Oh, Pineapples.

11: Bingo. (Javadd's pov)

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"I want my baby to have your eyes,"
                - drake, 'finesse'

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•Javaad•

I stared at the man who lay unconscious on the ground beside me, scabs starting to form on his busted lip. A few punches to his face and he'd already been knocked out cold.

Why couldn't they send stronger men to handle their dirty business if they weren't willing to do it right?

I walked back to the main table were Scarlett and Collin were having a hushed conversation under the dimly lit fluorescent bulb, and I guessed the scene that unfolded in front of them was not a new one.

A shipment of stock, as we preferred to call it, had arrived from overseas a few weeks prior and as quickly as it had dropped off, police officers had already been all over the place, raiding the cargoes— under an instruction of an ' anonymous tip ' that there were, in fact drugs in the containers. I wasn't the least fond of the latter but I was aware that getting other people to sell them for you did not appear exactly ideal legally, moreover having the containers in your name.

Scarlett had only bailed me out after being I'd been detained for a few hours at the police station, along with violent interrogation—which left me with ugly bruises on my face, preventing my attendance to school.

And when I did go back to school, people gave me weird looks, including Jasmine, but she chose to ignore it.

Usually I didn't really care about what people thought of me but with her it was different. I couldn't risk her knowing that I was co-running an underground enterprise, with my mother which was overshadowed by the fact that for months, Jasmine had in fact been a major target that everyone currently in the room was well aware, but less aware of her whereabouts.

For weeks, I hadn't a single idea on what to do with the particular piece of information I had aquired— I shared classes with the girl we had targeted. Moreover, I couldn't ignore the development of the feelings I seemed to have for her. The night at the lake felt like I had just added fuel to the fire.

I burnt for her.

To say I was stuck between a rock and a hard place was nothing short of an understatement.

With connections and well earned influence, we had been able to get leads on who the anonymous tip had come from and he was currently laying unconscious in front of us only because he refused to reveal why he had tipped the cops and who he was working with.

"Hudson, take care of this mess," Collin spoke to the guard standing at the corner of the room, spitting on the floor.

Hudson nodded, walked across the room, his leather shoes tapping on the carpeted floor softly. In one swift movement, Hudson had basically dragged the man's body out the door.

Having been an orphan, Collin had been a part of us ever since he was thirteen, my father took him in, so to me he was almost like an older brother as we had been really close. Collin was in his mid twenties, but you would easily mistaken him for a much older person because he carried himself with much maturity. He always seemed to have a beard and had tattoos all over his body, almost like me, but he never tried to cover them like I did.

And then there was the girl that was currently smirking at me from across the table, probably reminiscing the encounter from weeks ago. She was just caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. I was dealing with my father's death and she'd been there to comfort me. One whiskey bottle later, we were naked in my bed. For me, it had been a no strings attached, one night stand but it seems to her, it meant way more than just a hook up.