Page 75 of Quasim III: King Inferno

“Always felt like you were nosey.”

He chuckled as his phone rang, and he put the phone to his ear and listened to what the other person was talking about. “Nah, it’s not a problem… when I’m done here, I’ll come by and run my fucking whip through your house. Bitch, I bought that case of turkey wings and asked for one thing… one plate and you sold out. Bet… now see how the fuck you gonna cook with no house.”

He calmly ended the call. “For turkey wings?”

It was always hard to judge how crazy a nigga was when my best friend was Menace Caselli. Everyone always seemed calm and cool compared to his ass. Teflon was slightly different. Mostly because I knew how he and Menace went back.

His hands were in everything, and I heard how he got down in Ashbourne, which is why he was damn near the king of this city. Shit didn’t move without him knowing, and if he didn’t know, shit would never move again.

“It’s the principle, Bruster… I’m gonna let you back to your geek conference… hit me if you need anything while in my city.”

I dapped him up and watched as he left as quietly as he came in. The doors for the room opened, and I watched everyone file in while waiting for a bit.

After paying my tab, I grabbed my notepad and headed into the conference area to steal whatever I could off his phone while Geeky was doing his laptop.

Geeky: I’m in.

Me: Good girl.

Geeky: Good enough for? She sent an eggplant emoji, and I laughed.

Me: You getting this is all on you, Skyler… never been holding it from you. It’s you.

Geeky: Booooo! Don’t need a lecture. And there’s a charge on your card.

Quasim

I was leanedup on the side of the bed, and my feet touched the floor. The feeling of the cold tiles underneath my bare feet did something to me. It was another reminder that I had life inside of my body. That I would get up out this bed and rise to the occasion like I always did.

That was hard to do when your body was working against you constantly. Between the hard ass coughs, chest pains and the literal weakness my body experienced, I didn’t know if I would ever get back on my feet or my bike.

I blamed my father because he had me and Blaze living like we were invincible, and now I was paying for that shit. Being shot fucking sucked, and that shit wasn’t some easy shit to shake back from. Not when I almost died twice because of the bullets that entered me.

“Mr. Inferno, you shouldn’t be trying to get out the bed alone.”

I looked up at the nurse and she seemed familiar. “Where I know you from?”

I ignored her trying to put my legs back onto the bed. She stood up straight, her black hair pulled back into a bun and her face free of makeup. “I’m married, Beloved,” she mocked

Each day that passed, I was becoming more and more aware of things. Everything wasn’t as foggy anymore, especially since I stopped the pain medicine. That was what kept my ass loopy and not able to stay up.

I told Anjo’s ass to sit on that couch and not move, and as I looked over there, she was gone. How the fuck could I protect my wife and watch her fine ass when I was always nodding off like a damn junkie?

Soon as the words left her mouth, I smirked. “Small world, huh?”

She fixed the chords from the IV and pressed a button that stopped the beeping. “Very small… the reason I was even on vacation was because we were celebrating my new job. My cousin put me on… he said it’s a word-of-mouth situation that he had to pull strings for. I moved to the city and everything for this job.

She started unraveling my IV that was damn near around my neck from nearly sliding out of this bed.

“My name is Knoxie… everyone calls me Knox. I don’t know if I ever introduced myself before all hell broke out that night.”

“You did and the name wasn’t no fucking Knoxie.”

She broke out into laughter. “I never give my real name on vacation… I’m always Clarissa… my middle name.”

I nodded my head as I continued to keep my feet planted on the floor, flexing my toes. “Where did you move from?”

“Ashbourne, New York… it’s a couple hours away from the city.”

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