Heart of the Hustle

by A'zayler

  D’Angelo winked at her and took the clipboard she was extending toward him. The seat she motioned for him to sit in was in the corner of the room right next to the check-in desk. D’Angelo took his seat and began filling out the paperwork. It didn’t take long for the girl to come back into the waiting room, and when she did, she was calling him to the back.

  “Your man paid for that purple hair?” D’Angelo asked as she put a little extra twist in her walk.

  “Nah, I don’t have a man.”

  “Well, come holla at me before you leave so we can do something about that.” D’Angelo winked at her again as she showed him to his room.

  “I’ll be sure to do that.” She smiled as she exited the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

  He didn’t know what kind of pull the little receptionist had, because not even five minutes later the doctor had come in and examined his wound. After acknowledging it wasn’t deep and hadn’t severed anything major, he sent the nurse in to stitch him up. His entire visit lasted almost thirty minutes, and then he was on his way.

  D’Angelo strolled up the hallway casually looking for the receptionist when he heard his name being called. When he turned to see who it was, he saw Genesis. She was sitting in a wheelchair holding a baby. Though D’Angelo had heard all about the shit that had gone down with her and Angel, he hadn’t reached out to check on her. He didn’t care enough.

  They hadn’t had sex in a while either due to her being too big, so he really didn’t see the need to be calling just to check on her. They weren’t like that. D’Angelo didn’t have a problem fucking her as long as her stomach didn’t get in his way, but the moment it began to get too big and prevented her from performing in different positions, he had to let her cool off for a minute. On top of that, that pregnant shit had her looking weird, and he didn’t love her enough to look past it.

  Her nose and lips had gotten so big, she looked like an ogre. D’Angelo didn’t even see how Angel was still laid up with her looking like that. It had to be love, because that baby had Genesis fucked all the way up.

  “What’s good, Genny?” D’Angelo walked toward her and kneeled down so that he could see the baby.

  She pulled the blanket over just enough to show his face.

  “Damn, this li’l baby black as hell.” D’Angelo chuckled. “I guess I wasn’t the only one dipping in Angel’s honey pot, huh?”

  Genesis rolled her eyes. “Shut up, D’Angelo. I’m not in the mood for your mouth today.”

  “I feel you, ma, but you know you need your ass beat. If you wanted to keep my brother, you could have at least let me splash off in you. The baby would have looked just like Angel’s ass.” D’Angelo chuckled at himself.

  It may have sounded absurd to anyone who didn’t know their history, but it would have been Genesis’s best bet if she’d wanted to continue being with Angel. Too bad that was no longer an option. She’d hung herself by getting knocked up by another nigga. Now, Angel had Snow and wasn’t giving her ass a second thought.

  “I should have just never done this stupid shit in the first place.”

  D’Angelo could hear the remorse in Genesis voice and actually felt bad for her. “Yeah, but we all make mistakes. Just take care of li’l man, and holla at me if you ever need some dick.” He chuckled and stood up straight.

  “How’s Angel?” Genesis yelled out just as D’Angelo began to walk away.

  “He’s cool. Just fucking off with li’l mama from his party.”

  “Who, Emelia?”

  D’Angelo smiled and nodded. “Yeah, her.”

  Genesis’s eyes began to water as she nodded. “I should have already known.”

  “It’s a dog-eat-dog world, boo. Chin up. It ain’t like you were doing the nigga right anyway.” D’Angelo shrugged and walked away.

  He could hear her behind him mumbling something, but he continued on his way. D’Angelo may have not really cared for Angel on a social level, but he was still his blood. Genesis hadn’t been right for him. He didn’t necessarily think Snow was either, but at least D’Angelo knew without a second thought that she loved the nigga. That was a fact. Snow had been loving Angel since they’d been kids, and even after he’d left for school, she doted on that nigga.

