Chapter 6 Zo
Zo
“Nigga, why the fuck you walking so close to me?” I snapped as I stopped in my tracks and looked back at the Bolivian man who had been trailing us through the coca field. He jumped back as soon as I did. His face was a mixture of confusion and terror.
Sanchez laughed as he glanced at the man and then put his arm out to stop me from walking in his direction.
“Chill, bro. That’s Santos’ nephew. The man don’t even speak English.” He explained, then motioned for me to keep walking.
“He can feel English,” I warned, because I was two seconds away from knocking his ass out.
This nigga had been behind me the whole day, stepping on the back of my feet and tripping me.
The first time, I let it go, but we were on the third or fourth time.
If he did it again, he was going to be in for a rude awakening.
I don’t know what type of games he plays with these Bolivian niggas, but I wasn’t the one for them.
The kid walked to my side, and from the corner of my eye, I saw him watching me with wide eyes. It was almost like he was trying to figure out if he had pushed me too far.
It was early in the morning. The sun was already beating down, and they had me in the field with some Wellington boots on.
My patience was already at its breaking point, and he was bending that bitch.
We walked through the field; the farmer was telling Sanchez how well the plants had been doing and when we could expect them to be ready for processing and shipping to the States.
That’s what Sanchez told me anyway; I was just here out of obligation.
I didn’t understand anything they said past a few words, numbers, and colors.
Every few feet, Sanchez turned to share a fun fact, but it was just background noise. I wasn’t here to learn; I was here to ensure the product got to the states. We had streets to supply and money to make.
Santos finally caught up to us when he pulled up next to us on a cart and started talking to the guy who was guiding us. Then he started speaking to Sanchez in Spanish.
“Santos said that when the leaves turn a brownish color, they are ready to be processed. He wants us to keep that in mind when we receive the product, so we know the purity. He also said if you know what you’re looking at, you can’t get fucked over.”
Santos stared at me while Sanchez explained, as if he were trying to make sure I understood. I didn’t give a damn what color the leaves turned. But I nodded and continued to walk through the field.
The guide led us to another location, and my mind drifted. I don’t know how Jax, Trouble, and Judah were able to do this shit as long as they had. The few weeks in Russia weren’t even as long as this trip had been. I was starting to feel the title of underboss in more ways than one.
I had been away from my wife and kids longer than I wanted to.
I know that Rem was holding shit down at home, but that didn’t mean that I was okay with letting her.
I wanted to be there for every one of their moments.
It didn’t help that they didn’t travel with me for business.
Only when we did family vacations. She was dead set on giving the kids a normal childhood and keeping them away from this life as best as she could.
At first, I was against it. I told her they weren’t normal kids; they were tied to an organization that made enemies. Their safety was in question every day.
But then I had to realize that none of that shit was their fault.
The main reason I changed my mind was that I watched firsthand how all this had affected Rem.
She grew up in this Mafia shit, I didn’t.
So, I eased up and allowed them to go to school.
Remy was a bomb ass mother, I wanted to give her a hundred kids if I could, but she said she was done having them after we had our daughter.
Everything that she was to everybody, she was that times twenty to our children.
They had the dopest mother in the world, and that shit wasn’t even debatable.
Thinking about them calmed me down and at the same time irritated me more that I wasn’t home. It was a bad combination.
Sanchez tapped my shoulder, and I looked at him, and he pointed toward the end of the field where a guy was waving us over.
We all went in his direction when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.
It was a message from Remy. I didn’t open it right away when I saw that it was a video.
Sometimes my wife is a mother, and sometimes Remy Rich.
And Mrs. Rich is nasty as fuck, so I chuckled and slid it back into my pocket until I was alone.
When I put my hand back into my pocket, I realized it was empty.
At first, I thought I was tripping. And then I went into the other pocket and felt nothing but the samurai knife that the woman at the restaurant had hustled me out of $200 for. I nodded in acceptance and willed myself to calm down, but I knew it was no use.
