I rounded up the same youngins that were fuckin' wit' that old dude earlier to help me take care of Tiana's stepdaddy. I figured they had all that extra energy, I would give 'em a little mouse to play with. When we caught up to him he was doing exactly what I thought he was doing. Roaming the streets looking for someone to front him somethin'. I picked the right ones to roll with me that night, too. These lil niggas were off the damn chain. Rico had two sets of youngins. The ones who were real little that were lookouts mostly, some jacked cars and stuck people up like I used to do, and then there were the slightly older ones that handled business. All of them made up the new crew that I was over. I called them youngins, but really most of the older ones were around my age or a little older. I think at some point I went to school with some of them, too, before I stopped going. Chance seemed to remember me from back then, but I didn't remember him.

If I rolled with any of the youngins, it was only with the ones who handled business, and I only rolled with them when some business needed to be handled. Chance in particular, because he was a soldier, like me, and for the most part didn't fuck around on the clock. I liked that. But he could still get a little wild like the rest of them. I knew that for sure, and didn't have the patience to deal with it on a personal level. In my eyes, they were all lil niggas to me, and I was their fucking babysitter. Aggravating as hell most of the time, but incredibly useful when I needed eyes or a crew to handle some shit with me, like tonight.

When we caught up to Tiana's stepfather, we did that shit gorilla-style. Covered his head, took him up the way and really fucked him up. The more I stomped him, the angrier I got. Who the fuck did he think he was to let grown men run through his own daughter like that? She used to be a real good girl before his ass came around. She was the sweetest out of all my sisters' friends, the girl that all the boys wanted to go with. Not just fuck, but go with. Me and all my friends used to bet on who could make her our girlfriend first. And now she didn't even know what it could feel like to have the choice of being faithful to one man.

Me.

I saw the pain on her face every time I asked her to be my girl. And this nigga was the reason why. Fuckin' his sorry ass up felt real good that night. And these 'bout it ass youngins were right there with me, stompin' the shit out of him, just as hard as I was. Most of them had sisters, too, and sorry ass stepfathers...or some random sorry ass dude their moms was fuckin'. So I painted it like it could have been any one of their sisters next if we let this nigga keep getting' away with that shit. I wasn't tryna put Tiana's business out there, but they had to know why we were rollin' on this guy so hard. I didn't want them to hold back.

I wanted them to fuck his ass up.

Mistake number one.

I was coming from the heart with mine.

And I wasn't going to stop, either, if you want to know the truth. I was gonna keep stomping until I crushed his skull in with my brand new Tims.

I was about to be Little Rico for real that night.

But these other cats were just...wild. They weren't coming from the heart. They were just...excited to be included in something big. And the orders were from what they thought was the top.

They didn't know that I hadn't run any of this past Rico first.

None of it.

Mistake number two.

For real, for real.

But I didn't think any of that shit would catch up to us or be a problem, because doing this was the right thing to do. He needed to get stopped. He had to stop fuckin' wit' his daughter. He had to stop destroying my girl's heart. He was killing her a little at a time, and I knew it. And that's what I told these fools before we went out to do that shit.

I guess you could call it kidnapping.

If you were the type to report something like that.

But nobody was gonna do that, because it looked like this was a legit business situation that needed to be handled. I didn't let them in on any of my feelings for Tiana. I just told them that this nigga kept coming up short and was tryna pimp his daughter out instead of paying the money that I collected to pay them. And if we let him get away with it, then every nigga wit' a daughter would try to do the same thing. Including the ones who had access to their sisters.

I'll never know which part of that set them off the most, probably the part about them not getting paid, but I do know that's all I had to say. They were down for whatever as soon as I said it. Him fucking his daughter was just the icing on the cake. It made the beatdown that much sweeter. Well, it did for me at least.

Until.

That damn wild ass youngin Chance always rolled with, Rodney, got too into the beatdown and started fucking. talking. His dumb ass spit on Tiana's stepdaddy and growled real close to his face, like he was about to slit the man's throat, "Keep yo' ma' fuggin' dick out yo' ma' fuggin' daughter you sick fuck."

Now, the one thing I told these lil ma' fuckas to do was keep their damn mouth shut. Before, during and after this shit, so the finger would never get pointed our way.

If it ever came to that.

And it most likely wouldn't.

But I knew Rico didn't know about this, and would probably lose his shit if he did know. They just didn't know that's why the fuck I told them to keep their damn. mouth. shut. Now not only did this lil nigga let Tiana's stepdaddy know who kidnapped him, he also just let him know why he was getting fucked up.

Which automatically pointed the finger at me.

I was the only one who called orders and ran with these lil niggas.

And I was the only man on the whole block who gave a fuck about Tiana.

Her stepdaddy knew this. Everyone knew this. I had been following behind Tiana like she was queen of the world since I was old enough to walk.

As soon as this fool opened his mouth, Tiana's stepdaddy started laughing.

It started out low and then got louder and louder until his laughs echoed all over the dead quiet alley. The sound bounced around the walls and then right back at us, like his voice was playing a game of hide and seek and found us.

Then he choked on his own laughter and started spitting out blood.

"Is that what this is about?" He spit out more blood and choke-laughed some more. "Ok."

When Tiana's stepdaddy said that, everyone else caught on to how this asshole Rodney had just fucked us, and the rest of the youngins froze and started staring at his dumbass, too. It was hard to tell if ol' dude was laughing because he was about to set fire to the streets and turn Rico's crew into a joke overnight, or if it was because he was about to run to the laws.

Either way it went, we were fucked.

If the block suddenly stopped respecting us, the money would dry up. Worse than that, if Tiana's stepdaddy started running his mouth to the laws...it was a wrap. He could tell the whole story and we would be the only ones to get locked up. Everyone cared about a "gang" of crazy lil niggas running around kidnapping grown folks, but nobody gave a fuck about some crackhead parent pimping his innocent daughter out for rocks.

Nobody.

At least not around our way.

But people would most definitely give a fuck about this right here, though.

The thought of who we were, of what we were, and what we represented shook people to the core. All people. The whole city would turn on us if the laws got involved in a kidnapping charge. They would all be thinking that we were the ones who needed to be dealt with. The block was probably already thinking that, truthfully. Rico had been able to keep everyone under control, so far. But this right here...if it got out that even Rico couldn't control his own son and the other lil niggas...

Only the fine line between fear and respect that Rico balanced on kept everyone in check. But if it even looked like Rico was losing control, the whole block would turn on us. All of us.

Quick.

As soon as they got the chance.

Not Tiana's pervert ass daddy or dumb bitch mama.

Us.

The whole block would sell on us, even if this one time we were only tryna keep an innocent girl our age from getting raped by some grown ass men.

We were fucked.

And we were all staring at Rodney like he had just killed us.

Because he had.