1. Ritz “Radar” Monroe #3
The way big mama rode me? Hell, my ass slept half the next day. Again... that was a first in years.
I still don’t know why I felt like she was different.
Maybe a part of me felt like she needed one night to be free, and the reckless parts of me wanted to be free too.
For one night, neither one of us had responsibilities, expectations, or the weight of the world sitting on our shoulders.
We were just two strangers who found peace in each other’s chaos.
Finding peace in the sheets and every damn part of this penthouse.
Bronco’s voice shattered the moment like ice water being poured over fire.
“Bruh, was you daydreaming, or is this some sort of health issue?”
His annoying-ass ripped me away from that night, instantly irritating the fuck outta me. I ignored him because, truth be told, I liked it back there.
It’s crazy how I assumed I would see her again.
Hell, she came to Monroe’s every now and then, not enough for me to know her personally, but enough to know that disappearing for two years without so much as a peep wasn’t her pattern.
“All jokes aside, is you coo?”
“Bronco, stay outta my business.”
“Well, damn. You the one over there lookin’ like you were having a staring contest with a seizure. Had me worried for a minute.”
I ignored him.
Instead, I glared at him. “Watch them words, Baro,” I said, calling him by his government.
He sucked his teeth and mugged me, but I didn’t give a damn. He’d better sort out his damn vocabulary before they passed through that motor of his, but he knew I was done playing.
“When you gonna grow up, dawg?” I seriously asked.
“When you gonna retire?” He shot back at me without missing a beat, which meant no time soon. Bronco knew I loved the hell out of my family and made a lot of moves so that the single mother who raised us would never want for nothing else as long as she lived.
Lawd knows I tried teaching Bronco the ropes, but living off me and chasing women seemed to be the only goals the nigga had.
The crazy part was…he was smart as hell.
Numbers came naturally to him. Just like me.
Reading people came naturally to him. Hell, if he actually applied himself, he’d probably run circles around half the executives working for me.
But learning the business at Monroe’s? Nope.
Bronco wanted no parts; only when I had to get active in the streets did my life have Bronco’s full attention.
The only reason the dude had a degree was that I forced him to get one.
Everything else, I was going to have to iron out the wrinkles in his entitled behavior.
Why did it feel like getting it out of the mud was the only true grateful reward in life? My siblings don’t know struggle, and for some reason, that often crippled them. Especially Bronco, my younger sister. Cova was only sixteen, and dance was her life; she couldn't care less about anything else.
“Come on, fool. I got stuff to do.”
“Bro, you was a beast back there. I love it when you pissed. Well…not with me, but you get it. Them bums be shaking like a forty-dollar stripper,” he said, with too much excitement.
I was eighteen years older than Bronco, so he didn’t really understand the life of Radar.
All Bronco knew was that his big brother’s name held weight—club, girls, freebies, etc.
“Bronco, I understand you get a high off this life, but you keep missing the lesson,” I said, catching his attention.
“This shit fascinates a privileged ass kid like you, and before you poke that weak ass chest out, catch my wave, bruh. I bring you around the ugly side to show you that, no matter what, as a man, you stand ten toes down on what you said. People know the risk; they know Radar, but they still feel like a nigga too high up in this shit to slump them. I could send anyone, but you know why I came personally?” I asked, as he just listened.
“That’s yo’ bread, not them other niggas.”
“That’s the fuck right. The deadline is just that the fuckin’ deadline, but it’s a different level of disrespect when you run off with my shit. Only thing ain’t yours is what?” I questioned, knowing he knew the answer.
“People.”
“Bingo.”
“Well… umm…what’s with the G-baby chick?”
He was trying to be funny after he overheard me talking about her one day.
“Mine.”
“But I thought you said the answer was people?”
I ignored his question because he knew that when I had my mind set on something, I was going for it.
“Bronco, get you some business and drive me to the airport.”
“I was just asking. So, bruh, can I get the Bach tonight?” he asked, already knowing the answer, so there was no need for me to reply. My silence was enough. Getting my Maybach was a hell no.
We hopped in the truck. Kodak was dead over a seventy-five-thousand-dollar loan. To some people, seventy-five grand was life-changing money. To me, it wasn’t even worth the headache he brought upon himself. Money had never been Kodak’s problem; discipline was.
A man who’ll dodge one payment will dodge ten. A man who keeps making excuses eventually runs out of people willing to hear them.
That was a lesson Kodak learned too damn late.
Still, I wasn’t about to have a four-hundred-million-dollar net worth anywhere near this bullshit once somebody noticed the smoke rolling through these woods.
Good thing Kodak kept his little hideout tucked nearly an hour outside Magnolia Valley.
His nearest neighbor would’ve needed binoculars just to know he was home.
Bronco shifted the SUV into drive, gravel crunching beneath the tires as we pulled away from the crime scene. Within minutes, the burning cabin disappeared behind rows of towering pines while the smoke slowly blended into the afternoon sky.
We headed towards the airport while thoughts of G-Baby occupied my mind way too much, but what she didn’t bank on was having a tail attached…I was gonna find that ass, one way or another.
Call me crazy, but it was more than sexual; it felt soul-tying. A piece of me felt off, and I didn’t like it because I couldn’t explain it. Two years later, that woman was still on my mind.
Damn, maybe I should let it go?… But something is pulling me, though. I moved off instinct, and when it started to whisper to me… I listen.