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“I understand. What will you do?”
“I don’t know. Get a job in a restaurant.”
“Why get a job? Why not open your own restaurant?” Rain asked with purpose in mind. Mileena was family, her family.
“On what? Good looks and personality?” Mileena laughed. “I got a little money saved, but it is definitely not enough to open my own place.”
“Suppose you had a silent partner that just shows up to eat and let you run your spot any way you wanna run it? What about that?”
“Who? You?”
“Yeah, me. I would be the perfect partner.”
“But, it would have to be strictly legitimate. No gambling, just good food and drinks, maybe a little live entertainment.”
“What kind of food you gonna serve?”
“What kind of food you like, partner?” she asked and thought about who she was talking to. “Never mind, as long as it’s good and you don’t have to cook it, you’re good.”
“See, the perfect partner. Whatever you wanna do is fine with me,” Rain said, knowing that this would be a good move for her. Black and Wanda had been talking to her for years about diversifying and getting into more legitimate business.
You’re not gonna be a gun slinger forever, you know, Black told her once.
And although Rain was fully vested as a shareholder in their legitimate businesses, God bless the child who had her own.
“So, what do you say? Partners in your own shit or interviewing to work a job that pays less than half of what I’m paying you now and won’t even compare to what you’ll make when we open our own place. The choice is yours.” Rain drained her glass and put it on her desk. Mileena finished her drink and stood up. She picked up Rain’s glass and went to the bar, refilled their glasses and handed the glass to Rain.
She held up her glass. “To partners,” Mileena said.
“To partners,” Rain said, and they drank to that.
Chapter Nineteen
At the end of that day’s training with Monika; a five-mile run with an M-16, Fantasy closed the door to her room and put down her rifle. She was exhausted, but after disappointing Jada by disgracefully throwing herself at Mr. Garrison as Jada said, Fantasy was determined to do whatever Monika asked her to do.
“What am I saying? Monika doesn’t ask anything. She gives orders and I do what she says,” Fantasy said and began to get undressed to take a shower.
While the water beat down on her tired and sore body, Fantasy thought about what her days had been like to this point. She began each day with a run, and then it was on to basic rifle marksmanship training. Monika was training her on engagement skills and situational analysis and then they did situational training exercises. The afternoon consisted of field training exercises, the confidence obstacle course and ended with yet another run.
Monika told Fantasy that she will complete marksmanship and combat training and she would learn to rappel at the Warrior Tower. After becoming familiar with the use of automatic handheld weapons and grenades, Fantasy would put her training to the test when she tackled the night infiltration course.
“Will that complete my training?” Fantasy asked her later that evening at dinner.
“No, Fantasy, it won’t. This is just the first phase of your training.” Monika laughed. “You’re in what I like to call the green phase because you’re green when you start the training. But I gotta tell you, you had a better first week than Jackie,” Monika chuckled. “She whined the entire week.”
“That is encouraging to hear. I admire Jackie for her strength and her courage.”
“There was never a question of her strength or her courage. Jackie Washington is always ready for a fight, but Jackie was soft when we started working together.”
Monika laughed as she remembered how Colonel Mathis threw her, Nick, Xavier, Travis and Jackie together to do a job for him. She also remembered how disappointed she was that the Colonel didn’t want Rain on the team.
Lorraine Robinson has a very volatile personality and would introduce an unstable element into this team, which has the potential of endangering the success of the mission.
Monika was sure that with Rain being Rain, she would be a great soldier. But Fantasy wasn’t cut from the same cloth as either Rain or Jackie.
“When I met you, I thought that you were … you know …”
“A tad bit prissy,” Fantasy laughed.
