Page 76 of Quasim III: King Inferno

She grabbed the electronic chart from the side table and swiped through it. “Who your peoples?”

Clarissa looked up from the iPad, and back over toward me. “My cousins are Teflon, Kevlar, and Trigga.”

I nodded my head and laughed. “Shit… it’s really a small ass world. How the fuck is those niggas doing?”

Ashbourne was a few hours from New York City, and Teflon, Kevlar, and Trigga ran that city like they founded the shit themselves. Teflon used to run with the bullies before he stepped back and moved out the city.

Nobody really knew why he decided to step away, but he had been up in Ashbourne for years and had done well for himself. There was respect for him and his brothers, always. Only reason I really knew about Ashbourne was because of Teflon, and he was the one who put me in touch with the Valentini family. They were another family that lived up in Ashbourne, too.

“You know my cousins?”

“Beloved, you wouldn’t have even gotten through the doors of this bitch without Capone not knowing who you linked with… never knew Teflon had a little sister.”

“He doesn’t. I’m his cousin.”

“You right.” I snapped my fingers. “You always lived in Ashbourne?”

“My entire life. When my mother decided she was tired of being my mother and wanted to be my friend, I moved in with my aunt. My cousins were already grown, and she never had a daughter, so I was spoiled… well, as spoiled as I could be living in Ashbourne Courts.” She snorted and went back to swiping away.

“So, coming to the city was your way of running away from your problems?”

She clicked the iPad screen closed and looked at me with her arms folded. “Why are you assuming that I’m running from something?”

“Your cousin is Teflon… you don’t need to work. Not that I’m in another nigga’s pockets, I know there’s enough money to go around.”

She fidgeted with the iPad case, which told me that she was, in fact, running from her past in Ashbourne.

“There’s nothing wrong with a woman wanting more for her life. Not wanting to bow down and marry someone just because their family is rich.”

I didn’t have any pain medicine, so I wasn’t about to sit here and pretend to care about the life she was or wasn’t running from back home. “Kangggg! Man, I thought you were up outta here!” Kobe’s loud ass mouth interrupted us.

He tossed his arms around me and hugged me so tight that I winced but allowed his extra ass to get it out his system. “Kobe, you good?”

He sniffled and backed away. “Yeah, I’m good… just don’t try and die on us again, okay?”

I laughed as Knoxie put the iPad back down and checked a few things before she left us alone. She knew she wasn’t going to get me back in that bed, so she didn’t bother to give me a lecture about me needing to lie back down.

A nigga had too much on his mind, and the first thing was my pregnant ass wife running around here like she was Lara Croft. Then, the fact that we didn’t have a home to live in and she was carrying my baby, and we had another child that needed stability.

“Taking the last water out the fridge is crazy, Kobe,” Capone walked into the room with his twin right behind him.

Not even a second later, Corleon rounded the corner and was coming in behind Cappadonna. “Oh, and I ran into them.”

“You ain’t ran into shit… you sped through the gates like I was a stranger.”

Kobe sat down on the couch and crossed his legs. “After the way they were trying to storm into my house and tried to kill me, Blair, and Syn… I couldn’t be too sure…”

When I turned to look at my friend, his ass was signaling for Kobe to shut the fuck up, and he was too late because he hadalready said all that needed to be said. “What the fuck you mean, niggas tried to kill my wife?”

“It was handled, Quasim.”

“And nobody thought to fucking tell me that my pregnant wife was being shot at?”

Kobe let out a dramatic sigh. “You were laying up in that bed like a dead fish… how were we going to tell you, Kang?”

Corleon broke out into laughter and left the room, then tried to walk back in like he didn’t just laugh in my face. “My bad, King… Blair is always safe, and we made sure of that.”

“Ever since burying Ellis, we know to make…” Kobe stopped talking once Cappadonna stomped and turned around, holding his head as he mumbled “Shit.”

---