I replayed every moment of the walk. Every step that was too close and every time he brushed my heel. I pieced it together in seconds.
Once we reached the end of the field, that guy talked to Sanchez and Santos about the crates he was packaging.
And Santos’ nephew came by on a tractor.
Before he knew it, I was snatching his ass off of it while it continued to roll through the field.
All the guys in the field were screaming in Spanish before I slapped the shit out of him.
The whole field froze. The workers dropped their machetes, and I barely heard them shouting. But it didn’t matter; all I could focus on was the disrespect.
He fell to the ground, and I was on him in seconds, putting my size 13 Wellington in his chest. He winced as he lay pinned, and I went into his pockets and pulled out all my money.
That’s why that nigga had been trailing me.
He realized that I was carrying some of the cash that I had gotten exchanged for Bolivian currency in my pocket.
Thieving ass nigga. He didn’t fight me, and he didn’t try to deny it.
He just lay on the ground shaking with his hands in the air like I was the one robbing him.
Santos started cursing in Spanish. I don’t know who he was talking to, but I couldn’t be concerned. I knew that Sanchez wouldn’t let anybody out here fuck with me while I was occupied, and if he did, I would be the only one on the jet ride back home.
I leaned down, pulled the knife from my pocket, and stuck it through his hand. He screamed as I twisted it out, cleaned it on his shirt, and stuck it back in my pocket.
I turned around to see Sanchez standing there with his gun out, and Santos looking with a smirk. When the dude got off the ground, the Santos started screaming at him.
Sanchez shook his head and chuckled. “Santos said he does that shit to everybody.”
“Yeah, I bet his bad ass ain’t gone do it no more,” I assured him as I continued walking as if nothing had happened.
Santos stopped me, turned me around, and said something in Spanish.
“He said, he calls Judah the bull, but he’s going to call you brave heart.” He said as Santos put his hand over his chest in respect. I nodded and finished walking while he continued to show us how the field was coming along.
We walked for another hour. I was relieved once I realized that we were finally done. This was the last part of our trip, and I was ready to head back to the States.
“Nigga, you done scared the whole Bolivian field crew,” He chuckled as we got inside the truck.
“Fuck them. It’s not even about the money; I didn’t even count the shit to see if it was all there.
It’s just the fact that he thought he was going to take it from me.
” I chuckled as I turned the volume down on my phone and went to Remy’s video.
I didn’t know what to expect, but it was a video of our daughter. I turned the volume up to listen to it.
"Tell me again what you said, Zoey," Remy said as my baby came into view. “I just said that these beans is hard when you make it, and it’s not hard when daddy makes it.”
Remy was quiet for a while before she blew out a deep breath and said, “Get away from me, Zoey.”
Sanchez and I laughed at the same time. My daughter humbled us every day. I responded to the video and put my phone back into my pocket. I had done all the work there was to do in Bolivia, and now I was ready to get back home to that chaos.
***
My driver rolled through the gates of Trouble’s estate slow enough for the guard to log the tag number of the truck.
One thing was for sure: if anyone ever came there wanting to test their luck, they would be carried out in a body bag.
All of our homes were secure, but his security was provided by the Italian mafia, and it was next level.
Six armed men stood in towers overlooking the property like guards at a prison.
They were armed, bored, and waiting for someone to come through and test their shooting precision.
And those were just the guards you could see.
They probably had niggas in the bushes too, pretending to be hedges.
Throughout the years, I don’t remember being here more than once.
Normally, meetings take place at the headquarters, the central meeting ground.
But today they invited me over so I could fill them in on my trip to Bolivia.
Trouble was a tough nigga, he didn’t spare anything, but he was cool as hell.
He had been in the game for a minute and worked his way up the ranks to National underboss.
Now, he was mostly out of the way and traveled less than all of us.
But that’s how it worked in the Mafia: if you grind the right way, you can chill later on.
I slapped hands with the guard standing at the door. I had met him a couple of times before. He was a big, tall, bald ass nigga who always looked like he was waiting for something to pop off.