Hood Misfits 3 Read online

  Enzo walked in like he knew he owned the night. He didn’t roll with an entourage, which was noticeable as he dapped niggas up and smiled for the cameras. His smile was something that I couldn’t explain. He only gave a half one that looked more of a snide smirk than anything else. He was dressed like he had just stepped off the pages of GQ, which made him stand out among the other dudes who looked like they just came from a rap video set. Minimal jewels adorned him, a black diamond-filled watch on his left wrist and a horseshoe ring in his bull nose piercing. I couldn’t front like he wasn’t sexy because he was. I just didn’t want to be in the same room with him.

  I could tell the moment he noticed me too. His smile faded and his eyes darkened. We didn’t know each other that well, but we both knew the world we’d come from. I could tell by the way he took a deep breath, stared me down, then moved to the other side of the room that neither one of us wanted our secret to ever get out. He didn’t want anyone to know he was an ex–drug runner and I didn’t need anyone to know I was an ex-whore. Micah could pull down our façade anytime he wanted to. That was what scared me most.

  “Yo, Enzo, get over here, my nigga,” Micah called out to him before he could get away.

  I watched on in silent horror as they clapped hands then gave shoulder bumps.

  “What’s good, my nigga?” Enzo greeted him.

  “You. You’re what the fuck is good these days. You ready for the game on Sunday?”

  “Always ready. Just get the ball in my hand and I’ll do the rest.”

  “Ha-ha! My nigga. Yo, check it, I got some business I wanna holla at you about. Let’s go back in my office and hash some shit out.”

  I could tell that Enzo wasn’t really feeling the suggestion by the way he thumbed his chin then glanced away. “Yeah? What about?” he asked Micah.

  “Not out here with the peasants, my man. Let’s step in my office.”

  When Micah tried to pull me with him I balked. He turned to look at me with a frown. I told him, “I have to take a piss. Do you mind?”

  He looked as if he was about to get belligerent. “Bitch, you can’t hold that shit for a few more minutes? A nigga trying to talk business and you worried about pissing. Calm the fuck down. I know the pussy tight, you can hold it. I know you can . . . Angel.”

  I inhaled loudly then ran a hand through my hair. I caught Enzo glancing at me and so did Micah. I knew when he called me Angel that if Enzo wasn’t sure of who I was before, he damn sure was then. I could have sworn I saw Micah smirk.

  “So, check it,” Micah stated as he sat behind the big oak desk in his office. “I need to run some shit by you, my dude.”

  The music was drowned out as soon as we walked into the room and Micah closed the door. Two big, burly niggas stood at the door as I sat down on the chocolate leather Tudor-style sofa. Micah had offered Enzo a seat in front of his desk with one of the wingback maroon chairs.

  “What’s up?” Enzo asked casually.

  Micah reached in his desk, pulled out a Bank of America money bag, then slid it across the desk to him.

  “What’s this?” Enzo asked.

  “It’s your take for the game last Sunday. I bet on you twenty to one that you would catch that Hail Mary and win the game for the Nightwings. You made me half a mil in one game. So, I wanted to show my thanks.”

  Enzo quirked a thick brow then tilted his head to the side. “On some real shit, my dude. I ain’t here for this, feel me? I appreciate all the parties and shit and I appreciate the love, but this here, this all you. I ain’t trying to be a part of that life.”

  Micah smirked. “Anymore?”

  “What?”

  “You mean you’re not trying to be a part of that life anymore?”

  While Micah smirked, Enzo quietly sat back in his chair and studied the con man before him. “I don’t know what you mean,” Enzo told him.

  Micah laughed as he stood and walked around his desk. He propped himself on the left side of it as he looked from me back to Enzo. “You’ve met my girl Angel, right? Angel, meet Enzo. Enzo, Angel.”

  I didn’t say anything as Enzo cut his eyes at me. The whole thing had me on edge.

