I wanted without me giving too much instruction.

“Boss.”

“Go to the construction sites and shop. I need about fifteen speakers. Then hit that nigga Trek up for an order.”

“Bet.”

After we hung up, I glanced over at her with an idea in my head. “You still dance at Roy’s?”

“When I have free time, but I spend most of my time at Eryx’s. I don’t have to be naked, I waitress and get more tips there than I’ve ever been able to keep at Roy’s.” She shook her head as she went into her washroom.

“Georgie and his boys still hang out up there?” I quizzed.

“Like they’re gods or some shit. Of course.” She peeked out of the washroom at me.

“Good.” I had a plan coming together like no other, and sooner or later the city would be mine and my brother’s for the taking.

“Are you staying for a little while, papi?” Suzy’s voice brought me back down to earth.

“Nah, I gotta head out and see about my wife.”

“Your wi...wife? I wasn’t aware that you were married.”

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