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I shook my head.
Hopefully, he knew was he was doing.
“Fucking with the Border Lords?” I asked.
They were the leading meth suppliers in the area, and if he was fucking with them, then he was into some crazy shit.
“Nah, man. Fuck the lords. I got connections, though. You know how I do.”
Yeah. I knew exactly how he handled business, and I didn’t always agree with what he was into.
Once I was awake and dressed, I found him sitting on top of the kitchen counter, eating Saint’s Captain Crunch from the box.
“Saint’s going to kick your ass for eating his Captain,” I muttered, pulling open the refrigerator for a bottle of water.
Junior grinned around a mouth full of cereal. “He can try.”
Setting the box to the side, he dusted his hands off and slid from the counter.
“So, what’s new?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what kind of money are y’all making these days?”
“Enough. How about you? What have you been into lately? I guess the Florida pussy didn’t pan out?”
He was always into the side hustle. I loved my big brother, but he was my opposite. While I was thinking about getting out of the game and going legit and legal, all he could think about was the next thing to bring in the cash. He loved the streets and making money any way he could.
Drugs.
Racing.
Although, his bike had been traded in for a car these days.
The point was, he was all about the illegal life, and as long as it wasn’t hurting the boys and me, he didn’t care who he hurt to get what he needed. It was the only thing I didn’t love about him.
“Nope. She was a crazy bitch. I’ve been local for the last few weeks.”
I paused. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’ve been home for the last few weeks.”
“You mean to tell me you’ve been in Atlanta this entire time? Why didn’t you say something?”
“I was busy setting up my next payday. My bad. Anyway, I’m here now.”
He moved toward the garage door, leaving me behind pissed off that he had been back in town for weeks and was just now showing his face.
“What are you working on?” he asked, opening the garage door and disappearing inside. “Anything I can steal?”
I followed him into the garage and filled him in on what I was working on. He tried talking me into letting the Ninja “go missing,” but I wasn’t having it. He knew I was trying to go legit and start my own shop. He knew better than to even ask.
He didn’t look right. Junior had always been a big guy, muscular and healthy. These days he was looking scrawny as if he hadn’t been working out or eating well. I knew it was because he was fucking with the hard stuff. He might have said he dabbled, but the pallor of his skin said he was doing more than dabbling.
He was my big brother, and I had always looked up to him, but these days I saw things a bit clearer. Junior was trouble and had no intention of ever settling down. He only ever thought of the day he was living—never of the weeks ahead. It wasn’t a way to live.
The future had never been something I thought on much, but I wasn’t a nineteen-year-old punk anymore. I was a man, and it was time I took care of business like a man. I wanted a legit company and maybe my own home one day. Junior wanted the next hustle, a bed to sleep on when he needed it, and all the drinks, drugs, and food he needed to survive.
