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PROLOGUE
JUNGLE
“You see her, man?” I asked Vegas.
“Naw. Let me see her picture again to be sure.”
I passed my phone to Vegas as we walked around the terminal, looking for Jenetta. Jericho had called, saying that he was putting his sister on a flight and that it should land at six. It was damn near six thirty, and she was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t like she had luggage, and the flight had landed twenty minutes ago. He’d sent an itinerary and given me her phone number, so when I sent her pictures of Vegas and me, she sent a picture of herself.
She was a beautiful woman with golden brown skin and auburn, orangey-colored hair. It had grown out some, so her roots were black. She didn’t look a thing like Jericho. I would have never guessed she was his sister had she not sent a picture. As Vegas gave my phone back to me, I sent her a text.Jenetta, we’re looking for you. Are you here?
As I waited for her response, someone tapped me on the back. I cautiously turned around, and there she stood. Her picture didn’t do her justice. Those big, beautiful eyes were on me, and her smile was magnetic. The woman didn’t look like she’d been running for her life a couple of hours ago. “You looking for me?”
“Hell yeah. Come on, lil mama. Let me get you somewhere safe where you can rest.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off hers until she looked away. What in the fuck was I doing? This was my boy’s sister. On top of that, she had a lot of baggage. I didn’t need that drama in my life. As I was about to walk away, expecting her to follow me, she looped her arm around mine and held on tight. When I looked down at her, I could see the fear in her eyes.
That shit broke my heart. I wasn’t a soft nigga, but what she’d endured brought back memories of what happened to my sister ten years ago, when I was locked up. Muthafuckas were trying to steal what my pops, Milton ‘Ice’ Patterson, built. After I got locked up, not even a year later, my pops and my younger brother, Mega, were killed. It left Fawn all alone, trying to run a business she wanted no parts of, and the target for bullshit.
Had it not been for Lark ‘Law’ Gutierrez, my sister would be dead too. He and his family were close to ours because our fathers used to be partners. Law and I were homies until they moved to Laredo when we were about eight or nine years old. He rescued my sister from the fuckers that kidnapped and raped her and exacted retribution on the spot.
Being locked up and not being able to do shit about what happened only added to my grief, anger, and depression. It was bad enough I wasn’t allowed to attend my pops and brother’s double funeral. My sister needed me, and I had to rely on another nigga to take care of her. The guilt of that had been haunting me for years. Had I not gotten set up and sent to prison, my pops and brother would still be here. I was the one that looked out for everybody, and with me being locked up, it was like it was open season for my family.
People I trusted fucked me over. None of them were here long after. I still didn’t know who killed Roulette’s snitching ass, but he was the mole in our camp that set all of us up. He was responsible for my father and brother getting killed, along with his own father and a nigga on our security team, Troy. I just assumed either Law or his brother, Smoke, had handled him. He wasn’t spoken on, when I was released.
After staring at Jenetta for a moment, I removed my arm from her grasp and put it around her shoulder, pulling her closer to me, then headed out to the parking garage. I glanced at Vegas and saw he was communicating with me through his eyes. We’d been around one another all our lives, practically, so I knew what that look meant.A’ight, nigga. Don’t go too far.
I gave him a head nod, letting him know that I understood what he was silently saying. While I didn’t know everything that had happened to Jenetta, I knew enough. I knew that her father had raped her years ago and that her oldest brother was practically holding her and her mother hostage in their home in Miami.
While she was trying to hide her true emotions, I could clearly see them in her eyes and now the tremble I felt going through her body as she wrapped her arms around me. The top of her head barely reached my shoulder, so her arms were wrapped around my stomach as her head rested on my chest.
I didn’t know how she was walking like that, but she was making it. She stumbled, though, so I stopped walking and helped steady her. “You okay?”
She closed her eyes for a moment then glanced down at her ankle. That shit was fucked up. I hadn’t even noticed it. Looked like she had a small lemon attached to it. It clearly wasn’t broken if she was walking on it, but it could be sprained. I’d have to get our on-call doctor to take a look at it.
I stooped and picked her up, carrying her in my arms. I was doing my best to be detached and not make her feel like I was being sensitive to what she needed, but it was of no use. She wrapped her arms around my neck and broke down. The way she cried into my shoulder only caused me to hold her tighter.
“Shh. You safe now, baby girl. We got’chu,” I said in a low voice near her ear.
“Thank you,” she replied softly.
I could feel her tears against my neck as she buried her face there. She took a deep breath, and I was grateful that I decided to take another shower before coming here. My shower gel Fawn had bought me from Bath and Body Works was permeating from my skin. She’d said that it smelled like something I would like. She was right.
I was a simple nigga. I didn’t need all that expensive shit. As long as it smelled good and didn’t irritate my skin, I was good with it. Once we got to my SUV, Vegas opened the back door. I set Jenetta on the seat and was about to head to the passenger seat. Before I could walk away, she grabbed my shirt.
I turned to stare at her, and without her saying a word, I knew what she needed. I glanced over at Vegas to see the smirk on his lips, then got in the back seat with her. She’d better be glad she was gorgeous and extremely easy to stare at… damn near ogle. There was no way I would be this fucking sensitive with her if she looked like that chick that was after Ali.
As Vegas got in the driver’s seat, I put my arm around her. “I’m sorry, Jungle,” she whispered. “I don’t know you, but if Jericho trusts you, then I trust you too. I haven’t been able to be close to anyone I trust in a long time.”
“It’s okay. What happened to your ankle?”
She remained quiet as Vegas cranked the engine and took the fifteen-minute drive to the house. I didn’t want to press her to talk, so I remained quiet also while I watched Vegas repeatedly stare into the rearview mirror. He’d never seen me this way with anyone outside of my family. I really didn’t have girlfriends… just hoes I fucked with. Every now and then, I came across a woman that just needed to be tightened up, like Lexi.
She wasn’t a ho. The hoes were the ones chasing a nigga down. They wanted more than sex. They wanted me to pay for shit. I wasn’t hurting for money by a long shot, but it didn’t mean I wanted to trick it off either. My dad had left my sister and I millions, and I was now running the Patterson empire. We’d expanded our reach into Baytown, Katy, Sugarland, and other surrounding areas.
However, what I said to Ali entered my mind. I was sick of this shit, sick of always having to watch my back for rogue muthafuckas. When Ali killed Jontae and we found all that shit in his spot, especially Mega’s necklace, I knew that it would always be somebody trying to take my spot. Just like they killed Ice and Mega, I could very well be next. As soon as we were done with product, I would be leaving the drug game.
Not long after that, I would be done paying politicians and police to keep watch and hide shit for us. The drug trade was the only thing that was illegal about our operations. However, all the shops and stores we owned were fronts for that shit. So many people would lose their jobs if I shut all that shit down. If they were able to sustain from their operating revenue, then I would leave them open.
