Page 49 of The Prodigy

“I know somebody inside that can touch him,” Nay said all nonchalant, like he was talking about ordering a pizza instead of a hit.

Eris nodded. “Or we can pick him up when he makes bail. Take his ass out to the Bonner Street warehouse and fuck him up.”

“Either way,” Nay said, “I’m open to fucking him up.”

“So y’all ain’t know?”

“Nah. I don’t keep up with all that celebrity shit,” Nay said. “Besides. Jaz can handle herself. She been doin’ it for eight years now.”

Okay.

So that’s what we were on right now.

I knew it was coming at some point.

“So it seems like you feel some kinda way about me being gone,” I said to Nay. “Wanna hash this out so we can move on to business?”

“It ain’t the ‘gone’ part I don’t like,” he answered. “It’s the ‘few weeks back and already trying to regulate’ that’s got me agitated.”

“Pop wanted it like this.”

“But why, though? Why you, when me and Eris been in the trenches taking care of him while you were wildin’ out in Atlanta.”

“I wasn’t wildin’ out.”

Eris snorted. “What businesses did you open when you were out there?”

I didn’t have an answer for that. Well, I did. The answer was zero, but I didn’t want them to know that.

That whole thing—me moving to Atlanta to expand the business—was my cover story, thought up by my mama. Nobody could know the real reason I left, so she cooked that up. I was regretting going along with it now.

“Listen. I did what the fuck I was told, and I was told to go out there. And when I asked to come home, Pop always said no, not till he was gone. That’s the truth.”

“Why, though?”

I stared at Nay. I hated lying to him, but I didn’t have a choice.

“I don’t know. Like I said, I just did what I was told.”

I could see on their faces that neither one of them was buying it, but it was gonna have to do for now.

“I got a question for you, Nay. Did you really meet with Gray last month?”

He looked surprised. “How you know about that?”

“He told me.”

“Well, I mean, it wasn’t no big secret. Pop was fading, man. We all saw it. You would have seen it too if you were here.”

“So what that mean?”

“I met with him just to let him know Pop might be close to the end and that the transition would be smooth when it happened. That’s all.”

I nodded. “Okay. I respect it.”

Nay narrowed his eyes. “So what’s the deal with dude? You know anything yet?”

“Nah. Still waiting on Joe.”

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