ONE #3
She wanted to reach out and apologize but was scared of what her sister might say to her out of anger.
She didn’t live with many regrets but this one was heavy on her soul.
She refused to become one of the people she’d despised her entire life.
Nina vowed not to change, no matter how wealthy she may become or how high up the ladder she climbed.
Everyone was flawed in some way. People suffered and had shortcomings.
There would be some battles that she was going to have to fight one day and would need to be met with grace.
The same grace that her family failed to extend to her sister, and she was included in that number.
Nina quietly asked God to forgive her, and in that same thought, she prayed for mercy and protection over Talia.
She could only hope that her heart was soft towards Nina.
She prayed that her sister didn’t hate her and could find room to forgive her for treating her like she was a stranger off the street.
Everything happened so fast. The night was a major eye-opener for Nina, and the lesson learned was to not react impulsively, no matter what’s going on.
η
He had a couple of spots that were carefully sprinkled throughout the five boroughs.
They were considered warehouses to him. The primary purpose of a warehouse was to securely store, manage, and facilitate the movement of goods throughout a supply chain.
Warehouses served as a vital bridge between production and consumption.
In the line of business that Jio was in, production was cooking up dope.
All kinds. Crack. Heroin. Bagging weed. Pills. Whatever you needed, the Gottis had it.
His main warehouse had been in the family for over forty years.
It was the only building that they had secured by the crooked blues.
Jio didn’t trust no nigga, but he didn’t have a choice but to just hope and pray that the pigs never crossed him or his family.
But if they did, he would make sure everyone attached to them suffered the consequences.
Jio was real big on getting his lick back over and over again.
That way, the next man never thought to try him.
He loved making examples out of folks. Only a nigga that cooked or smoked crack knew what the distinct smell was, or a child who grew up around family members that were crackheads knew the smell of the rock.
It was one of those scents that once you smelled it, you could never get it out of your nose.
Jio was pretty sure the walls, floors, and tables had been washed and cleaned with bleach and vinegar a million times over the years, but it was like the shit was baked into the walls.
He smelled it once he crossed over the threshold.
It didn’t bother him though. He’d been inhaling it since he was probably seven or eight, if not sooner.
He was pretty sure his mama was on crack for a while when he was a kid, but he never had the balls to ask her. She wouldn’t miss an opportunity to cuss his ass out, so why bother? His footsteps caused everyone to give him the attention that he demanded without even asking for it.
It was all in his demeanor, and unbeknownst to him, authority oozed out of his pores and yielded respect.
The operation was in full motion. A shipment had just come in, which meant everyone would be working overtime for the next few days, including himself.
He needed a distraction from the woes of life.
His brother was going to pull through, but the recovery ahead would be filled with difficulty.
He was gonna be alright though and that’s all a nigga like Jio could ask for.
Jio’s eyes landed on a table that was stacked with bricks on top of bricks.
It was still in raw form and hadn’t been cut just yet.
He turned his neck to see a couple of scales lined up perfectly.
Digital numbers blinked rapidly to give his workers the most accurate description.
Those same numbers resembled how much time in prison they would all get if the warehouse were raided.
He shook his head of any negative thoughts.
Everybody was good was what he told himself.
He checked the time on his watch, a custom piece designed by his bookie bear, and made a note that he needed to be in his whip and around the corner in twenty-eight minutes.
Most niggas called theirs “the trap,” but he wasn’t raised by a local joker.
His grandfather was a real made man. A true boss.
A mob boss at that. He was the real fuckin’ deal.
Jiorgio Gotti Sr. didn’t treat his hustle like a hobby either.
He ran his drug dealings like a company, which resulted in it becoming a multi-million-dollar empire.
At the end of the day, Jio prayed that he was making his grandaddy proud.
Only God knew how hard he was trying to keep shit afloat.
His grandfather drilled in his head, “Thirty minutes. You the boss. Roll in, check on shit, and get the fuck out.”
Jiorgio Gotti Sr. never ever stayed anywhere long.
He didn’t like his moves being calculated or for anyone to know where he was at or where he was headed.
A woman could NOT ask him what his day consisted of and where he was coming from when he made it home.
He was a very routine man, but the only person who knew of his whereabouts was Roberto, the driver.
Jio was trying his best not to forget any of the wisdom his granddad instilled in him. But the more his life got busy and the more bullshit that fell in his lap, the harder it got to recall the many gems he left him with.
Jio made a promise that when it was time for him to start a family, especially for his sons, he was going to start keeping a little notebook in his pocket to write down the rules of life.
His future young princes wouldn’t have to feel as lost as he often did.
It sucked that Jio’s daddy was alive. In jail but definitely still breathing and talking junk.
Jio didn’t trust him much these days. He was on some slime shit and Jio knew it was because he was bored and getting delirious.
This had been the longest he’d been in jail ever.
Normally, he was out in a year or two, but this time, they made an example out of his ass, and the family wasn’t allowed to buy him out.
The get out of jail for a hundred-dollar cards had expired.
Niggas wanted twenty million for a favor and Jio told his dad it was a hell to the fuck no.
He had to sit tight and do his time. The way the economy was set up, he couldn’t just give away that type of money.
Shit, what if he needed to pay to get his own ass out of prison?
No one else wanted to put the money up for Big J either.
So he sat…. and waited…. and stirred the pot in the meantime.
Jio walked through the tables of bricks, scales, and vacuum sealers. He didn’t touch anything. In fact, he had on black leather gloves. Prada to be exact. He was a fancy nigga and he refused to shy away from the fact that he appreciated the finer things in life.
He nodded but didn’t part his lips to speak. One could never know if the room was bugged or if someone was wearing a recorder. It was impossible for any of the women though because they were completely naked, down to not even having a damn sock on.
If their monthly was visiting, it was no money to be made. Clothes were not allowed to be worn in the warehouse and it was no exceptions.
The niggas who ran this particular warehouse were OG’s and familiar faces. Jio didn’t trust anyone wholeheartedly, but he had to have a little faith in them… just enough to keep things afloat.
Loyalty was one of the main pillars of the Gotti Family. Everything that they’d worked so hard to obtain wouldn’t have been possible without standing on loyalty first and foremost.
His eyes checked everything. If anything looked out of place, he would address it once he made it to his next destination. He looked for cleanliness, precision, and stored every single detail in his mental Rolodex.
Jio was running this shit like a corporation. There was no time for fuck ups, whether that was with the production or wasting money on careless mistakes.
He couldn’t help but to still feel like all he had wasn’t enough.
He sometimes confused ambition for greed and vice versa.
Jio was always his toughest critic, but this was more than being hard on himself.
For the past few days, really… if he was being honest with the man in the mirror, he would admit that it’d been more than weeks that he’d felt as if his million-dollar plan could be upped to become a billion-dollar plan if he was willing to sit down and rework the plan.
What worked for his Pops and granddad fifty years ago wasn’t producing the bread that he was trying to have.
Jio needed to make a move so big that it would shift everything around him. His circle was eating, but he wanted them to feast.
The first step would be to change the structure and expand territory.
They’d tapped into all of New York, Jersey, Delaware, and even Detroit and D.C., but Jio was thinking of taking this shit global. Worldwide. International even.
All he needed to do was legitimize a few more streams so he could clean his money through the businesses. He had a stash house or two, but he preferred his money in the bank, unlike most niggas.
Jio kept a wad of cash on him because a man was always supposed to have cash, but the cards came with no limits too. He was a growing man… a made man to be exact. Jio wasn’t no dope boy and never claimed to be.