  “Oh, wait, you two should already know each other, right?” Micah then asked, feigning innocence as he rubbed his hands together. “I mean, you both used to work for the same dude so I don’t see why any introductions are really needed, but you know. I’m just being polite and shit.”

  “Damn, nigga, you act like you the feds or something asking all these damn questions and insinuating shit,” I barked out before I could catch myself, immediately regretting it.

  Micah’s gaze instantly turned cold as he stared me down. Enzo stood and rolled his shoulders. The two big, burly guards at the door moved toward him but stopped when Micah held up a hand.

  “Look, man, I done told you, you can do what you want. I don’t give a fuck how much money you making off me, you feel me? Just keep it the fuck away from me.”

  “Nah, see. I need your help though. So, I figured if I tell you how much I’m betting on what particular thing, then you go out on the field and make it do what it do. Like in this New Orleans game, I’m betting you score seven touchdowns as opposed to the four you scored last week. You can do that, can’t chu, my nigga?”

  Enzo’s eyes turned to ice, but Micah only smirked.

  “Nigga, just how the fuck am I supposed to make seven touchdowns one game? I’m good, but a nigga ain’t got wings. You tripping.”

  “See, all you need to worry about is catching the ball when it’s thrown to you. Me and the quarterback got an agreement just as me and some of the members on defense for the Angels have an agreement. You make sure that ball stays in your hand and get to the end zone when the time calls for it. So you can do that for me, right?”

  Enzo shook his head. “There really is no honor among thieves. You undercutting your own people.”

  “Yeah, you can do it. I’d hate to leak to the media that the NFL’s poster child used to push drugs and help a well-known kingpin sell women and young girls across the globe for a profit. I mean, come on; imagine all the criminal charges and all the bad press. What’s going to happen to that sickly but oh so beautiful aunt of yours, and your little brother once you’re locked away? So, I’m saying”—Micah stood and matched Enzo’s pose—“we got a deal or what?”

  Chapter 4

  Enzo

  The sound of screams rent the air in a jarring, “Ahh!” and “Yes!” as a thud and clatter of glass echoed behind it then mixed with a thumping baseline of Lil Wayne’s “Gunwalk” in the background. I stood glancing down at the body of a dead man. He was hired to protect a man, aimed to make me his bitch on paper, and his packing mule on the field. I had a forced meeting earlier that had caused me to return to an old place I didn’t want to go. It went a little something like this.

  “We got a deal or what?” Micah had asked.

  Now, in my head, this shit was going down one of two ways: one, the Glock I had secured against my spine was about to meet this nigga’s mouth as his brains leaked on his wack-ass chinchilla rug; or, two, I play the game. Suffice it to say, I went with option three.

  Staring down this nigga was nothing for me. Not another motherfucker was going to put me back into a place of servitude and fear. Yeah, I had obligations to my fam, and this bitch just showed me his hand too fast, but he also didn’t know who I was trained by. All I heard was, “use that shit to your advantage while building up your arsenal,” so I did.

  So while I looked down my nose at a man who was one of the biggest payers for our team, I scratched the side of my clenched jaw and held on to my anger.

  Micah’s hands rested on both of my shoulders. He gave a slight squeeze with a laugh. “You’re my moneymaker. You know you got a gift out there on the field, but you also got a gift in the streets, don’t cha?”

  My mouth made a straight line as I cut my eyes at him. “Don’t even know what you’re talking about. People like you
always get us black dudes mixed up, right? No matter if you do look like one of us.”

  His hands clapped my shoulders. He stepped back, but stayed close enough to be in my face as he watched me. “But you’re a killer, right?” he said, putting emphasis on the word “killer” while a wide Kool-Aid grin spread across his face. He shaped his hand like a gun, clicking it off at my head, then dropped his hands down to slide them into his pockets. “I have need for your . . . gifts, all of them.”

  My spine in that moment felt as it were made of steel. I stood erect, jaw clenched, not saying a damn thing, just watching a man who made me wonder why he was coming at me the way he was.

  “Sir, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I don’t even want any part of what you are thinking you know about me.”