  For months, Snow walked around sad as fuck. She’d stopped going places and doing things with her friends, and it started showing. All she did was train and hang out with Mack and Vinny’s old asses. One day he’d felt compelled to say something to her, just to make conversation. At first, she hadn’t been hearing it, but she eventually let her guard down and conversed with him.

  As time passed, they became good friends. At least good enough to hang out and grab food and shit. Somewhere along the way, D’Angelo ended up catching feelings for Snow that she didn’t reciprocate, and that fucked him all the way up.

  “I’m sorry, D’Angelo, but I love Angel.”

  D’Angelo sucked his teeth as he thought about what she’d told him the day he told her his truest feelings for her. He couldn’t believe she’d been leading him on all that time. They had hung out together plenty of times just laughing and having fun. D’Angelo was sure she’d felt the same way about him but got his feelings crushed when she revealed that she didn’t. From that moment to the current one, he hadn’t fucked with her.

  They’d been through some tough shit together, which only magnified the strain on their relationship, but D’Angelo wouldn’t take it back even if he could. For a while, after she moved and he’d gone back to jail, he’d wondered what she was like as an adult, how she was living, and a lot of other stuff that boiled down to him missing her. The day he walked into Angel’s party and she was there was the best day of his life. Whether she or anybody else knew it, she was going to be his, and that was the end of that.

  “Mr. and Mrs. D’Angelo DeLuca. The muthafucking king and queen of the cartel.” D’Angelo laughed to himself.

  Soon, and very soon, that would be his reality.

  Chapter Ten

  I’m a boss

  One month later

  “What the fuck are y’all doing up in here?” The feminine bass in Snow’s voice echoed off the walls of the cool room. “It’s not social hour. Y’all hos better get back to fucking work.”

  She looked around at the empty stations where the women should have been cooking, cutting, and bagging dope, and got angry at how empty they all were.

  All of the women clad in the white paper jumpsuits moved around getting back to their stoves. Some of them moving faster than others, but all of them moving. Snow watched in disgust as the ladies made it their business to walk at their own pace as if she was some type of joke. As calm as she was trying her hardest to be, she could still feel her temperature rising.

  It had been a little over four months since she’d begun running the spots that Vinny had established in Columbia, and for some reason, the women he had working for him felt the need to test her patience. She’d given them the benefit of the doubt being that she was a fresh face and they never heard of her a day in their life, but her patience had just about run out.

  “We get an hour every day for lunch,” the mouthiest girl of the group sassed just as Snow walked past her.

  Snow spun in her bright red Nike Shox with the speed of lightning. “Your point?”

  “It’s only been fifty-six minutes. We have four minutes left.”

  A few snickers could be heard throughout the room from the other childish workers Vinny had hired. One thing Snow hated was being disrespected. Especially by a bitch. The heat that she felt rising up her back wasn’t a good sign for the little class clown in her face, but she was doing her best to calm herself down . . . even if theses bitches were trying to feed the beast inside her.

  “You think you’re funny, don’t you?” Snow was surprised by the remark, but her voice remained stern.

  The girl looked at the girl next to her before looking back at Snow with a smirk on her face. “Not at all. I was just stating fact
s.”

  Snow raised her eyebrow. “Facts, huh?”

  She nodded.

  “Bet.” Snow’s hand went to her hair quickly, then swiped across her bun before she swung swiftly at the girl’s face.

  Blood shot everywhere just as Snow stepped out of the way so that it wouldn’t hit her. The long cut from the girl’s eyebrow to her chin was leaking uncontrollably as she did her best to stop the bleeding with her glove-covered hands.

  “The next time you feel like telling a joke, don’t.” Snow walked away from her before yelling over her shoulder, “You have the last four minutes of your lunch break to get yourself cleaned up and get back to work before I slit your fucking throat.” Snow looked around at the rest of the women, who were looking like deer caught in headlights. “The rest of y’all ugly bitches get back to work.”

  The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, and that was how Snow liked it. They would learn sooner or later that she wasn’t the one to be fucked with.

