Chapter 2
Chapter Two
LAW
I planned to marry Summer, but it would be on my terms. We still had a few kinks to work out in our relationship.
Every day wasn’t perfect, but we made the best of it.
Her pussy was good as hell that it had my nose open than a muthafucka.
She was a boss, and that’s what I needed right now.
The girls here had agendas, and making their own money wasn’t on the list. Summer never asked for anything, but I gave her everything.
From her apartment, car, and the clothes she wore, I bought.
But the only thing slowing me down was her insecurity.
After four years, I thought by now she would be confident, and sometimes she would but if a bitch looked at me too long, she was running down on them. It was a bad look for both of us.
“Law, get your ass up from that goddamn table gambling on that phone, and come help. What the hell you come up here for and you not going to work?” My mama fussed.
I didn’t come up here to work. I was really here to show my face before I went to the poker game.
I had more than one way to make money. Besides my businesses, I ran a lucrative gambling house that nobody knew about but my mama.
Summer didn’t even know about it. The less she knew, the better.
I would hate for her to come and fuck that up, thinking it was a bitch in there.
I put my phone in my pocket and took my ass up front to help work the registers.
“Never thought I would come up here and your fine ass was here,” Pinkie said, licking her lips.
Pinkie was a fine ass woman from the hood.
She was older than me, but she was a baddie.
All the younger girls hated her because she kept her face clean and didn’t have to thot herself out to get a bag.
She was getting her own shit, too. She had one of the hottest clubs in the city.
A few niggas could say that they had her, but they could never say they made her.
Pinkie was self-made from the ground up.
She came from nothing and made something out of it.
“What can I get you, Pinkie?” I asked as I ignored her advances.
“What would you eat from here if you were me?”
“I eat it all. It’s my mama cooking.”
“Well, I would like to have you, but I know you’re still tied down to your little girl and shit, so just give me the turkey wings with greens and macaroni.”
“That’s all?”
“Nah, but you ain’t taking the bait.”
“Stop flirting and pay your tab,” I told her.
She gave me a twenty and her business card. “I’m having a birthday bash in a few weeks. Come hang out with me and bring your bitch too.”
Pinkie wasn’t about to get a nigga like me caught up. Fuck I look like going to hang with her and we end up fucking right in her damn office? She looked like she would fuck some shit up if she didn’t get her way. Probably why her ass didn’t have a man now.
I took a few more orders before I headed to the gambling house for the day.
My homeboy was already set up for the day and we were ready to run all bets.
Niggas paid me just to come in there and lose all their bitch bill money.
I’ve had nigga’s trying to give away their damn bitches to pay a debt.
There was one rule in my gambling house: all debts had to be paid before walking out the door.
Some niggas left without their souls, and some found a way to pay that money even if it meant their bitch had to beat their ass.
“Lj,” I yelled out as soon as my foot crossed the threshold. The house was nice, but it wasn’t new. I had the cheapest furniture placed in here because shit got out of hand at least twice a week.
“What’s good?”
Lj was my cousin but more like my brother.
My uncle was fucking his mama when her husband caught them and killed her.
The police caught him, but he only survived the first night in jail before he hung himself.
Lj was about two years old when it happened, and my uncle felt like the shit was his fault, so he took him in.
Many days, I still question my uncle about Lj.
He was cool with me but I couldn’t help but feel like eventually Lj would kill my uncle.
“Everything is set up, and we’re ready to get shit popping.” He dapped me.
His dreads were pulled away from his face and you could see the long scar that left an ugly mark on his face.
When we were about eight, we got jammed up trying to be a part of a gang.
We tried to steal a car stereo out of a white man’s car but got our ass beat by him and his wife.
Lj took a brutal hit with a tire iron and received his first war wound.
Ain’t shit easy in Savannah. You either make it, or you don’t.
I had a few homies that’s either in prison or dead.
The last of us that were still hanging around fought to be here.
The younger niggas that were coming up were born killers.
If you didn’t have a name in the streets, they didn’t respect you.
Lj and I made a name for ourselves out of the gate.
We didn’t have to worry about anybody running up in our shit or our family shit. It was all respect when it came to us.
The sun was starting to set, and that was the time all the niggas started to come out.
A lot of shiesty shit went on once it cooled down for a nigga to come out of the house.
My gambling house was starting to pile up and I had to stop niggas from coming in.
In each bedroom, we had about seven niggas in a room.
The last thing I wanted tonight was for the damn police to roll up on our ass.
Summer thought I had a gambling problem, but I never gambled, at least not here.
