CHAPTER TWO
Sontae “Sosa” Maddox
Sweat beaded on my forehead as I watched my workers move like a well-oiled machine. Four niggas at the kitchen table, weighing product, bagging it up, stacking it neatly. The apartment smelled like baking soda, bleach, and money. The smell I’ve been use too since I was a fucking kid.
Plastic snapped under their fingers. The digital scale beeped every time it reset. Everything moved with purpose, because in this house, purpose was the only thing that kept you alive.
I didn’t hover over my workers, but I didn’t look away either. My supervision mattered.
“Make sure them bags sealed right,” I said calmly. “If weight starts disappearing, we gon’ have a real fucking problem.” Nobody said shit back, they just moved sharper.
My mother sat at the small kitchen table by the window, legs crossed, with a cigarette balanced between her fingers like it belonged there. Her ass needed to stop smoking, but you couldn’t tell my mom’s shit.
Shaunie Maddox still carried herself like a woman who had ran the streets long before I ever knew how to spell the word hustle. Even now, with gray creeping into her hair and her body slowing down, the room still bent around her presence.
“Sosa,” she said casually, blowing smoke toward the ceiling. “I need some money.” I sighed quietly but didn’t turn around right away,
“For what?”
“Bills and shit I want. Whatchu’ think it’s for?”
I reached into the drawer beside me, peeled off a few racks, and slid them across the table toward her. “That’s all I got for you right now, don’t come back tomorrow asking again.”
She smirked, tapping ash into an empty Pepsi can. “You always act like I’m draining you.”
“You always act like I’m yo’ nigga or something, steady asking me for money,” I replied.
“You’re my son,” she shot back,
“So, I already do what I should as your son, which should be enough.” She didn’t respond, only laughed under her breath, I knew she was already counting the money like the conversation was over, because it was.
I would do anything for my mom, and she knew it, but I didn’t mind because she was my favorite girl in the world.
Before anything else could be said, the front door swung open hard enough to rattle the frame. I was on my feet in an instant, reaching for my Glock that was tucked in my waistband. Every head in the room turned at once.
Trigg stepped in first, his face was tight, his eyes already scanning the room like something was off. Rah came in right behind him, followed by BooMan, both of them talking at the same time and between them, practically being carried, was lil’ Tj.
"The fuck happened?" I demanded, moving toward them.
Tj's face was fucked up. his right eye was swollen shut, his lip was busted, and blood was caked up around his nostrils. His white tee was now crimson in spots, dirt staining the knees of his jeans. At sixteen, he was one of the youngest in my crew, he was just a lookout really. He wasn’t supposed to be in any real danger.
"Zach's peoples caught him coming out the store on Vincennes, they jumped him." Trigg explained, his normally joking face was dead ass serious.
Rah cursed immediately. “I told you them niggas been watching how we moving,”
“They waited on him. Four niggas deep.” BooMan added Shaunie shook her head slowly, with her cigarette dangling from her mouth.
“Zeus’ bloodline still think they untouchable.”
That name rattled something in me. Zeus had been my introduction to the game. Zach’s older brother. The nigga who thought giving me a lane meant he owned me. I learned everything I needed to under him, then branched off and built my own shit. That move alone made us enemies for life.
“What they getchu’ for?” I asked Tj.
“They took my phone and my money,” he said quietly and that was enough to change the temperature.
Rah slammed his palm against the counter. “We gotta light they ass up tonight, we ain’t letting shit slide.”
BooMan nodded fast. “Facts. These niggas testing us.”
I lifted my hand slowly, and the room fell silent. Everybody knew better than to keep talking when I did that.
“Ain’t nobody moving without my say so,” I said evenly. “Zach wants a reaction outta me. We don’t give him one that’s sloppy.” I looked around the room, letting my eyes settle on each face. “Y’all remember how this shit started?” Nobody spoke, but they didn’t need to.
“I was seventeen years old, working under niggas who didn’t respect me and didn’t pay me right,” I continued. “I watched everything. I learned everything. I let them niggas think I was comfortable being small.”
Trigg met my eyes and nodded once. My nigga been here with me from the beginning.
He knew the truth. Trigg been my homie since I was nine years old.
We did everything togethere, from freshmen year when we were running the halls of Dunbar high school, skipping class to count the money our mothers had us holding.
Rah joined us when we were fifteen, when he transferred into the school sophomore year.
