Page 7 of Stay Dangerous

“I told you not to look back at me. The one time you don’t listen to me and now you fucked up.”

“Well, now you know I’ma always listen,” I snap, shoving my hands into the pockets of my jacket.

“There will be other times you don’t, and I’m sure you’ll be fucked up then like you are now.”

I chuckled, shoving my brother away from me, but then I immediately sobered up.

In the belly of the beast, there's no room for jokes and smiles.

Yesterday we were boys. And though I’d been doing plenty of shit that grown men do, I was now a man foreal.

A Birch Baby.

The second part of getting put on is to kill someone.

I’d seen dead bodies before. Pooh had always been adamant about showing us our legacy. Sometimes that meant seeing new bitches broken in. Other times, it meant seeing him slice a john’s face off when he got fresh with one of his honeybees.

We hadn’t gotten around to me or Fredo doing the killing.

If I was being honest, I was scared. Fighting is one thing. Or defending yourself. When it came to my family, I would have liked to think I could kill a nigga.

But for the gang? For no reason, if only to cement my place in another type of family? Could I take a life?

I could, and I would.

I was scared of enjoying it too much.

My hands itched as Fredo banged on the door. A second later, the door opened, and there that nigga was again.

He nodded to us, opening the door so we could come in. Tiny was gathering her coat and smiled at us, eyes lingering on me longer than Fredo before nodding to Set and leaving.

“My bad about your eye, Rico,” he said after closing and locking the door behind Tiny.

I grunted as I took in the small apartment. There was a couch and two fold-up chairs, and a table in the living area. The kitchen looked bare, too, and the carpet had been pulled off the floor.

It also smelled weird in there, not like the regular smell of piss in the hallway, or stale cigarettes and weed.

Fredo and I sat on the couch while Set hopped up on the counter by the kitchen. He couldn’t keep his smile off his face, and I wanted to knock it off him. It was six in the morning, on a weekday. What the fuck had him that happy?

“I chopped it up with Reem last night. He told me y’all are pretty solid.”

“That’s our young nigga. He’s locked in with our cousin Ty-Ty,” Fredo replied. He knew I was seconds from tackling thisnigga, and I was glad he answered, even though he gave away way more information than he should have.

Set’s eyes brightened, and for a second, he looked like a normal kid. “Tyisy’all cousin. You taught him how to squabble huh? I thought you was finna knock me on my ass.”

“That why you snuck me?” I blurted.

Bitch ass nigga had the nerve to throw me a rueful grin. “I can’t cut you no slack, even if we go way back. But you stayed standing, and Fredo even dropped Remy, and no one has ever done that. Y’all the talk of the Birch, foreal. Which is why I’m coming to y’all with a proposition.”

Fredo and I glanced at each other, before giving Set the floor again.

“Be a part of my crew?”

“Crew?” I parrotted, balling up my face.

Like I said, Tiny took Set in, and Tiny damn near employed every Birch Baby in her drug operation. Set may had only been eleven, but age was just a number with that nigga. He was Tiny’s right hand and head enforcer.

I didn’t know he was actually hugging the block anymore.