Chapter 2
Dominic “Reaper” Garcia-Strong
SEVEN YEARS LATER
Ionly ever had one true regret in life, and that was not being honest with my best friend, Charlyse Morr, about the feelings that I held for her.
She thought that I was being cruel, but rejecting her in my bedroom the day after her sixteenth birthday had hurt me more than it had hurt her.
It was twofold. First, because I had never intentionally done anything to hurt Charly since I had known her.
The second part was that I had to deny my own feelings for her to protect her.
She was the only thing that I ever denied myself in life.
I was the spoiled baby boy of a family of three boys.
Our father ruled his boys with a firm hand, not taking shit off us, but also catering to our whims when we obeyed his rules because he didn’t have shit growing up.
My father owned several car dealerships that he’d worked hard to build from nothing, but he also had several chop shops in the background of his life.
Selling dope as a teen had helped him and his brother keep his family fed.
Whereas Uncle Chris had only dabbled in it for a minute, my dad had gotten deep into the game.
He’d gotten so deep that he became the man everyone else went to, to re-up.
He’d even helped Uncle Chris build a legitimate business that he’d used to wash his money until he got his own car lots.
After he had expanded that original used car lot to four new car lots, then he began to showcase his wealth.
I had been four when we moved into our new home, the big mini-mansion that we still live in today.
The wealthier he became, the more he carefully managed his wealth.
Rather than buying a bigger home, he hired his friend’s construction company to expand our home on the large plot of land that we had.
Owning three acres of land made it easy for my father to do.
My father may have procured the wealth and made sure that we wanted for nothing, but it was my mother who managed his investments and grew his wealth.
She also had come from nothing, but she was smart as a whip.
She’d gone to college on a scholarship and became an investment banker.
That proved to be a lucrative decision, not only for her but for our father as well.
Whereas she had a legitimate, demanding career, my mother always made time to be a mother.
She hired a house manager to oversee things like cleaning, repairs, grocery shopping, running errands, and hiring for services like landscaping, gardening, and other stuff we needed.
But when it came to helping us with our homework, packing our lunches, checking in on us, or seeing how our day went, it was our mama who did that.
Gabriela Garcia-Strong didn’t believe in hiring anyone to do what she’d been blessed to do.
We talked to our mother about everything, and she gave us sound advice whenever our father wasn’t around to do so.
She loved and nurtured us and made sure we had a loving home, not only for us three boys, but even our friends.
Our mother was the rock for all the fellows in the house.
With all that my parents did for us and provided us with, I admired them, but I wanted to prove that I could do the same thing. I didn’t want to get anywhere because my parents had paved the way and made things easy for me.
I studied my father’s business model and paid attention to the things he didn’t know that I did. I stepped into the streets to do my own thing on a low level, but quickly took his skills, my mother’s intellect, and my charm, and created a business model of my own.
At twenty-three, I was relatively wealthy, and I could step out of the streets if I wanted to.
The problem with that was the shit was low-key addictive.
Even now, as I stood facing two years locked away, I wasn’t worried about how my business would still run.
I shut that shit down, stashed my money, and began mentally preparing for my return.
I wasn’t going away because I’d been caught slipping in my business. I was going away because of loyalty to my family. Getting caught with weed on me and a gun had me going away, and the weed I had was for pleasure, not for business.
Yet, there was no way that I could let my brother go down for the dumb shit he’d done.
He was following in my mother’s footsteps, and for that, she was proud of him.
I couldn’t let him disappoint her. Yet, while I couldn’t let my mother down, I was ultimately letting someone down, the person who perhaps meant more to me in this world than anyone, but it couldn’t be helped.
It was only temporary, and I knew that I would make it up to her.
“Why don’t you listen?” Charly asked, hitting me in the chest as she cried.
“Calm down, Shortcake,” I growled and grasped her forearms.
She tried to pull back, and I jerked her back toward me. “It’s two years. I need you to chill the hell out and keep your head up. There’s so much that you need to accomplish, and you can do it without me as a distraction. Now you don’t have to sit around worrying about me.”
She looked up at me with tear-filled eyes and poked out her bottom lip. “How can you say that? I’m going to worry about you even more now. I know that you’ll be fighting and getting in trouble in there. I can’t protect you.”
“What do you mean? Ya li’l ass don’t protect me anyway.”
“I do protect you. It’s me who looks out for you. It’s me who is always praying for you and calming you down. You’re a hothead, but you listen to me. How can I get through to you and keep you out of trouble if you’re locked away from me?” She sobbed so hard that it was breaking me.
I loved this girl with everything in me.
I’d loved her since I knew what love was, and that love had transitioned from a sibling-type love to something much more in middle school.
It was long before she confessed her feelings for me.
With the way she was breaking down now, it was weakening me, and I couldn’t take it.
I made up my mind what I was going to do, what I needed to do. I jerked my chin to my older brother, Ramon. He walked over to us.
“Listen, bruh. I’ma need you to hold her down while I’m on the inside. Shortcake has a short fuse, and I’m worried as hell about her while she’s worried about me.”
Her arms squeezed tighter around me as she pressed her wet face into my shirt.
