Kisa studied her one-time friend, who was dressed expensively yet tastefully. She had to admit that Alexandria was refined, trading in her I-wanna-be-down-with-the-up-town-black-chicks look for one of a world-class traveler.

“Sit, sit,” Alexandria told Kisa. “We have so much to catch up on. Can Clara get anything for you?”

“No, Alex, I’m okay, I don’t have much time,” Kisa replied, wanting take care of what she came for.

“That will be all, Clara.”

The maid exited the room. As soon as the door closed, Kisa looked Alexandria in her sky-blue eyes, “I understand you gotta keep up your little front, but you need to cut the extra shit out.”

“Whatever are you talking about, sweetheart?”

“That right there … that dumb-ass accent. Your parents might be from England, but bitch, you straight out of New York.”

Alexandria couldn’t help but laugh. Then, in her real accent said, “Kisa Kane, you still my homegirl. Ain’t nothing changed about you.”

“That’s the Alex I know.” Kisa reached out and exchanged a pound and real hug with Alexandria.

Alex sat back and pushed her perfectly straight blond hair behind her right ear. “I hear you and your people have quite a mess going on uptown.”

“It’s not one that I can’t clean up,” Kisa stated confidently.

“How is Butta doing with his sexy self?”

“The doctor said he’s pretty much out of the woods. He’s been in a medically induced coma since he came out of surgery. With everything going on, we had to get him out of here, before they tried to finish him off.”

“Wow. So what’s the business? I know this isn’t a social call.”

“I need some work.”

Alex eyed her for a moment. “I thought you were out the game.”

“I thought I was too. I’m back due to circumstances beyond my control. But trust me, it’s only temporary.”

“Temporary, you say,” Alex remarked, having heard that many times before. “How much work you need?”

“I need fifty bricks.” It rolled off Kisa’s tongue effortlessly, as if she were ordering fifty cheeseburgers. “I’m sure I got the money for twenty-five. I need you to toss me the other twenty-five.”

“All I have until my next shipment is fifteen. I’ll give those to you for two hundred eighty-five K.”

“Damn, Alex, I can’t get ’em for fifteen stacks a kilo?”

“I can show you some love on the next go-round. I gotta charge you that ’cause the person that’s waiting on the same fifteen pays twenty-two K for each. I’m letting you get them ’cause we go back.”

Kisa sighed and opened her large Hermès bag. She placed twenty-eight ten-thousand-dollar stacks on the cocktail table. Then she counted off another fifty one-hundred-dollar bills. “That’s two hundred eighty-five thousand.”

“Where do you want them delivered to?”