We slept together all tangled up in the sheets. During the night I felt Gino pull the comforter over me and kiss my cheek, but I was too dick-whipped to respond.

The next morning I woke up first, and as soon as I stretched my body I felt a pleasing ache from the delicious sex Gino had put on me. I turned over toward him smiling, but suddenly thoughts of Jimmy came rushing back to me and my smile became a frown. Yeah, I’d been getting my stuff stroked all night, but what had been happening to my brother?

Gino rolled over and ran his big hand roughly over my hair.

“You alive?”

Despite myself, I smiled. “Just barely. You wasn’t even trying to beat this stuff up, was you? No, you tried to kill it!”

He laughed. “Hurt me… Hurt me…”

I sat up and my full breasts jiggled. Gino reached over and cupped one in his hand, his fingers lazily trailing over my erect nipples. My stuff thumped and became slippery, and I quickly slid back down in the bed letting Gino pull me into his arms. We spent the next hour trying to stock up on the loving we had missed living under G’s roof.

After ordering breakfast we showered and put back on our clothes from the day before. Housekeeping brought us some toothbrushes and we joked each other about who needed to use them the most.

When it was time to leave my stomach started humming again. Stress was kicking me in the ass, and for a minute I wanted to do something crazy. I didn’t wanna go back to Harlem, back to G and all of his damned drama. Especially if G found out I’d been in his safe. I was ready to fix my mouth to tell Gino to drive west instead of north when we got back out on the road. He was all the time talking about California and how he was going back there to start his architectural firm. At this point I was game to go with him. He could start his business while I finished college, and maybe then we could raise us some cute curly-haired babies with smooth chocolate skin.

All of this yang was floating through my head, but none of it came out of my mouth. How could it? Gino mighta been down to jet and leave his father, but there was no way in hell I was leaving my brother. No. Fuck the dumb shit. I was going back to Harlem to wait for Jimmy, and I promised myself that if my baby brother hadn’t shown up within twenty-four hours after we arrived, I’d be calling the feds on G.

The weather was still nasty on the drive back home but at least the snow plows had been out clearing the roads overnight. Gino drove slow on the Garden State Parkway anyway, taking his time as we listened to a few CDs by Beyoncé, 50 Cent, and Outkast.

All too soon we were going through the Lincoln Tunnel, up toward Port Authority, and the end of our trip was only minutes away. What me and Gino had shared was way past special, but now it was time for us to get back to reality.

It was just after two when we pulled up in front of the G-Spot, and almost as soon as Gino stepped out the Benz, Moonie bust out the door with Pluto and Ace right behind him. They bum rushed through the snow toward us with killer looks on their faces.

I saw a bat gripped in Ace’s hand. “W-w-what the fuck?”

Pluto and Ace tried to grab hold of Gino, who broke loose and started throwing blows. It was two against one, but Gino was holding shit down like a superstar, fucking both of them fat niggahs up.

But then Pluto caught him with a good punch. Gino was spinning around from drilling Ace when Pluto put all his ass behind the blow and connected with Gino’s temple. Gino went down and I screamed. Moonie was trying to hold me back, but I was a Harlem girl who’d eaten beans out the can, and if my man was thumping in the street then I was damn sure gonna jump in and help him.

I swung my Timbs and kicked Moonie in the balls and then jumped on Ace’s back. He was swinging his bat at Gino’s head when I bit down into that fucker’s back like it was a piece of lobster dipped in butter. That grimy nigger tasted just like salt pork.

“Get this bitch!” Ace yelled, and Moonie grabbed me from behind putting me in a sleep-hold.

“Get the fuck offa me!” I tried to scream, but he was choking me so hard all that came out was a wheeze.

“Chill, Juicy,” I heard Moonie whispering in my ear as Pluto and Ace beat the shit out of Gino. “Quit fighting it, girl. G set y’all motherfuckers up. Jimmy’s safe on the Lower East Side with Cooter, but G knows all about you and Gino, girl, and one of y’all is gonna have to die.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

They dragged us both down to the Dungeon, kicking and fighting the whole way.

Moonie tossed me onto a nasty mattress, while Pluto, Ace, and two other big niggas pinned Gino down on the ground. The Dungeon looked just like it sounded. Dingy and dark. We were in a small, bare room and the mattress I was laying against was the only furniture in sight.

G came down the stairs and I started shaking like a mother. As usual he looked pressed out in expensive everything, and even his cologne smelled like money.

Jimmy is safe, I reassured myself. Moonie said Jimmy was safe, and that was all that mattered.

G stood there staring at his son. He didn’t even bother to look at me, which was cool because I was scared of what I’d see in his eyes.

“Gino, Gino, Gino. You always were your mother’s son.”

Gino cursed at Pluto and tried to ram his shoulder in his gut.

“Know why I didn’t give you my name? You ever wonder about that? How you came to be Gino instead of Granite II?”

“Do I look like I give a fuck?”

G laughed. “I knew you wasn’t shit the minute you jumped out of that bitch’s ass! I knew you wasn’t gonna be man enough, hard enough to handle my name. Damn.” G shook his head. “You almost inherited an empire. A ready-made cash cow that I built with my own two hands, and you let a stink piece of pussy get you bent.”

G moved closer to Gino, who was straining to break free of all the rough hands that held him back. I saw his muscles jumping through his shirt and all I could do was hold my breath and pray.

“Salida the slut,” G continued. “You just like that dirty bitch. I should have been a better magician though. Instead of wasting my paper on that white-boy college I shoulda made your punk ass disappear right along with hers.”

Wasn’t no holding Gino back. He broke free of all them niggas and jumped on G, knocking him backward and down to the ground. For a moment, they were scrapping, the young against the old, the father against the son. And then Gino was muscled down again, niggas five deep dove on top of him and pinned him once more, then pulled out their guns and started denting his head.

G got up, wiping his lip. Both of them were strong and built, but Gino had drawn first blood, and I was proud of my man for that.

“Take him back to the apartment and guard him for the next two days,” G said. “Don’t give this niggah a bite of my food or a drop of my water neither. If he gotta piss, let him do it in his pants. Let him shit in them, too. I want four of y’all on him. Twenty-four/seven. Fuck him up good if he gives you any flack. Forty-eight hours from now I want you to take this motherfucker down to Kennedy and put his ass on the first thing smoking out west.”

Ace looked up from the fighting heap and asked, “What if he don’t wanna go? What if this nigga won’t get on the plane?”

G didn’t even hesitate as they dragged his only son fighting and bleeding up the basement steps.

“Then kill him.”

G was gonna kill me, too. I could see it in his eyes.

He told everybody to get the fuck upstairs and they jetted with a quickness. As soon as they were gone G went crazy, slapping me, punching me, and bending my arms back until my shoulder bones popped. That motherfucker kicked my ass. Plain and simple, that’s what he did.