Chapter Five #3
He knew the second he set foot on the Knight’s property that he’d crossed a line he could never uncross, and part of him regretted the move.
Unlike Pete, he’d spent his entire adult life doing things the right way.
He’d worked his ass off through college, clawed his way up the department, and built a reputation by following procedure and staying clean.
Years of discipline. Years of restraint.
And now one bad decision had the power to burn it all down.
But the other side of him felt none of that mattered anymore.
Not the badge, the career, or the rules he’d lived by.
He would do anything to save his son’s life, anything. He was a father first.
“Also,” Crown added, lifting his gun and pointing it at the camera mounted high in the corner of the warehouse.
“You are being recorded. That means I got dirt on you, muthafucka. So, anytime the Knights come up, I expect to know about it. Get the fuck outta here.”
Crown didn’t wait to see them leave. He turned and headed back inside, confident Smoky would clear the area.
As he walked through the warehouse, he nodded at each Knight he passed, his eyes scanning for Danger.
He searched and searched until he finally found him in the back, talking to the road captain, Black.
“Everybody move around.” Crown instructed, and the energy shifted instantly at the sight of his large build.
Out of respect, conversations halted, and one by one, the members cleared out, leaving the space open.
“What you doing here, bro?”
“Fuck it look like? I’m ‘bout to ride out.” Danger shot back, adjusting his bulletproof vest.
“No you not. I gave you a direct order to fall the fuck back until you healed.”
“I ain’t never gon’ be healed. Fuck you talking ‘bout, nigga?”
Crown took a deep breath and nodded, trying to be understanding. “I get it, bro. You hurtin’. You pissed. But this ain’t the way. You gotta heal first.”
“Nah, sittin’ at home ain’t the way. Mo’s lying in the dirt, and you expect me to wait until my leg closes up to go after these niggas? Hell nah, I’m ridin’.”
“You limpin’! You slow. If you get caught slippin’ like that, you get hit, and you dead.” Crown corrected him, not sparing his feelings.
Danger let out a sharp, jagged laugh as he raised his gun, the hammer clicking back loudly in the silence. He tucked it into his waistband and sniffed hard.
“The only one who needs to go home is you. Worry about yo’ bitch. She’s the one who needs saving. I’m good.”
Crown’s brows furrowed as he stepped closer. “Fuck did you just say to me?”
“You heard me.”
Crown nearly swung. And if it had been anybody else, he would have.
Immediately. But this was his brother, and he forced himself to stay still.
He knew that wasn’t the real Danger. The brother he knew would never disrespect him like that.
So instead of reacting, he studied him. That’s when he saw it.
The pain first, then the high. The glassy stare, pupils dilated, and a red, wet nose as if he’d been wiping it all night.
“You back doing coke, bro?” Crown came right on out and asked. He’d been in the streets long enough to spot a cokehead, especially since his own brother had once dabbled in the poison.
“You don’t get to judge how I grieve, my nigga.”
“I get to judge what you do for the Knights and how you represent us.”
“Pops left this to us. This shit is just as much mine as it is yours. I can do what the fuck I want.”
“Wrong. Until the day I retire my patch, I call the shots, muthafucka. Don’t you ever forget that.” He reached out and swiped the white residue from Danger’s nose.
“You think Mo would want you back on that bullshit, fucking your head up again after she fought like hell to get you clean?”
Danger stepped back and knocked Crown’s hand away hard, but Crown ignored the sting. He let his little brother ride…let him vent.
“Mind your fuckin’ business and stay out of mine.” Danger spat.
That was strike two for Crown.
“Go home,” he said, still trying to keep his cool.
“Fuck you. I’m not going nowhere but to that clubhouse, so stop talking to me about it. Real talk.” In a sudden burst of anger, Danger shoved a nearby crate hard, causing guns to clatter across the floor, some landing on Crown’s boots.
That was it.
Strike three.
In an instant, Crown closed the distance. Danger, already bracing for it, swung first, but missed. Crown swerved his head and answered with a vicious uppercut that snapped Danger’s head back. A hard right hook followed, payback for calling Nivéa a bitch.
Danger lunged again. Crown caught his wrist mid-swing, twisted it hard, and drove his shoulder into his chest. They crashed into the shelving unit, the metal rattling as crates shifted and clanged to the floor.
