Page 76 of Mafia Kings & Wedding Rings
“I talked to Jake. He said he was in the back when somebody tossed a Molotov cocktail through one of the windows and the place went up in flames,” Staten voiced. “He got him and the rest of the crew out, but all the product is gone. Not up in flamesgone either. These niggas came in there and cleaned that shit out swiftly. Which means?—”
“Inside fucking job,” Brick declared.
“So what you wanna do?” I asked, my tatted chest heaving since I’d taken off my shirt.
It was hot as fuck down here in this cellar, and I’d take a couple of shots of whiskey to calm my nerves. Adrenaline pumped through my flesh, thinking about all the ways I wanted to body niggas. It was one thing to fuck with my family, but this business shit was a different type of intentional disrespect. It was something we couldn’t stand for. We had soldiers in the streets ready to get dirty when we said the word, but it had been a while since I’d done so.
“The fuck you think?” Staten pulled from the blunt without even touching it as he picked up a fresh clip and popped it into the .45 in his hand. “These niggas ran up in our shit, tried to hit our crew, and we lost product. It’s on.” He cocked his weapon back and placed it on the table.
“The crew is assembled. They just waiting for the word.” Brick walked up and took the blunt from his lips.
“We waiting until the sun goes down,” Staten voiced. “I got Moniece looking into the surveillance outside the building so we can find these muhfuckas. She’s supposed to hit me up when she’s got something. Jake is going through the files to find any discrepancies from somebody already on payroll. Until then, we load up, ready for anything. It’s time these muhfuckas know that I’m here and taking over, so we meet with the families tomorrow.”
“That’s what the fuck I’m talking about.” Brick held the smoke in his lungs and bobbed his head.
“Moniece just hit me back.” Staten peered down at the phone in his hand and scrolled.
The deep furrow in his brow when he squinted at the screen let me know he didn’t like what he was seeing before bringing his eyes up and glancing at Brick then me.
“What you got?”
“See for yourself.” He slid the phone across the table, and I picked it up.
There were a couple of images with this punk muhfucka Levi that worked for us. He was exchanging words with a man by the name of Chino Lathan. Chino was the son of Jacob Lathan, one of the heads of the four other families we dealt with. It was nothing new for us to do business or negotiate with Lathan or his men, but only someone that ran shit like me or one of my brothers were allowed to have a sit down. If you were a lieutenant like Chino and Levi, you merely made the suggestion and moved on. Levi was trying to backdoor us.
“Shit, I know where Chino’s little trap building is.” Brick rubbed his hands together. “A nigga could use an excuse to blast some muhfuckas.”
“Call Gas and tell ’em to get ready,” Staten ordered.
A message came across his phone screen from Cambrie.
Cambrie: Steak or fish?
“Looks like you got a message.” I slid the device back to bro.
He picked up the phone and studied the screen. At first, he just stared at the message like he was debating on what to say to her. Then he tapped a quick reply and sent it.
“What’s up? Something wrong?”
“Nah.” Staten set his phone on the counter and shook his head.
“Cambrie seems cool,” I insinuated, watching him nod and load a clip with new ammo. “So, what the fuck wrong with you?”
“That nigga like her,” Brick teased, jumping onto one of the counters behind us and taking a seat.
“Fuck you, Brick.” Staten popped the clip into the pistol and cocked it back.
Baby brother laughed so hard he tossed his head back and held his stomach. Staten picked up one of the vests and put it on over his wife beater. He’d never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve. He was pretty much a vault, and if you didn’t have the cheat code, you wouldn’t get access. Rossi knew it, but outside of her, he kept women at arm’s length. The closest he got to normalcy was Nadia, and I believe her taking off like she did was the reason he didn’t give a fuck about a bitch or her feelings anymore.
“The only time we move like this after this is if the threat is imminent. This is strictly a reminder.” Staten tucked his gun behind his back.“That’s what the fuck we got soldiers for.”
Snatching up a black duffel bag, he stuffed the remaining automatic weapons inside. Suited up in all black, my brothers and I left our luxury vehicles parked on the bunker site and opted for the buckets we did dirt in.
Cruising through the worn-out Garden Grove projects with Tupac’s “HailMary” ringing in our ears, we blew on a blunt. The complex was made up of five or six four-story buildings. Only half of them were occupied. Given the conditions of the buildings that did have residents, seemed like it was only a matter of time before they were boarded up too. Garbage and broken bottles littered the pothole-filled streets. Glancing at the sky, I noticed the sun had vanished behind dark clouds, and thunder rumbled as thick raindrops fell against the windshield. The already grim area took on an even more ominous appeal. This was the perfect night for this shit.
Staten parked a block over, and we all hopped out assembled and ready with facemasks. Gas, who was ex-military, had all our men suited up and ready, coming at Chino’s building from all sides. From what I knew of this four-story building, the first two floors were reserved for the crackheads so that they could get high. On the third floor was where they cooked the dope, and on top was where Chino and his men kicked it and bagged the coke and counted money. I hit up my favorite crackhead from the neighborhood, a nigga by the name of Crisp that everybody fucked with.
Crisp and my pops went way back. Justus always felt bad that he went the way he did, so he made sure that we always looked out for him. In return, Crisp was always ready to ride for us, for some money or dope, of course. I’d already arranged for him to slide through and cop some work so that we knew what was what when we went inside. The last message I got, he told me that there was four men on the perimeter then a nigga on an exit on each floor of the building, which meant we had to drop twelve niggas just to get to Chino and his crew. Crisp said those niggas kept a twenty-four-hour party going though, giving us the advantage. Moniece, our cousin and tech genius, was able to access their outdoor cameras for us too and switch the feed so that it appeared as if nothing was going on outside when we ran up on these muhfuckas.
