Page 7 of The Coldest: Stay Dangerous Part 2

I roll my eyes and turn my head. The stewardess has already retired for the flight, so I don’t bother answering Fredo in my head.

“Why can’t I?”

He’s sitting next to me, in the same fit he’s always in. The last one I’d seen him in, when I popped back in the city a couple months before he died. White tee with a birch silhouette pressed on it, one of Ty-Ty’s prototypes for the clothing line he abandoned. Jeans, and J’s. His TUNE chain, too, diamonds dancing on his chest. His hair is down, with streaks of blond all throughout that hide the big ass tattoo on his neck. I’d asked him who convinced him to bring that back, and that’s when he told me about the young bitch who had him all fucked up. We laughed about it.

I wish we could laugh about it again.

Fredo folds his arms and smirks. “All this time, and you still love her.”

I scoff. Even in my head, the nigga is talking bullshit. “Cap.”

“Nah,” he says, chuckling. “Actual, factual. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be plotting.”

“You don’t know me nigga,” I say, waving him off.

“Nigga, I am you. And you know I always fucked with Snow. Maybe when she gets sober y’all can make something shake.”

This nigga is tripping, which means I’m tripping. “She fucked Set.”

Fredo just shrugs. That’s all he fucking does sometimes. “You don’t give a fuck about that.”

“Yeah, that’s where you wrong.”

“I mean, yeah, yo feelings hurt–”

“Negative–”

“But, if by some way you get out of your own ass and y’all, I’on know, talk, her fucking with Set don’t mean shit. You know him, and you know her. Neither of them was in love.”

“I’d have to have feelings for them to be hurt, Fred. I don’t feel shit for that bitch back there. And even if I did, she fucked my day one. Repeatedly. For years.” I lick my lips and clench my jaw to shut the fuck up. If I think about it too hard, I start wanting to curse his ass out.

“You can’t curse me out, nigga. I wanted to dead it before anything happened, but that pride of yours… besides, you burned her. I’on know, Rick. It sounds like y’all pretty even, and that’s just the shit y’all know about each other.”

“Why can’t you just rest peacefully? I don’t wanna talk about Snow.”

“I’ll be here as long as you need me, Rick. And you need me, especially now.” He chuckles as he settles into the seat and closes his eyes.

Fredo never got on my nerves this bad when he was alive.

My security team meets us on my private airstrip when we land. Snow is still knocked, so I carry her off the plane and place her in the back of the car waiting for us.

“Everything’s been copacetic, jefe,” Reno tells me. A distant cousin, he was educated in the States but that nigga is as thorough as they come, which is why he’s my head of security at our estate.

“Stop calling me that shit,” I grumble as we make our way to the villa.

He meets my gaze in the rearview mirror and grins. “You know, Fredo said something about you being tripped up by a girl with freckles a long time ago. This her?”

I lean up so my head is in the front with him. “Spread the word with our primos, cuzzo. Anyone look at her, touch her, shit, think about her, they goin’ on the boat. That bitch falls and can’t get up, she better stay on the fuckin’ floor. Am I clear?”

This nigga just grins harder. “Yeah, I’ll spread the word. But I’m not leaving her on the floor, primo. Dramatic ass.”

I lean back in my seat. “Well, you got enough sense to not take it beyond that. Other niggas don’t.”

He snaps his fingers like he forgot something. “She the reason I had to reinforce the chains in that room? Rico, the fuck you got going?! Ay, you know what? Don’t tell me shit. And they call NiNi crazy.”

“Any nigga who goes by NiNi willingly is crazy,” I mutter, making us both chuckle.

Niggas swear I’m Luney, and I don’t deny it.