CHAPTER SIX #2
My stomach tightened. "Sosa, you be careful. I don't want to be making funeral arrangements for my brother too."
"Always am, big sis. But on another note, I need you to swing by later, I gotta shoot a proposition to you,”
“Swing by where?”
“This Club, called Bleu. Im gon’ text you the address aight.”
“Ok cool.”
He paused. "And Zu, Watch your surroundings, the streets about to get hot."
“I am, little brother.”
After hanging up, I drove to Mrs. Wallace's house instead of going home.
Mrs. Wallace had been more of a mother to me than my own ever was.
When I first got pregnant with JJ, she welcomed me into the family without judgment, taught me how to care for a baby when my own mother was nowhere to be found.
Even when Jamie started his downward spiral, she never blamed me, nor did she ever treat me like the college girl who trapped her son.
The street was already lined with cars when I arrived. News traveled fast in the hood. I spotted Jamie's cousin Juice on the porch, his eyes were bloodshot red-eyed but he stood on guard like he worked for secret service or some shit. He gave me a head nod as I approached.
“They all in the kitchen," he said, I found Mrs. Wallace exactly where Juice said, surrounded by women preparing food like death was something that needed to be fed. When she saw me, she opened her arms without a word.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered, holding the woman who'd shown me what motherly love was supposed to look like.
"My boy," she said, her voice hoarse from crying. "My firstborn."
I held her tighter, thinking about how I'd feel if someone took my JJ from me. The pain would be unbearable. Yet here was Mrs. Wallace, standing in her kitchen, accepting trays of food, and hugs as her world collapsed.
Jamie was in the living room with a group of men I recognized as Gizmo's friends. His eyes met mine across the room, and I saw something in them. It wasn’t just grief, but rage.
In that moment, I knew Jamie wasn't going to just mourn his brother. He was going to try to avenge him. And that terrified me more than anything.
Because Jamie wasn't Gizmo. He wasn't street-smart, He was a washed-up ball player with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove. And I knew how niggas in the street moved, because my brother was in the streets, and I knew a nigga like Jamie wouldn’t last. The streets would swallow his ass whole.
“I was actually talking to the nigga, when he got to arguing with some nigga named Yatta.” One of Gizmo’s homies said, who went by the name Vino.
“Lower ya voice bro.” Jamie told him, and they all began to talk in hushed tones.
As I watched him huddled with the guys, I thought about JJ waiting for his daddy to come home. About the future I'd planned versus the one that was unfolding before my eyes.
I thought about my brother Sosa's warning, "the streets about to get hot."
And I knew with a certainty that Gizmo's death was just the beginning.
* * *
Three hours later, I was stepping into Bleu, a club in the Gold Coast I'd heard about but never actually visited. The bouncer, a mountain with arms the size of my thighs, recognized me immediately.
"You Sosa's sister?" He eyed me up and down, not disrespectfully, just confirming.
"Yeah, Zurie," I replied,.
"He's waiting upstairs. VIP." The bouncer unhooked the velvet rope, nodding toward a spiral staircase at the far end of the club.
I made my way through the main floor, hyper-aware of the stares following me.
Even on a Monday afternoon, Bleu was buzzing with the type of crowd that spent money like it was allergic to their pockets.
It was men in designer clothes ordering bottles to impress women who looked like they'd stepped out of music videos.
The muthafucka reeked of weed and new money.
Once I was upstairs, it was a different vibe.
It was quieter, more exclusive. The VIP section overlooked the dance floor through smoky glass, giving the occupants privacy while still letting them survey the crowd.
I spotted my brother immediately, holding court in a corner booth with two of his homies flanking him like loyal guards.
And next to him, looking out of place yet somehow perfectly at ease, was our mother.
Shaunie Maddox had the kind of beauty that aged like fine whiskey. It was stronger, and more potent with time. At forty-two, she still turned heads with her honey-gold skin and curves that defied both gravity and the years of hard living she'd put her body through.
"Well, look what the wind done blew in," Shaunie drawled as I approached, her voice carrying that familiar edge that always made my shoulders tense. "Miss College Girl finally decided to grace us with her presence."
I swallowed the automatic retort that rose to my lips. "Mama. I didn't expect to see you here."
