Free King Maker: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 1 by Maurice Broaddus Page A

Rhianna, they'd laugh and laugh and laugh – they had such pretty laughs – but eventually they exhausted themselves. There were worse fates, he knew, like being ignored entirely.
      "Ladies, that's enough," Wayne snapped. He made a production of him clearing his plate in disgust, letting the girls' eyes linger on him, and joining the boy at his table. Percy lowered his eyes even more, his shoulders sank and he leaned his head away from him, the same body language Kay assumed when painfully cornered but not wanting to attack. "They didn't mean anything, Percy."
      "I know." The world was a simple place to Percy. There were good people (like Wayne) and there were bad people (like Prez). Better to be born simple and not realize the horrors around you. He looked up at Wayne with complete trust in his eyes. Theirs were a simple little band, assembled by loss.
      "Sometimes they go a little too far."
      "I know."
      "I happen to know they care about you." Wayne placed his hand on his shoulder. The boy flinched at the touch then shied away as if shamed by the contact.
      "I know."
      "You're probably the safest guy in their world and they don't know how to act around you."
      Lady G got up and walked over to the piano that sat at the other end of the room. It had been donated by a family which had no further need of it, but hadn't been serviced in a while. She pecked tunelessly at it. Percy closed his eyes as if enjoying a concert recital.
      "They can't trust. When you trust someone only to have them do you dirty…" Percy trailed off as he observed Wayne studying a crumpled piece of paper. He pushed the piece of paper under another.
      "Who is she?" Wayne noticed the resemblance to Rhianna but said nothing.
      "Just a girl," he said. " Little ones to Him belong. They are weak but He is strong."

CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
    If the corner were a slave plantation, Dollar was the overseer, the Negro chosen to ensure the other Negroes performed their assigned tasks. His tall, gangly frame – like a basketball player with not enough bulk – filled out his white Notre Dame jogging suit, his bloodshot glare held the menace of a whip ready to scourge any who weren't keeping up their end. A poorly grown goatee outlined his jaw. A black wavecap pulled snug under the jogging suit's hood. His crew were the field Negroes, steady grinding, toiling away; from the lookouts down the way to the runner passing product. The fiends? They were house Negroes, come to beg scraps from their master's table. Some he knew, others were just faces. These brokendown fools he knew because they ran with his boy, Tavon. Loose Tooth, the player formerly known as CashMoney, carried quite a bit of weight to him for a fiend. Though he had to be pushing forty, his body hadn't quite given into the wasting yet, but his mouth hadn't seen the inside of a dentist's office probably since the mid-'80s. Miss Jane, on the other hand, her dusty ass had to have an eye on her at all times. Always running games, she'd be the one who'd alert the master to any slaves trying to make an escape. In the end, they were all slaves to the game.
      Junie studied the scene with the desperation of a man cramming for finals he forgot were that day. He and Parker had waited until Green left. Though neither would have used the word "preternatural" to describe his mien, they knew that Green cast an aura that filled their veins with water. Once sufficient time had elapsed after his departure – his presence still managing to hold court for a time – they were ready to make their move. While Dollar's crew was occupied bullshitting with a couple of fiends, the pair crept toward them. They kept their weapons pointed toward the ground in their loping gait toward their targets. Young, black, and poor, they were the most dangerous men in America, with no hope and nothing to lose.
      "They coming up the block, yo," a lookout on a bike yelled as he whizzed by Dollar.
      Dollar