Gang of Roses: Dice

Prologue

GLOBAL “DICE” JAMERSON

The Day Of The Funeral

My heart was hurting…crimson red blood was all I could see.

The shit was everywhere. Never did I think one of us would be the one to catch the shell.

My fucking head felt like it was about to twist off and start walking because it couldn’t handle all the emotions I was feeling right now.

This shit was supposed to have run smoothly.

I had been sitting on the building for two fucking weeks.

Nothing was different than what I reported.

The employee count stayed the same during surveillance.

The exits were marked. We knew which way the cameras were facing; we were ready to take over this bank.

We had been doing this for too long to get crossed up.

Everything was accounted for…so I thought.

“Fuck,” I yelled out in pain, not because I was physically hurt but because I couldn’t take another heartbreak.

Just the sight of the long faces on my bitches had me ready to break, and to them and the world I was a straight lace bitch, straight nonchalant wit’ it.

I couldn’t be on this one, though. A guard was put down, and today my sister was being lowered into the dirt.

This shit was taking more than just Rose, and we all felt it.

When one bleeds, we all bleed. But this shift in the gang felt instant.

Although no one voiced it, I knew they felt like I was to blame for the guard, but the gang knew I would never slip like this.

Well, I should take that back because the fallout at the gravesite might be how they really feel.

But how was I to count her when she was returning from a vacation?

For two weeks, I never saw her…two whole weeks.

Who the fuck even takes a vacation that long?

This was triggering something inside of me from my past that I had long ago buried within.

“A fucking pregnant guard?” I questioned aloud in disbelief to no one, taking another gulp from the bottle of Henny I was currently befriending.

Just why?

I felt horrible. “Damn, shawty should have let my bitch slide; she would have lived to have told the story to her unborn,” I muttered to myself.

Nobody had planned it. Nobody wanted it to end like that, but the moment ol’ girl decided to be the fucking hero, shooting Rose in the stomach, was the moment she decided being on earth was no longer in her future plans.

The bank erupted in chaos after hearing a weapon fire.

Pleas could be heard from the workers begging for their lives, lying face-first on the ground.

Shit only got worse from there because Kash came out the fucking cut and lit that bitch up, baby and all.

The shit was just fucked up, but no one on the crew was gonna let it slide. Rose was shot, and a reaction followed.

It was part of the game.

Who the fuck risks their life and their baby's life to catch a damn bank robber? The gang tried our best not to hurt a soul on a job, but sometimes someone wanted to play the hero and ended up bleeding. Most times, we aimed not to kill, but seeing Rose leaking turned the heat up immediately.

Everything moved fast from there.

The time was up. We had a body on the floor, cops would be coming, and one of our own had taken a bullet. Nothing else mattered. Not the money. Not the job. Not the getaway plan.

We had to get Rose some help, and quick; that’s all any of us could think about.

We practically carried her out of there as we rushed toward the throw-away bikes we used for some of our missions. Rose kept trying to tell us she was okay, but her voice grew weaker with every step. She even shook us off and mounted her bike by herself.

I wasn’t believing that shit, though. I’ve seen too much in my thirty-five years of living, but I wasn’t gonna panic; at least I was trying not to. But every time she moved, more blood soaked through her clothes, and that was when the first tear rolled out the corner of my eye.

There was too much blood. Way too much fucking blood.

Even though we were in New Jersey, we had a small team ready if needed.

A few were linked thanks to Kash’s late father’s connections.

She made the call to the Doc; he was prepared and ready to meet us on any mission.

There was no way we could go back to the Airbnb hot like this; we had to go with Plan B.

Doc was on the way, and for a minute, I actually thought we were gonna make it.

We had backup routes mapped out in case shit went left.

Everybody was already in position if things got sticky.

I was sure we’d laugh about this shit one day and tell our kids the moment we had to turn cold. I thought Rose was too damn stubborn to die.

When I looked over while we were riding, I saw the trail; blood was running down the side of her biker pants. My eyes flew to her handle; her grip wasn’t as tight, and her bike was starting to lag behind. Her head wasn’t as high. The minute her bike started to sway. I knew it…something was wrong.

