Chapter Eleven #2
As much as I craved finding real love––the kind that would make me want to let down my walls, the shit also terrified me.
I wanted Yalina Blackwell, and she knew it.
The only reason I tolerated the cat-and-mouse games we played with each other was because I was scared of her.
Yalina had the power to make me break down these walls and let her in.
There hadn’t been a woman who had been able to make me fall in love.
I mean, they were cool to slut out and shit, but none of them made me want to slide a ring onto their finger.
Yalina did. I wanted to give her the dream life––a life where she could be carefree because she knew her man had shit covered.
“Love is for everyone. I keep telling Tatiana that she will find love again, but she doesn’t want to hear it. Maybe it’s why she doesn’t come over often anymore,” she chuckled.
“She’s just trying to find her way since losing Karim. I know coming over here is hard because everything here reminds her of him.”
She rubbed my arm. “I’m teasing with you. I know Tatiana is trying to find her way without Karim. As his mother, even I know it’s time for her to move forward. Karim would want the same for her.”
I kissed her hand. “We love you, Ma. Never forget that.”
She pinched my cheeks. “I know it and can’t ever forget it.”
Carlotta checked on me more than my own mother did. I got maybe three calls a year from my birth mother, and that was usually when money’s low. She was too busy helping and being everything to everyone else.
My adoptive sister had about six kids and lived off my mom.
Bitch was lazy and always found ways to milk the system and take advantage of my mother.
You would think she would want to focus on taking care of the damn kids she already had, but instead she laid on her nasty back and had more.
Always talking about I’m their uncle. Fuck them kids.
I didn’t know their asses, and I kept my distance because she wasn’t related to me.
After spending time with Carlotta, I kissed her cheek and headed out. As long as she was good, I was good.
Macy: I’m home if you want to slide through.
I looked at my phone as I climbed into my truck, smirking at the text I received.
Me: On my way.
My fist collided with the nigga’s face in front of me, and he dropped to the floor.
He then curled up into the fetal position as I commenced to whipping his ass.
All that could be heard throughout the warehouse were grunts and cries of agony as I kept pounding on him.
When I finished, I spat on him before stepping back to admire my work.
His pussy ass was lying on the ground, whimpering like a pussy while I stared down at him in disgust.
“Stealing from me when I’m the most generous nigga there is. Every time you came to me about some bread, I looked out for you.”
I grunted as I kicked him again, and he let out a loud squeal like a pig on a farm.
It didn’t matter how much money I had invested in real estate, stocks, and businesses; there was nothing like street money.
It was faster, abundant, and you didn’t have a bunch of crackers in your face asking questions.
It was powerful being in professional spaces with those assholes while knowing you had your hand in other things.
When people met Raphael Sterling, they assumed he made his money legally, and that was true.
But there was another side of him that I witnessed––one that wasn’t the Raphael who played golf at the country club on weekends or the one who cracked rich laughs and used words like “alrighty”.
They never got to see the man who snapped a man’s neck with his bare hands or waited early in the morning with his hands in his pockets, watching a shipment come into port.
He was silent with his shit; you would never hear him throwing around his weight.
People just knew he was about that life, and they respected it.
While Malcolm always had to be loud about his shit, Raphael was different. When you were about that shit, you never had to be loud and prove it. Niggas just knew or heard how you got down and didn’t want to be a lesson.
Even with me working for Raphael, he made it so I could step out and do my own thing. He taught me how to fish, so I never had to depend on anyone, not even him. For that, my loyalty would always be to him, and it didn’t matter that he was in the ground.
“Looks like you got some shit on your hands,” Nazir said from behind me.
I kept my eyes on the nigga on the floor and kicked him in his ribs before turning around.
As much as I wanted to pull the trigger, I couldn’t because he was my so-called nephew.
I didn’t give a fuck about putting him on or trying to push him to do better.
He wanted to be out in the streets, so I showed him a better way.
“Fucking stealing from me like I don’t do enough around this bitch.”
