“If y’all moved that body why isn’t there any blood on you?”
The three people before her looked at each other before bursting out laughing in unison. Keys shrugged her shoulders at Tiara, still grinning.
“We’re professionals, baby,” she said. “This a brand-new hoodie. Shit cost me a stack. I wasn’t about to let a fuck boy ruin my shit. We wrapped that nigga up tight. That nigga finna be at the bottom of the Trinity swimming with the fishes.”
“Thank you,” Tiara told them. “Nah, for real, thank you. But I overheard y’all. Why are you all willing to help me? You all don’t know me from a hole in the wall.”
Mook grabbed a black fitted hat from off of Tiara’s couch and placed it over the waves on his head. “You might not have known it, but you got people in these streets,” he said. “We been here the whole time. We just ain’t know where you were.”
“Yeah,” Keys spoke up, putting her hood over her head. “Your pops did a lot for the people in the hood. He helped a lot of our families out here. We wouldn’t have shit if it wasn’t for him. He paid everybody on our block’s mortgages off so we could really say we owned the block. Them white people couldn’t fuck with us after that. He was a real nigga, man. The least we can do is make sure his seed is straight. Plus, you gon’ make us your bodyguards, right? When we put you back up on your throne.”
Hearing the things about her father that she didn’t know made Tiara feel good inside but also made her see that she had never truly known who he was. He told her a long time ago that one day she’d have the choice to take his place. The person sitting in his seat may have been a Rogers, but it wasn’t the right one. It was Tiara that had his blood running through her veins. She held her hand out for Keys to shake.
“If you help me get my daddy’s empire back, you can have anything you want.”
“You got it, baby girl. That’s a done deal.” Keys shook hands with Tiara. Tiara was excited and anxious for what was to come.
It’s time for me to take back what’s mine.
Chapter 16
After they left Tiara’s house, Stevelle drove her forty-five minutes away to Anex Avenue where his condo was. He led her to his guest bedroom and told her to make herself at home. Then he told her to go to sleep and that he would talk more about their next moves in the morning. To that, Tiara had no argument. She was dead tired and was asleep before her head even hit the pillow.
When she woke up the next morning, she thought everything that had happened the night before had all been a bad dream. However, the soft, queen-sized bed and navy-blue comforter that she was wrapped in quickly reminded her that she was in Stevelle’s guest room. Everything had all been real. She squinted her sleepy eyes and looked around the room. The sun’s rays were shining through the window, so everything was visible without the overhead light. The walls in the room were cocaine white with a few paintings on them. To her left was a tall dresser, and in front of the bed was a wide dresser with a round mirror. Above the wide dresser was a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. It had to have been at least sixty inches. The room was very spacious, and the closet was a walk-in. She assumed the bathroom was in the hallway because it wasn’t in the room.
“Mmm,” she moaned to herself and sat up so that she could stretch her arms wide. “Ahh!”
Her body was still extremely sore, and she had just reminded every nerve in it. Her joints were screaming angrily at her.
“Once you start moving around it won’t hurt so bad.” Stevelle entered the room carrying a plate of food. “You hungry? I made you some food.”
“What kind of food?” Tiara looked at the plate in his hands skeptically.
Seeing how she was looking, Stevelle smirked because she didn’t know that he was a man of many talents. Since he was the oldest of three, he often had to make sure his younger siblings were straight. His grandmother taught him how to make it do what it do in the kitchen. He knew how to cook so many dishes that he could make a cookbook if he wanted to.
“Don’t look surprised like that, shorty,” he said, handing her the plate. “I ain’t gon feed you no bullshit, believe that.”
On the plate were two pancakes made from scratch, hash browns made from scratch, bacon, and scrambled eggs with cheese on top.
“You ain’t make this,” Tiara said, snatching up the fork and digging in. She didn’t realize how hungry she was until she started eating. “Mmm, this is good!”
“I damn sure did make it,” Stevelle said, pleased watching her stuff her face like she’d never eaten a day in her life. “I didn’t know if you liked cheese on your eggs or not. But then I asked myself, ‘Do you know one person who doesn’t eat cheese on their eggs?’”
“On everything, I wouldn’t have eaten them if the cheese wasn’t on them.” Tiara smirked up at Stevelle.
He was fully dressed looking just as dapper as he had the day before. He sat down at the end of the bed. The waves on his head were so deep that Tiara couldn’t focus on them for too long. She was scared she was going to get lost in them. His chocolate face was so smooth, and the baby-blue shirt he wore accented his broad chest and
