Page 66 of The Coldest: Stay Dangerous Part 2

“You told Fredo where she was and he told me to let it go. She was at the Hive, huh?”

“We really finna have this conversation right now, Dub?” Reem asks, sighing. “We ain’t ever had a real convo about Wyn, you know that right? So knowing that, we finna have one right now?”

“Fuck it, he wanna have one, let’s do it.” Ty-Ty shifts on the couch until he’s facing me. “But if we finna be real, you need to be one hunnid, too. No riddles, no answering a question with a question, and no lying.”

“You acting like a nigga scared of you,” I say, folding my arms.

“Nah,” Ty-Ty chuckles, “You scared of yaself. But if you finna press me about what I may or may not have done or said in yo best interest, then we gonna lay it all on the table, starting with the skit we pulled on them Get Money niggas.”

“I think we should start at how we was able to stay at they crib the night I got put on,” Reem shrugs. “I ain’t even know he knew her like that.”

They both turn to look at me, faces blank.

Them niggas always loved ganging up on us.

My lips pull into a grin. “I can always box you both up like old times.”

Reem waves me off. “You still bullshitting–”

The tv in front of us switches to multiple security cameras.

“Ah shit,” Mekhi Young’s voice rings out in the room. “They breaching my damn house. Damn! I’d get the fuck outta there if I were you. But–shit! Someone wake up Love!”

The lights go dead, with only the tv illuminating the room. As soon as I see people pouring out of SUVs we all hop up.

“We fuckin’ surrounded–”

“Chill,” I interrupt Ty-Ty, before looking at Reem. “Go get YT. Try to stay alive. We’ll see about getting the fuck out of here.”

He grimaces, but nods, and goes out toward the hallway where Collective henchmen start mobilizing.

The house shakes violently as we go out the other door that leads to another hallway. There’s stairs that take us to the side of the house. I was the first to get here, so being nosy, I walked through the house after setting the things Mekhi asked for in the basement.

The neighborhood itself looked familiar, and when I looked out of a window on this side of the house, I remembered why.

“Make your body lax, nigga,” I grit as I reach back and fist Ty-Ty’s shirt. My cousin’s not a bitch by any means, but the nigga is bumbling sometimes. And even if he’s beefed out with his family, they would kill me if he got hurt and they found out I was around and could have prevented it.

Before my left foot could follow my right off the stairs, I broke into a sprint. At the end of the narrow hallway is the window I looked out of earlier. A large bay window, that shows another window from the adjacent house.

I remember when those windows were put in.

“Come on bitch!” I grunt, dragging Ty-Ty along. I don’t know why he bought that fucking gym. He’s lazy as fuck, and always complained whenever Granny made him go to basketball practice.

“Fuck–”

I angle my head down and run through the window. Not even a second later, I’m through the other one in the neighboring house. Losing my footing, I take both of us down as we tumble on a Persian rug, before coming to a stop right before Ty-Ty can squish me into the wall.

Ty-Ty’s groaning as the door to the office we just burst in opens and heels click on the floor. I reach behind me to grab my piece, but when I hear a feminine tsk I’ve heard so many times before, I relax, thanking God she’s in town.

“Rico Alvarez. To what do I owe this displeasure?”

I sit up and lock eyes with Lola Calderón, the first woman I seriously dated after Snow.

Granted, it was for national security interests, seeing as how she was the then-president’s niece. But I knew her feelings for me were real, so I count it.

“Your neighbor’s being raided,” I huff, before getting to my feet.

Lola glances at the broken window before returning her glare to me. Mashing her red lips together, she folds her arms and shifts her weight to her other perfectly sculpted leg. “Figures you’d be in bed with a Santiago.” She spits on the floor next to her foot, before sauntering over to the lightswitch. Metal planks seal the broken window off when she flicks the second switch.