Chapter 18
MARCUS STOKES
“What you know about Money’s girl?” I asked Kyree.
We were at his spot, going over some last-minute shit before hitting one of BC’s stash houses.
I didn’t need anything from them. We had more than enough from our own suppliers, but it was time to see if Kyree was really built for this.
He was going against the people he’d been riding with since he was fifteen.
The nigga talked real tough, and tonight would show me if he could hold his weight as my second down here.
He took a long pull from the blunt, cheeks puffed out before letting the smoke out through his nose. “Not much,” he said, passing it to me. “Just heard she’s some nurse bitch.”
If I wasn’t trying to keep my connection to Jasmine quiet, I’d beat this nigga’s face in with my gun. Jasmine wasn’t some bitch, even if her head was a little twisted right now. She didn’t deserve to be talked about like that by some young dude with no clue who he was running his mouth on.
Still, I couldn’t wrap my head around how she went from me back to Money practically overnight. The math wasn’t mathin’. I really thought I was close to getting her back.
The night I met her at Donny’s kickback, I knew Jasmine was different from any other female I’d dealt with.
She was beautiful, smart, solid—real wifey material.
I felt like I could breathe around her—really be myself.
But back then, I was just a corner boy out in Queensbridge, trying to get put on while she was focused on nursing school. What future could we have had for real?
So nah, I wasn’t mad when she broke up with me.
Shit hurt, but I held no ill will toward her.
She stayed on my mind, though. I never stopped thinking about her, not once.
I kept hustling and moving up the food chain, telling myself I’d spin the block on her when I had something real to offer.
I wasn’t trying to be some hood nigga with lofty dreams. I wanted to build something with her.
That RICO charge almost took all of that away from me. But prison turned out to be a blessing in a weird way. Shit broke me down and built me back up stronger, smarter. I learned more behind those walls than I ever did in the streets.
I had to put a couple niggas in the ground along the way. But that was the cost of building the life I wanted. It was the price I was willing to pay for her.
Everything I did was for Jasmine—to get her back where she belonged by my side. She was my soulmate. No one was gonna take that away from me. I thought about her every day I was in that concrete box, not on some the one that got away type shit, but about what we had and what we were supposed to be.
I needed her on me permanently. I found one of the best tattoo artists on the yard and had him ink jasmine flowers down my arms and across my chest. It wasn’t that cheap, dirty, prison ink.
My boy hooked me up with detailed professional-grade work.
The flowers wrapped around my older tattoos, blooming over angels and scriptures like they were always meant to be there.
It took five sessions, and I made sure I blessed his books to show my gratitude.
Now Jasmine would forever be part of me, claimed in ink.
These other niggas inside were fighting for scraps, trying to stay alive, and whole time I was learning how to build. The OGs put me on to how the real bosses move. They put me on with their suppliers, taught me how to clean money, and how to make the system bend in my favor.
Shout out to my lawyer. After years of digging—and paying niggas off—he figured out that the Feds used illegal wiretaps.
That technicality gave me a second chance.
I might’ve been gone for ten years, but the day I stepped out those gates, I felt it in my bones—God was giving me a second chance.
And this time, wasn’t shit coming between me and what’s mine.
Everything was already set up and waiting for me when I got out. I wasn’t ‘bout to be no corner boy again. Fuck that. I was running shit. City officials, cops, DAs—I spent years paying off the right people and lining their pockets. I was never seeing the inside of a cell again.
Ever.
“Why you ask?” Kyree asked, side-eyeing me.
I shrugged, “Saw them at the club the other night. Thought she might be useful.”
He didn’t need to know the truth.
First thing I did after I got out was hit Donny, her best friend Amber’s older brother.
He’d been out the game for a minute but still had his ear to the streets.
More importantly, he’d been keeping me abreast of Jasmine’s moves.
He’d told me when she’d graduated from nursing school and when she’d passed her board exams. That’s how me and her even met.
Donny vouched for me then, and still fucked with me now.
I was shocked when he told me Jasmine was down in Atlanta.
But when he added that it was some young niggas down there trying to make some noise?
Without a doubt, I knew that was God opening a door for me.
I had the money, the product, and the muscle.
