Page 10 of Love At Close Range

I looked everywhere but at her. I didn’t want to scare her, so I chose to lie.

“Baby, I’m not hiding anything. It’s just this big contract that I’ve been stressing about. I got Mello checking things out before we move forward. It’s just a big deal for me and I’on want to mess it up,” I lied.

The excuse wasn’t completely pulled out my ass. I had enough real estate deals going on at any given time for it to make sense, and Mello helped me with enough of my business that his involvement wouldn’t sound strange. The problem was Reiana paid attention to shit. I knew if I gave her too many details, she would remember every one of them and start asking questions later that I might not have answers for.

She looked at me like she didn’t believe me, but she didn’t say anything.

“Well, you need to learn to start communicating. I told you from the beginning that I wasn’t going for your bullshit and I meant that,” she stated firmly.

“And I get that, baby. You just have to trust me.”

“Tuh,” Tay scoffed.

I looked over at her and decided not to entertain her ass this time. This was already going better than it could have, and arguing with Tay would only make Reiana more irritated.

“Mhm… but me and Tay already had plans, so I’ll get with you tomorrow,” she said. I wanted to protest, but I didn’t. It was better than her shutting me down completely.

“Aight, baby. I’ll call you later,” I uttered as I kissed her and let myself out.

The minute the door closed behind me, I released a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe Reiana completely bought my story, but she hadn’t shut me out of her life either. For now, that was enough.

I headed back toward my car and pulled my phone out of my pocket to make sure I hadn’t missed anything from Mello. Nothing was there, which should’ve made me feel better, but it didn’t. Reiana was temporarily handled, but I still had Cyrus to deal with and that was starting cost me more than it was worth.

5

Lennox

Before I left Cannon Hills, I had one last piece of business to handle. Muthafuckas like to test my patience when I didn’t show my face much, but I never had a problem giving them the assurance that they needed. When I pulled up to the warehouse, Rook was already here… waiting. From the outside, the building looked like every other warehouse in the old industrial park. Nothing about it stood out, and that was the point. I parked around back and went inside through the door that was heavily guarded with one of my top-of-the-line systems. After I entered the code and walked inside, I found Keem sitting in a chair near the middle of the floor. He wasn’t tied up or being held at gunpoint. He didn’t need to be. Rook told him I wanted to talk, and the nigga was dumb enough to come thinking that was all this was.

“What’s good, Steele?” Keem greeted me as he stood and reached out for a dap. I looked at his hand before looking back at him.

“Sit the fuck down. I’ain come here for all that.” The smile he had on his face disappeared as he took his seat. He looked from me to Rook, who was leaning against one of the tables a few feet away with his arms folded across his chest. By now he’d figured this wasn’t a casual meeting.

For the last couple weeks, I had been hearing about somebody new moving guns around Cannon Hills. Normally, I wouldn’t have given a fuck. I wasn’t the only nigga in the city with access to weapons, and I didn’t give a fuck about the next nigga making his money. The problem was the shit being sold sounded too fucking familiar. It was the same type of inventory we had been moving and showing up around the same time my numbers started coming up short. At first, it wasn’t enough for me to call it anything but coincidence. Then Rook started asking questions, and all fingers pointed back to this nigga.

“You wanna tell me why my shit is being sold across town for less than what I charge?” I asked Keem as I stood in front of him. I saw the shock flash across his face, but he recovered quickly and shook his head.

“I’on know nothing about that shit, Steele. Niggas be selling guns every day.” Rook chuckled from where he stood a few feet away.

“Yeah, they do,” I started. “But it’s funny how this particular nigga started getting his hands on the same shit we got right around the time inventory started disappearing.”

Keem shifted in the chair before looking over at Rook. “The inventory ain’t disappearing. The counts must be off.” I stared at him because that was the same bullshit excuse I expected him to use. I purposely didn’t let on that I knew somebody was stealing because I wanted them to hang themselves. Niggas always got sloppy once they thought they got away with some shit. Every shortage led back to the loads Keem had access to. Then one of the guns he moved ended up in the hands of somebody who knew exactly where our shit came from. That was all the confirmation I needed.

“How long you been taking from me?” I asked him again.

Keem rubbed his palms over his jeans before finally speaking up and good thing he did because I was two seconds from ending his existence simply for wasting my fucking time.

“Aight, look. I moved a few pieces, but I wasn’t trying to fuck you over. I needed some quick money, and I was gonna put everything back before anybody noticed.” I stared at him for a second before I shook my head.

“Nigga, how the fuck was you gone replace some shit you sold?” I frowned. “Then on top of that, you took my shit and turned around and became my fucking competition with it.”

“It wasn’t even like that, Steele. I wasn’t trying to build no operation off your shit. I just moved a few and—” I cut him off before he could finish.

“And got comfortable because you thought I wouldn’t find out.” I stared at him because niggas always had an explanation once they realized the lie wasn’t working anymore.

Keem shook his head. “Nah, Steele. It wasn’t like that.”

“Then what was it like?” I asked, not really looking for an answer. “You thought because you’ve been around a few years, you had room to do whatever the fuck you wanted.”