I heard somebody clear their throat. “Boss, he wasn’t stealing. The nigga he put on been stealing,” one of my little niggas said, correcting me.
I looked over at him and shook my head. “So, you just bringing thieves into the fold, Matthew?”
A few of them chuckled at me using his real name.
“This nigga’s name Matthew? Dozer, why you ain’t put us on?” one of them clowned.
He strutted around acting like he was the biggest and baddest but had brought a thief into my operation.
It didn’t matter that he wasn’t directly involved; this was a lesson to remind him and anyone else who I was associated with that they needed to be solid.
Clearly, his ass didn’t do a streetfax on the nigga.
Nazir laughed as he took up space in the doorway.
The nigga nearly had to duck to enter the room.
I was roughly 6’3”, but he even had me beat when it came to height.
It wasn’t just the height, either; the nigga had muscle and could probably crack a skull with one finger.
I watched as he looked at all the other knuckleheads laughing, memorizing their faces in case they ever came in his circle again.
“Bring me that fucking friend. Why the fuck you ain’t lead with that?” I said, mushing the one who hollered out the correct information.
He stood there solid, not cowering or falling down. “Got you. My fault, boss.”
Ignoring him, I headed down the hall to one of the bullshit offices. This spot was out in Harlem and wasn’t used often by us. I just happened to be in some pussy when I got the call. Since I was closer to this location than our main headquarters, I instructed my workers and Nazir to meet me there.
Banga, one of my right hands, hit me up and told me he had found out who was responsible for the missing money.
I appointed Banga to be my right-hand man because he handled business.
That nigga was like a brother to me. We grew up together, and he held me down throughout the years.
After I bounced out of my mom’s house, it was Banga who offered up his mama’s couch for me.
He didn’t give a fuck that I was broke and just starting out; whatever he had––which wasn’t much––was mine.
When Karim and his parents moved out of New York for a few years, I realized I needed to focus on myself.
I wasn’t about to sit back like a stray dog, hoping they would come back for me.
It was me and Banga out there handling business and trying to come up.
That nigga had my back, and I had his front.
That’s how it had always been. So, when the Sterlings moved back and Raphael put me on, I made sure Banga came along with me.
“I hope you didn’t ask me to come to this shithole just to watch you beat children,” Naz said, taking a seat in one of the chairs as I rounded the raggedy wooden desk.
Laughing, I flipped my middle finger at him. “Shut the fuck up. I asked yo’ freakishly large ass out here because I need you to make some shit make sense for me.”
He raised his brow. “Ight. What do you need me to make sense for you?”
From his tone, I could tell he already knew where I was heading with the conversation.
When Nazir and Tatiana saw each other downstairs the day I hired him, I sensed there was something more between them than being just old friends.
There was chemistry, and from the way she had been acting lately, everything was starting to make more sense.
Not to mention my godbaby had the female version of his name.
Nazira wasn’t some common name that every woman was naming their daughters.
That shit wasn’t even on the baby name website. Trust me, I checked.
Yes, Tatiana was still my sister, but I knew there were parts of her life she kept secret or only shared with her confidante, Yalina. Yaya held all her secrets, some even Bloom didn’t know. She was her safe space to vent, and after everything she’d been through, I couldn’t blame her.
Yalina was the kind of woman who made you feel safe and secure.
So, I could see why Tatiana felt comfortable sharing her deepest secrets with her.
Yaya was so damn nurturing, and a nigga needed that in his life.
Most often, the women who were the most nurturing were the ones who needed to be nurtured, and I wanted to be the one to do that for her.
I wanted to be the man who got her to lower those walls and let me in.
To give her good dick while reassuring her that I wasn’t going anywhere.
“You and Tatiana.”
He quietly laughed to himself. “She’s a client.”
“Yet, you haven’t taken a single payment. Matter of fact, the wire payment was reversed back into my account.”
“Not all of it.”
“Yeah, the security for Yaya was kept.”
Nazir leaned forward. “I’m not paying for protection for another man’s woman. It’s clear she means a lot to you for you to be dropping the amount of money you are on her.”