**Graphic depictions of extreme violence and adult situations ahead**

That night Remmey and Chauncey were both getting on my damn nerves. Rico was nowhere to be found, as usual. I had just finished thinking one more slick side comment out of Chauncey and I'm stompin' his ass, when of course he said something else slick.

And I stomped him.

For Charity.

Remmey just stood there and let me do it. Then I told Chauncey to get his silly ass up and watch the lil niggas since he wanted to be a fucking child. I wasn't in the mood for that shit. Let him watch the lookouts for a while. I hated babysitting those little ma' suckas, anyway.

They ass needed to be at home.

And I knew it.

But Rico was King, not me.

Remmey watched Chauncey limp off and then turned to me, teeth gleaming through the darkness. He knew that beatdown was really for him, not Chauncey.

"You din' know 'bout me an' your aunt?"

I wouldn't even look at him. "Don't fuck with me tonight, Remmey."

"Huh, bruh?" He grinned out into the night, and his new grill flashed all over the place.

One of the youngins hooked Remmey up with a grill man, and now all of my uncles and most of the youngins had thousands of dollars' worth of gold and diamonds all through their mouth. Remmey kept his grill simple, a souped up version of his old gold fronts, but Rico had the best that money could buy. I was surprised he went all out like that, since he usually went for the less flashy, less identifiable things, and because he had never even had gold teeth before.

It was weird for Rico to be doing what everyone else was doing. It wasn't like him to be influenced by his crew, but it was like him to do it bigger than anyone else, if he did it at all. And since Rico went all out, of course I went all out, too. But those diamonds cut the shit out of my mouth. After a few weeks, I took that thing right back out. Unlike the rest of them fools, I didn't have time to be spittin' peroxide all damn day.

Remmey kept grinning. His smile looked even more dangerous now that he had the grill.

They all had those damn Cheshire Cat grins that I hated. All of them. Everyone close to Rico smiled exactly like him. And when they were all standing there, grinning at you at the same time, they looked like a fucking nightmare. I watched Remmey for a minute, and then nodded for him to walk with me to the next corner. On the way I saw two niggas that had been owing us money for like 32 hours. They knew Rico didn't play that shit.

We ran up on 'em and held them at gunpoint, made them get down on their knees.

Neither one of them had the damn money.

Remmey looked at me, grill blinging all over the place. He loved this shit. That's why he was Rico's real number two.

I hated this shit.

And Rico knew it.

"You know what we have to do now, right?" Remmey looked at me like I better get some business about myself. I know that's what he was thinking because he used to say it to me all the time when I was younger, right before they would send me back in to Jazz for one of her "soldier up" speeches.

Remmey knew I hated this shit, too.

"Fuck!" My voice echoed all over the sky. I was so pissed that these assholes were making me do this shit to them tonight, when I was already aggravated. I slammed one of them in the temple with the butt of my Glock. He fell to the ground and I yelled "Fuck!" one more time before calling one of the youngins over. "Get Rico!" We couldn't do this shit unless Rico made the call.

I know the whole block was shaking in their boots when they heard me yell that. You couldn't stop the roundup once some dumb fuck put it in motion. It was about to be a bloody fucking night. I stomped dude's homeboy and thought more than once about knocking Remmey a few times, too. Thanks to him, I was really not in the mood for this shit.

At all.

He probably knew what I was thinking, because he turned to that other crazy lil nigga that always ran with Chance and yelled, "Rodney! Tell that lil nigga to hurry the fuck up." Then he grinned at me like It's on, Pee Wee. Better get some bidness about yourself.

Remmey was damn near drooling over these bodies. It was sickening.

And this was who my aunt was bangin' on the side.

She definitely had a type.

I shook my head and kept my gun steady on one, while Remmey stayed pointed at the other. Rico had his territory sewed so tight, we could do this shit right out in the open, and nobody would have ever said a damn thing about it. We did whatever the hell we wanted to do, wherever and whenever the hell we wanted to do it. And nobody ever said shit.

That would have been their ass if they even thought about it.

Just ask Tiana's stepdaddy.

It turned out to be a good thing that I left his body hanging out in plain view that night, while I went to talk to Tiana. It was just long enough to terrorize and horrify the block, just like Rico had terrorized and horrified us, before all traces of what we had done to that man disappeared. Word got around quick, and from that point on we had even fewer problems out of the block than we had before. Only bodies like these two fools tried to come with no money after that.