“Time’s almost up,” Jacob Griggs, my attorney, stated.
“What do you want me to do?” Ramon asked, ignoring him.
“I need you to watch over her. You see how she’s always hanging around me.
I look out for her and don’t let nobody step to her wrong, no grimy ass hood niggas, no fuckboys, or anybody in her circle.
I give her sage counsel on life decisions, and if anybody comes at her wrong, I beat their ass into the ground.
Do whatever the fuck you feel you need to do to take care of her.
She’s my best friend and my world,” I explained before I kissed Charly on the top of her head.
“Aye, can I holler at you for a sec?” he asked, jerking his head sideways to indicate he wanted to leave Charly out of the conversation.
I pulled her head back and looked down into her tear-stained face. “Give me a sec, Shortcake.”
She bobbed her head but still acted like she didn’t want to release me. Charlyse and I had been best friends since we were eight years old. She had ridden into the street, looking over her shoulder at my cousin and her friend, Avriella Strong.
My cousin had spent the night at my house and told me that the girl moving in across the street was in her class at school.
She was on our side of the street, riding her bike.
She’d looked back at something Avriella had said and was laughing.
I’d seen her about to get hit by that car, and I’d instantly run into the street and snatched her ass back.
She’d fallen onto the ground and gotten scraped up, and her bike had been run over and had to be replaced, but she was safe.
At first, she was angry as hell at me until she’d seen the damage her bike had suffered.
When her mama ran out of the house, thanking me for saving her baby, because she’d seen it all from the front window, Charlyse had chilled her ass out too.
She followed me everywhere from that point on, and I made sure I always looked out for her.
“Wassup?” I asked when I stood alone with my brother.
“Why haven’t you ever made that girl your woman?”
“’Cause, Ramon. You see the shit I get into. I don’t wanna drag her into my world, man.”
“Or is she just not feeling you like that?” he asked, snickering.
“Nah. She’s def’ feeling a brother. I told her a while ago that we could never be like that. Charly’s too good for niggas like me.”
“Don’t you think you could protect her even more if she were your woman?”
“Nah. Because I don’t want to drag her down.”
“If you really were feeling her then—”
“I said no!” Heads turned in my direction, and I inhaled deeply, held it, and then exhaled slowly. “Yeah, I got feelings for her. I love that girl,” I whispered.
“I know that shit. You always have. Everyone knows that shit except for her, apparently.”
“But I can’t destroy her like that, Bro. She’s my everything. If she’s trying to hold me down, she can’t focus on being the best person she can be. She’s so damn smart and successful, and she has the world at her feet. Why the fuck I wanna ruin that with the shit I be into?”
“Stop selling dope, nigga, and use that brain for something useful,” Ramon warned. “Then you can claim her.”
“With this shit on my record, that’s not about to happen.
When I get out, ain’t nobody gon’ fuck with me the long way.
I’ll be lucky if I can get a job cleaning toilets.
So hell the fuck yeah, when I get out, I’m doing the same shit until I can finish stacking and build my own business and race my cars. ”
“You should be following in Joaquin’s footsteps.”
“It’s too late for that now, ain’t it?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“She needs someone with a career who can take care of her and give her the life that she deserves. She needs a cornball muthafucka who ain’t gon’ get in trouble or bring it to her doorstep.
Someone who can give her the white picket fence and two or three kids.
That someone ain’t me. I wish like hell it was, but I ain’t built like that. ”
Ramon shook his head, and I turned away and walked back to Charly. I wrapped her in my embrace, and she started crying all over again. She sniffled, and her little body shook. I kissed the top of her head and stated, “Be good, Charly girl. I love you, okay?”
She bobbed her head. “I love you more.”
“It’s only two years. Hold it down for a G. I love you, girl.”
I leaned down to kiss her forehead and then her nose. She pushed up on her toes and kissed my lips.
“Charly,” I growled and gripped her hips. I jerked her back because I didn’t want her to feel my erection or my heart thudding wildly in my chest.
“I love you, Dom.”
“You know what this is. Come on, baby girl. Don’t make shit harder than it’s gotta be.”
“I’ll come and visit you every weekend.”
Shaking my head, I replied, “No. You go on with your life. I don’t want any visitors or letters.”
“Dom!” she cried out.
I started walking backward, and she rushed me and clutched my shirt. “Please don’t push me out.” She cried.
I grabbed her hands, and she didn’t know that my heart was breaking, too, but it was the only thing that I could do. I pulled her hands off me and lightly shoved her away. Ramon stood behind her and gripped her shoulders when she stumbled backward.
“Please!” she cried out.
I shook my head. My brother glared at me, and I bobbed my head at him. He thumped his chest and declared, “Be easy. See you on the other side, Bro.”
I nodded, looked at my baby girl with tears in her eyes, and turned my back on her. I made that walk to the other side of the door with her screaming, “Dom, don’t leave me! Please, Dom! I love you, Dom!”
That shit almost caused me to stumble in my steps.
Almost. I had to remain strong for her and for me.
Walking away from her was the hardest thing that I ever had to do, but what I didn’t know then was that when I would return home two years later, I would regret every decision I made until that point.