Down Chick

Chapter Ten: Persistence

Chapter Ten: Persistence

When I left the room, I pulled out my cell and started dialing the one number that I used more than anything else. My right hand nigga was a loyal one. I trusted him, but about as much as I could trust anyone. Right hand men sometimes got big ass ideas in their heads that if they took out the lead, then they could take over. I wasn’t willing to test that. I kept my guard up around Diablo quite often.

Diablo and I had grown up together, side by side. He’d been right there working the street corners with me. While my mom was out prostituting and my father in jail, I was hustling on the streets learning the ropes with Diablo and his brothers. I had started at a young age. I was already making dope and shit by the time I was eight. I was learning to cook and bag it.

At twelve, I was working those corners hard and making paper to pay the bills that my mom weren’t paying for. Prostitution took up her time. Every now and then, she’d throw some money our way, but she expected me to do everything else.

Her last words to me had been: “You’re man of the house. Pay the bills and act like it.”

That had been when I was like nine. I had taken that shit to the heart. It wasn’t a big thing. Within a matter of years, I was working my own empire and I had taken Diablo along with me. He didn’t want for nothing. What he needed, I provided. If he wanted something, I got it for him. I only had a few set rules around him.

I didn’t want his hos in my houses. Who knew what the fuck they were up to? Bitches were known to go around and rob niggas while they were high and shit. Some came as distractions from the enemy. They came to do surveillance and tell what weak spots were there. It was why I didn’t get drunk and I never got so high that I didn’t know what the hell was going on around me.

Point blank I just didn’t trust hos. They got on my damn nerves quite often. Some felt like just because they looked good as fuck that every nigga was gone hop on them. That wasn’t me. Some niggas were ignorant enough to fall into it, but I wasn’t among them. I couldn’t afford to. I had to evaluate everything carefully or risk it coming to either bite me in the ass or lead to my death. I wasn't ready to die over a piece of ass that I could get from anyone.

I was used to being around Taya, Trina and Tasha. The three of them were alright in my book and on my team. Tasha was the only one doing something with herself though. She was going off to college in a few weeks, while Trina was still playing the gold digger for me. She scoped out enemies and it worked quite often. She had them thinking that she was willing to betray me. She gave them false information that I helped her with by doing a few of the things. Niggas were beginning to trust her. Taya on the other hand really thought that she had some kind of hold on me. I wasn’t thinking of her like that. She was seven years older than me. Fine or not fine, I ain’t want her. She slept around and she had almost made her way into my bed. It hadn’t happened though. I was grateful for that because I could only imagine the crazy shit that she’d try to pull if she did somehow manage to make it there.

Sighing, I waited as the dial tone rang and rang. Diablo was probably fucking the hell out of some ho. Nigga was always involved in something dealing with females. Sometimes, he managed to drag me along with him to go to clubs, but not in the past months. We were doing different things these days.

“Angel,” Keish called. Her voice was soft and held a note of resignation. “I’ll try. I know that you can’t stop men from being ignorant and doing ignorant shit. I can’t blame you for other people’s actions. I know that subconsciously, but consciously my mind associates the fact that whenever you’re around bloodshed and destruction occurs. You’re a dangerous man. You can’t control that people act a fool around you.”