“You know what’s more beautiful?” asked Lamar. “Mossberg just entered the building looking like for trip to the eighties with them dry ass braids.”

“I got him,” Gunna said. “Party time,” he added, taking his arm from Amilli’s waist. “Excuse me, I gotta go to the powder room.”

“No,” Lamar said through closed teeth. “Hell no, you better not.” His anger dripped into their ears as he forbade Gunna from going to snort cocaine while on the job.

Twenty minutes later, Mossberg was next to Amilli, having worked his way across the marble floor. “Now this is why I always loved a Slam party,” he stated. “He has the sexiest guests.”

“This is a sexy venue,” offered Amilli.

“Oh, changing the subject,” said Mossberg. “You’re clever and too beautiful to be alone.”

“She’s not,” Gunna said, standing between them.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Mossberg asked.

Amilli walked to the exit.

“Yeah, muthafucka,” Gunna said, pulling a shot gun from under his jacket. “A Mossberg just for you,” he said, shooting him three times.

Before he hit the floor, Gunna pointed the gun in the air and yelled for people to get out of his way, running towards the exit. Nearing the exit, a beefy undercover security guard kicked him in the side forcing him to Slam into the wall. He lost his gun, fell to the floor, and heard, “Don’t make another mutha-fuckin-move. You breathe wrong, I’mma bust a cap in your black ass.”

CHAPTER 35

After making it back to the apartment, Lamar and Hamma sat highly disappointed at the fact that the plan went so well, but Gunna blew the opportunity to get away.

“I told you, Lambchop. I fuckin’ told you. Gunna was all high on that powder and fucked up our shit. Now he locked the fuck up,” Trap said, pacing back and forth around the living room.

Hamma said, “Why the fuck we even take that nigga, man?” He was mad as hell, laid back with a firearm over his eyes visualizing his eventual arrest. “I coulda been her date and killed him.”

Gunna being caught on the scene with a gun, having stolen a life, didn’t bode well with Lamar. He quietly tried to figure out everyone’s next move.

“That nigga, Gunna, he gonna tell. I feel it,” Trap said, punching the sofa.

“Man, I ain’t got him down for that. He a dickhead and all, but I don’t think he’s going to tell,” Lamar said.

“Shit, I know he gonna tell,” Hamma suggested. “We gotta get outta town, for at least a week.”

“Yeah, we gotta slide, ASAP,” Trap said, agreeing with a head nod.

Suddenly, Lamar’s phone rang with an unknown number.

“I ain’t going nowhere. Y’all can, but I’m not sleepin’ until I down Slam,” Lamar snarled, answering his phone. He heard someone laughing. “Yo,” he said into the receiver.

“Lambchop? Wassup?” the caller asked.

“Man, I ain’t for the games right now. Who the fuck is this?”

“So you’re not going to sleep until you down me, huh?” Slam asked, laughing. “Cute, I must say, but it’s a shame you really don’t know who you fuckin’ with.”

“Well, if it isn’t this bitch-ass clown,” Lamar said, putting his phone on speaker for Hamma and Trap to hear the ensuing conversation.

“That shit you just pulled at my party was gangsta, but, unfortunately, not enough to go against me.”

“I’m not even in Philly, nut, so I don’t know ‘bout ya lame ass party.” He lied. “But I do promise when I catch ya old ass, I’mma rock you. You got me fucked up calling me. I’m true to this street shit.” He shook his head and laughed.

“You up one for now, but you writing a check ya ass can’t cash.”

Cutting his threat short, Lamar calmly said, “I’m up a few, and never saw a check that I can’t cash. Money long! Bank teller mad cuz she got to count it all out.”

“We gon’ see, ‘cause I’m def gon’ test ya reach.”

“Aye, old head, let me ask you something,” Trap said.

“Who dat, one of ya bitches, Lambchop?” Slam shot back, laughing.

“Somebody you don’t want to meet, same shit you heard before you got poked up in the shower,” Trap said, stopping Slam’s laughter. “You barely healed up from that. Yeah, we sent you that warning. We the kinda niggas getting money and still would blow ya skimmer right off ya shoulders. You ever saw that?”

“Fuck you, you li’l pussy,” Slam said. “I’ll be through the block to take back what’s mine. You know what happened last time some young punks was on my block making money.”

“Yup,” Lamar said, chuckling. “Your dumb ass got thirty years. Proof you weren't getting money, or that sentence would have been far lower.”

Trap and Hamma were laughing uncontrollably.

“Laugh now, nigga.”

“I’mma get my youngin’ to put a li’l one-fifty pack together for you. Just bring him back one-twenty,” Lamar continued, laughing.

“You have no idea. I got the kinda old money to pay some body to die for me. Remember that. See you in traffic, li’l lamb, and when I do, I’mma silence you,” Slam said, hanging up the phone.

AN HOUR LATER, AMILLI arrived in Baltimore and made her way to the Hyatt Hotel room that she’d slept in the night before with Lamar. She laid in bed and could smell him because they left the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door to avoid housekeeping from changing the sheets. She turned on the TV and ran bath water before calling room service to order for two. Two, because, how else would Lamar have an alibi for being in Baltimore. Far away from the killing of Franklin Moss.

CHAPTER 36

Tuesday. Three days later.

“This shit here some fire.” Hamma coughed, as he continued to take long drags of the sour diesel that Trap provided.

“Yeah, youngin’, you gotta keep that shit coming in. Fuck that other shit,” Lamar said.