Chapter 2
I didn’t sleep much.
A Nigga wasn’t scared. Fear made you sloppy, and I’d been doing this too long to get sloppy over a woman with a mouth and a plan.
But Kenya wasn’t just a mouth.
She was math. And math didn’t care how hard you were. I could respect that type of hustle.
The morning after the library, I woke up with that tight feeling behind my ribs. The one that came when something didn’t add up the way it was supposed to. I lay there staring at the ceiling, replaying her voice, her posture, the way she didn’t flinch when I reached for my Glock in that study room.
Most people reacted to power.
She measured it.
That bothered me more than her pink gun ever could.
By noon, I was dressed and out the door.
Gray tee. Black jeans. Fresh Jordans. Nothing loud.
I wasn’t going to war, but I wasn’t going to brunch either.
The deli on Ninth had been around longer than most of the Niggas I knew.
Old-school Jewish spot. No nonsense. Cash only.
The owner didn’t ask questions as long as nobody made him regret it.
We considered it neutral ground in Southside Crestwood.
Xavier slid into the passenger seat as I pulled off.
“You look irritated,” he said.
“Mind your business,” I replied.
He laughed. “That college girl got you thinking.”
“She got me calculating,” I responded. “Big difference.”
Xavier leaned back, stretching his long legs. Eighteen and already too comfortable in the world. Pretty-boy syndrome. Quiet confidence. The kind that made people want to protect him or test him, but I raised my little brother always to be ready to lay a Nigga down if they tested too hard.
“You meeting her today?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Why?” He glanced at me. “You don’t usually let people talk to you crazy.”
I gripped the steering wheel of my Mercedes E-class tighter.
“She ain’t crazy,” I said. “She’s precise.”
He smirked. “That worse?”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “It is.”
The deli smelled like meat, grease, and history.
Kenya was already there.
Of course, she was.
She sat in the back booth, notebook out, iced coffee untouched. Calm and collected. Like she wasn’t sitting across from a Nigga who could end her whole life if I felt like it.
I slid into the booth across from her. Xavier took the seat next to me, nodding at her like this was just another afternoon.
“You're punctual,” I said.
She didn’t look up. “I said noon.”
That was strike one.
I leaned back, stretching my arm along the booth.
“You got some nerve,” I told her. “Talking to me as if I work for you.”
She flipped a page. “You wouldn’t have come if you believed that.”
Strike two.
Xavier chuckled. “You talk to people like this all the time?”
Kenya glanced at him. “Only when people need clarity.”
Xavier grinned. “I like her.”
I didn’t say shit.
The waitress came by. I ordered a pastrami on rye. Xavier got the same. Kenya didn’t order anything.
That told me she wasn’t here to play around.
“You said you had ideas,” I said. “Talk.”
She reached into her bag and slid a folder across the table.
I didn’t touch it.
“You got about a ten percent leak,” she said.
I laughed. “Everybody thinks they know my pockets.”
She didn’t smile.
“You overpay one supplier and undercut yourself on the back end,” she continued. “You think volume fixes it. It doesn’t.”
My jaw tightened.
“You don’t know my suppliers,” I said.
She opened the folder.
Names stared back at me.
Real ones.
My stomach dropped just a fraction, not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough for me to feel it.
“You did business with Mateo Ruiz,” she said. “Dropped him when his cousin caught a case. Smart. But you replaced him with an East Ridge connect that’s already being watched.”
I leaned forward. “You don’t know that.”
She tapped the paper. “I do.”
Xavier frowned. “How do you know all this?”
Kenya didn’t look at him.
“Because people talk,” she said. “And because money leaves footprints.”
That pissed me the fuck off.
“You ever think knowing too much gets people killed?” I asked.
She finally met my eyes.
“You ever think not knowing enough gets them buried?” she shot back.
Silence fell heavily over the table.
The waitress dropped our sandwiches and hurried away as if she could feel it, too.
“You're playing a dangerous game,” I said.
She nodded. “So are you.”
Xavier shifted beside me, suddenly less relaxed.
“You saying you can fix this?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she replied. “If y’all listen.”
“And if we don’t?” he pressed.
She looked at both of us then.
“Then this grows messy,” she said calmly. “And messy attracts attention.”
I leaned back, studying her.
She wasn’t bluffing.
She wasn’t begging.
She wasn’t scared.
And I hated that part of me that respected the fuck out of her.
Lil mama was sexy as fuck. She was of model height, about 5’11 with thick, long legs and long, straight hair.
The type of chick that kept up with her weekly hair appointments.
The bougie type with a French manicure, a tennis bracelet on her wrist, and a matching anklet on her ankle.
