Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
CASH
I t had been a bloody three days. I was in a dark place mentally and decided it was best for me to stay away from Sugar.
Even though we didn’t meet under the softest circumstances, all she knew about that side of me was through rumors and reputation.
I wasn’t ready for her to meet this version of me just yet.
As much as I was looking forward to taking her out on our first real date, I canceled it.
My energy was off, and she deserved better than a hardened, distracted version of me.
For the past three days, my team had been working to figure out who had the balls to steal from me.
To teach my team a lesson, I personally ended the lives of everyone on my team who let them niggas get away with half of my product.
I didn’t care that they’d been put to sleep.
Before that even happened, they should have ran through the truck or sent enough shots out to make them stand down.
Now, everyone else knew to protect what belonged to me as if their lives depended on it, because technically, it did .
When I made it to the warehouse, the solemn look on Rhakeem’s face concerned me.
He’d called and told me they found the men responsible for stealing from the truck and a few of my enforcers had already started handling it.
I hadn’t asked them to, but I felt like they were trying to prove their loyalty.
These types of situations I preferred to handle myself.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as we shook hands.
“I need to tell you something before you go inside.” I remained silent so he’d continue. “We got them in there, and we’ve finally gotten the truth. It’s worse than I could have imagined.”
“How so?”
“It’s a good thing you handled Rapheal because he set this shit up.”
“Word?” Any man could be disloyal, but I took pride in taking care of my team well enough for them to always be loyal to me. So to hear that one of my own men were involved in the setup pissed me off even more.
“Word,” Rhakeem confirmed. “He told Nuke to drive the load that day. Since he already knew the route, he pulled up with three of his homies. Nuke and Ivan were outnumbered and distracted, which was how things got out of hand. Rapheal had his little brother and two of his friends on the robbery too.” He paused, cupped his hands in the center of him, and looked toward the closed door—as if he could see what was inside through it.
“He told the youngins they were robbing Sko, not you. Rell, his brother, knew what was going on and was with it. His friends didn’t.
One of them even tried to leave before it went down, but they pulled a gun on him and made him help. ”
“Damn. How young we talking?”
“Seventeen and eighteen. ”
“And Tremaine and Elijah touched them?” I roared, pushing him to the side to walk into the warehouse, but he stepped in front of me and stopped my movements.
“Yeah. And it’s bad, Cash. I can’t even lie. That’s not the worst part though.”
With a scoff and shake of my head, I walked around him. “Then what is?”
“One of the youngins . . . it’s Baby’s lil cousin.” That piece of information stopped my movements. “He’s the one that tried to leave but they made him stay. For what it’s worth, he wanted no parts of the shit.”
Cursing under my breath, I damn near jogged toward the center of the warehouse to see what damage Tremaine and Elijah had done.
All three of the young hoodlums were tied up to chairs, bloody and bruised.
Any time a young nigga eighteen or younger tried to take from me, he was beaten with a belt like back in the day, then taken to his elders, where more arrangements were made.
Not once had I ever given a grown ass man permission to hit a child in their face, regardless of what they’d done.
My blood felt like it was literally boiling and warming my body as I looked at their busted lips and black eyes.
To Tremaine and Elijah’s credit, I could tell by the bruises that they didn’t hit them with all of their power, but they shouldn’t have hit them at all.
“Did I authorize this?” I confirmed, tilting Tyreek’s head to get a closer look at him. When neither Tremaine nor Elijah spoke, I looked back at them. “You motherfuckas can’t hear now?”
“No, boss man,” Tremaine said. “I decided to take the initiative to show you that we’re loyal. That you can trust us to take care of business.”
“By beating up some kids? Cut ’em the fuck loose. ”
As soon as Elijah had cut them all loose, I pulled my Glock and sent bullets into his and Tremaine’s feet, hands, and sides.
“ I run this shit,” I growled, hovering over them as they rolled on the floor in pain.
“You don’t do shit I don’t tell you to do, and you for damn sure don’t put your hands on no fucking kids.