  Amusement flickered in his eyes and he made a slight, curt nod behind me. His two bodyguards disappeared through the double oak doors of the opulent office we all stood in. The sound of a protesting feminine voice flowed back into where were both stood, sizing each other up, and Micah’s grin seemed to become more menacing as my own anger become more chilling.

  Suffice it to say, shit went downhill after that. Even though Angel and I had tried to play it off, we both knew what it was. Micah knew us very well and playing dumb wasn’t flying anymore. Angel still stuck to her story even though Micah wasn’t hearing it. I watched him turn that finger he was using to mimic a gun and shoot it off toward the chick I was very much trying to keep my distance from.

  “Naw, see, every day you leaving bodies on the field, so what I ask shouldn’t be something to trip off, right? The both of you are used to getting specific jobs done.” The sound of Angel shifting against the leather sofa had me checking her out in my peripheral. Dude’s innuendos were killing my vibe, and by the way she dug her nails into her arm, I could tell it was the same for her.

  “I’m not sure what’s going on. Why do you keep assuming things about me? Like, I really don’t want any part of this. I just need to go piss please and get back to the party,” she said.

  The tone of her voice was one of complete cluelessness, but everyone in that room knew she was a liar. We both were. She quickly stood, pulling down her tight skirt. The muffled sound of her heels on the chinchilla rug then clacking on the marble floor traveled toward the door but the nigga who held us for ransom wasn’t having it.

  Micah cleared his throat then snapped his finger. “Ah, ah, I think your pussy will be just fine if she just sits her pretty ass back down on the couch and you cross your legs. You should be good at that, right? Keeping your legs closed? Or nah?”

  He laughed as if he had said some important joke then pointed at the couch. “Sit. If you need to piss so bad, squat over that plant then take it with you when we all are done. I mean, we all are family here, right?”

  Through their discussion, I stayed where I was. Music for the party drifted occasionally in the room. The sound of laughter from different giggling chicks would float past the door and the smell of weed, laced with Indigo, had the whole mansion turned up. Angel’s reluctant pause stilled the room before she sat back down. I was unsure about how all this was going to play out, but I was really hoping he’d hurry the shit up.

  “So this is what I want from you both.” Micah rubbed his hands together, then leaned to sit against the front of his desk. “Get with my program and we’ll all have us a nice time together just like it was originally planned, much respect to our lost amigo, understood?” He crossed his chest, left, right, from the stomach to the heart before kissing his fingers and pointing to the ceiling.

  A curt laugh reverberated from me in a reply to his showboating. “Do what you want. I mean, shit. I play how I play. What you think you know about me, I don’t even care. Not my problem. In the end, you only hurtin’ yaself, not me.”

  Micah shifted forward then stepped back to me, his eyes locked on mine, but his comment was directed behind me. “And what is your reply, Angel? Not down for the cause anymore? Family ties mean nothing?”

  I wanted to turn just to see how she was looking, but I wasn’t about to be disrespected just because one nigga was in the grave, and this fool thought he could pick up the pieces. It didn’t always work that way; besides, he could just be playing us to see how we’d act.

  “Ah, like I said, I really don’t know what’s going on, so I have no comment on anything,” she reiterated.

  Micah sucked his teeth, giving us both a bored glare as he smirked. “That’s right. You playing dumb, good look.”

  Nerves had the planes of my abs clenching. I wanted to cap this dude. Wanted to just wrap my hands around his neck and twist, but that wasn’t a possibility right now. In this world, there was a certain way to handle things, and today I was going to let my reputation get a little shaky.

  Micah gave a laugh and reached out to squeeze my shoulder. “Ah yeah, just fucking with you both. It’s not a good look if anyone thought what I was saying was even truth. Could make us lose a lot of money, so I had to test you.”