  Once she was back in the small office located at the front of the room, she took a seat behind the desk and picked up her phone. She scanned through her messages and missed calls. There were only a few that she deemed important enough to return, Empress’s being the first. Empress answered on the first ring.

  “What’s going on, love?” Snow asked as soon as she heard Empress’s voice.

  “Nothing, sweetheart. Are you busy?”

  Snow looked out the large window of the office to make sure the women were all doing their jobs, and they were. Even Scar Face was at her stove whipping up that work like she’d been taught. Raggedy ass bandage and all.

  Snow smirked at her little dumb ass before going back to the call with Empress. “Not really. You need something?”

  When Empress paused, Snow knew what was coming next. There was only one subject that Empress held her tongue on, and that was her baby-ass son.

  “Well . . .” She paused again. “Have you spoken with Angel today?”

  “No, ma’am. Why would I have talked to him? You know your son doesn’t like me anymore.”

  “Don’t say that. He does like you.”

  Snow sucked her teeth as she held her hand up in front of her face so that she could admire her fresh set of nails.

  “Well, he sure does have a funny way of showing it.”

  “He’s just going through a lot right now with Vinny being sick and all.” Empress said something to someone in the background before coming back over the line with Snow. “Plus, he’s trying to get used to all of this right now. You know drugs have never been his thing.”

  “And clearly it still isn’t. That nigga doesn’t do anything but get in my way. He’s been running around behind me switching up everything I’ve put into place, and it’s really starting to get on my nerves.” Snow rolled her eyes. “He’d better be lucky he’s your kid and I love you, or else he’d already be dead. Excuse my language, Mrs. Empress, but I’m tired of his ass.”

  Empress chuckled. “Y’all just be cussing like y’all grown.”

  They both laughed a little before Empress went back to their conversation.

  “Snow, be the bigger person for me, baby. Angel is stubborn like Vinny, and trying to talk to him is like talking to a brick wall. I really need for the two of you to at least get along for business purposes. He’s never done any of this before, and you have.”

  “So, basically you need me to help him?”

  Empress laughed quietly again. “Yes, Snow. Help the boy. He’s messing stuff up. You’re not the only person calling me.”

  Snow sat up and palmed her forehead. That was news to her. She’d thought everyone else liked Angel.

  “What is he messing up?” she asked eagerly.

  “Well, that’s the thing. He’s not really messing things up, he’s just . . . making enemies. He’s so mean, no one likes him. They’re complaining about him being hard to work with, and how they’d prefer to work with Vinny, and you and I both know that’s not about to happen.” Empress sighed. “I need the transition from Vinny to Angel to be as smooth as possible.”

  Snow frowned. That was ho shit. She didn’t necessarily care for Angel at the moment, but she was on his side about being mean. The drug game didn’t have room for niceness. Who the fuck needed to be friends just to do business? The drug game wasn’t a tea party, and the people Vinny had working for him needed to learn that.

  “Now, Mrs. Empress, that’s crazy. Tell me who said that so I can get rid of them. That’s weak.”

  “Oh Lord, you and Angel are going to be the death of the cartel.” She tittered. “It was one of the distributor’s wives. She handles all the cocaine intake, and she’s complained two weeks in a row about his behavior.”

  Snow rolled her eyes. “I should have known it was a woman. Women are always doing too much.” She stood from the chair. “Okay, I’ll handle him.”

  “Thank you!” Empress exclaimed.

  “No problem, but you owe me, because your son is a really big pain in my you-know-what.”

  “I know, but he’s trying.” She laughed before ending their conversation.

  Snow stayed at the building a little longer before leaving to go find Angel. It had been a month since he’d come to help, and it had been hell on wheels for Snow ever since. From the time he’d decided to quit school and take over the cartel, she’d been having one bad day after the next. He was nothing like the old Angel. He was always so rude that it was hard to even have a casual conversation with him. They fought so much, she might as well have been working with D’Angelo’s bitch ass.