I stared at her from head to toe, noting her chocolate complexion, even and smooth.
“You know who I am,” I said. “You know what happens if you wrong.” Her full lips were glossed and thick, and I imagined her lips around my——.
“Zay, you still here?”
I blinked at her boldness to call me by a nickname I hadn’t given her permission to use that name.
“Yeah.”
Ambition burned hot in my chest. It always had. I didn’t want to be just another Nigga surviving off reputation. I wanted reach. Longevity. Control.
Kenya was offering structure.
And structure was power.
“Alright,” I said finally. “Say I listen.”
Her eyes sharpened just a touch.
“Again, all this sounds a’ight, but what will you do when shit fails?” I asked.
She smiled slowly and deliberately.
The kind of smile that meant the math was already done.
I didn’t trust Niggas that didn’t have a motive.
Anybody could talk slick when numbers were clean, and daylight was doing most of the work. The real test came when shit got uncomfortable, when pride got poked, when consequences showed up uninvited.
So I decided to push her.
“You sitting here telling me how to run my shit,” I said, tearing my sandwich in half, “but you ain’t said nothing about what happens when things go left.”
Kenya didn’t blink. She reached for her iced coffee and took a slow sip, as if I’d asked her the time.
“They always go left,” she said. “That’s why you build margins.”
Xavier frowned. “Margins for what?”
“For bail,” she replied calmly. “For silence. For cleanup.”
I looked at my brother. His jaw tensed. He wasn’t soft, but he hadn’t lived long enough to hear someone talk about cleanup like it was a line item. I handled the real sticky shit so he could sleep at night.
“You talk like you've been around this,” I said.
She met my gaze. “I’ve been around enough.”
That answer wasn’t enough for me.
“You know what happened to the last Nigga who thought he could restructure my business?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “But I know why it happened.”
That stopped me.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because he wanted control without accountability,” she replied. “And because you smelled ego on him before you smelled loyalty.”
Xavier let out a low whistle. “Damn shorty.”
I leaned forward, forearms on the table, voice dropping.
“You don’t know what I’ve done to protect what’s mine,” I said. “You don’t know what bodies I carry.”
She didn’t flinch.
“I don’t need to,” she replied. “Your reputation already tells me.”
I scoffed. “Reputation lies.”
“Patterns don’t,” she shot back.
I stared at her for a long moment, then reached into my pocket and set my phone on the table.
“You wanna talk patterns?” I said. “Tell me why this phone rang twice this morning.”
She glanced at it briefly.
“Because one of your runners is nervous,” she said. “And because nervous people talk.”
Xavier straightened. “Who?”
“Clearly, I don’t know,” she said. “But I know his type. He’s new. He needs validation. He spends money fast and asks too many questions.”
My jaw clenched.
“And?” I prompted.
“And he’s the one who’s gonna fold first,” she finished. “You should cut him loose.”
Xavier shook his head. “You can’t just—”
“Yes, you can,” she interrupted. “And you should. Today.”
I laughed, sharp and humorless.
“You real comfortable telling me who to drop.”
“Because you’re already thinking it,” she said. “I’m just your conscience.”
That pissed me off more than anything else she’d said.
“You think you can read my mind now?” I snapped.
“No,” she replied. “I think I can read risk.”
I leaned back, studying her. The calm. The certainty. The way she wasn’t trying to dominate the room, but because she wasn’t trying, she already had.
“Alright,” I said slowly. “Let’s say I don’t drop him.”
She shrugged. “Then you eat the loss.”
“What loss?” Xavier asked.
She slid another sheet out of the folder.
Arrest records for Martin Johnston.
No charges, but documented police stops, photos of him being questioned, and surveillance notes.
“I thought you didn’t know him.” I glared at her.
She put her hands up. “I come in peace. I just want to help.”
Xavier sucked in a breath. “That’s—”
“Public record,” Kenya said. “If you know where to look.”
My stomach twisted.
“You telling me he's already on the pig’s radar?” I said.
“Yes.”
“And you waited to tell me,” I added.
“No,” she corrected. “I waited until you asked the right question.”
I hated that.
Because it meant she understood timing better than most men I knew.
“You playing chess?” I muttered.
She tilted her head. “You've been playing checkers.”
Xavier laughed under his breath. “Damn, Zay.”
I shot him a look.
He sobered immediately.
I leaned forward again, voice low, dangerous now.
“You ever had to decide who lives and who doesn’t?” I asked her.
The deli noise faded. Plates clinked. Somebody laughed near the counter. Life went on like it always did.
Kenya’s eyes didn’t waver.
“Yes,” she said.