Chapter 3 #2
“Let’s use a house for example. Would you build a second house if the foundation of the first house was shaky?
Dominique, you had a nigga stealing from you.
That was one problem. You lost a lot of men that night when dem 9 boyz pulled up.
Let’s not forget the nigga that was talking on the phone, saying how he wishes that he would have ratted on you when he got the chance.
The biggest problem right now is the fact that we just took dem 9 boyz shit.
That’s going to come with some consequences.
That’s the house, Dominique. It’s shaky.
All I’m saying is fix this foundation first before you go building a new house,” my example was perfect, and I could see it in his eyes that he understood me, but I didn’t really know if he felt it though.
“I feel that but see I’m looking at it different though.
When I talk about expansion, I’m leaning that way because of the problems that we’re having in Miami.
Miami has shown me in these past few months that its unstable, and that’s why I don’t want to keep everything solely here in one city.
You don’t feel like we being a little too dependent on just one city?
Everything within this business is solely tied to Miami.
If niggas were to hit us up, take everything we got, well at least I got some shit running through Orlando and Tampa that they don’t know about.
That’s how I’m looking at it” his outlook was a good one, but I still wasn’t really moved by it yet.
I sat quietly, thinking about what he just said, trying to see how I should respond.
“When you hear me say expansion, I think you looking at it as a bad thing. To me, it’s the insurance that I need within the company.
If shit ever get too hot in Miami, and we got to slow down, bae we still got Tampa producing over there.
Tampa ever get touched, then we still got Orlando up, and running. You gotta feel that,” he was on me.
“Bae—”
I caught myself. I realized what I just called him in public, and that’s why I paused and stopped.
“Dominique—”
“Man, you was right the first time. Call me what the fuck you said first,” he cut me off, and his antics caused everyone in the room to laugh.
I was so used to him by now that I kept my game face on, trying to get my point out before I forgot what it was that I was trying to say.
“It’s not that I’m not feeling where you’re coming from.
I do. The insurance is important, but to be completely honest with you, it’s mainly the bad that I’m worried about.
I guess I think about the niggas that you’re going to have in Orlando and Tampa that’s going to be out of reach for you.
You’re not going to be able to oversee everything that their doing.
I know how you are when it comes to the business.
If you get a phone call right now that a corner boy is out there slacking off, you going to pull up.
If you leave now, you can be to any of your Miami corners in ten to fifteen minutes.
What you going to do when you got niggas slacking off on one of your corners in Tampa, or Orlando?
That’s four hours to get to both cities,” I went on, and he nodded his head.
“That ain’t something that’s going to happen often.
If I gotta get phone calls and jump in the fuckin car every time niggas in Orlando, and Tampa slacking off, then that means that I don’t have any business being a leader, and clearly I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.
Those cities will have niggas that I can trust put in place.
Orlando, and Tampa is going to have an overseer.
Trusted people. It’s not going to be me physically standing there that they’ll need.
Niggas going to need structure and know in the back of their minds that if they out there trying me, and moving sloppy, then that’s a gamble with their life,” he finished, and I nodded my head, understanding that standpoint.
“That’s it, baby? You know I value your opinion. What else you got?” he asked me. His ass was showing off. I wanted to knock that smirk right off his face.
“Gone on, Dominique,” I finished, and he laughed.
Dolo continued with the meeting. He had us in here for almost two hours.
It was a good meeting though. Any time that I sat back, and I watched my man run his business, it’s almost like I would fall deeper in love with him.
I wasn’t going to always agree with Dolo, but it made all the sense in the world to me on why everyone followed him.
He was a true leader. Someone that was worth following.
You gotta remember where I came from before coming over here with Dolo, and his team. I used to be up under Gold. Gold was a real OG. Being around Gold for the time that I was, trust me I know when a nigga is built to be a drug Lord, and Dolo was built for it.
My man was only 25 years old, but he carried himself in the same old school fashion that Gold carried himself.
He was very strategic. Always trying to jump forth to the next thing, needing his money to come in different directions.
I just respected the way Dolo’s mind worked.
It wasn’t just a sexual tension that I had for him.
Anyone could look at him from the outside, and be sold on his looks, and fashion.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sold on that as well, but that’s just one part of it.
My man talking that shit and knowing what the fuck he’s talking about was the one thing to make me weak in the knees.
The meeting eventually wrapped up, and Dolo started spilling out orders, telling everyone where he needed them to go for the rest of the night.
Pretty much everyone had already spilled out.
Dolo was up front, talking amongst Diego, Kendrick, and Bray.
I stood, right after pushing my chair into the table, waiting for him to come over.
I didn’t know what the plans were for the rest of the night.
I didn’t know if he was going to place me at another location, have me ride with him, or if we were finished for the night.
They eventually wrapped up their conversation, and each of them walked over.
“Aight sis. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Diego said, coming over, and he put out one arm, so that we could quickly hug.
I really had a liking towards Diego. From the moment Dolo introduced the two of us, I’ve been cool with him.
He reminded me a lot of my brother Roman.
It was times when Dolo wasn’t at the warehouse, but Diego would be here, and he would just randomly come over to check on me, just to make sure I was good. Roman was always like that with me.
I was cool with Kendrick and Bray too. I looked at them as big brothers. It was just Mook’s ass that I never liked. From the beginning, he rubbed me the wrong way, and I had been right about his ass from the jump.
After hugging Diego, I hugged Kendrick, and Bray as well, and then they spilled out of the room, leaving just Dolo and I.
“Let me look over some shit in the office, and then we can leave. You good?” he asked, right before he walked closer to me, and he kissed me on my forehead.
“I’m good,” I let him know.
With a smile on his face, he stepped back, so that I could lead the way. I knew not to touch the door once we were standing in front of it, so I stepped back, allowing Dolo to reach over me, and push it open.
He had his security posted in the foyer. In the stash room, there were workers in there, that had quickly got back to business.
I took the stairs up and walked the long hallway that led to his office. Dolo used his fingerprint to unlock the door, and he reached over me to open it, and I walked in first.
I wasn’t sure what it was that Dolo had to do, but he went over to his desk. I went over too, sitting on top of his desk, crossing my legs at the bottom.
I pulled my phone out of my back pocket.
The group chat that I was in with my cousins was jumping.
I had over fifty messages that were unread from that chat.
I was a terrible person to be involved in a group chat because half of the time, I never responded.
I couldn’t even tell you what they were in here rambling about because I didn’t read through all the messages.
I had a couple of messages from my best friend, Demi as well.
She sent pictures of Daylani to my phone.
She was in bed, sleeping. Just like I did with the rest of the pictures that Demi would send me of Daylani, I saved it to my phone, adding it to the album that I had for her.
My phone was filled with pictures of Daylani and Amir.
You would think that the two of them were my kids.
I texted back a bunch of heart eyes to the pictures that Demi sent me, telling her that I loved Daylani, and I also let her know that I was going to come over one day this week, so that I could see them.
“What nigga you texting that got you smiling like that?” Dolo asked me, snapping me out of the daze that I had been in, looking at this picture of Daylani on my screen.
Instead of responding back to him, I just showed him my screen, so that he could see the picture too.
Ya’ll know that my man didn’t have the best vision, even with this glasses on, so he reached for my phone, getting a better view.
Once he saw Daylani’s picture, he smiled.
He smiled, and looked at me, and I already knew some crazy shit was getting ready to come out of his mouth.
“You got baby fever?” he asked me, handing me back my phone. Like that question offended me, I literally started gagging.
“I actually don’t. Why would you even ask me that?” I wanted to know, and he laughed, knowing that question would aggravate me.
“So, if the IUD don’t work—”