"What. The fuck. Is this!" I heard Rico coming from all the way down the street. "I can't even fuck my wife good before these lil niggas come knockin' on my door."

Rico stopped directly in front of me and gave me a look that let me know Jazz would have to pay for that when he got home.

Shit.

I just looked at him, and then back down at the dumb ma' fuckas on the ground. One of them was out cold. Why didn't they just pay. the damn. money.

"Do they have my money?"

"No."

"Then you know what the fuck to do, son. You're the ma' fuggin' Prince. Right?" I nodded. He turned to others in the crew who had started coming our way once they saw that Rico was out on the street. Shit was about to get poppin' and they knew it. The youngins were drooling over these bodies, just like Remmey. All the other OGs were shaking their damn heads like I was. "Does anyone not know who the fuck this is?"

Rico pointed at me. The rest of the crew started looking nervous. Real nervous. They were trying to figure out who had just undermined Rico by undermining me, and who was about to get fucked up. Rico was crazy. And unpredictable. And now, after that shit with Tiana's stepdaddy, me and Jazz weren't the only ones who knew it. I spat at dude on the ground nearest to me. All they had to do was fucking pay us. Now I had to deal with this shit.

And so did Jazz.

"Do whatever. The fuck. My son. Says!" Rico took his time looking each man in the eye individually. When he finally got to me, he just stared at me. He knew I hated getting blood on my hands. He knew I hated bodies. That's why he was doing this shit in front of everyone. "Anybody got a problem with that?" He continued to stare at me. "Anything else need to be said before I go home and finish fucking my wife?"

He continued to stare me down and I knew A. Jazz was getting raped that night, and B. My reaction to knowing that would determine how bad she looked the next time I saw her.

I backed down and spat on the other asshole on the ground.

It was all I could do.

"Alright then." He nodded for Remmey to leave with him.

Fuck. Now I gotta do this shit by myself.

He did that on purpose, too.

I nodded to Chance. "You with me." He kind of smiled like he had just been chosen first for teams in some sort of fucked up game. Stupid ass. He didn't even understand how much this wasn't a game to me.

Chance nodded at Rodney. "He good wit' clean up." Then he looked away real quick when I did a double-take to see if I fucking asked him to speak.

I nodded to Rodney anyway, though, because I would need someone to clean up since I had Chauncey out there watching the corners. I left two more youngins to deal with the bodies on the ground. To me, they were already bodies. Chauncey could come behind us later to make sure shit was all the way gone. I mentally checked the two on the ground off the list and headed to the next house that owed us money.

I was pissed as fuck. Rico called these damn things "roundups," just like the laws would have called it if they were hunting our ass. He did it because he thought it as funny. Everything was fucking games with him. All it did was make me feel like someone was on me, just like I was on these niggas. Every roundup, I was looking over my shoulder the whole time. Every single one.

This was about to be a bad night.

I nodded to two more of Rico's men to follow us, two OGs who knew what the hell they were doing. We needed to get this job done quick and with precision. No fuck ups tonight. None. That's how roundups went. In and out. Niggas knew we were coming, but couldn't do shit about it. The rest of the OGs stayed behind to cut off the block's entrances and exits.

We all knew who owed. Rico and Remmey went over that shit in the cut every Friday night, and then passed on the information to us. Every Friday night. Like clockwork. So we split up, starting at opposite ends of the block. The two youngins came with me. The OGs didn't really deal with the youngins too much, and I didn't blame 'em. These lil niggas were wild as hell. But I couldn't do this big of a roundup by myself.

When we got to the first house, Rodney grabbed this little girl out of her bed and brought her to me. I was with Chance at the front of the house, tying her mama up and trying to find out where the fuck her daddy was. I don't know what the hell Rodney thought he was doing. I didn't tell him to do that shit. She had to be like twelve years old. Did Rico have them out here kidnapping kids? I looked at Chance in disbelief.

"Oh, we not raping nobody tonight? The bitch just said she can't pay." Rodney was dead serious, too.

My heart tried to punch this fool in the mouth through my chest. Is that what Rico had these lil niggas out here doing? No wonder everybody was scared as hell of the new crew. Our whole crew was notorious. From the top of the chain down to the lookouts. But the whole block started shaking in their boots whenever the youngins came around. If this was what the fuck they were out here doing, I could see why nobody tried to stop us anymore.

We never did that shit when Rico put me on.

And we were respected back then.

Not feared.

