Dope Boys: Most Wanted

Chapter 1

“Still not going to talk, muhfucka?” Markus asked from his leaning position against the cement wall.

Everything about his posture read relaxed and cavalier, Markus was anything but.

The man clutched in his right-hand man’s fists had broken rule number one – never fuck up Money’s money.

Not only had he fucked up the money but somehow managed not to return the product he “said” he was sitting on.

The small group of men stood on top of a Majestic Heights building with the brisk fall air darting around them.

A warning that winter was coming and the turn of the season would be harsh, hard, and colder than the seasons before.

A direct depiction of Markus’ demeanor turning into the demons he only played with in private.

No, he wasn’t relaxed. His blood was boiling over, and before the rat fell sixty stories to his death, Markus wanted his answers. With each word that flowed from his mouth, the ribbons of smoke were warped into the wind.

“I asked yo’ ass one time too fuckin’ many. Where the fuck is my money?” Markus grumbled.

“M-money, Money,” the man stuttered, finally realizing he wasn’t going to use the silence to get himself out of the situation he’d gotten himself into. “I-I can get you your money.”

The drug game was a dangerous man’s sport.

Markus was the danger the city whispered about.

The danger the mayor and his “Sweep the Streets” agenda warned the city about.

Markus was to be feared, but above all else, he demanded his respect.

Fucking up his money and his product was a violation. Price for violating that, death.

The flash of diamonds embedded in his canines glimmered with assistance from the minimal lights. The bright city lights below, aircraft warning lights, and the ambient lighting that illuminated the walkway to the edge.

“Get my money?” Markus repeated rhetorically, a slight smirk over his smoke-tinted lips.

“Nigga, you wearing my money, fuckin’ on my money, got three bitches in Lynnwood draped in my fuckin’ money.

You think I’m doing this for muhfuckin’ kicks and giggles?

Nigga, we been watching you. My spots get shaken up after your re-up?

And you blame twelve on that shit? Nahhh.

You got one last time to tell me where my shit is. ”

Brantley, Markus’ right-hand man lifted the man over the railing. His designer-covered feet barely touching the roped metal protective fence.

“Yo, Money, chill! Chill!”

“Where the fuck is my product, D-Man?” Markus asked, looking up into the terror dancing in his eyes. “Five, four, three, two…”

“Rock! I gave it to Rock to flip!”

“One,” Markus finalized, and Brantley turned the man around, releasing the violator. His screams echoed against the buildings as he plummeted to his ultimate demise. The few track marks in his arms from Svyn’s handiwork would have the murder easily ruled a suicide. Another junky off the streets.

Markus turned to Svyn. “I know you want to count how many of the nigga’s bones broke but we got shit to do.”

Svyn, leaning over, smiled at the chaos below. “Damn, B, you just dropped that nigga.”

“Thought about tossing his ass over after at the first thirty seconds of silence,” Brantley muttered. “Money, we goin’ to find Rock tonight?”

“When the fuck else you suggest I find him? Huh?” Markus’ eyes bounced from his cousin to his best friend. “Matter of fact, I’ll wait, tell me when? Huh? When the nigga hits another fuckin’ spot and another fuckin’ spot and another fuckin’ spot? Is it cool to pull up on his ass then or nah?”

Svyn pulled in a breath and glanced over at Brantley as if he was going to say anything that went against Markus’ directive.

“Fuck you lookin’ at that nigga for?” Markus snapped, bouncing his eyes between them. “You cool or not?”

“I’m cool, Money,” Svyn spoke up, hoping to smother the fire dancing in Markus’ emblazoned orbs.

Markus didn’t wait for Brantley to reply.

He continued to stroll away with ease as if he hadn’t just directed a man’s death.

He had more shit to regulate. The elevator ride to the parking garage was quiet.

Markus’s rising temper now warring with whatever was silently happening with Brantley that Svyn caught wind of.

Once the trio of men cloaked in black stepped off the elevator, they roamed to their respective vehicles and maneuvered through the city.

Markus ignored the incessant ringing of his phone as he sparked his blunt and attempted to blow his rage into the wind.

However, the weed stuffed into his blunt didn’t calm him.

There was nothing that would ease the aggravation or betrayal he felt.

He put these niggas on, put food on their tables, watched out for their families when the system sat them down.

He'd been quiet. He’d been about his paper, and now he was going to be about some regulation.

Ignoring the calls from his aunt’s best friend, he parked his blacked-out GMC Denali pickup and stepped out into the darkness of the city street.

