girlfriends something to talk about.
Young World turned the corner and sped off. Duke bust out laughing.
“Yo, son, you is slippin’! You ain’t even peep your own car was followin’ us!”
“Everybody got black BMs, yo. How I’m supposed to know every BM in Newark?”
“Shorty must really got you on a leash, my nigga!”
“Fuck you,” Young World replied with a chuckle. “That’s how it is when a nigga know how to lay good dick, son. Shit, I should get outta the drug game and pimp hos for a living.”
“Nigga, fuck around and be broke fucking with these hos out here,” Duke joked, making them both laugh as they headed to Paramus, New Jersey.
Even though Young World was laughing, the situation was far from funny. It had been three years since Dutch’s disappearance and already his empire had split into several factions. Young World was young, hungry, and ruthless. However, he had stepped into the shoes of a man whose shoes no one could ever fill.
Dutch had started with a team that had roots in every part of Newark, which made it easier to control. Young World’s team came from Hawthorne and Prince streets. So when Dutch disappeared, every team went for itself, and Young World had his hands full just keeping his territory under control.
Added to that was the fact that the police were seeing blood and weren’t taking any prisoners. The police murder rate doubled while the criminal murder rate tripled. All together, the city was thrown into a frenzy. The mayor empowered several new antidrug teams to combat the threat, imposed curfews in certain areas, and kept the block so hot that where money once flowed, it now trickled. After eighteen months, Young World lost major chunks of northern New Jersey. He had won the crown but getting down for it was another story.
Lana walked into the house and slammed the door. She felt like she had really played herself. It wasn’t like her to second-guess Young World, so she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why she had done it tonight. True, Peaches was one of her closest friends, but shit, World was her man.
Or was it?
Who wouldn’t want Young World? He was rich, cool, and fine. His babylike dimples melted into the cinnamon texture of his masculine face, making his grins sexy and mischievous. He kept the crisp temper fade with waves that spun 360 degrees like the nigga on the Duke wave grease box. That, and he took good care of her.
Peaches, on the other hand, was a college dropout turned secretary and didn’t have a man. She had tried to get with Duke, but once he fucked her, he lost interest. Not to mention Peaches was always trying to put it in Lana’s head that Young World was no good. She and Peaches had been friends since they were eleven. Two years later, Lana met Young World. They were just thirteen.
Back then, World was a corner hustler on Hawthorne, and she was a church girl from Peshine Avenue. Now at twenty-two, they had come a long way. She looked around the spacious living room of their West Orange ranch house. The interior would put half the MTV cribs to shame. The color scheme was a deep, creamy ivory with classic mahogany accents. The marble floor of the foyer opened up to a platform entrance that dropped three stair-steps to the living room. The Olympic-size swimming pool was visible through patio doors that stretched across the wall.
They had moved in eight months ago, and Young World had allowed Lana to have her way with the interior decorating. There was nothing Lana wanted that World didn’t make happen.
“Friend or no friend, ain’t nobody gonna take this away from me,” Lana whispered to herself.
Rationalizing, she figured if Peaches was right and World was fucking around with Tawanna, Tawanna didn’t have the keys to a half-million-dollar home. And, when it came to sex, Young World would never forget to be her lover. As a matter of fact, right before he left, she had been doing her aerobic workout. Lunging, bending, sweating, and twisting. He couldn’t take his eyes off her ass screaming through her tight stretch shorts. Lana found herself with her shorts around her ankles and bent over the arm of an Italian leather sofa as he gave her a real workout. Lana dropped her purse and keys on the marble coffee table on her way to their bedroom.
She entered the plush room and flipped on the answering machine. The first voice she heard was Young World’s.
“Don’t ever do that again, you hear me? Trust ain’t never been an issue. So don’t make it one.”
The message ended.
Lana smiled to herself. Young World was right. She knew what he was going through out in the streets. He had the usual-the beefs, the police, the snitches, and those who wanted a piece of him. He had enough to worry about without his backbone getting weak, and she was definitely his backbone.
“I love you, boo,” she chimed back to the recorded message. As she undressed for a shower, several messages rattled off, but the last one caught her attention.
“Young World, look this Angel. You don’t know me like that, but I’m sure you know the name and what it’s about. We need to talk. Call me 818-555-3879. Ask for Goldilocks. She got a message for you.”
She thought about a bath but was too lazy to clean the tub and run the water. Besides, she was in the mood to feel the pulsating pumps of the multijet sprayers. It was more relaxing, more sensual. Lana loved to feel the warm water cascade down her five-foot-five, 130-pound, well-toned frame. The spray felt like World’s tongue all over her. The pulsating water made her jones come down for real. All she could think of was World in the shower with her, holding her tight and keeping her close.
Young World was her first and only lover, so what she knew of love he had taught her. He knew all of her secrets. She knew all of his weaknesses. Together, they had explored each other and learned life as one.
Lana turned off the shower and began to dry herself off, going back out the bedroom. Mary J’s “Seven Days” had just begun to play as Lana stepped onto a carpet so soft it felt like walking on a cloud. She turned up the temperature on their water bed then went to get some panties when she remembered World’s last words that night and decided to leave them in the drawer. She stretched across the bed and lit up the half blunt that sat in the ashtray. Life was good.
The euphoria of the weed mellowed her out. Lana glanced at the clock: 12:27 a.m. She sighed as she snuggled into the silk Gucci sheets bunched up in all the right places and zoned into relaxation. She inhaled the purple haze. Young World was out taking care of business and she knew there was no telling when he’d get back. So until he did, she’d have to entertain herself. Her hands slid lower down her pelvis.
The iron gates of the sixteen-bedroom, twenty-two-bath mansion swung open slowly to admit Young World’s CL 55 onto the private property. The driveway led to a bridge that crossed a man-made lake framing the front of the mansion like a medieval moat. The lights along the lake shimmered in the mirror of the water as the short bridge led him to a driveway that ended at the front door. The mansion was built to suit Greco-Roman tastes. Four spiral ivory columns supported the curved alabaster awning that led up the stairs to the first floor.
Duke looked at the spread lustfully. It was the exact type of place he saw himself in in a few years. After he finished his grind, he too would live like this. From one-room, roach-infested tenements to rented condos to this. This was what the game was all about for Duke. He had never met the connect before and wondered if he was a Tony Montana-looking Cuban or suave Sosa-type muthafucka.
“Damn this muthafucka laced!” Duke exclaimed in a whisper full of awe, thinking of Jadakiss’s words to “Mansion by the Lake,” and Young World silently agreed. Young World had only met the connect twice before but never at his home. It made the crib World had just purchased look like a double-wide in a redneck trailer park.
As Young World pulled up to the awning, two burly men in dark suits wearing earpiece communicators emerged from the shadows and approached the car.
Young World lowered his window before speaking to the dark suits. “Mr. Ceylon is expectin’ us.”
“We know,” said the taller of the two, who smirked. The CL wouldn’t have gotten in if they weren’t expected.
“Follow me,” said the shorter one.
World and Duke got out of the car as the short guard led them to the door. Before letting them enter, he scanned them both with a hand-held metal detector. The erratic beeping blurted out sirens near Duke’s waist. Duke handed the guard his gun and Young World did the same with his.45. Once relieved of their weapons, they were escorted into the mansion.
