Page 18 of Weddings on the West: Vol. I Brick & Destiny

“Invite? Nigga, you gon’ be front row center. You lucky we keeping it small or you would be standing up there with me.” Fake marriage or not, I would never do that shit without my real niggas there with me.

“Aight, I’ma get out of y’all’s way. I just came through to make this drop. I’ll see y’all niggas later.”

He dapped us up and was out. Z and his people never picked up product from us, just dropped off the money and had it delivered from our warehouse to theirs.

The next person in the lineup walked in, and Kilo immediately pulled his gun from his waist.

“The fuck is this nigga? Kel, you know better. No extra people on pickups!”

“My bad! I’m sorry!” Kel said, throwing his hands up in defense. “This is my nigga, Nido. He wanna get on. He needed a plug, and I figured since y’all them niggas, y’all could help him out. He⁠—”

“No.” I cut him off mid-sentence.

“Wh-What?” His face fell as he turned to me. “Come on, Brick. This my people!”

“This ain’t no muhfuckin’ charity case! I know you remember how thorough we were vetting you, so I don’t know why the fuck you thought it would be sweet—” My voice trailed off as I stepped closer and got a better look at his associate, noticing the faint S he had tatted under his left eye. My irritation morphed into rage because either the nigga was slow or an opp.

“You brought a South Side nigga over here?” I asked in disgust. I considered myself a pretty reasonable nigga, but this was unforgivable. Everyone in the city knew that niggas from the South weren’t welcome around us. I gave no fucks about what ceasefire or peace treaty was in place—one of their people was the reason that my Pops got killed, so it would forever be smoke.

Now my gun was out, and niggas knew what that meant. I didn’t worry about them drawing on us because they went through extensive security checks before they could even be in the same room as us.

“Wait! Wait!” Kel hollered as he threw his hands in front of his face. “I didn’t know! He just approached me to try to get on! I didn’t fucking know!”

“Fuck you mean you ain’t know?” Kilo yelled. I stuck my arm out in front of him before he could attack. Apparently I was feeling generous, but if Kilo laid hands on every nigga that came in the door, we’d be on the clock for another twelve hours.

“Kel, take your boy and get the fuck outta here,” I grumbled.

“B-But… I didn’t get my shit,” he muttered.

“I’m givin’ you a chance to walk outta here. If I have to repeat myself, I’ma let this nigga loose on yo’ ass.”

Kel broke—the nigga actually broke down in tears. That right there let me know that he was bad for business because he must have been in the hole with niggas and robbing Peter to pay Paul with our fuckin’ product. He was there to pick up pills that he later sold on a college campus. The way he was crying and shit told me that he already took and spent somebody’s money, and they were gon’ be on his ass if he didn’t deliver.

None of that was my muhfuckin’ problem.

His boy didn’t say a word the whole time and continued to glare at me while Kel pleaded for the sake of his livelihood. I acted like I didn’t hear him as security escorted them niggas the fuck out. I hope that lil’ nigga didn’t think he was scarin’ nobody because I’d wipe his entire crew out in one night and have every funeral home on the South Side booked up for the next six months.

Luckily, we made it through the rest of pick-ups without any issue because I was feeling like Kilo, and the next nigga to try some stupid shit was gon’ end up with Donte’s ass.

We usually took one trip every other month for exports, came back, and had one day for pickups and payments. From start to finish, it usually took a week. I did everything I could to streamline the process because the less time I spent in the warehouse, the better. At least I could pretend to be a normal nigga for the rest of the days. By the time we wrapped up and I made it home, I turned my phone on to see that I had a few dozen missed texts.

Mina

This pussy miss you.

Jemma

Me and my nigga broke up. Can I get back on the roster?

Peep

Hey, don’t want to bother you, but apparently your mom has us down for a meeting with the venue owners tomorrow. Then dinner at her house later this week… If you’re busy, I can go to the meeting alone.

Kenya

Can you put me down for a dick appointment this week?

There were about ten other similar messages from sneaky links past and present, trying to get on the waiting list for some dick. I called the only one who wasn’t.