It was time to expand anyway, and Jasmine gave me the perfect excuse to come down here.
Within a week, I had her routine mapped out.
I knew she’d be at the soul food spot ‘cause I had one of my young boys trailing her that day. What I didn’t expect was for her to be hugged up with Money Banks.
Kyree stayed gassing that nigga up like he was a mix of the boogeyman and the messiah.
“Nothing moves unless Money says so.”
Yeah, aight.
Every king has their weakness. You just needed to be patient enough to find it. When I saw the way he looked at Jasmine—how his eyes lit up when she talked—I realized we had something in common.
She was his soft spot. The same way she’d always been mine.
I knew hugging up on her and letting him know I’d had that pussy before him would get under his skin. I saw how tense he got, how his jaw ticked. That nigga wanted to put hands on me, but he wasn’t about to show his ass in his people's spot. I’m sure they had a real cute chat after I left.
But when Jasmine kept brushing me off and dodging me like I was a fucking bill collector, I knew I had to turn up the pressure.
Fucking up her car wasn’t about scaring her.
She just needed to be a little shook up.
Enough to second-guess being in Atlanta and getting wrapped up with that nigga.
I figured it was a fifty-fifty shot—either she’d call him, or she’d call me.
And when we ended up back at my place, I thought I had it in the bag.
The pussy I’d been fantasizing about and jacking off to in my cell for years… it was better than I remembered. Being inside her again felt like everything aligned. I was back where I belonged. I’d won. Her body told me before her mouth ever would.
Then she ghosted me—went back to that nigga like what happened between us meant nothing. Said Money was her man, like I wasn’t her first love.
Like I only imagined the spark reigniting between us. Like it wasn’t fate we’d reconnected. Like she couldn’t see how far I’d come since the last time I saw her. Bought that bitch a new car and she left it sitting in the lot like she was ashamed of it. The fuck did she think this was?
That shit had me tight.
I sent the video to wake her up out of whatever fantasy world she was living in. Jasmine needed to remember what we were. What we still are.
I knew once she saw it, she’d realize she couldn’t just walk away from me.
“You want a dance, daddy?” Poppi purred, slithering into my lap.
I don’t know why they kept bringing her around. She was cute, but smelled like she bathed in that old Victoria’s Secret body spray girls wore in high school—Love Spell or some shit.
“I’m good, ma,” I muttered, pulling on the blunt. She didn’t move, just kept herself parked in my lap, eyes locked on the blunt in my hand like a fiend.
“You good, mama?” I asked, blowing smoke in her face. “Why you eyeing my shit like that?”
She giggled, tucking a loose strand behind her ear.
“Poppi!” Bambi called from down the hall.
Poppi hopped off my lap like twelve was coming and scurried off to the room in the back.
Bambi wasn’t the biggest chick, but she was the one all the girls listened to. She was the baddest too—tall, long legs, beautiful deep brown skin, and a face too fine to be hanging around niggas like this. She danced sometimes, but mostly brought the girls where Kyree told her they needed to be.
She hadn’t fucked with me since the incident with Poppi.
Shorty spilled some liquor on my vintage Jordans. They were deadstock that I flew out to L.A. for. Priceless shit. I blacked out a little and ended up shaking the shit outta her.
Not my proudest moment… but it was the principle.
Bambi was the only one who said shit. Her ass got right in my face and told me I had her fucked up if I thought I was gonna manhandle her girls.
I backed off.
Not ‘cause I felt bad, but out of respect. I saw it in her eyes—she wasn’t scared. I knew if I bucked at her, she’d put up a fight. And I liked that.
Once it was me, Kyree, and his boys, alone in the room, I got back to business.
“Your guys ready?” I asked.
Kyree leaned back with a heavy-lidded smile. “Been ready. This finna be an easy lick. There’s no less than $50k of product at the house. Money’s been slacking, so it should only be two, maybe three niggas inside.”
Shit sounded too good to be true. From everything I’d heard, Money ran a tight ship. But Kyree had been BC for years, so I had no choice but to trust his intel.
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Good. Make that shit clean. I don’t want no loose ends.”
Kyree nodded, eyes lighting up, eager to prove himself. I just hoped that he wouldn’t be on no show-off shit because that’s how people got killed.