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The other end went quiet.

“And you wanted me to do something about it,” I added.

A low chuckle finally came through the phone.

“You got me.”

I shook my head.

“But that wasn’t the only reason,” he continued. “I knew Anthony was bringing his daughter tonight, and I didn’t want her ending up in the hands of them old niggas.”

My jaw tightened.

“You sure as hell had me fooled with the way you was cutting your eyes at me all fucking night.”

“You know I had to put on a little front.”

“Yeah.” I sucked my teeth. “I bet.”

“I’m serious, son. I know how these motherfuckers work out here in this underground world. And I didn’t want her getting into the wrong hands.”

“Okay, so then what was the point of you having him give her to you then?” I asked, getting slightly annoyed.

My pops was contradicting himself heavily, and I didn’t know if he knew it or not.

“To be honest, I didn’t think the nigga would actually bring me his daughter. I was just telling him to do it so I could test his loyalty,” he replied with a chuckle.

“And what does that tell you about him?”

“That he’s loyal, but he also isn’t a fighter. If that was me, I would’ve told the motherfucker hell nah. He couldn’t have my daughter.”

“Well, I guess that’s the difference between you and him.”

“Yeah, I guess so. But I’m going to let you go. I need to go and handle some things,” my father replied.

“Alright, you be safe.”

“Yeah, you too.”

After we got off the phone, I set my phone down and shook my head. That shit still wasn’t sitting right with me.

I didn’t give a fuck what kind of debt Anthony owed. The fact that this nigga had actually driven his daughter to that warehouse and handed her over was some shit I couldn’t wrap my head around.

My pops could call it a loyalty test all he wanted, but fuck that. If somebody ever came to me and told me the price of getting out was my child, they would’ve had to kill me first. Ain’t no way in hell I was handing my daughter over, especially knowing the type of shit the motherfucker I worked for was involved in.

I glanced toward the kitchen shorty was gone. I hadn’t even noticed when she slipped off, but I figured she’d taken her ass back upstairs.

I headed to my room. Once inside, I closed the door behind me and went straight to the bathroom to take a shower.

I had to be up early tomorrow to handle some shit, and whatever tonight had turned into, I still had business to take care of.

I wasn’t about to show up tired as hell because my pops had decided to drop a whole damn woman in my lap.

༺ ♛ ༻

The Next Morning…

I finished getting dressed, grabbed my things, and headed downstairs. When I made it to the bottom, shorty was already up, sitting there doing something on her phone.