Danger fought back with everything he had, wild and angry, but Crown moved differently.
Cleaner. Quieter. He used techniques he’d never shown him growing up.
Because he believed some things you had to keep tucked, things a muthafucka couldn’t see coming.
Crown hooked Danger’s leg, sweeping him off balance, then snapped his forearm across his throat, pinning him to the floor. Danger thrashed beneath him, his movements sloppy and his timing off. The coke didn’t help, and the injured leg sure as hell didn’t either.
“You proving me right, nigga. You lucky you blood or I’d break yo’ fuckin’ face.” Crown seethed, reaching into Danger’s pocket.
His fingers searched until he pulled out a small baggie, and then his jaw tightened as he flung it at Danger’s face. The disappointment hit harder than any punch life had thrown at him.
“Get the fuck off of me!” Danger growled, shoving Crown away as he staggered to his feet.
“Aye, yoooo, come on. Chill! Y’all brothers. Chill the fuck out.” Smoky rushed in, tucking his blunt in the corner of his lips. He then grabbed Danger and forced space between them.
With a scowl on his face, Crown stepped back, his chest heaving. Danger pushed against Smoky’s grip, equally heated. They locked eyes across the space, both resembling their father at various stages of his life, neither one willing to back down.
“You can’t make a nigga sit at home and not avenge her death, bro. Put yourself in my shoes. What if it was Nivéa?”
That hit hard.
Crown froze and thought about it.
“That’s what I thought. If it were her, you wouldn’t give a fuck about healing. You’d be out there tearing shit up.”
“The difference is, I wouldn’t be high out my muthafuckin’ mind doing it.”
“Nah, you’d just be drunk as fuck, gone off that Don Julio. We all got a vice, my nigga.”
Crown bit down on his bottom lip, anger and worry colliding in his chest as he held his brother’s gaze.
The pain on Danger’s face was raw. He understood it.
Felt it, even. But understanding didn’t mean he would stand by and watch him self-destruct.
He turned and walked away. He said what he said, and that was that.
And Danger knew it, too. The defiance drained fast as he realized his brother would knock his ass unconscious if it came down to it, preventing him from going anywhere. He watched Crown walk away, holding his breath, hoping he’d stop… turn around… change his mind.
But Crown never did.
So, Danger broke.
“Bro, come on.” He pleaded with him from behind. “I can’t go home.”
Crown kept walking.
“Bro,”
“Broooo, come on. Please. Come on, nigga. I gotta do this. If Council intervenes, I won’t ever get the chance again.”
Crown then paused, deeply exhaling as he turned back around. And the look on Danger’s face weakened him. He stood there for a moment, weighing it before he finally broke, too.
“Three hours,” he said, walking over to him.
“I’m pushing the time back, so you can burn that shit out of your system.
I’ll call the doc to get you something to speed up the process, but honestly, the shit is still risky.
You need to sit your ass down, drink some water, eat something, and close your eyes.
When I come back, I need you to be good. Then, and only then, do you ride.”
Danger didn’t argue this time; he nodded. The ass-whooping was gradually killing his high and bringing him back to reality anyway.
Crown stepped into his space, lowering his voice so the others wouldn’t hear. “If I come back here and you still trippin’, I’mma put something on yo’ ass that’ll have you not moving at all. Fuck wit’ me.” The message was quiet, the threat wasn’t.
Crown stepped away from the chaos and moved deeper into the warehouse, toward his office.
Before shutting the door, he instructed a prospect to grab some food from one of Danger’s favorite burger spots.
Inside, he sank into his chair and poured himself a drink.
The liquor burned his throat as he leaned back, exhaustion creeping in, but he didn’t allow himself the luxury of rest. Instead, he grabbed his phone and dialed their doctor, followed by Nivéa.
“Sup, ma? Y’all good?” he asked when she answered.
“Yeah, we’re fine. What about you? You okay out there?” Nivéa replied.
Crown wanted to say hell no, admit that his head was spinning, and that everything felt heavier than usual. But he did what kings do best. He stayed composed.
“Yeah, I’m straight. Just wanted to check on y’all. It’s gon’ be late when I make it back, so—”
“It’s okay. You warned me. I’ll try to wait up for you.”
“Aight, hit me if you need anything. Anything.”
