Page 26 of Dope Boys: Most Wanted
Reign followed Nia around the hair shop, a few paces behind she adjusted the shelves and displays. Nia took in it. Reign was playing small. Nia would allow it for now. There was a light that had been dimmed in her but not completely eliminated.
“I’ll be back tonight with the key and to show you how to break down the money for the day,” Nia shared, looking at the time on her phone. “My number is taped to the register if you need me. I have a feeling you won’t need me though.”
“You put a lot of faith into someone you don’t know,” Reign shared wearily.
“You’ll be fine.” With that, Nia roamed out of the shop, leaving Reign alone to find her footing. Footing that came to her naturally. She redid displays, welcomed customers in with a small smile, and even assisted them with finding their haircare needs for their hair type.
For a few hours, Reign felt alive and useful. A turn from being the walking dead, playing small to be unseen just so she could make it through the day without being assaulted. While the sun was up and shining over the cooling city, she was fine. Nightfall coaxed something else inside of her. That familiar jolt of fear. Back behind the counter where she could see the entire store, she nervously waited for Nia to return with the keys.
“You Reign?” a raspy baritone called out as he walked through the door with another man. Reign froze for a minute, eyes bouncing between the two. He stopped short of the metal detector. “I hate this bullshit.”
He removed three guns, one from the inside of his black timberland boots, another from the back of his pants and the last one from the inner pocket of his jacket. He laid them all on the counter before walking through the metal detector. There was no other option but to walk through it and every time he did with all his weapons it sounded off like he was trying to stick the place up.
The man behind him did the same and then huffed, “Nia got all this shit for show.”
“Waste of gotdamn money,” the taller of the two spoke. He turned his attention back to Reign. His gaze on her short, controlled, dark. “You Reign?”
She swallowed a lump in her throat before her cellphone rang. She called Nia earlier in the day to get the price of something but after that, the communication between the two had been none. Reign fumbled to answer the phone. “H-hello.”
“Breathe,” Nia coached. “I’m stuck at the salon with a difficult client. The two idiots that just walked in is my brother and his dumbass friend. They don’t have manners but they won’t fuck with you.”
Reign looked from the counter back to the two men. “Okay.”
“I meant to call you earlier, this lady picky as fuck,” Nia huffed. “Markus, the tall idiot, is going to show you everything, okay?”
Reign nodded as if she could see her. “Okay, thanks.”
Reign flipped the cellphone closed and looked at the man she assumed to be Markus who walked behind the counter. His presence was suffocating and she couldn’t pinpoint whether it was fear or something else. All she knew was fear.
“Where Nia find you?” he asked, his eyes intense and glossy.
Reign knew that gloss. She knew what kind of demons came along with that gloss. She chose not to engage fully.
“Around,” she simply replied.
He attempted a different approach, extending his hand. “Money.”
Reign clasped her hands together and stepped back. “Key.”
Markus retracted his hand, not sure how to handle a curve in real life. He didn’t know whether to be offended or move around it. Being that he didn’t want to hear Nia’s mouth again, he chose to move around it.
“Svyn, lock up the back. Nia said there’s two boxes of shit she needs,” Markus spoke. “You want to see how this shit is shut down?”
“Yes,” Reign spoke from afar.
Markus frowned slightly and Svyn blew out a whistle, shaking his head as he roamed to the back room. At a safe distance, Reign watched and listened to the cadence of his voice. Oddly enough, it was calming even though everything about his tattooed skin, and dark, glossy eyes screamed chaos.
“1820 is the code to close this shit out. You want to open and close it every day with two hundred in the drawer,” Markus spoke, keeping his gaze to himself. She appreciated that. Men who looked too long got her fought like a man in the ring. She watched how quickly he took the cash out, counted it and placed the difference on the glass countertop. “Damn how much shit you sell today?”
“A lot.”
Markus stopped counting, looked at her, poked his lip out and nodded. “Two words.”
Reign didn’t reply. Just blinked and curled her lip in response.
“Whatever the difference is gets put in a deposit bag, write the amount on the outside, drop it into the safe. Nia comes and gets it. In the event she can’t, Svyn or I will,” Markus stated. “You got it?”
Reign noticed the limited motion in his arm and how he’d try to disguise his wince from time to time. If he tried her, she’d punch him in the arm and make her escape. Like a gazelle, she was in a constant state of fight or flight.