One minute we were racing toward the safe house trying to save her life, and the next we were pulled over on the side of the road screaming her name while Rebel begged her not to leave us.

That night, we watched her die in Rebel’s arms, and once I leaned over, closing her eyes, I knew God’s decision was final; there was nothing else for us to do.

We may have lost our best friend, but Rebel lost her blood sister.

Just a few days ago, she was betting my ass on a race and talking shit like she had all the time in the world. Today, we were riding in formation behind her hearse, listening to engines roar where her laugh should've been.

That shit didn't seem real. I fucking hated funerals. If I never go to another one, I have been to enough.

“DAMMITTTT!” I yelled, launching the rest of the damn bottle at a nearby glass mirror in the clubhouse. I watched it shatter just like my heart.

I thought coming to the hideaway here in Magnolia Valley would help, but I had to hurry and change clothes and get the fuck outta here, or I was going to go crazy.

Looking at the writing on the walls, the pictures plastered there gave visual snapshots of our growth.

I was getting hot in here. It had been years since I had a panic attack, and it felt like I could manually feel my chest tighten and my throat close.

It was times like this when I wished I still had my grandmother. She would always pray when I didn’t have the words to pray for myself. This life was starting to be too much.

This shit didn't seem real…Rose was gone!

My cousin Coca was out of the country right now; I had no one. I had to feel this bullshit, and Dice didn’t do feelings.

My heart and my mind needed a temporary release, and I could only think of one thing before I landed where the fuel got low…Monroe’s Casino.

The sounds of machines going off were like music to my ears. Bells. Buzzers. The clinking of chips. All of it blended together into the distraction I desperately needed.

The plan tonight was simple…Feel numb…very numb.

Kash had already disappeared, and I could only imagine what Rebel was going through in her mind right now. The wound was fresh for all of us. We were each grieving Rose in our own way, and I wasn't about to tell anybody how to mourn when I was doing a piss-poor job of it myself.

I sashayed my wide hips toward the tables, snatching a drink from the first waitress I saw and gripping the glass tighter than necessary.

Gambling wasn't new to me; hell, I got the nickname Dice from my Uncle Tim.

That man taught me how to roll before I was old enough to understand what losing really meant.

By the time I was a teenager, I was taking the neighborhood kids' money. A few years later, I graduated to the corner boys. That’s when I had to learn how to shoot because those niggas were gonna try to cheat you every time.

Tonight wasn't about winning, though. Tonight was about forgetting.

The second I stepped into the poker room, I felt their eyes. I always did.

A plus-size Black woman sitting down at a high-stakes poker table full of cigar-smoking men in thousand-dollar suits tended to turn heads.

One looked at me like I had wandered into the wrong room.

The nigga in the black suit looked at me like he was trying to figure out how a woman built like me carried herself with so much confidence.

The rest? Well, they weren't even pretending not to stare; they knew who I was.

I ignored every last one of them. Hell, people had been underestimating me my entire life.

I slid into an empty seat and ordered another drink.

The dealer started passing out cards, and for the first time all day, my mind got quiet.

There was no funeral, no casket, or thoughts about the future regarding Gang of Roses…

only cards, numbers, probability, and the game.

That was the thing about poker. It demanded your attention. The second your mind wandered, somebody took your money.

Unfortunately, my damn mind kept wandering.

One minute, I was looking at a pair of queens.

The next, I was hearing Rose laugh. I'd glance down at my chips and remember helping pick out flowers for her funeral.

Then I'd hear somebody mention a wife or a sister, and I'd be right back at the cemetery all over again.

One girl came through wearing yellow, and I had to shut my eyes for a second.

Just great! Yellow was Rose's favorite color.

The liquor wasn’t helping either.

Every hand I lost had me chasing the next one. Every bad decision felt like it could be fixed with one good card. Before long, I wasn’t playing to win anymore.

I was playing to forget. The hours slipped by without me noticing.

The stack in front of me got smaller, then smaller. Before I knew it, the chips were damn near nonexistent.