Force

C7. This Is Who We Are

Celeste POV

I stand between Diamond and Jenard as the revered speaks.

"Another senseless death in the city plagued by violence. Another young black man taken too soon. May Elijah Linden rest peacefully. In the arms of our angels." They start his descend and Jenard goes to throw the first patch of dirt on him, Diamond hands his mom an envelope of money, he goes next while I  give her my condolences hugging her before doing the same. I take Diamonds out stretched hand and we walk to the truck. Once we are inside and driving away I speak.

"I'm going to Sy's funeral, it's today as well—"

"Why in the fuck would you do that? Huh? He ain't CBI, nor is he blood." I roll my eyes and fix my dress to give my hands something to do.

"Because he was apart of the same plan E, was apart of that got him killed, and I feel guilty because if I would have spoken up a little louder and kept my eyes focused on our backs he wouldn't have died."

"Having remorse and guilt isn't good for this line of work, Celestial, you know that. And that's not only on you, we knew they ran in groups of six, it also wasn't your job to watch our backs. No one blames you, but if you want to go pay your respects be my guest. "Why is he saying that like he's giving me permission? I look over and see Jenard mugging me and I sigh sitting back.

" Fuck it, last thing I need is to be surrounded by a bunch of racist Irish gangsters."I see him nod and focus back on the road. We head to my house the guys grabbing their change of clothes before I go into my room, Jenard goes downstairs and I go to my room and start to take my heels off. A headache slowly coming forth. I grab my clothes and head to the bathroom getting into the shower.

This is where I get confused about the streets, we killed more than a dozen of their people. We don't feel any guilt about that but the only one we lost we're damn near breaking everybody neck over. Don't get me wrong it's fucked to lose anyone but it's not like we didn't kill the bastards that killed both Elijah and Sy. We all know the next hour isn't promised to us, but yet we continue to act like dead bodies aren't apart of the deal of the fast money and drugs we're making and territories we are taking. Death is normal, murder hurts but you can't be angry that your guy got shot after killing sixteen of theirs. Maybe I'm just not as emotional about this as they are. I'll take a life and protect the ones I love but at the end of the day you gotta charge it to the game we play.

When I walk out of the bedroom my braids down and my socks warming my feet I walk into the kitchen seeing the two eating some left overs.

"We meeting with Tommy and Vic in a hour. You coming?" I nod and sit next to Diamond. His hand rubs the inside of my thigh squeezing the fat there and I sigh putting my head down picking at my water bottles label.

"I still think it's a bad move, we can't pull out simply because we lost someone, that'd make Elijah's death somewhat wasted. This shit would've been decent if we play our cards right." Jenard cuts his eyes at me and I roll my eyes, I'm not taking shit back. They constantly going two steps forward just to take six back.

" And that's why you're not in a position of power because what you just said was fucking stupid. "I'm not about to argue with him today. I'm not in the mood for it.

" Whatever you say Jenard. It's yall shit do what you want with it, I was just speaking my thoughts. "I grab my phone and text Gloria wondering if she'd be up to go out later on, I also text Liliana. As they finish eating and Diamond washes his dishes, Jenard idiot ass leaving his in the sink, as we head out. Any other time I would've said something but I'm in no mood to even speak to him, or Diamond to be honest.