Page 29 of Quasim III: King Inferno

I pressed the screen when Aimee’s name popped up. “Hey, Aim.”

“Me and Landon are on the block, and everyone is in place… you were able to get in, Don?” She questioned.

“This shit light work for me… turned that bitch off.” He replied as we pulled onto the block and saw Goon, Havoc, and Kiki outside with a few bullies. Kiki was watching them as they further fucked the street up with a clipboard in her hand.

It helped that construction was actually taking place on the block, so it was simple to just cosplay. Capri pulled up to the house, and we put on our vests and grabbed our clipboards. Corleon had parked further down the block but had on a vest and a face mask.

We put our face masks on as well, and Kiki quickly tossed Mina a vest while I gave her the extra facemask. “What is the plan?”

Although she recovered, Mina’s speech often came out slower than usual. She had learned to keep her questions andconversations brief. “There’s a gas leak, ma… we gotta check it out,” Capri smirked.

She smiled, as we exited the car behind her. Capri’s gun was tucked at her back, and I had mine placed in the same position. Capri knocked on the door and then looked down at the blank clipboard we all held in our hands.

The rickety blue home had seen better days. I could tell the covered wraparound porch had been the prize piece of this home back in the day. From the way the owner had let it go, I could tell with the right amount of money and time, this home could have been restored to the beauty it once was.

The entire block was probably a showstopper, and now it was reduced to a worn-down block that drugs were run through. The peeling white front door finally swung open, and we were faced with a brown-skinned man with a light fade, expensive outfit and a pair of white air forces. When he looked at Capri, he rubbed his hands together like God had granted his wishes by sending her to him.

“Sir, is this your home?” Capri put on her professional voice, though her voice was muffled from the mask.

He stared at Core, who was taller than all of us. “Who the fuck wants to know?”

“Have you been smelling gas, sir?” Corleon also threw on his fake professional voice, which freaked me out.

We all knew he was a geek, but to hear him talk like one was a different experience. The man relaxed some. “Yeah, my homie been telling me he’s been smelling gas all morning… we don’t have the stove on.”

Capri wrote dick head on the clipboard, faking like she was taking notes. “Can you show us where the boiler is?”

Like a fool, he turned his back and allowed us to follow him. “Is there anyone else in the home?” I questioned.

“Yeah, my homie is upstairs and then my girl is in the next room rolling up.” He didn’t give a damn that we were the gas company and that he just implemented his girlfriend in a crime.

Mina pulled my hand while Corleon continued to follow behind them. The girlfriend was watching some bad filmed reality show with women beating and berating each other as her thick lips secured the spliff she was rolling up.

“Hi,” Mina cleared her throat.

The girl slowly pulled her eyes from the screen and sparked the lighter over the entire spliff. “Can I help you?”

“You have a gas leak and we’re just checking everyone out.” I quickly recovered, since Mina left me to finish the conversation.

“Yo, what the fuc?—”

Soon as we heard his voice, I knew that meant he had been ambushed. The front door opened, and Havoc came in with Goon behind him. I nodded upstairs, and they headed up there. The girlfriend was so busy watching them that she didn’t notice Mina pull her gun and strike her across the face with it, her spliff flying from her mouth onto the floor.

“Argh, what the fuck?” she screamed as Mina wrapped her hands around her neck and adjusted her jaw, removing a razor blade from her mouth.

I should have been in the moment, but it all made sense. This was where Sim had gotten it from. As the woman struggled, I tried to step in, and Mina held her hand up. “No.”

Standing away from where the girl was kicking and screaming, I watched as she slid the razor across her neck as she screamed, and Mina had this lost look in her eyes.

The same look I had seen in Meer’s eyes when he was doing something he would have to ask forgiveness for. Her eyes mirrored her youngest son, as she looked at what she had done. Goon held the back of the neck of one of the men upstairs and shoved him onto the couch.

“Where the fuck is Polo?” Goon snarled, staring him down.

The man spit blood and looked in the opposite direction. “I’m not no fucking snitch… find that nigga like you found this house.”

We all turned to look at the front door when it opened. “I got the pizz?—”

It was the guy that Aimee had been talking to, and Cappadonna kicked his ass onto the floor, his face falling right on the pizza box.

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