  Though Snow was extremely okay with not talking to that nigga, it was hard for business. It was bad enough he didn’t really know what he was doing, but then he was doing it with an attitude. Snow wasn’t the least bit friendly in the streets, but she was tolerable. Angel was downright mean. The only people he acted as if he had some sense with was his parents.

  She’d tried to talk as nice to him as she could, being that she wasn’t really feeling his disloyalty, but after having her head bitten off every time, Snow kept her distance. The only reason she was even driving to where he was right then was because of Empress. Other than that, she would have continued to move in her circles while he moved in his. He handled paperwork, she handled the streets. Never seeing each other was easy if that’s how they chose to keep it.

  “Lord, help me so I don’t kill this fool,” Snow said out loud to herself as she stood in the hallway of the insurance office building that all of the DeLuca Cartel’s paperwork was run through.

  From where she was standing, she could see Angel sitting at the desk that was farthest back with his head down shuffling through papers. There were three other desks strategically placed in front of him, all occupied by women. Anybody who worked there took care of the technicalities, as well as the legal and illegal illusions of the company. One of them was a real insurance worker, while the rest of them simply played the role.

  Snow stood back watching him for a little while longer before taking a deep breath and going inside the room. All three women greeted her as she walked in. Angel looked up and looked right back down.

  Bastard.

  Snow rolled her eyes just as she stopped and took a seat in one of the chairs facing his desk. She waited for a moment, assuming he would look up and say something. When he didn’t, she slammed her phone and keys down in front of him.

  “Good afternoon, Rudeness,” she said.

  Angel remained silent, reading over the papers in front of him. With his head down, Snow was able to take in the beauty of his silky black hair. It was so lustrous. Snow sat quietly, watching the thickness of his eyebrows scrunch up across his face every so often. The smell of his cologne traveled up her nose and dampened her panties every time he moved one way or the other.

  “You make me so sick with your mean ass,” Snow spat.

  This time he looked up. He stared at her through dark, piercing eyes as he held the papers in his hand. The frown
on his face was so sexy, Snow wanted to bite her lip or kiss his. Either one would do her no justice, but it would have been better than torturing herself just by looking at him.

  The look on his face showed how disgusted he was with her presence, and it was pretty comical to her. It was as if just the sight of her had ruined his entire day, and she couldn’t stop herself from laughing.

  “What do you want?” His bluntness interrupted her giggles.

  Snow held her hand up so that her open palm was flat in her face. “First of all, don’t talk to me like that unless you want your throat slit. Secondly, I’m only here because your mama sent me.”

  His face frowned in concern. “My daddy all right?”

  “Your daddy is fine. She just wanted me to come check on you to make sure you’re not fucking up their shit.”

  “Man, get your ass out of here with that. My mama ain’t said no mess like that.”

  Snow raised her eyebrow at him. “You think I’m here just because I wanted to look at your li’l ugly ass? I think not.”

  Angel’s nose twitched on one side as he looked at her. “That makes two of us.”

  Again, his distaste for her had Snow snickering to herself. “I look better than your ass.”

  Before she could utter another word, Angel reached across the desk to grab her. With the same swiftness she’d used earlier, this time going to her head, she snatched a small blade out of her bun and cut the top of the hand he had on her. He let her go as soon as he felt his skin slice open.

  “Don’t put your fucking hands on me.” She pulled a tissue from the box on his desk and wiped her blade before sticking it back into the ball of hair on her head.

  “Why the fuck would you do that?” Angel glared at her as he stood from his desk, holding his bleeding hand.

  Snow didn’t flinch as she watched him walk back to where the bathrooms were located. When he returned, his hand was wrapped in a hand towel. Snow rolled her eyes at his dramatics.

  She hadn’t even cut him deep enough for him to really bleed, let alone nurse his hand with a towel that dramatically. She had been using her blade since middle school; she knew what to do with it. If she’d really wanted to hurt him, he would have been dead. He was just doing the most right then.