Chapter 8 #2
Mom gave us one last look before turning, walking out, and closing the door behind her.
The second it clicked shut, Maylee kept talking, going on about her day as if nothing had happened.
My mind drifted again. Back to that text.
Back to him. I didn’t realize until now how much of an influence Tahari already had on both of us.
BLEEK
The engine hummed low beneath us, the air conditioner barely pushed through the vents as we sat parked.
The city was just casually moving like normal outside the tinted windows.
Like nothing had happened. Like we just hadn’t gotten robbed.
I kept my eyes forward, deep in thought, as my fingers tapped once against the steering wheel before going still. My mind was all over the fucking place.
“They ain’t just take money. They took parts, and they took work.”
Sha sat in the passenger seat, leaned back in the chair like he was comfortable, but I knew better.
He was listening and processing everything.
The day of the robbery, he had come down to the shop and told me that he had left work there.
He was never going to hear the end of it for that piss poor decision, and I’m sure he knew that.
I glanced over at him. I knew him long enough to not only appreciate that he thought before he spoke but to value his words when he did speak them.
For the past two days, we had both been trying to figure out who had done this shit, but every stone we turned over gave us no answers.
When I took the back seat to let Sha handle things, I never would have thought that some shit like this would have happened.
He ran the operation just like I had been doing for years.
The only difference between the way he did things and the way I had always done things was that no work touched anywhere else but our main auto shop.
And that is where he fucked up. Getting to where I was in the game didn’t just happen overnight, and it wasn’t easy either.
I had ties in the Dominican Republic with access to an army if I needed one.
But being robbed like this was something that I wanted to keep a tight lid on.
Our partner in D.R wouldn’t take the misstep lightly.
“You understand what this means, right?”
“Yeah,” he nodded once.
I shook my head slightly.
“Nah, I don’t think you do.”
That made him look at me. I turned just enough so he could see the seriousness on my face.
“That wasn’t no random lick. This was calculated.” I paused. “And them bricks?” I exhaled through my nose. “That ain’t just lost product, that’s lost money.”
Sha didn’t say anything right away. So, I said it for him.
“Tony’s not going to take this gently.”
Tony was our partner out in D.R. When I took over the Ruiz Cartel, it was highly recommended that I move to the Dominican Republic, just how my brother Ty had done before me, but that wasn’t my speed.
So, Tony was the one out there with his feet on the ground, managing things from that side.
The man was basically family to us, but even a line could be drawn in between family when money is involved.
Sha shifted a little, then finally spoke.
“I already thought about that.”
“Oh yeah?”
He nodded while sitting up straighter now.
“I’ll cover it.”
I stared at him for a second.
“Cover it… how?”
“This is my mistake, so I’ll take the loss,” he said simply. “I’ll pay it off.”
Silence filled the car again. And I studied him this time. And I mean really studied him. This wasn’t just talk. he meant it.
“You sure you ready for that?” I asked with a quieter tone. “That ain’t no small number.”
“I’m good for it,” he replied without hesitation.
I knew without hesitation that I could cover the loss, and, being that he was in this game with me, he should have been able to, but I don’t check people’s pockets.
I had businesses and a whole bunch of other shit that brought in money.
All Sha had was the game. I leaned back slightly while letting his response sit.
Truth was, this is exactly why I put him in position.
But being in position comes with pressure.
It comes with responsibilities, and one of the biggest ones is having all the solutions to problems.
“And after that? What are you going to do about who did it?” I asked.
On the day of the robbery, I was ten toes trying to assist with the get back, but Sha told me it was for him to handle.
I told my boy years ago that I was taking a back seat to the streets, period, and he was letting me do just that.
His jaw tightened just a little. I knew that he hated to be questioned.
But whoever did this hit my business, and the feeling it gave me in the pit of my stomach is something that I could not deal with.
The man in me was bothered by being touched so closely.
“I’m handling it,” he said.
Honestly, I didn’t doubt that he wouldn’t handle it. Still, I had to ask. I watched him for another second before giving him a slow nod.
“Aight,” I said. “That’s what I needed to hear.”
He glanced at me, staring at me directly in the eyes this time.
