Wifey: Part 2

But once Prince had shot up Bebo’s funeral, the people loyal to Bebo had a slight change of heart and had to come to grips with the fact that it just might have been Prince who had gunned down Bebo. Everyone knew Prince had killed Lo and maimed BJ, so common sense said that he very well could have been the one that needed to be targeted, not Nico.

So Nico chose to stay in the safe haven of his house until Prince either got killed or locked up. He wasn’t bold enough to go hunt him down and kill him. Nico knew Prince was smart, and he didn’t want to slip up somehow and have Prince turn the tables on him if he went after him.

With Nico home and Jasmine home, Nico almost by default started to talk about things on the phone while in her presence. One morning, about a week after the drug transaction in Brooklyn Bridge Park, Jasmine woke up but stayed in the bed and acted like she was still sleeping. Nico was talking on his cell phone loud enough for her to hear what he was saying. But the thing was, he was talking in codes, and she couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was saying.

Nico eventually walked out of the room, and Jasmine stayed in the bed for twenty more minutes before she made her way down to the kitchen and started to make breakfast. While she prepared waffle batter, Nico walked up to her and kissed her on the cheek.

“What was that for?”

“I just wanted to kiss you.”

”What else you want?”

“Whatever you feel like making is cool with me.”

Jasmine told him that she was going to make an omelet and hash browns to go with the waffles.

“Let me ask you something,” Nico said.

Jasmine looked at him, so he w

ould know that he had her attention.

“We got this major deal going down in Miami and—”

Jasmine stopped mixing the waffle batter and held up her hand. “Wait, I want to be crystal clear on something. I don’t want you telling me anything about what you do, about any drug deals, anything happening in the street, or none of that. Because if you noticed, the past couple of weeks have been so cool, I been waking up and making breakfast. I been cooking dinner. We haven’t been arguing or anything. And I realized that it seemed like we went off the track when you lost trust in me and you was thinking I was talking to the police. So the best way to solve that is to just not tell me anything, and then we’ll have peace and harmony. Okay? And I’m not saying that in a smart-ass way. I’m just being honest.”

Nico shook his head. “You wrong about that. I never stopped trusting you. You always read too much into my moods. I be stressed about all kinds of shit. Muthafuckas trying to gun me down and take over blocks and corners that I built up. Shit like that be weighin’ on a nigga. And while I’m dealing with bug shit, I don’t have time for no pillow-talk bullshit.”

“I’m not talking about pillow talk.”

“Whatever, Jasmine. I’m not fighting you. I need your advice on some shit! Gotdamn!”

“Okay, so what’s up?” Jasmine stopped what she was doing and gave Nico her full attention. Her BlackBerry was on the kitchen counter recording every word.

“I’m supposed to meet with this Haitian nigga named Patrick down in Miami. All these Haitian dudes named Patrick or Pierre, but this Patrick ain’t the same Patrick who runs shit. The Patrick who runs shit got murdered two weeks back. And this new Patrick is the other Patrick’s lieutenant. He’s like BJ to me. But the thing is, I don’t know if he had something to do with his boss getting killed, and I’m going back and forth in my head about trusting this nigga. I don’t know if I should find a new connect or just trust this dude.”

“Don’t do it. He sounds grimy, and you’ll go down there and get robbed or killed. It ain’t worth it.”

“Ain’t nobody scared of the nigga; it’s just about trusting him.”

“It’s all the same thing. I wouldn’t go.”

Nico blew air out his lungs and explained how shit was drying up ever since they lost their FedEx hook up. “We gotta get the best product on the street. That bitch-ass Prince got the best product right now. And I can’t be second best to nobody.”

Jasmine kept quiet.

“I can’t send BJ, and Lo is gone. And I don’t trust the young guns on something this big.”

“How big is the deal?”

“Low seven figures.”

“Damn. How you gonna get that up to New York?”

Nico explained that he had a private trucking company owner who would move it for him.

“See, that’s different now. You have to do that deal yourself and be riding in that little sleep-away area that they got on them tractor trailers.” She laughed.