Friday night.

            Everything was going as planned. I did the whole day just like I always did. Posted up. Made my location rounds. Gave Rico his money. Stood my post. Did my corner rounds. Gave Rico his money. The lil niggas were looking antsy that day, all day, but I didn't really pay them any attention, as usual.

            Chance walked up to me and dapped me up. He grinned. Like a Cheshire Cat.

            I didn't catch it.

            "What it do, boss?"

            "You ready?" He nodded and followed me back to the cut. I knew Rico was back there with Remmey going over inventory and going down the list for the next roundup, just like they did every Friday night. Every Friday night.

            Like clockwork.

            When we got deep enough into the cut, though, I turned around and faced Chance.

            "The fuck Rico at?" Then I stopped.

            When the light hit Chance's grill, a few things flashed at me all at once. A. He never grinned like that. But he had done it the past three times that I had seen him. B. He never looked me in my eye without backing down first. But when I was asking him about Angel, he didn't back down. And he didn't look away. C. When Remmey saw Angel, Remmey grabbed the wall and lost his breath. Like he didn't expect to see what he saw.

            The look Remmey gave Rico replayed in my mind and it hit me. Remmey stayed in the doorway to the kitchen when Rico followed me out of the house that day. He didn't follow us out. He only followed us in. When he saw Rico walking me into the workhouse.

             But he didn't follow us out.

            And Remmey always moved when Rico moved.

            Always.

            Remmey didn't murder my baby.

Chance did.

            I heard a click-clack behind me. Chance was still in front of me.

            Chance just grinned and grinned.

            Like a Cheshire Cat.

            "Rodney was my cousin ma' fucka." Chance said it like he was telling me the punchline to a joke.

            I knew that it was Rico behind me, even before I turned to face him. I knew his heavy ass footsteps anywhere. I knew how he cocked his gun, too. Click...clack...like he was making the slide sing. He had done it that way since I was a little kid. I thought it was cool back then, and couldn't wait to get a Glock, too.

Just like Rico.

Now I could see why so many grown men pissed themselves when they heard it.

            I turned to look him in the eye.

            "Nephew."

            "Uncle Rico."

            "I'm sorry it had to be this way, son." He looked genuinely disappointed in me.

            I looked him dead in his eye, and saw everything in his heart. I read his whole face, his whole body language. Just like he taught me to do.

            "I'm gonna make you shoot me in the back."

            Rico's eyes widened. He knew I wasn't talking to him.

            I was talking to Chance.

            I was looking dead in Rico's eyes when I said it, and I knew my uncle couldn't do it. I knew he couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to kill me, The Prince. His son that he loved. His son that he had taught everything to. Everything that I knew, I learned from Rico. He was the one who raised me. He fed me, clothed me. He took care of my whole family. He had dreamed me before I was even born. He knew that I was going to be his son, before daddy even died. He told me from the beginning that I was the one who could help him rise all the way to the top. He used to tell me that all the time, and now he didn't know how to go against his own gut.

            The fact that he couldn't do it surprised him.

            I saw the confusion in his eyes when, probably for the first time in a long time, he recognized his own weakness. He wasn't religious. He was superstitious. And he moved only on his dreams and premonitions. The same way that Remmey only moved when Rico moved, Rico only moved when he had a dream about the move first.

            And he hadn't dreamed this.

            He was only reacting to what someone else had told him about me. Someone else told Rico that if he didn't kill me, I was going to kill him first. He didn't come up with that on his own. Why would he? That wasn't a part of any dream or premonition that he had ever had. The only thing that Rico had ever seen was success.

Our success.

It was the first time that Rico had ever moved on someone else's word, and now he was seeing his entire decision clearly.

We both were.

At the same time.

            Chance, on the other hand, never moved on anything but orders.

He was a machine.

A soldier.

            Like me.

            If he was given an order from the top, he was going to carry it out.

            No doubt about that.

            I had just made the mistake of confusing myself with "the top". I thought that when I gave Chance the order to take Rico out, that he would just follow me. Because I thought that he could see that I was the one who would come out on top in the end. I thought that once we got rid of Rico, that I would be King.

            I just missed the once we got rid of Rico part.

            And I missed the fact that I was the one who trained Chance. He always followed the chain of command. Only. Like me. Just like I taught him.

Just like Jazz taught me.

            I should have done this shit myself.

            I should have known that out of everyone, Chance had always recognized clearly who the King was. And that he would only take orders from the King.

            There was no love, no hate, in any of this. There was only what needed to be done. Chance knew that Rodney would have gotten him killed sooner or later. He knew that. And I told him to take care of what he already knew needed to be taken care of.

            That's the only reason that he went with me on it. Not because he thought I was running that crew.

            He never thought I was the boss.

I could see that now.

A split second too late.

            But this...

            This was an order directly from the top. The real top. And whether I was in line to be next or not, at this moment I was not the ma' fuggin King. Rico was. I was just the Prince. Chance knew I wasn't ready to run shit yet. Not this kind of shit. I was all heart, just like Rico said. And Chance knew it was true, because had seen me lose my whole shit over a girl.

Twice.

            I got too attached to the people that I loved, and that was my weakness. Chance had been observing my weakness, just like a regular person would watch a storm coming in, the whole time. He had been watching it, waiting for it to become his problem.

Just like I would have done.

I knew then that he had me.

Rico was wrong about one thing, though. I did have balls. Bigger than his. I wasn't about to just hand my life over to this lil nigga.

I was gonna make him take it.

I knew on Wednesday that Friday would be my last day.

I knew it.

I felt it.

But I knew that it would be Rico's last day, too.

No doubt about that.

"Coward bitch," I reached under my shirt for my Glock. 

            But before I could get to it, there was a deafening explosion behind me.

            It echoed off of every wall and then back at me.

            Like me and the sound were playing hide-and-seek and it found me.

And then...

Everything went black.