“I got it,” he said again, doubling down on reassuring me.
“I know,” I replied. “That’s why you’re in that seat.”
The tension eased just a little, but not enough to relax.
I looked back out the windshield. My eyes narrowed slightly as my mind kept moving.
Money could be replaced. Parts could be replaced.
But respect? That was a different conversation.
I know that I told him that I would let him handle things, but this shit felt too personal to me.
“Whenever you find the culprits put me on, I think I need to step outside to remind niggas exactly who I am.”
He gave me this unsure look, but, being that my tone was serious, he didn’t fight me on my decision.
“I got you, bro,” he said.
I looked back over at Sha, and something else clicked in my head.
“Hold on,” I said, narrowing my eyes slightly.
We had a warehouse for this shit, so I was still confused as to why anybody was able to steal bricks anyway. My mind was all over the place on the day of the robbery, so I didn’t even ask the major question. Why?
“Why was the work even there to begin with?”
He already knew what I meant. That location isn’t where the weight was supposed to sit ever. Even to make a move like that, especially while not covering it with me, was unacceptable. Sha exhaled while rubbing his jaw.
“The warehouse wasn’t an option.”
“Why not?”
He glanced at me and then shook his head.
“I had to make a run really quickly, and Talia was gone.”
Talia was our cook whom he had vouched for when I first brought my business to Florida. I called her the Cook Up Queen because she cut our bricks without losing any potency of the product.
“Gone where?” I frowned.
“Vacation,” he said, “Out in Brazil.”
I was blinking like that white man meme. My flabber was gasted for sure. There was money to be made and work to be broken down, and her ass was in a whole different country.
“Brazil?” I questioned.
Sha nodded, and then a hint of annoyance crept into his tone.
“Yeah. She said she needed a break. The last I had seen on her page, she was somewhere on a beach shaking her flat ass in the camera and drinking out of coconuts.”
I chuckled because the girl had some big ass titties without the ass to match. She was shaped like the letter P, but she had a pretty face.
“Unbelievable,” I huffed.
Nothing moved right without her. Which meant the product had to sit somewhere.
I just preferred it if it were sitting at the correct location.
I leaned back in my seat, and my jaw tightened slightly as it all came together.
The warehouse had a secret basement that was under lock and key, where the work and money were supposed to sit.
Although it was a bit out of the way and it took a little drive to get there, it was the safest spot to hold anything.
I couldn’t wrap my head around why the work wasn’t stashed there to begin with.
“Why was it sitting at THAT location? Honestly, all of this could have been avoided.”
Sha didn’t argue. And he didn’t deflect. He just took it.
“I just said that I had to run and do something, so I made a decision, obviously the wrong one,” he admitted.
I nodded once because at least he could own it.
“That decision just cost us,” I muttered.
“And I said I got it! I’m covering the loss, and I’m handling finding out whoever did it,” he snapped.
I gave a slow nod while looking back out the windshield.
“Aight,” I said quietly.
I knew that I was getting him mad, so I stopped bringing this shit up.
Sha had gotten me out of some shit before, and I knew that his word was bond.
If he said he was going to find whoever did this, then he was going to do just that.
He dapped me up before exiting my truck.
I waited for him to get back into his house before I peeled off.
My mind felt like it couldn’t rest since the robbery.
Call it PTSD or whatever, but being robbed was not a good feeling, and the shit was so personal that it was scary.
I was so worried that some close-to-home shit was happening again.
I was so in my thoughts that I drove all the way home with no damn music playing.
As I waited for the gates to my estate to open, I had to shake this shit off.
I couldn’t walk through my front door with this weight on me.
Lately, the house has been peaceful, and I wasn’t trying to bring any drama under my roof.
I sat in the truck looking up at the house.
I worked damn hard for my family to have all of this, and there was no way that someone was going to take it from me.
Or take me from it. I thought about all the shit I had done in my life.
I was fair. Everybody I surrounded myself with ate how I did.
When I made it to the head of the table, I ruled with an iron fist, but nothing I did was unjust. When I finally felt like I had pulled myself together, I got out and then walked into the house.