BooMan came a year later, when him and his granny moved into our neighborhood, niggas tried to fuck with him because he was from the northside but that didn’t last long, he quickly developed a reputation for beating niggas asses, he definitely was the enforcer of our crew.
“When I broke off from Zeus, I didn’t steal weight or money,” I said. “I took knowledge. I took experience. And I took my hunger with me.”
I glanced at Rah, BooMan, then Tj. “GMB wasn’t nothing but a few young niggas who wanted better. Gettin’ Money Boyz. We grown ass men now, but our name stayed because our mission has never changed. And the mission has always been let’s get this money.”
My mom’s exhaled smoke slowly. “And that’s what y’all need to stick too, getting to the money, and not let y’all emotions fuck y’all mental up, Sosa.”
I nodded slightly, then looked back at Tj. “Even though Zach crossed a line, we don’t rush. We move smart. Because when we do respond them niggas won’t even see the shit coming.”
"Them niggas stomped out a sixteen-year-old kid, Sosa," BooMan argued, his deep voice vibrating with anger. “If we let that shit slide, what message is that gon’ send?"
"I ain't say we letting shit slide," I clarified. "I said we gon’ be smart about it."
Shaunie looked up from where she was putting peroxide on a cut above Tj's eyebrow, “Listen to him," she told BooMan. "Reacting without thinking is how you end up visiting your homies at the county jail, or the cemetery."
“And this boy need to go the emergency room," she added,
"I'm good, Ms. Shaunie," Tj managed to say.
I stood up, motioning for Trigg and Rah to follow me to the living room. The workers were still at the table, moving even faster now, sensing tension.
"yo’ yall niggas finish up in here and get out," I told them. "Take that work to the spot on Drexel. Call me when everything is good," They nodded, quickly packing everything into duffel bags. Within minutes, they were gone, leaving just my core crew and My mom’s in the apartment.
"Tell me exactly what happened," I said once we were alone. "Every detail."
Rah leaned against the wall. "Tj was doing his regular everyday shit, we told him to hit the store on 47th afterward to get some blunts and shit. When he came out, Zach's boy Kevo was waiting on him with three other niggas.”
"How you know all this?" I asked.
"Ms. Thelma from the beauty shop saw it, she called me right away," Trigg explained. "By the time we got over there, they were already gone, and Tj was laid out behind the dumpster in the alley."
I processed this information, my mind working through scenarios. This wasn't just a random act were they caught TJ slipping, nah this shit was calculated. It was targeted. Zach was trying to send a message and I got it, loud and clear.
"This nigga Zach is getting bold," I said quietly. "Too fucking bold."
"It’s been that way since Zeus got locked up," BooMan said. "Lil bro steady trying to prove himself."
The mention of Zeus sent my mind spinning back.
Zeus McDonald had been one of the biggest dope dealers on the South Side, controlling territory from 39th all the way down to 63rd.
I started working for him when I was sixteen, moving up quickly from corner boy to lieutenant by the time I was twenty.
Zeus recognized what others didn't, that I wasn't just any lil nigga tryna get put on, I was smart and strategic.
But then his little brother Zach started getting more involved, he was fresh out of juvie after doing a two year bid for aggravated assault. Zach was everything Zeus wasn't, he was reckless, flashy, and quick to resort to violence. He hated that Zeus trusted me more than his own blood.
Then tension built until one night shit took a turn for the worse, Zach accused me of skimming off the top, which I wasn’t. I was a lot of things, but I was never a fucking thief. But Zeus made his choice. He sided with his brother. He had his homies beat me so bad I pissed blood for a week.
Then one night, lying in my bed with broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder, I made a decision. I was done working for other niggas.
Then once I healed, I smoked Zach’s right hand man Tony in an alley off 47th and Wabash. I caught the bitch ass nigga slipping and slit his throat.
The next day after murking Tony, I reached out to Trigg, Rah, and BooMan. We pooled our money togethere, we connected with a supplier Shaunie introduced us to, and Gettin Money Boyz was born.
GMB started small, we only had a few corners, and we were moving mostly weed and pills.
But I was smarter than Zeus gave me credit for.
I'd been watching, learning his operation from the inside.
Within six months, we were murking his niggas, and we had taken three of his corners.
Within a year, we controlled a ten-block radius.
Then Zeus got caught riding dirty with two kilos and a pistol.