This is a sneak peek from my novel, The Risks of Danger, released September 27, 2023!
“Cuz, you been extra quiet since you came out that jail. You sure you good?” Smoke questioned Danger after they had been on the road headed back to Memphis from Mountain City, Tennessee for over an hour.
“I’m cool, nigga,” Danger lied while staring out the passenger window while Smoke kept his eyes on the road as it wound through the mountains.
“Nah, Cuz. Nigga, I know you. You ain’t cool. Something on your mind. What’s up? What your pops have to say?” Smoke pressed him as he recognized the sweet smell of the sugar maple trees pouring into the windows of the truck.
Danger glanced over at Smoke, wishing he wasn’t so nosey, but reminding himself that his cousin meant well. There hadn’t been a single instance in their lives when Danger felt he couldn’t trust him with even some of his most personal and most embarrassing secrets. Smoke had also always been able to recognize the wheels turning in Danger’s mind, and this time was no different.
“First, he apologized,” Danger revealed. The expression on Smoke’s face showed that he was both shocked and impressed by Ezra’s gesture. “He ain’t come on no I’m your father. You gone respect me shit either.”
“Damn. I shole thought that’s how that shit would’ve went down. I mean, Unc was that nigga back in the day. Whether he was on that shit or not, wasn’t no nigga gone disrespect him without consequences,” Smoke recalled. “I thought he would’ve tried to pull rank on your ass, but I guess a decade in a cage got a way of humbling niggas.”
“He ain’t… he ain’t the same nigga no more,” Danger mumbled as he turned back to his window, his mind replaying his conversation with his father. “Prison done sucked all the life out his ass. Ain’t no light in that nigga’s eyes, at least there wasn’t when we first sat down. I think me accepting his apology gave him a bit of hope that we can start over and rebuild our relationship,” he shrugged.
“You accepted his apology? Damn. I never saw that coming. I know you ain’t want to. That shit was big of you. I commend you for that shit, Cuz, ‘cause my hot-headed ass wouldn’t have forgave a soul for getting my momma whacked. I’ll go to war with Bin Laden ‘bout my momma, boy,” Smoke declared.
“Nah, mane. You had to see him, Cuz.” Danger shook his head at the memory of his father sitting at the table with hollowed eyes, wrinkles, and grey hair. “He look old as Methuselah, man. His beard is greyed out. He got wrinkles every damn where. The shit was just sad, mane. I could tell shit been rough for him for the past few years. That shit with my momma been eating that nigga alive, and then being in jail at the same time while he’s been trying to deal with it… I’m surprised the nigga ain’t stroked the fuck out. I know his blood pressure gotta be high as giraffe pussy at all times.”
“Damn. I can’t even picture your pops with no grey beard. Real shit. I hate that shit for him. I understand why you accepted his apology, though. I know how it is. I know you ain’t accept that shit for him. That shit was for you, just like I told you before you got out the truck to go in that muhfucka. You always say you have to forgive folks so you can move on and move past the shit they did to you. Harboring that hurt only does more harm to yourself, and it continues to give them power over you that you know they don’t deserve,” Smoke recited.
“Oh, so, your hard-headed ass do be listening to me, huh? You just gone quote me like that, though? Just throw my own shit in my face like that?” Danger joked.
“I be listening,” Smoke confirmed with a smirk. “I listen ‘cause you be right, though. That shit be on point, Cuz.”
“Yeah, well, it’s nice to know ‘cause you shole ain’t never gave me even the slightest hint that you done heard a word of the shit I say.”
“You know I be hearing you, but whatever, nigga. So, what else did Unc say?”
“What you mean?”
“What else did he say? Ain’t no apology got you looking the way you looking. I know that look. You over there thinking too hard for me to believe all them grinding-ass gears is over an apology. Plus, you said ‘first’ when you said he apologized.”
“Nigga, what?”
“You said ‘first.’ ‘First he apologized.’ That’s what you said. What came second? What was next?” Smoke pried.
“He had some information on the Zo nigga,” he bluntly revealed.
