Chapter 3
Cairo
Two Years Later
“This way Mr. Rogers.” I heard my secretary outside the conference room speaking to another wanna be kingpin that requested to sell product in the Midwest. I could care less about who sold where, as long as my cut was sent over every month.
My pops who used to be in charge was the one who put in place that people needed to get permission.
“Mr. Romano, Mr. Rogers is here and I brought him to this conference room as requested.” My cousin Jackie said, using her arm to gesture for him to enter.
The people who worked in this particular building were family members only and it would remain that way forever. Once you allowed outsiders in they created problems and I’m not about to deal with that.
I did use her best friend Nicole every once in a while when Jackie was out or on vacation. She worked at one of the other buildings so I use her instead of not having anyone. That building held people who weren’t related but knew not to fuck with me.
My grandmother had twelve kids and my grandfather had four before he met her.
She helped him raise those kids as well because their mom died from cancer when they were young.
They knew who their real mother was but my grandmother allowed them to call her mom as well.
We never considered them step aunts or uncles because they still came from my grandfather.
Long story short, we had a huge family and once some got married, they had kids which extended the family even more.
The ones who wanted to work here had to either get a college degree or I found a position for them, even if it meant working in the mail room, the cafeteria or mini stores downstairs.
In my eyes, as long as I had the money there was no reason for any of my family members to be struggling. They were all paid great salaries and lived comfortably.
Of course there were some lazy and disrespectful family who thought they’d come here and do nothing.
Showing up late to work, sitting on their phones all day and even had their friends come to play video games in one of the offices.
I shut that shit down immediately and let them go.
This wasn’t no damn arcade or hang out spot.
“Hi Mr. Romano. It’s an honor to meet you.” He seemed to be overly excited and I wasn’t feeling it. Anyone who appeared too happy was a red flag for me.
“I can’t say the same because I have no clue who you are or why you thought meeting with me was necessary.
” Manny or Felix were the ones who did the so called intake of new business owners.
I considered him that due to finding out how many spots he wanted to open to distribute out of and clean money.
Matter of fact, I only took this meeting because my pops said this man was making money in Jamaica and decided to come here to try and do the same.
Plus, our pops met a few years ago and they’ve been cool ever since.
This was a favor and my pops was definitely going to return one; especially if this nigga fucked up.
“Do you mind if I sit?” He appeared to be respectful as he reached his hand out to shake mine. I did return the gesture and offered him a seat.
“Mr. Rogers what can I help you with?” Staring at the television behind him, I saw an explosion took place at the plant a mile down from one of my other business’s. It had me wondering why no one called to tell me.
Picking up my phone to make a call, the guy must’ve realized how pissed I was because he excused himself before anyone answered. Walking behind to close the door, I waited for this dumb motherfucker to answer.
“What the fuck happened and why didn’t anyone call me?
” I snapped on one of my stupid ass cousins who I let run that specific warehouse.
Mario went to school for accounting and was smart as hell.
It was the exact reason he ran the warehouse without anyone looking over his shoulder. Looks like that may have to change.
I always said his downfall were women and trying to be everybody’s friend.
Motherfuckers used him for money as well as clout with the family.
They assumed being cool with my cousin automatically made them cool with all of us and it didn’t work like that.
I could see straight through leeching ass niggas and I bet it’s the exact reason he had no idea about the fire.
He probably had some of those people there working and made him lose focus.
“Cairo, what are you talking about?” I hated that he had no sense of urgency or the fact he wasn’t concerned about anything, knowing a lot of business was handled damn near twenty-four hours a day at that exact warehouse.
“Nigga, ain’t no way in hell you’re about to tell me that there’s no smoke smell there.” At this point I was pacing back and forth attempting to calm down.
“Oh word. Let me check it out.” Was this nigga really acting like it’s not that serious? How the fuck didn’t he know a something was on fire?
Hanging up on him, I snatched the door open storming out the conference room and heard the glass shatter due to how hard it hit the window on the other side. Going upstairs to my office, I called Raul and told him to meet me at the warehouse.
Once he heard what happened his reaction was the same as mine.
Granted, it was another building on fire but it’s windy as hell outside and from what the news showed there were hella cops and fire trucks on the scene.
Thinking about the fact there was also fucking security in a booth at my warehouse pissed me off more because why didn’t he call.
Grabbing what I needed out my office, I sprinted down the ten flights of stairs to go out the back door. I felt as if my feet weren’t moving fast enough and that whatever had my cousin and security occupied wouldn’t still be happening when I arrived.
“You good Boss?” One of the guards asked. Jumping in the black suburban without
responding, my driver took off like a bat out of hell and I expected nothing less. Especially since I sent him a message to be waiting with the car running.
It took thirty minutes to arrive and Raul was pulling in at the same time. Of course Manny and Felix were in a car behind him with a few others.
Whenever some shit went down I only made one call and whoever it was to always made the rest. I had too much going on to make multiple phone calls. I had my driver stop at the security booth so we could check it out before going in.
“Damnnnnnn somebody either set that shit on fire purposely or the worker dumb as hell and didn’t even realize he set it.” Felix said, closing the car door he just got out of and looking at the building down the street still burning.
It was indeed about to collapse and the smoke was strong as hell. It was a huge restaurant that’s been there for years and family owned. It was one of the reasons I picked that spot to build the 100,000 square foot warehouse there.
There weren’t too many houses in the area and besides the few that did exist, it was an area that only catered to corporations that needed as much space as myself.
One would assume the area was industrial if they drove down which was why I became enraged seeing the fire and no one calling.
Not only would I lose a lot of money if the fire reached my warehouse, I’d have arson people and others trying to investigate the property and I’m not paying a fucking dime to anyone when it could’ve been avoided.
As wealthy as I am, I refused to waste money.
“Where the fuck is security?” Manny yelled, searching the booth.
It wasn’t huge but it was made like a shed to fit a decent sized desk inside with security cameras, a small bathroom and even a little space to have a counter for a mini fridge and microwave.
There was AC and heat added for the weather changes.
I treated my staff very well so for the guard not to reach out either was mind boggling to say the least.
“The door in the floor is locked so he didn’t go down there.” Manny pointed for all of us to look. I had that door for safety purposes when it came to security. If anything happened he could retreat down there which led into the warehouse.
“Let me see what the fuck going on.” Everyone who showed up, followed my lead and once the door opened, all I could say in my mind was this nigga done fucked up big time.
“AYE! The fuck going on in here?” Everyone froze and fear was evident on their faces. I let Felix take the lead by asking more questions. Me on the other hand was already taking a walk around and observing each individual in here.
“Seems like there was a party going on and we weren’t invited.” I said, picking up one of the blocks of heroin.
It felt like I was in the original Bad Boys movie when the guy found his worker using his product and partying with it.
The only difference was this place was a warehouse and my cousin, the security guard and all the staff working, were butt naked, beaten and strapped to a chair with a homemade looking bomb attached to their bodies.
Anyone else may have went into defense mode but not me. No, this was the shit I lived for when it came to my business. Looking around at the five women and six men staring at me, a thought crossed my mind on how I’m going to handle them.
“Well, what do we have here?” A man’s voice spoke from up above. He stood on the second floor and leaned over the railing with a smile on his face.
“It’s the man of the hour everyone. The one and only, Mr. Cairo Romano.
” I heard some gasps behind me and my eyes were squinting to see who the guy was in the dimly lit warehouse.
The lighting where he stood wasn’t on completely making it hard to put a name to a face.
Four niggas moved next to him: two on each side.