Chapter 2
Zohan "Zo" Richardson
Pulling back through the gates of the Cross estate had a nigga on edge.
I had my AR on my lap and a Glock tucked into my waistband, but the uneasiness I was feeling wasn’t because I thought that there would be issues from Cross and his Mafia.
It was because I wanted to know who Shorty from yesterday in the window was.
I had seen some fine ass women in my life, but none of them compared to Shorty standing in the window with those innocent ass eyes, and thick hips staring back at me.
Even when I noticed her looking, she ain’t even attempt to act like she wasn’t looking at a nigga, just gave me this cool ass look that made my dick jump.
When Jax asked me to come with him to help him pack up the house today for his arrangement, I was all in.
I didn’t ask him, but I was hoping that Shorty wasn’t the one he was about to marry.
I had planned to see what was up with her if she was here, but if she was the woman he kept referring to as Remy, then I had no choice but to chill on that.
Jaxon was my nigga, had been since we were teenagers, so I could never cross him. I’ve known him for over a decade; we met when I was a teenager and moved to the States from Barbados.
I was born and raised there until I was thirteen.
I was a wild kid and gave my parents hell.
My parents, Anika and Troy, are government officials.
My father has been Prime Minister for over twenty years, and my mother is Minister of Foreign Affairs.
My brother Xion, who still lives there, is Chief of Police.
We grew up in the suburbs of St. James and had access to the best things money could offer.
Pops had one of the first Rolls Royces that he still owns to this day.
We took family trips all over the Caribbean.
I had everything you could ever imagine wanting at my disposal, still, somehow found myself in the hood every other day having to fight muhfuckas.
I didn’t understand it back then, but now that I look back, I was always in some shit because the people around me couldn’t relate to me.
I was chilling in a city where niggas had to break into stores at night just to survive or steal a crate of food off the truck while the drivers unloaded.
Then there was me, riding my two-thousand-dollar Christmas gift to the trenches.
I was well off; to them, I was flaunting it in their faces, but to me, I was just being me.
The hood was where I was comfortable, and no nigga could check me about that.
I had always been quiet by nature, so niggas around the way thought that it meant they could try me.
I was still tall, but back then, I was skinny.
Looking weak and being quiet in a town that didn’t want you there was like walking around with a target on your back.
But after I knocked out the first nigga, fighting became a sport to me.
I didn’t start any of the fights, but I wasn’t backing down from one either.
It would actually make my day when a nigga approached me with an issue.
Eventually, niggas stopped trying me when I would come by, and before I knew it, I had gotten the respect from the OG’s twice my age.
That all changed when this one kid wanted to fight me, and I knocked him out.
Nigga fell out and started having a seizure.
The police detained me before I could make it back home, and had my parents come pick me up from the police station.
All I remember is my moms getting phone calls all throughout the night with updates on the nigga’s condition.
I don’t know what that last phone call was; I never asked, but I do know that by sunrise, I was on a plane to New York City.
I moved in with my aunt, who had lived in the States for years. Adjusting was hard, but I didn't have to fight anymore; it calmed me. She enrolled me in a private school, where I met Jaxon.
If I thought I was quiet, he was a mute.
He only spoke when spoken to, but he was cool as fuck.
At six-foot-six, we were the tallest at the school.
We hooped together every day, betting on who was best. We did that until sixteen.
Then one day, he told me his family was in the middle of something, and he was going to be homeschooled.
He kept in contact here and there, but I didn’t see him again until we were twenty-three.
I was out on my usual city center jog when four niggas approached me.
One stepped forward and told me the chick I’d been fucking with was his girl.
I was known for knocking shit out, so I dropped him without a word.
They each took turns getting their shit split.
I saw the first nigga reaching for his gun, which had fallen from his pocket when he hit the ground.
Jaxon came up and kicked this nigga so hard I heard bones crack.
Before I knew it, he and his two brothers had guns aimed, telling them niggas to get the fuck away from their building.
When it was over, we shook hands and caught up.
He complimented me on how I handled myself.
That’s when I found out his family was Mafia-affiliated.
He took me inside and offered me a position.
At first, I didn’t think he was serious.
You hear about this kind of shit on TV, but it’s not an offer you get every day.
I was just months away from returning to live in Barbados and taking a political position.
By the time I graduated high school, I felt like I had my temper under control.
So, I went the college route and got a degree in Homeland Security.
As soon as I got my degree, my folks wanted me to come back home.
But it didn’t take me a second to agree to what Jaxon had asked.
There was no doubt in my mind that he had saved my life.
That nigga would have for sure killed me because he was embarrassed.
His girl got fucked, and he got his ass beat in front of his friends trying to son me.
I’m not going to say that I felt like I owed Jax anything.
But that was just how I was. You got me once, I got you twice.
I agreed with Jax because he made it perfectly clear that I wasn’t working for him.
I was working with him. I would have to form my own security team, and we would provide security for him and his estate.
I won’t lie, being in the JMF reignited a sleeping beast. But the rest is history; we’ve been locked in ever since.
Shaking off my thoughts, I pulled up to the house behind the moving truck and shut the engine off. I pushed the door open and stepped onto the pavement. Then I smoothed the wrinkles in my clothes and walked up the driveway to the front door.
“Welcome to the home of Mr. Bronx Cross. Would you like a drink?” The English butler said with a thick accent. I shot Jax a glance that made him chuckle, and I shook my head toward the tray of drinks that he had extended.
He opened the door, led us all through the house, and told us he was going to find Cross, but before he could, the girl from the window appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Charles, I got it from here, thank you.” She said to the butler.
Her voice was soft, and the calmness in it matched the calmness across her face.
She looked innocent, but everything about her body looked dangerous.
She was pretty, with full lips, deep brown eyes, brown skin, long legs, and an ass that you could damn near see from the front of her.
We walked up the stairs, and she turned to lead the way.
Her perfume was still lingering when she walked down the hall.
She smelled good as fuck, like something expensive and fruity, and the smell of it made my dick twitch.
But just as it did, I had to check myself.
I knew now that she was the woman that Jax was set to marry in a few months, and although I knew how he felt about Kenn, that didn’t mean that shorty was free game.
“Okay, guys, everything is labeled. All the glass items have red stickers. I know there are a lot of boxes, and I have more in the garage, but please don’t break my things,” she said with a smile.
The movers nodded one by one and began sliding boxes around, grabbing them, and taking them downstairs.
“Do you need that everywhere? Where is the danger?” She asked as she nodded toward the gun in my hand. It was a habit, and I hadn’t even realized that I had taken it from my waistband. After all these years of being in the Mafia, shit was muscle memory.
“Yeah,” I said, not making eye contact with her as I looked around at all the boxes. The entire room was full, floor to ceiling, with boxes, both big and small.
“This is your detail now, Remy, that’s Zo. When you need to move around, that’ll be the person you call.” Jax said as he introduced us.
“Nice to meet you,” She reached her hand out to shake mine. I took it. Her hands were cold as hell, but delicate and small.
“What’s up?” I finally glanced at her, and a smile crept on her face.
I broke eye contact again and turned toward Jax.
But even as I spoke to him, I could feel her eyes on me.
In any other setting, I would have called attention to it.
I just had to keep reminding myself that she was technically engaged to my nigga.
“You good? I’ll leave y’all to it, I’ll be outside waiting.” I dapped him up before I turned around and walked back out of her bedroom and down the stairs.
The movers went in and out for almost an hour, just taking the things that were already packed up. Then there were the things that she had that couldn’t be boxed, like her workout equipment. Jax kept telling her they had a gym, and she kept arguing that she had to have this specific equipment.