Free Pride by Noire

area code too.
    “Hold on,” she said into phone. “It’s my Nunna,” she told me, pressing the phone to her chest as she dug into her purse. “From Brooklyn.” She passed me the keys to her whip. “I’ll meet you in the car. Cut the air on,” she added, turning away, “because the seats are probably hot.”
    I caught the hint and headed toward the door. But as I was on my way out, I heard her say something crazy about FedEx arriving soon to pick up a crate of blood oranges.
    I knew damn well there was no 804 area code in Brooklyn, and the way Renata was acting was real suspicious. I couldn’t believe she was messing around on her husband, but on the real, if she was getting drilled by some dark meat from the Big 804, that was between her and Frankie. I didn’t even wanna know about it. Hell, this wasn’t Harlem, and I was no longer that fast young girl who always had to be in the know. Determined to mind my own bizz and give Renata the same respect she had always given me, I tipped out of her crib and closed the door behind me.
     

 
    CHAPTER 10
     
     
    Huddled in a back room of the G-Spot, they approached their plan like three blind mice. Late into the night Pluto, Ace, and Monique fussed like a bunch of bitches over how they could best use Salida to their advantage. A hundred different scenarios had been argued back and forth, and shortly before dawn they’d finally settled on a strategy. Although they had different approaches they wanted to take, all three schemers had agreed that Salida getting kicked out of that mental hospital was like getting a gift straight from G’s grave.
    They figured with G’s ex-wife back on the scene it was only natural that she would be anxious to see her only son right away. And it was also only natural that Gino would raise his head to answer his mother’s loving call. And wherever Gino was hiding Juicy – and G’s money – were sure to be somewhere close by.
    Ace and Pluto saw eye-to-eye when it came to picking up Salida and bringing her back to New York so they could position her to their advantage. But after that is where they split.
    Ace wanted to use Salida as bait to lure Gino out of hiding just as bad as Monique and Pluto did. But he also wanted to set her up in a chill little crib and treat her in a manner that was befitting of Granite McKay’s wife.
    “Yeah, our paper might be a lil short,” Ace insisted, “but whatever ends we got coming through the door is because G stacked shit up that way. Salida is his rightful heir, yo, and we gotta set her up lovely ’cause that’s what G woulda expected us to do. Anything short of that is gonna be like shitting on our manz.”
    Pluto, on the other hand was like, fuck no.
    “He put her in a nut-house , my nig! That chick is prolly crazy as shit. Yo, we gotta trust G. That niggah knew exactly what the fuck he was doing when he banished her ass from the Empire! He stashed her out there in no-man’s-land for a reason , slime.”
    Pluto shook his head. “I’m down to go spring her ass outta that hospital joint and all, but I’m cool on the rest of that shit. She’s got mad family out in Brooklyn, right? Well then she should stay out there and leave Harlem the fuck alone. Let them Puerto Rican muh’fuckas take her in and set her up. She’s they blood, not ours.”
    Manipulation was Monique’s middle name so she had been sure to keep quiet during this part of the discussion and let the two big men duke it out. She waited until each of them had feverishly argued their case, and then she calmly suggested a compromise that she believed would satisfy them both.
    “Y’all know Salida’s been stuck out there in that crazy-house by herself for a minute now,” she said quietly. “She might not wanna be on her own just yet. Maybe we can take her to her sister’s crib in Brooklyn so she can be around her family and they can look out for her, but then send somebody to bring her to the Spot every night if she wants