  White teeth flashed before me. He really was going to twist it like this was some test. I laughed with him and he held his hands up then gave me a hug, his left hand gripping my neck as he whispered in my ear, “Nigga you’re my buck, know that. Just because Dame is gone doesn’t mean the agreement I had with him is over. Know I’m watching you and you will be my bitch and enjoy it. Now smile and get the fuck out of my office. I have things that I need to speak about with our female friend.” With that, he let me go and grinned wide. “Yeah, this season is going to be major.” He chortled.

  Micah let me know he remembered exactly who I was. He also let me know he had eyes on me and my family, something I immediately knew I was going to have to handle as soon as I stepped out of that party, and it also ended with me blacking the fuck out.

  All I heard was, “It would be a shame to see your aunt wonder why her medicine has stopped coming in. Or why that school voucher your little brother had into Nasir Prep has fallen through. Would be a travesty, right?”

  The quick left, then right jab, and a quick uppercut was my reply. I saw Micah’s body tumble over his desk. That cocky fucker was raining red. Each droplet stained his shirt as he opened his mouth to pop his jaw back into place. He yelled for his guards to get me the fuck out his office. I was set to go for him again until his guards grabbed me and dragged me from the room.

  I shouted, just to be an asshole, “Let me know if you need me to sign that ink on the dotted lines again, dog.” I chortled while being led back to the party.

  Just by the tension in the room I could tell nobody was expecting me to fuck that nigga up like I did. Self-preservation had me doing it. I had to because he needed to understand that if I lost, he lost, simple as that. Mathematics often worked that clear cut.

  In my struggle I heard Micah’s raspy bark travel down that empty hallway with me and the malice in his voice flowed with it: “Yeah, that contract is mine, Enzo. Make sure you handle what I said! All eyes are on you, playa.”

  Hissing, I only kept to the game and spit out, “Right, and watch your back, my dude, since we all talking secrets.”

  My mouth always got me in trouble, which was why I was snatched to the side where our meeting continued on the balcony. I wasn’t about to let that nigga play me out the gate. Micah was on some dirty shit. I knew since the very first day of playing with my team that he was one of the bitches of Dame. Nigga sat in on all of my games, watching me with glassy eyes. Mouth gaped open, watering over what I had to assume he could get off me. His vibe always stank. Even when I played back on camp, he would watch all of us, and tick off the money he was going to pocket. Nigga stayed in a pimp mentality, but even pimps could end up sucking a dick or two.

  There wasn’t a damn thing I could do to keep him off my back in the moment, outside of feeding him a bullet. Since we were both in a public situation, that wasn’t going to happen so I had to strategize something different in order to end his game. He had dirt on
me, but he failed to think, failed to tap the marbles in his simple-ass dome and think on the fact that I got dirt on him. Power ain’t shit when an agenda is set in motion.

  I guess Micah was still sour about the way a nigga had rocked his dome. That was how I ended up on the balcony with both of his guards and him surrounding me again. Yup, let me explain a little something. When I blacked out, a brotha was no good, and at that moment, I blacked out.

  Not even a heartbeat of a second had passed when I reached up to drape my arm over one of the guard’s massive shoulders. Yeah, I wasn’t some small dude, but I wasn’t huge either. My time and practice in the streets as well as on the field helped me learn how to take down a chunky motherfucker as if they were nothing but a bag of kitty litter. Knowing this fool wasn’t going to be down with me touching on him for long, I moved as fast as I could.

  My jaw clenched tight. I shifted my feet quickly to pivot around the guard. I slammed my shoulder against that cat’s chest, and then leaned the shocked dude against the railing of the balcony. I watched him struggle to move my forearm from his throat.

  I then sent him flying with a slight grin on my face as he flipped over the edge. Standing shocked on the balcony and wide-eyed, I shrugged my shoulders with my hands out. I had purposely sent Micah’s goon over the edge of the balcony we both stood on. Micah had just played a slick card, one that was a veiled threat against me and my family, one I didn’t take kindly to. I needed to show him that I could be just as grimy as he could be.

  Micah’s eyes narrowed watching me, his chin tilted upward, and he scowled watching me before flashing a mischievous smile. “That was one of my good ones,” he simply stated, still watching me.