I stayed in a shelter for a while and was assigned a caseworker who helped me get some assistance from the state. Through my caseworker, Lisa, I was able to obtain my birthrecords and find my original birth certificate. My story had always begun at the fire station where Sylvia dropped me off. Once I obtained my original birth certificate, I found out it went way further than that, and I actually had two parents and siblings.
When I did my deep dive into my biological parents and siblings, I was devastated to find out they were murdered in their apartment in Harlem. I thought I would finally be able to get some sort of closure from them, but that was snatched away from me. I watched the news plaster Priest’s face all over the media as he made his shocking return from the dead. The story was everywhere, and I couldn’t get away from it. I ended up cleaning out my parents’ apartment after showing the building’s super my birth certificate. I thought I would be able to find something that would connect me to Priest and Jazzlyn. I came up empty, but I did come up on some paperwork that let me know that Sylvia had a life insurance policy that I deserved a fucking cut from.
Truth was, I was looking for some fast money. I wanted to do better for myself and finally get some stability. If it wasn’t for Jazzlyn being such a bitch and Priest being a pussy, I would have gotten what I deserved and gone on my way.
“What did Silas say?” I came out of the bathroom after assessing my face.
Bryant was on the run-down couch that decorated the filthy living room. He was scrolling through Jazzlyn’s phone. “Your sister is fucking loaded, son.” He flipped the phone so I could see. It was a photo she took boarding a jet. She had recently posted it on her Instagram. Why he was going through her photos instead of focusing on what the fuck we needed to do was beyond me.
I slapped him upside his head, reeling him back in. “What did Silas say?” I asked again.
“He’s trying to make his way back to the city. What Ahkeem and his pussy-ass crew did to him in Miami fucked him up a little bit.”
“I don’t give a fuck about that. What did he say about me getting my money?”
“You meanourfucking money?” He hiked his brow up at me.
“Same thing. What did he say?”
“Once he touch down, he’ll drop the paper off.”
I took a seat across from him, before leaning my head back against the couch so I could look up at the ceiling. “You think he gonna kill her?”
“Why do you give a fuck? She just got done beating your ass.”
I cut my eyes at him. The more time I spent with Bryant, the less I wanted to be around him. He never knew how to read the fucking room, and he didn’t have a fucking filter. We knew each other from the very last foster home I stayed in. We weren’t the tightest, but we looked out for each other whenever it came time to. We lost touch once I got adopted. He always talked about how he had this older brother he was separated from when people found out their mother up and left them.
His brother was sent to New York, while he remained in Jersey. Once he aged out of foster care, he managed to track down his brother, who made a name for himself out in the streets. Keenan was more of a stepper than Bryant would ever be, and he knew that. Bryant wasn’t cut for the street life, but Keenan kept him underneath his wing.
When I made the move from New Jersey to New York, I didn’t really know anyone besides Priest and Jazzlyn, who wanted nothing to do with me, and Bryant. We connected again over Facebook, and he started bringing me around Keenan and his folks. I knew Bryant was feening to get into my pants, so I strung him along so he would trust me and keep me around. Themore I was around, the more open conversation I was able to sit in on.
When the names Silas, Ahkeem, Priest and Jazzlyn began floating around, I decided to test the temperature and not make any hasty moves. I wanted to see if things would work out smoothly with Priest and Jazzlyn first before I let Keenan and Bryant know I was their sibling. After the meeting we had with our lawyers, I knew we would never come together as family, and they made it very clear that they wouldn’t be giving me the money I was owed.
I deliberated with myself for weeks before telling Keenan and Bryant. The look on Keenan’s face when I told him I was Jazzlyn and Priest’s sister looked like he struck gold. Immediately, he hooked me up with Silas, who deemed me a valuable asset to his operation. Despite us being blood, I didn’t owe Jazzlyn and Priest any loyalty, so I had to do whatever was in my best interest. The $25,000 Silas offered me if I brought him Jazzlyn alive was going to be the jumpstart to my new life.
We spent weeks plotting and keeping tabs on Jazzlyn. She went ghost for a while, and we soon found out it was because she and Ahkeem were on the outs and she was ducked off over at Priest’s house. Unlike Jazzlyn, who lived in a popular building in the city, Priest lived like a fucking president in a gated community. The security that guarded it was so tight that they wouldn’t let shit slide.
We played the waiting game, and eventually, she was back at the penthouse. Sometime later, Bryant got a call from Silas letting us know that Keenan died while holding it down for him with Roc in Miami. They went out there for business, and Keenan never returned. Bryant was devastated. His brother dying only fueled him to help me end Jazzlyn more. For me, it was all about the money. Bryant, though? He was out for blood.
“She didn’t beat my ass. I just want to know so I can prepare myself.” I shrugged my shoulders.
“Silas keeps stressing how he wants her alive. If he didn’t, I would’ve been put a bullet between that hoe’s eyes. That nigga killed my brother. I should be the one to take his bitch’s life.”
“Fuck do we do now? Sit and wait?”
He finally unglued his eyes from Jazzlyn’s phone and shifted them onto me. “You asking hella questions for somebody in need of some paper. Just let Silas figure out how he going to get back to the city. Homie fucked up right now.”
“We don’t have fucking time, Bryant!” I stressed. “You heard what the fuck the bitch was saying about Ahkeem and Priest.”
Waving off my concerns, he smacked his lips. “No one knows where the fuck she’s at. All we gotta do is keep her alive until Silas gives us the green light to knock her off.”
There was a knock on the door that sent my heart plummeting to the pit of my stomach. My eyes widened as I snapped my head toward Bryant.
“Chill your paranoid ass the fuck out,” he told me as he stood up from the couch and slipped Jazzlyn’s phone into his pocket. He marched toward the door, checking through the dusty blinds before opening the door.
“We gotta move.” Beanie stormed through the house with a scowl on his face.
“What? Why?” I jolted up from my seat.