Both of y’all are on probation until I say otherwise, and you better hope I don’t send bullets between your eyes. ”
Locking eyes with Rhakeem, I told him, “Get the boys home and have Doc patch these dumb asses on the floor up,” as I grabbed Tyreek’s arm and shoved him forward so he could walk in front of me.
“On it,” Rhakeem consented.
I was so mad I didn’t know what to do, so I figured it was best for me not to say shit. The whole time I drove to Sugar’s house, there was no doubt in my mind she’d blame me for this shit. I kept looking over at Tyreek, and I could tell his spirit was broken. That made me feel even worse.
As I turned onto Sugar’s street, I said, “I need to hear what happened outta your mouth.”
He ran down the same story Rhakeem did. That they were told they were robbing Sko instead of me, which technically made sense.
Rapheal couldn’t tell them he was robbing me.
They wouldn’t have agreed. Sko was crazy, but he didn’t have my reach.
He wouldn’t have been able to find out who did it like I could.
“Why did you leave school, Tyreek?” I asked, pulling into her driveway.
“I just wanted the money,” he mumbled before sniffling, and that shit broke my heart.
“My pops ain’t working and the lil retirement money they give him ain’t shit.
The bulk of that goes to bills and his medicine.
Mama wants to work but his pride won’t let her.
He’s only cool with her helping Baby with her catering jobs because he knows how much she loves to cook.
I try to help as much as I can because Baby been doing so much for us and she don’t need to carry the weight of our household. ”
“Is that the real reason why you don’t want to go to college?”
His head hung before he nodded and wiped more tears.
“Yeah. I’ve been accepted into all the schools I applied to, but the ones I want to go to won’t give me enough financial aid to cover it.
The last thing I’m going to do is make them feel bad about not being able to send me to school, so I just told them I wasn’t going to go instead.
When you mentioned the gap year, I figured that would give me enough time to try and stack at least enough money for my first year. ”
“But you’re a straight A student. I feel like there should be some scholarships that would give you a free ride.”
“I thought so too, but it’s need based. So even though we really ain’t got no money, because of his retirement fund, I don’t qualify for the big bucks. It would be better for me if he wasn’t getting any income at all. They don’t care that everything he gets goes to the bills.”
I thought about it for a minute, and God immediately put on my heart what to do.
“If you really wanna go to school, I’ll pay for it, but you gon’ have to stay the fuck away from them, Reek.
Especially Rell. That lil nigga is not your friend, and the path he’s going down is going to put him in a grave right next to his brother. Is that what you want for you too?”
His head shook as he finally looked me in my eyes.
“I promise it’s not. I meant it when I said I’d try and stay out of trouble.
Had I known that’s what they were going to do, I wouldn’t have gone, I swear.
” He was starting to get worked up again, so I decided to drop the shit.
We got out of the car, and when we made it to the door he asked, “You’re really gonna pay for me to go to school? ”
“Yes, but you know my rule. You have to stay out of trouble. So it’s on you. I need you to show and prove, and the first part of that is cutting off Rell.”
He smiled before extending his hand for me to shake, but when I noticed the tears falling from his eyes, I pulled him in for a hug. The door swung open, and Sugar’s face was fire red.
“It’s true?” she seethed, snatching Tyreek away from me and pulling him into her home.
“Rittany told me she saw your men snatch up my cousin, but I didn’t believe her.
” Her eyes widened as she looked Tyreek over.
“And you put your hands on him!” she roared before smacking the shit out of me. “How could you!”
“Baby, it’s not what it looks like!” Tyreek yelled, picking her up and carrying her into her house.
A part of me wanted to go in and make her hear the truth, but the other part of me knew she carried and didn’t play about her cousin.
Before I let things get physical between us, I’d give her time to calm down and hear the truth from him.
When she did, she knew how to get in touch with me.
As much as I didn’t want to, I headed back to my car as she yelled for Tyreek to let her go.
This shit was going from bad to worse, but right now, there was nothing else I could do.