Unlike Markus, and the rest of the hustlers who ran with him, Rock chose to live in the middle of the city over the suburbs.

He wanted niggas to see him like it was some show of respect.

It was weak. Definitely not how a self-proclaimed protector moved.

Markus’ black Timberland-covered feet moved across the pavement, up the minimal amount of stairs.

Behind him, Svyn and Brantley waited for the next move.

Markus scanned the block. Rock’s prized car was nowhere in sight but his girl’s bright pink Mercedes-Benz C-Class was parked in front of the door.

Instead of kicking the door in like he planned on the way over, he opted for a soft knock and his charming smile. Over his shoulder he grumbled, “stay cool out here.”

Markus’s silent countdown expired right on time as Rock’s wayward girlfriend pulled the door open.

The second she laid her eyes on Markus, they danced with lust. Like every other woman in the city that crossed paths with him.

One thing Markus knew: women around the way were suckers for his charm.

They’d do anything for a moment. Jada was one of the women who would suck and fuck her way through hustlers just to get the one on top.

“Money,” she crooned, biting her lip as she ogled over him.

“Jada,” Markus’ raspy voice was paired with his lopsided grin and a once over. “Rock here?”

She looked over her shoulder, swayed her head and licked her lips. “Just me.”

“Oh word?” he mused. “You gon’ let me in then? I need to spit some shit to you.”

Jada looked past Markus to see Svyn and Brantley. “They coming too or you just want me?”

“Money don’t share. You know that.”

Jada nodded and took a step back, letting him in. Markus strolled in cooly, closing the door just enough so that Svyn and Brantley understood the assignment. Jada switched her hips a little more, allowing Markus to take in the enhancements Rock paid for.

“You want something to drink?” Jada purred.

“Yeah, what you on?”

“I think Rock got a bottle of the Amber+Moss. You know that shit is hard to come by.”

Markus knew it was. The only bottle Rock would ever get his hands on was the one Markus gifted him for his birthday earlier in the year. He nodded in the direction of the liquor display. “Pour that up for me.”

“Anything for you, Money.”

Markus helped himself to a seat and looked around the space, calculating where all the money went. Including the residue of cocaine on the mirrored coffee table. “Where Rock?”

Jada shrugged. “Out with one of his bitches. He’s been tricking on these hoes left and right since you gave him that promotion.”

He didn’t say shit, Jada was liable to give him what he wanted.

If stealing product and money were a promotion, Rock had seen the last of it.

Turning around with the poured drink, she handed it over to Markus before straddling his lap. Jada had been a play he made back in the day, but once he was cool on her, he left her where she was at, outside with the rest of the niggas who liked that shit.

“Thank you for putting that nigga on, but why you got him stashing shit in the house?” Jada purred, gripping Markus’s chin.

“Look like you having a good time with that stash,” he muttered.

“It ain’t even like that. He threw me a little something to keep me out his fuckin’ business. An eight ball to turn a blind eye to him parking his dick in other bitches.”

“Where that shit at? I need something to go with this drink,” Markus slyly stated. “Something to assist the way I’m going to fuck the shit out of you.” For added effect, he gripped her throat and lowered his gaze. “That’s why you let me in, right?”

Jada moaned, then pushed out a girl-like giggle. “Rock’s dick ain’t nothing like yours.”

Markus chuckled. “Go get that shit.”

Jada was dumb enough to believe that after six years and thirty different niggas, Markus was going to fuck her, let alone let her suck his dick.

He trailed her, walking up the stairs toward their bedroom.

On cue, Brantley and Svyn crept in and up the stairs behind her.

Markus followed, appearing in her line of sight when he heard Svyn’s grit.

“I’ll snap your neck if you fuckin’ scream.”

“Money!” she croaked.

“That’s exactly why I’m here. For my fuckin’ money and my product. Open the safe up before I let that crazy muhfucka loose,” Markus coolly directed.

Jada whimpered, quickly turning around to the safe to open it up.

The six-foot-tall safe in the back of the closet was lined with stacks of bricks.

All the bricks that Rock and his dead friend were in charge of breaking down and flooding the streets with.

In hindsight, Markus was appreciative of the thievery.

The product was out of his stash house, off the streets for the most part, and off the radar of the mayor’s wayward initiative.

Brantley filled the bag up with the product while Markus glared at Jada. “When you see Rock, you tell him I’ll be seeing him around.”