“Zo? How the fuck he know about the shit with Zo?” Smoke questioned with a scowl.
"Apparently, some of Zo’s lil homies been in there running they mouth about how Zo out here eating while his soldiers is starving. The nigga been tryna recruit the young niggas to help him with some kind of plan he got to get at me, but ain’t none of his fishes biting. He ain’t been paying them they regular wages, so don’t none of them believe he gone pay for the hit either.”
“Hit?” Smoke screeched. “This nigga tryna off you, Cuz?”
“That’s what it looks like,” Danger confirmed with an exasperated sigh.
“You mean to tell me this nigga is doing all this over LayLay? She wasn’t even his bitch! This nigga got a whole bitch at home! Why the fuck is he tripping over his side pussy?” Smoke was outraged.
“That shit with him and Lay-Lay go deep, but I can’t get into all that. Just know Lay-Lay explained the shit to me, and I understand why he tripping over her. What I don’t understand is why he think he finna just come at me and I’m supposed to make this shit easy for him.”
“What I don’t understand is why this nigga ain’t got no respect for the nigga who won. I mean, he played the game and lost his bitch… no disrespect to Lay-Lay,” he excused his language. “That should be the end of the shit. There shouldn’t be no get back after that. There ain’t shit to get back! Lay-Lay clearly don’t want shit to do with the nigga, and if he off you, she still ain’t gone want shit to do with him. In fact, that’ll just fuck his chances up even worse! This nigga is stupid as fuck, Cuz!” he ranted.
“I know that, and you know that. Hell, Lay-Lay said the same damn thing. The lack of respect is the whole problem with this nigga. The nigga done had an issue with me for years. We all know that. He ain’t been quiet about the fact that he don’t like me, but as long as that nigga stayed in his place and out the way, wasn’t no issue. Now, he out here tryna get a bunch of young niggas to handle his personal shit, and the young niggas ain’t going, not just because he ain’t paying them proper, but because my name carries weight in the streets. The young niggas respect me out here. They see the shit I’m doing and the way I move, and they respect that shit. This nigga, though… don’t respect shit. He see what I got and who I got, and all he knows is he wants it, so he feels like he can just take it. The quickest way to take it is to get rid of me… or so he thinks.”
“Mane, Cuz, I ain’t gone lie to you. This shit got me heated. I know you sitting over there coming up with some shit, but, real talk, all we need to do is whack this nigga, and I mean ASAP like Rihanna’s baby daddy. For real.”
“Believe me, I want nothing more than to make Swiss cheese out of this nigga, but we gotta be smart about the shit. The nigga been running his mouth too much. Too many people know he been after me. If I make the wrong move, it’ll be obvious me and my folks did the shit. An open investigation on me is an open investigation on us, and the last thing we need is twelve snooping around my house on a murder and finding some bigger shit they weren’t even looking for,” he glared at Smoke and hinted.
“I feel you, Cuz. You know how I roll. You just say the word and I got you. No muhfucking questions,” Smoke assured him.
Danger paused the conversation as he peered at the screen of his ringing cell phone.
“Dee, what’s up? Talk to me,” he answered the phone. “Say what?… When?… Well, how long has it been since you talked to her?… Nah. I talked to her last night. She had an appointment with her OB/GYN to confirm the pregnancy. She called me when she made it home. She said the doctor confirmed she’s pregnant, and he gave her a prescription for some prenatal vitamins that she got filled as soon as she left the office. She said she was about to lay down and she’d call me when she got up… Naw, she ain’t called, but she don’t really get up until about noon anyway, and I was at the prison visiting my dad around that time… I don’t know!… Fuck if I know, Dee, but find her ass!… Hell naw! Find her!”
Danger nearly punched the End button and then squeezed his phone so hard he was certain it was about to break. His heart raced as his eyes saw the red of spilled blood.
“Smoke, I need you to drive this fucking truck and get us back to Memphis, mane,” he growled.
“Cuz, what the fuck?” Smoke questioned as he leaned into the gas.
“They done took Alayzia! Somebody done kicked in the front door of my fucking house!