Being in the game when you have a family is a negative. You expose innocent lives to the dangers that come with the hustle. You yourself become a sitting duck. You must always be ready to walk away. With a family it becomes damn near impossible. Your enemies and haters try to get to you through the people who are closest to you. They killed my son because of something his crazy mother and her brothers had done in the streets. They know even an evil person loves their seed. The easiest way to hurt a man or get revenge on a man is to touch his family.

The whole point of me retiring from the streets was to be a family man. While Jaz studied for her degree, I took our daughter back and forth to school. And I loved it. I had turned into Mr. Mom, hanging around at Girl Scouts meetings and shit. The irony is, keeping my family safe now, meant getting back in the game to get my bread up so that I could do just that.

* * *

I knew I would surprise Kevin by popping into their accounting firm in downtown Trenton. I needed to read his temperature in regard to their spots getting hit.

“Hey, Unc. What brings you here?”

“Just checking on you; what’s been up?”

“Glad to see you. Shits been crazy down here.”

“Oh yea? I wanted to talk to you about the baby shower.”

His voice cracked. “Unc, I swear on everything I love that I wasn’t trying to set anybody up when I came to see my sister.”

I smiled. “Crazy shit has been happening since you showed up, including Kay’s house getting shot up.”

“Kay’s house? Was anyone hurt?”

“Luckily, no one was home. You don’t know anything about that?”

“I swear ’for God. Look, Unc, things have gotten crazy down this way as well. Somebody done shot up two of my spots and killed five of my men. I ’ont know what the fuck is going on, or who is behind it.”

I looked that lil’ nigga straight in the eyes, and my gut told me he might be telling the truth about not shooting up Kay’s house, but he was lying about something else.

“Hello, Faheem,” a female voice interrupted us. I looked up. It was Seven. She was rocking the hell out of a pair of Fashion Nova jeans, which were screaming like she was hurtin’ them. Her belly top showed off her belly ring, and those six-inch red bottoms had her ass poking out.

“Hello, Miss Seven.” I stood up. She held out her hand, and I kissed it just like I did at the shower.

“How can we help you? Do you need any accounting done?” She smiled at me.

“Nah. Not this time.”