“I will.”
Neither of them rushed to hang up. Crown stayed on the line, listening to her breathe until he finally heard the call end. Just as it did, the door creaked open.
Smoky leaned against the frame, eyes flicking to the glass in Crown’s hand, and he chuckled. “Damn, lil bro might’ve been on to somethin’.”
Crown didn’t look up as he set his phone down. “Shut the fuck up, nigga.”
Smoky laughed again as he closed the door behind him. “Y’all niggas wild,” he said, shaking his head before his expression turned serious.
“But on some real shit, do you think we need to get him some help? Or is this just him trying to cope with Mo? I mean, he wasn’t high earlier when we pulled up on him at the market or when I checked on him at ya mama’s crib yesterday.
So, I don’t think he’s using like that again.
The pain is probably just hitting different tonight. ”
Crown took a slow breath as he poured Smoky a drink. “Honestly, I don’t know, bro. I need to talk to him when he sobers up, when his head's in a better place. Then I’ll figure it out. Either way, he can’t be doing that shit at all.”
Crown was more worried about his brother than anyone else. But just like before, he didn’t have the time or capacity to babysit Danger, not with a business to run and the Knights depending on him. It was fucked up, but it was reality.
The last time this happened, it had fallen on Lil Mo because Crown had been too busy shadowing their father, learning the ropes to prepare for his own turn at the throne. He hadn’t seen it coming then. Or maybe he had, but he told himself Danger would be fine.
But he wasn’t. Danger had been young and reckless, caught up with the wrong crowd during his senior year, partying, getting high, feeling untouchable off the Knights’ name and reputation.
That legacy had gone straight to his head.
Everywhere he went, doors opened just because of who his family was.
He took living life in the fast lane too far, experimenting with things he had no business touching, thinking it was cool.
It took Lil Mo to step in and pull him back before he ruined his life completely. She dragged him to rehab, sat through the ugly days…the withdrawals, the anger, the tears. She stayed when it wasn’t pretty. And he had been solid ever since. Clean. Focused. Until she was gone.
That scared Crown the most. The one person who knew how to pull Danger back from the edge wasn’t there anymore. Yeah, they were brothers and tight, but Mo had been Danger’s rib. His balance, his soulmate in friend form.
“Damn, Mo,” Crown mumbled under his breath, recalling how vital she was to their circle… their family. He reached for the bottle and poured a little liquor onto the concrete floor, his heart aching in his chest. “Miss the shit outta you.”
“In our hearts forever, baby girl.” Smoky added before they clinked their glasses and took a sip. He wiped his mouth. “You gon’ warn Preach about what we heard today?”
“Yeah, still thinking over how to approach it. Nigga might feel some kind of way about me knowing about his business while he doesn’t.”
Smoky nodded. “I think Pete just fucked himself, though. Why keep paying him if we got Spencer now?”
Crown shook his head. “Nah, we still pay Pete. We need somebody close to the streets, someone dealing with ‘em every day. Plus, Pete’s been solid with us. I ain’t cutting off anyone loyal.”
That was Crown to his core. If you were good to him, he would be good to you.
He was hard on Pete, but that was by design.
His grandfather and father had drilled into him early to never let up on a nigga, because the moment you relaxed, they thought they could slide something past you.
So yes, Crown kept his foot on Pete’s neck, but he also recognized loyalty when he saw it.
Pete had earned his place with the Knights.
“Enough of that. I need you to handle something for me soon.”
“Wassup?” Smoky asked, shooting him a curious look as he set his drink down and took a slow pull from his blunt.
Crown pulled out one of his burners, the tracking app open, and slid it over to him.
“This the tracker I put on Nivéa’s car. Last I checked, her ex was headed towards Melrose. I’ll have a name and photo for you by tomorrow. Once I give it to you, I want you and Black to head out there and get him. The car can be destroyed.”
“Melrose? Fuck is he doing all the way out there?”
Crown rubbed his beard, thinking it over.
“Not sure. Nivéa hasn’t said much about why he’s running. She’s still too shaken up to talk. But my guess is he’s trying to escape whatever case he’s fighting. It doesn’t matter, though. Bring his bitch-ass to me.”
“Bet.”
Three hours later, the men split up. Smoky and the rest rode out while Crown tended to other pressing matters.