Most of my gambling was on sports. All I did was collect my money for them niggas being in my shit.
It was easy for me to walk out with well over fifteen grand on a slow night.
Dope boys, businessmen, and a few women frequented the gambling house.
I didn’t judge what the fuck they had going on. All I wanted was my money.
I rode off to grab myself something to eat and check on Summer.
When I got back, shit wasn’t sitting well with me.
Lj had hit me up and told me that he caught a muthafucka trying to do some funny shit.
He already put a nigga out for giving a fake fifty-dollar bill, and now a bitch was playing with the cards.
When I walked in the house, I could feel the tension.
Nobody was to be armed in my shit, but me and Lj.
“What’s going on?” I asked as soon as I hit the third bedroom.
“This pussy ass nigga changing cards when he shuffles. How the hell we end up with two deuce deuces?” A cat named Charlie pointed out. I trusted his judgement because he had been around since I was a little ass boy.
“Let me see the cards,” Lj said.
My gun was already in my hand as the room grew quiet.
Lj waited for the cards to hit his hand, but instead a shot rang out, which caused me to react and let off a shot right in between the eyes of the nigga that was switching the cards out.
The room started scattering but what I didn’t notice was Lj lying on the floor, struggling to breathe.
Everything happened within seconds and I reacted before I could figure out what was going on. Now I stood in a room with one dead body and my best friend struggling to live. I stuffed my gun back in my pants and dragged Lj to the front door.
“Hold on, Lj. I’m about to get you some help.” I rushed outside to get the car started and ran back up to scoop him up. I placed him in the backseat, but before I could leave, I had to set this shit on fire.
I ran back in the house and sparked a cigarette that had a little gasoline on it.
It was all Lj’s idea when we first started the gambling house.
He was intrigued with fires and had a female friend who worked down at the fire station who would give him information about arson and how to get away with it.
With the insurance I had on the place, I’ll have another house up and running in no time.
“Hang in there, Lj. The hospital right up the road, nigga.”
I turned in the hospital so fast that I ran into the back of a parked car.
“Aye, somebody give me a hand out here!” I yelled.
It took them a minute to grasp that I was standing here with blood on my shirt and screaming for their ass to help before they jumped in action.
I made sure that Lj knew I would be here waiting for him as they wheeled him to the back.
Finally having the time to do so, I went and moved my car to a parking spot before coming back in and waiting to hear something.
Summer was blowing my phone up, my mama was blowing me up, but I didn’t answer anyone until I had some information to give.
Three hours later, the doctor finally came out to talk to me.
“Are you the one that brought the patient in?” The doctor asked.
“Yes, he’s my cousin.”
“Well, we have him stable. We had a hard time saving his arm. There was a nerve that was severed pretty bad. If I had tried to save it, he would not have been able to have any movement in his fingers. He’s in far better shape with it gone. We cut from the elbow below.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome to go back and see him in about an hour.”
I nodded as I tried to wrap my mind around him being without an arm. This shit was going to kill him when he woke up. While I still had time, I got up to leave so I could shower and be back when he came to.
“Lawton Baylor?” Someone called out behind me.
“Yes.”
“Can we talk with you briefly about what happened?” The female officer asked.
“I don’t know what happened. He called me and sounded funny, so I immediately went to see what was up and when I got to him, he was shot and barely breathing.”
“And where did you find him?”
“He was on the block.”
“So he wasn’t at your house that burned down a few hours ago? His car is there.”
“You do know the block is on that same street. We all park and walk. What are you trying to say? And what do you mean, my house burned down?”
“You’re unaware?” She eyed me.
“Fuck kind of question is that? Maybe they burned that bitch down thinking my cousin went in there. Shit, I don’t know, but I don’t like the fact that you standing here with me instead of finding out who burned my shit down.”
She stepped closer to me and grabbed my shirt with Lj’s blood on it.
“You burned that bitch down, and we both know that. I told your ass to stay clean as fuck if I was going to help you. You’d better be lucky I was in the office when the call came in.
Let this be the last call we get with your name on it. ”
Savannah was too small. It was hard to get away with anything down here but murder. You could kill someone and them muthafuckas would let the case get cold. But let something else happen and they on that shit like white on rice.
“I’ght.”
“I’m going to write this up, and I’ll let you know something.”
I watched as she walked off. We went to school together, and I never thought her bad ass would be an officer. She stayed in more trouble than the niggas. It was good for me and Lj though. Today had taken everything out of me and all I wanted was a shower.