Wifey: Part 2

“Of course, I would.”

“You full of shit.”

“No, BJ, really I would, because if he was in jail, then I would know where I stand, and I would know what’s up.”

“Well, listen. Between me and you, I told Nico to stay outta New York for a while. And if anybody wants that nigga in New York right now, it’s me. I want Nico here going to war for me, but I know the game, and I know the s

treets. This shit is like playing chess. And right now, you got the feds coming at us, you got NYPD coming at us, we got snitches in Ghetto Mafia looking to snake us, we got other crews coming for our throat, and we got confidential informants helping the feds build a case on us. So it’s coming at us from all sides right now. I know that, and Nico knows that. So for right now and for the time being, it just makes sense for us to get this bread outta town. And we getting it right now in Miami. And when the time is right, Nico will be around, and you’ll be feeling like wifey again and all that. But for right now you just got to hold the nigga down just like if he was doing a bid or something.”

“I understand.”

“You ain’t hurting for nothing, right?”

“No, I’m good.” Jasmine made sure not to say anything about her new SoHo apartment.

“You keeping your shit tight for Nico, right?”

Jasmine gave BJ a look that told him not to even go there.

“I gotta ask.”

“No, you don’t. You already know the answer to that question.”

BJ chuckled. “Nico will be around when he’s around. But we trying to stay off them phones, and we staying off the radar until the time is right. When all these dumb-ass niggas out here go to prison, we gonna be the only smart ones still getting it. You feel me?”

“You leaving town too?”

“Me and Ish gonna be right here keeping an eye on your slick ass.”

“What you mean by that?”

Jasmine was already feeling self-conscious about the comment that BJ had made earlier about confidential informants.

BJ chuckled. “I’m just fuckin’ wit’chu. I gotta deal with these surgeries that I got coming up, so I’m here.”

“I’m sorry about what had happened to Lo.”

“This is our life. You know how it goes.”

Jasmine didn’t immediately reply to his words, but she definitely understood where he was coming from.

“This is our life, baby girl,” BJ repeated. “Just hold your tongue.”

Jasmine immediately looked BJ square in the eyes but didn’t say anything, and neither did he. She moved closer to him and kissed him on the forehead before telling him that she had to go.

The streets were definitely Nico’s, BJ’s, and Ghetto Mafia’s life, and it was also now Jasmine’s life. It was a life that came with riches and fame, but it also came with violence, death, prison, and all kinds of worries. Jasmine was super worried. She was wondering if BJ and Nico were on to her role as a confidential informant. She knew that to really survive and make it in the life they lived required a certain level of smarts and skills like a chess player, and a certain level of acting, like an Oscar winner.

Jasmine knew that she was acting and playing the role as a confidential informant. But she just hoped that BJ and Nico weren’t better actors than she was. If they were, there was going to be a murder scene in which she would be playing the victim. She wondered if she should heed BJ’s advice to hold her tongue.

Twenty-Nine

“Sak passé.”

“Sak passé,” Mia replied, smiling as she sat up in her beach chair to take a break from tanning her body on Miami’s famous South Beach.

Mia was trying her hardest to remember the Haitian girl’s name. She didn’t want to be rude and ask, so she just continued to smile and play things off as she sipped on her piña colada.

“Yeah, so like I was saying, if you want me to take you around later on and show you some different areas, I can do that.”