Midnights Lotus.

00 - preface,

Lotus ran out of the back door of the building, the large duffle bag hugging around her small, petite body. She could still hear the gunshots going off inside the building as she began to run down the dimly lit back alley. With her adrenaline rushing, her heart was beating out of her chest, she kept glancing back as she ran, waiting for the door to open again.

She made it to the metal fence, and crawled through the opening of where she cut it opened earlier. She looked back once again, but to her disappointment she still saw no one. It almost brought her to tears, thinking of how it was her fault, Reese, got shot. She made the wrong call, and unfortunately that caused a bullet to pierce his neck.

Lotus watched in horror as her close friend bled out, because of the move she made. She didn't even know if he were still alive or had bled out to death. But Midnight made sure if he were to die, he wouldn't have wanted Lotus to see. The only thing he worried about in that moment was making sure Lotus got out to safety—even if it meant it might cost him his life as well.

"Lotus!" Bambi shouted her name through the rolled down passenger window. Lotus ran towards the car, throwing the duffle bag in the backseat as she got into the passenger seat. As soon as she closed the door, Bambi burned rubber down the street.

Bambi knew couldn't risk waiting any second longer, she knew they would be pouring from the building once they realized Lotus was no longer in the building with their money, or merchandise.

"What happened?" Bambi finally asked after moments of silence in the car. Lotus swallowed hard, and a few tears welling up in the brim of her eyes.

She slowly shook her head, running both of her hands through her hair. "He told us that he wanted buy out our list of connects, and I told him no. We worked hard for the folks we make business wit', and I wasn't about to let Mid sell it for a few hundred thou'." Lotus began to explain to her, letting go of a shaky breath sitting back in the seat.

"I told him he could go fuck himself, and to find another dumb naïve ass group of people that was willing to take that offer—and he fuckin' shot Reese as he was getting up to come talk to me!" she started bawling, a few tears rolled down Bambi's face as she listened.

"That wasn't the deal we were making Bambi! We were only pose' to go there and make a trade for his product—I cost Reese his fuckin' life!"

Bambi remained quiet, silently praying that Reese was okay and that his gun shot wounds wasn't that critical. Bambi was aware of Lotus's temper, and how she spazzed on anyone with a quickness if they tried to cross her—so she could understand why Lotus may have blamed herself for what happened.

Once the girls made it back to the house, the rest of crew were all waiting. They all sat in angst, Santos pacing back and forth in the living room, his hands placed on his sides. He stopped once they heard footsteps approaching, Bambi and Lotus both walked in with their faces soaked with tears.

Gotti started to say something until Bambi shook her head standing in the middle of the room as Lotus continued walking past everyone else to go upstairs. They all watched her before redirecting their attention on Bambi, waiting for answers they desperately wanted.

"Where's Mid and them?" Tiny questioned realizing the guys weren't with them. They were all there when shots went off, but unfortunately got separated from each other and had to shoot their way out. Riding out in the cars with the person they arrived with.

They wanted to stay behind but knew Mid and Lotus always told them to never stick around for long whenever there was crossfire—hence why Mid sent Lotus out before it was too late, the only ones that were left behind was Mid, Reese, Jon Jon and Gotti.