I looked over at Chance again, and he was looking back at me like he was waiting for an order. Like if that's what I said do, he was down wit' it, too.

Fuck this shit.

And the night had just started.

I looked back over at Rodney, who was already starting to take the girl's clothes off. Was this nigga high? I ran a hand over my face and took the little girl's hand.

"Go back to bed."

Then I looked at Rodney real close. This damn fool better not be high. They all knew I didn't play that shit. I hated niggas fucking around on the clock. Especially on my watch.

"Tha fuck..." Rodney watched the girl run back down the hall to her room. She slammed the door behind her. Rodney looked back at me and blinked real slow like he was trying to follow what was going on. Then he read my face and suddenly looked alert as hell. This ma' fucka was high. Once he saw what I was thinking, he answered my only unanswered question quickly. "Ain't no phone in there."

Rodney was fuckin' up. Bad. Real bad. Again. And there was no room for that in a roundup. He knew that before I put him on. We had already been at this location five minutes and forty-seven seconds too long. If his high ass was wrong, and if that little girl called the laws, we would have to spend even more time on this one location. The girl, her mama and all traces of the girl and her mama would have to be gone before we left the house.

Which would mean that I would have to get Chauncey involved.

And Chauncey's bitch ass would most definitely let Rico know that my crew was now running me.

I knew we would have time to clean up before the laws came, if they even came. But this fool still had me wasting damn time trying to guess whether this girl was in there calling the laws or not. I walked down the hall and searched the girl's room. No phone. She started shaking and crying when I walked in. I didn't even look at her, and when I was finished searching the room, I walked back out.

When I got back to the front of the house, Rodney was still staring down the hall toward the girl's room. Then he looked back at me and shook his head like I was the one fucking up. I stared at him for a minute, and reminded myself to be easy. I was trying my hardest to keep my mind on what was important and not light this dude the hell up.

But it was a struggle.

For real.

Rodney finally blinked again and looked back down the hall. I looked at my watch. Then I looked at Chance. He was the one who suggested this fool. Much as I liked Chance's discipline and silence when I needed everyone around me to stay focused and shut the fuck up, his reckless ass homeboy was about to become his problem.

"Yo Rodney, what the fuck is wrong with you?" he growled and looked back over at the lady.

Now she had seen disorder in our crew.

The whole block knew what happened to the last nigga who saw that. And this same little ma' fucka was the problem that time, too. I should have known better than to take his ass on a roundup.

That one was on me.

When the lady realized that we were all three looking at her, she closed her eyes tight like she didn't see shit. Even with her eyes closed I could tell she was crying. I stood over her and shoved my Glock down her throat. "Where the fuck your man at?" She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. I hated these ride or die bitches. They made everything harder than it had to be. I shoved the gun further down and she gagged. I knew she couldn't breathe. I was calm. "If you don't tell me, I swear I will put a bullet in you, and give your daughter to him." I nodded to Rodney, who started grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

The woman probably knew that I wouldn't give her daughter over to that fool, but I was damn sure about to put a bullet in her. The whole hood knew I was good for that. She gave her man up immediately and we were on our way.

I looked at Chance one more time before walking out the door. I didn't even glance Rodney's way.

By 3 AM, we had twelve fires going all over town. The whole Northside smelled like Juneteenth.

We should have been done by 2:45.

When we got back to the cut, I finally turned to Rodney.

He was about to be number thirteen and he knew it. Before I even tied him up.

Chance kind of shook his head, like he didn't want me to do it, so I handed him the gasoline and told him "Do that shit."

He just stared at me. I knew that was his potna, but he knew that nigga was uncontrollable when he suggested him to run with me. Every man, woman and child knew I had a low tolerance for dumb shit, and now that he had brought it to my attention, I felt the need to disassemble it. Quickly.

Before it became an even bigger problem.

I couldn't have dumb shit around me. At all. There were too many different ways for me and mine to get fucked by reckless ass niggas who created openings for unnecessary and unprepared for problems.

So Rodney had to go.

He had to.

I gave Chance a look like he was about to be number fourteen, and he started pouring gasoline on his boy. Real slow at first. Then he sped up when he saw that I was about to tie his ass up right next to him. After that, he did what the fuck he had to do. Because he was a soldier.

Like me.

They were both crying when the flames went up.

I didn't give a shit.

I just stood there and breathed that shit in like it was fresh fucking air. The sun was coming up by the time we finished helping Chauncey with cleanup, and I finally made it home.