Sosa stood, wrapping me in a bear hug. He smelled like expensive cologne and the faint trace of weed.
At thirty-two, my brother had the confident air of a man who'd carved his own path through life's concrete jungle.
We shared the same Hershey chocolate skin and high cheekbones, gifts from our father.
"About time you showed up, Z," he said, gesturing for me to sit.
"I was beginning to think you got lost or some shit."
I slid into the booth, deliberately choosing the spot furthest from Shaunie. "I had to sort out childcare, I can't just leave my kid whenever I feel like it."
The dig landed exactly where I intended. Shaunie's eyes narrowed, but her smile stayed fixed on her face.
"Still got that smart ass mouth on you," she observed, sipping what looked like cranberry juice but probably wasn't. "it’s a good thing you pretty, 'cause that attitude would've got you popped otherwise."
"You would know all about popping folks, huh?" I shot back before I could stop myself.
"Aight, both of y'all chill," Sosa interjected, motioning for his homies to give us some privacy. They melted away without question, another reminder of my brother's growing influence.
"Zu, you want something to drink. They make a fye ass virgin margarita here. I know you don’t be drinking and shit," I raised an eyebrow.
"Since when you know what virgin anything tastes like?
" Sosa laughed, the sound warming something inside me.
No matter what our differences, my brother had always been my rock.
He was the one constant in a life full of disappointments.
"I gotta know the whole menu if I'm gonna run this mufucka," he replied, gesturing around us. "Speaking of which, that's why I called you here."
A waitress appeared with a tray of drinks, setting a margarita in front of me without being asked. Sosa tipped her generously, then leaned forward, his expression shifting from playful to serious.
"I'm buying this mufucka," he announced. "Well, technically already bought it. the papers were signed last week."
"You bought the whole club? How much that set you back?"
"More zeros than your college loans," Shaunie interjected with a smirk. "My boy moving up in the world while your baby daddy still trying to figure out which end of a job application to fill out." "Mama, I swear to God, you always…" I started, but Sosa cut me off.
"The price ain't important," he said firmly. "What matters is what I'm gonna do with it. This location is prime real estate, but the management's been slipping. This spot could be making triple what it does now with the right person running it."
I looked around with new eyes, my business degree kicking in automatically. The layout was solid but dated. The VIP section was too small for the clientele they were attracting.
"It needs work," I observed. "And a new concept. The Gold Coast got a dozen clubs just like this one."
Sosa's smile widened. "Exactly what I was thinking. That's why I need you."
"Me?" I blinked, caught off guard. "What you mean?"
"I mean I want you to run it. Be the manager. Help me redesign the whole concept, make it something unique. You got that business degree collecting dust while you filing papers for them white folks downtown. Time to put it to real use."
The offer hit me like a thunderbolt. Part of me….the part that had been dreaming of an opportunity since I was a little girl, immediately started calculating the possibilities. The other part….the part who was a mother who needed stability for her son, saw red flags everywhere.
"Sosa, I don't know the first thing about running a club."
"But you know business," he countered. "Marketing, management, all that shit they taught you in school. The club specifics, I can teach you. Or you can learn as you go. you always been a quick learner."
Shaunie snorted. "Girl, don't act brand new. You been running game since you was twelve, organizing the lil’ neighborhood kids to sell lemonade and keeping sixty percent of the profits for yourself."
"I wonder where I learned that hustle from," I muttered, giving my mother a pointed look. Shaunie had been one of the coldest hustlers on the South Side, and I'd reluctantly admired that shit as a young girl.
"This is different," I said, louder. "This is a whole ass business."
"A legitimate business," Sosa emphasized, his eyes holding mine. "This ain't street money getting laundered, Zu. I got investors, business plans, the whole nine. Everything legal and above board."
I raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Since when you care about legal?"
"Since I decided I don't wanna die in these streets or spend my life looking over my shoulder," he replied with unexpected candor. "I'm diversifying. I’m tryna build something that can last."
"Your brother finally growing up," Shaunie added, and for once, there was no sarcasm in her voice, just a mother's pride, It was rich coming from her, acting like she hadn't been the one to school Sosa in the game in the first place.
I took another sip of my drink, buying time to think. The timing was uncanny, with Gizmo's death still fresh on my mind. Which reminded me...