CONNECTED

43.

Julio.

"Shut the fuck up before you get us fucked up." I whispered as low as I could, turning my body into a different position, holding my breath.

"I'm covering you so hurry up, Fat ass." Tae tried his best to hold in his laugh as I grunted trying to ease through the tiny ass window. Basement windows were not made for niggas with a heavy frame at all. I started sweating."Tiny ass shit."

"No you just big as shit." He laughed lowly under his breath. I finally was able to turn myself on my stomach, easing the rest of my body inside as I tightly held my arms at my sides. "Watch that glass." Tae spoke up, reminding there was broken glass still on the window frame. Shit could've went all wrong if I accidentally stabbed myself in the stomach.

As soon as my boots hit the ground, I was good. I picked up my GLOCK 17, blowing it off as I wiped it down with the bottom of my shirt. I looked around while Tae continued to cover me, aiming both of his guns at the basement door.

The flooring was made out of cement, and the walls were red. There wasn't much around for me to see besides a couple bullshit chairs from Walmart and empty liquor and beer bottles. There was a brown ceiling fan above my head and the window we had came through was brown. "Must be these niggas chill spot." I ran my hand across the small black table that must've came with the Walmart chairs, checking to see if there was any dust on it or not.

"Been used?" Tae asked, picking up on what I was doing.

"Yeah" I quickly flashed my flashlight, noticing fingerprints and food stains, turning my face up. "Dirty ass niggas just gone leave stains and shit everywhere?"

"Dumb; Ain't no way I would've left my basement unattended when I know the window broken."

"That is pretty stupid." I laughed it off. "Especially when a price tag on your head." The pig on the platter tonight, Tae and I had been personally asked to handle. Both together and separate, but we decided we'd do it together and charge triple on top of what the price was. It wasn't either one of our cup of tea, but after being asked multiple times and the price going up, the money was too good to keep turning down. We'd both be about twenty mil richer tonight.

Juan Rioz— one of the top dogs in the Mexican Cartel in Chicago, personally reached out to the both of us individually, asking if we could take care of his business. I respectfully declined at first without even knowing what he wanted done. I'd never done work with the Cartel, I thought they were manipulative and didn't have no street code when it came to Women and Children. Anybody could go when it came to them and I never wanted to indulge myself into that.

Also, I knew in my gut that he only came to me after Tae told his ass no and I didn't like that. A lot of mothafuckas conducted business with me in that manner and it always rubbed me the wrong way. It had nothing to do with Tae and everything to do with them. I was extremely respected in and out of the City, but niggas still tried me when it came to that.

As soon as I got off the phone with the nigga, I called and asked Tae and he told me he'd met up with him a couple days before and respectfully declined his offer as well. That same weekend, Juan sent us invites to his Home for Sunday Brunch to have a face to face conversation— had Korea getting on my ass for missing Church and everything, yet I still had to decline his offer. He was very specific on how he wanted the job done and it entailed doing shit that I had never done, and that I didn't necessarily agree with but I understood his reasoning. The Pig we were killing had raped his daughter when she was fifteen and he was in his forties. He was actually an inside man amongst the inside men in Juan's business— nigga had it made yet he was a dirty ass pedophile that liked to mind fuck little girls. He knew everything about Juan and how he conducted business, so he fled the City and had been running for over ten years up until about six months ago when he decided to return to Chicago like a dumb ass. I'm sure he figured Juan was dead now or had just charged the shit to the game, but fuck no.