“Daaaaamn, you just gon’ let her get down on you like that, Kya?”
I groaned lowly and pinched the bridge of my nose in an attempt to relieve the sudden throbbing in my head. “Shut the fuck up!” I barked, fed the fuck up, and the room fell silent. “So, you mean to tell me, you and Quick was fuckin’ around while my shit was being robbed?” I directed my heated glare at Norielle. Her chest was heaving, still riled up from the argument, but fear flashed across her face as she hesitated to answer. “Don’t even worry about it. Consider yourself fired, shorty.”
Sosa’s childish ass tsked, way too invested in the bullshit going on and not in the fact that somebody had robbed us and shot our cousin. “Damn, not you getting robbed and fired on the same day, shorty,” he co-signed in fake pity. I knew some even crazier shit was about to come out his mouth, but Norielle gasping loudly stopped whatever he was about to say.
“But?”
“Ain’t no buts! You lucky I ain’t shot your simple ass! For all I know, you’re involved in this shit and was back there distracting my cousin so niggas could run up in my shit!”
“Shiiiit, the verdict still out on that,” Sosa hissed, suddenly just as concerned with the possibility of her ass being a snake as me, but Arnez still wasn’t off the hook.
“I’m not on no shit like that, Vega. I like Quick. We been messing around for like two weeks.” That did little to help her case and only had me making a mental note to get on Quick’s ass about fucking around with our damn employees.
“This nigga out here tryna make a girlfriend out a damn card girl.”
I ignored shorty and my brother’s side commentary, turning my attention to Arnez. “Where that lil’ nigga at now?” Already, I had three possible leads, and I planned to follow them until I found out who’d been bold enough to think they could rob me and touch my family. Bear was on the suspect list as well. I didn’t give a fuck if he called out. He looked just as suspicious as everybody else. Put back on the spot, Arnez tensed, and I nodded for Sosa, who instantly upped his Beretta.
I couldn’t believe a big ass sumo wrestler looking muthafucka like him was bitching up so quickly, but then again, he knew better than anybody not to play with my family. Throwing his hands up, he took a couple of steps back and ran into the wall. “That ain’t even necessary, Sosa. Man, I’ll take y’all to him, but you gotta promise not to hurt him or my mama.”
“Nigga, this ain’t no negotiation! If I gotta find out on my own, though, I’m gon’ make sure I let this muthafucka do his worst, and you know he ain’t screwed too tight.” I smirked for the first time in damn near twenty-four hours, and his eyes darted over to Sosa. For as immature as my brother was, everybody was well aware of how dangerous he could be. Thatwas the reason I’d had his crazy ass come with me to hem up De’Angelo. Out of the three of us, he was the nicest with any weapon he got his hands on, and he never hesitated to make use of his skills.
“Okay, okay!” Arnez huffed, looking disgruntled as fuck.
“Let’s go then, goofy ass nigga!” Sosa brusquely motioned him forward with his gun, and Arnez made the mistake of dragging his feet. As soon as he made it to where we stood waiting, Sosa slammed the butt of the gun against his head, making his big ass stumble. “Stop wasting time and bring yo’ ass on!” He shoved him toward the exit, almost daring the man to act like he wanted an issue. Arnez smartly did what he was told, and I wasn’t too far behind. It wasn’t until I noticed the others following us that I stopped.
“Fuck y’all think y’all going?”
They all froze, looking stupid as hell, but, of course, Norielle didn’t care about looking stupid, which was crazy when she was one of the main people I was side eyeing. “Uh,home.Don’t you think Arnez’s brother is the one who did this?” She looked around for back up but everyone else remained silent, leaving her on her own.
“Bitch, we think you might be in on this shit, too. The fuck wrong with yo’ ass?” Sosa snorted before I could. Although I probably would’ve said the same thing in a much nicer way, it got the point across.
“I told y’all I wasn’t! Call Quick, he’ll vouch for me!” She said that shit with way too much confidence, not even knowing that if Quick was fucking her in the casino of all places, he didn’t fuck with her the way she thought. I decided not to call her clown ass out, though, because at that point, I just wanted her the fuck away from me.
“You know what? Yeah, y’all can go ahead and go. I’m gon’ follow up with y’all soon,” I assured, getting irritated by the way they all hesitated before making their way out the door.
I watched them until they disappeared and sent out the word for a couple of niggas to follow Norielle and track down Bear. It wasn’t going to take some ignorant muthafuckas long to run through that money, and if they were splitting it between five of them, then it would take even less time. Truthfully, even if I didn’t get my money back, I’d be satisfied with their fucking heads just for the blatant disrespect. They probably didn’t know it, but running up in my shit was the biggest mistake they ever made, and I was going to make sure I made an example out of them, starting with Arnez’s brother.
We threw Arnez in the backseat of Sosa’s truck, took his phone, and put the child lock on the doors and windows to keep his ass from running while he sat in the back, looking like Deebo after the way Sosa had smacked him with the gun.
“Where we going, man?” I demanded since he hadn’t said shit, and he finally rattled off her address.
If it wasn’t such a serious situation, I probably would’ve laughed at the lengths he was going through, but this shit was far from funny, and I was on the verge of putting his ass out his misery. Sosa’s GPS said it would take half an hour to get there, but since he wanted to play speed demon, we made it in less than twenty. We pulled up to a small, ranch style brick home with an attached garage. Upon seeing the Hellcat in the driveway, I knew that little nigga was definitely home.
“Come on,” I ordered, already stepping out at the same time as Sosa and opening the back door for Arnez.
We’d barely made it up the walkway when the door came swinging open, and a younger, taller, and goofier looking version of Arnez stepped out the door, stuttering.
“Vega, I-I swear on my mama’s head we didn’t have nothing to do with that! I’m not into street shit! Mama caught me smoking and hassled Arnez to get me a job! This was my first day, and I literally shit on myself seeing them guns! I’ll show you my phone, and you can search inside! Whatever you want, just please don’t kill us!” The little brother had tears streaming down his face, and I shared a look with Sosa. Without even having to talk it over we could both tell his ass was telling the truth. I didn’t know one kid who was trying to be a thug that would tell anybody he shitted on himself for any reason. He did seem like the perfect type to be a fall guy, but I was sure he’d have told us that with the way he was running his mouth already.
“Yeah, it definitely ain’t this lil nigga.” Sosa’s voice was full of pity as he shook his head.
“Y’all check out for now, but make sure you come in tomorrow because we still got work to do,” I directed at Arnez, who’d made his way over to console his brother. That was the closest he was going to get to an apology, and he knew that shit too. His face was twisted up in a mug, but he nodded anyway, and I tapped Sosa’s shoulder so we could get out of there.
We got back to the truck, but he stopped before ducking inside and looked at the two of them over the door since they were still standing out there looking goofy as hell. “Aye, bro, don’t tell nobody else you shitted on yourself. That shit is not playa. I would flame yo’ lil’ ass, but I’m gon’ let you make it since yo’ night already going bad enough.” Sosa climbed in the truck like he’d really given the little nigga some real advice, and when he noticed the expression on my face, he shrugged. “Back to square one, my boy.”
He was right. We were right back at square one, but we did still have two other leads to follow up on, and I knew one of them was going to be the right one. Either way, I wasn’t resting until I had my money and those niggas’ heads.
CHAPTER 5
