BOSS TOOK LLOYD SHOPPING and got the young boy all new clothes as well as things for school, since the two of them were in agreement that since Lloyd would be living with him, Vanity, and Trigger, Lloyd would be enrolled in school. Boss also spent time talking with the young boy and found out that he was sixteen and his birthday was in two weeks—the same day as his own. Boss also learned that the boy’s mother no longer lived in the state. She had left Lloyd’s father and moved away with some guy with whom she had been cheating on the father.
Boss heard his name and looked back over his right shoulder after both he and Lloyd left the Ralph Lauren store. Boss held up Lloyd, who saw Trigger jogging to catch up with them.
“What’s good, big bruh?” Trigger said as he stopped in front of Boss.
With one arm embracing Trigger, Boss re-introduced Lloyd and then explained that Lloyd was coming to live with them now.
“I remember, lil’ homie,” Trigger stated as he dapped up with Lloyd, but then looked back to Boss. “Yo, big bruh. Your lady’s at this huge-ass building, and after I told her I was coming over here to hook up with you, she wanted me to tell you to come through if you wasn’t busy.”
“You ready to go, or you still shopping, youngin’?” Boss asked Lloyd.
“I’m good, big homie,” Lloyd answered, holding up both hands that were filled with more than four bags each.
“Let’s get outta here then!” Boss said as the three of them started toward the exit.
Once they were outside, Trigger broke off to head to his bike while Boss and Lloyd headed for his Ferrari. Boss then hit the locks as they approached the car, at the same time that his cell phone rang with a call from Eazy.
“What’s good, playboy?” Boss said as he climbed into his car.
“Bruh, where you at?”
“Back on my end, why? What’s good?”
“Both Magic and Rico just got back at me about what we discussed, and I just did a headcount of the niggas rolling with the team. With the sixteen I already got, we have a total count of thirty-eight.”
“Wow, thirty-eight, huh?” Boss repeated. As he was leaving the parking lot, he spotted Trigger already waiting for him. “Eazy, check it. Gimme an hour and I’ma be back on that end. But make sure you let each of the thirty-eight guys know that if they’re not really trying to get dirty, they shouldn’t be there when I get there. Because I’m expect nothing but niggas ready to put in work to get this money. Period!”
“I got you, my nigga!” Eazy told Boss, before hanging up the phone.
Boss tossed his iPhone inside the center console after Eazy hung up. He then glanced over at Lloyd and saw the little man nodding his head to Rick Ross’s “I Think She Likes Me” playing from the stereo. He turned up the music, which made Lloyd smile in return.
* * *
Boss followed Trigger from the mall for a twenty-minute ride until they were pulling inside of a big parking lot with a huge two-story building. Boss parked his Ferrari next to Vanity’s Stingray, but noticed the black Mercedes S63 parked on the opposite side of her car.
After Boss put up the top since Lloyd’s bags were going to be inside, they climbed out and saw Trigger walking up beside them.
“How’s it look inside?” Boss asked as they walked around the back end of the car where Lloyd stood waiting for them.
“It’s big as hell, big bruh!” Trigger told Boss, smiling as the three of them left the parking lot and headed up the concrete steps to the four-glass-door entrance.
Once they walked inside the building and saw nothing but open space, Boss looked to his left and heard Vanity’s voice as she called out to him from way across the room.
* * *
“That’s my husband!” Vanity announced to the flirtatious leasing agent who introduced himself as Frank Frasire.
She and Gigi left the disappointed-looking agent and started toward Boss, Trigger, and a young boy. Once they met, Vanity threw her arms around Boss’s neck and hugged him. She then slid her tongue into her man’s mouth in a passion-filled kiss. She broke the kiss after a moment.
“I didn’t think you were going to make it!” she announced.
“You wanted me here. I’m here!” Boss told Vanity as he nodded toward Gigi. “What’s up, shorty?”
“Hi, Boss!” Gigi replied, surprised at how insanely good looking her girl’s man was—even more so up close. “I’m Gigi. Vanity’s best friend.”
Boss nodded his head in response to Gigi, and then he leaned over and whispered something into Vanity’s ear for a few minutes. Vanity then leaned back and looked into Boss’s eyes and realized that he was serious about what he had just told her. She then looked over at the boy standing beside Boss.
“Hi, Lloyd. Boss told me you’re going to be living with us now.”
Vanity smiled at Lloyd’s shyness. She then released Boss and stepped over to the young man and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Let’s go see our new building Boss is letting me get!” she said to him.
Boss, Trigger, Lloyd, and Gigi followed Vanity over to meet Frank the leasing agent. Boss caught the look Vanity gave him when Frank began showing them the building.
“What do you think, babe?” Vanity asked Boss, a little bit after Frank began the tour of the building.
“This what you want?” Boss asked her as he looked around again.
“Yes, babe!” she replied as she wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned in against his side.
Boss nodded his head as he dropped his left arm across Vanity’s shoulders. He then looked over at Frank.
“How soon can she get started fixing the place up?”
“I need to start with the—!”
“Here!” Boss stated, digging out a knot of money from his pocket and peeling off $500 and handing it to Frank. “Do whatever it is you gotta do to get my lady inside this building as soon as the last minute that just passed us. Are we understanding each other?”
“Clearly, sir!” Frank answered with a smile on his face while he pocketed the money.
* * *
“Girl, I think I’m jealous!” Gigi told Vanity once the two of them were inside Vanity’s Corvette following Boss’s Ferrari out of the parking lot. “Boss is even sexier up close, Vanity! You say you met him on the Greyhound bus on the way home from Atlanta doing a party?”
“Yes, girl!” Vanity cried out smiling. “I almost lost my babe though to that bitch Privilege!”
“You mean Privilege who used to dance at Pink Palace?”
“Yeah. But what do you mean used to?”
“Girl, Privilege don’t work at Palace no more. I just saw her two days ago leaving.”
“Leaving to go where?”
“From what I heard, Privilege got herself into some shit and is leaving or already left town.”
Vanity remained quiet a moment after hearing the news, and she was certainly going to talk to Boss about what she had just learned.
“So, Vanity!” Gigi spoke up. “What’s up with Boss’s younger brother?”
“Who?” Vanity asked, glancing over at her girl. “You talking about Trigger?”
“Yes, girl! His ass is cute. He got a girl?”
“Why don’t you ask him?” Vanity told her girl, smiling at the thought of Gigi and Trigger together.
Once they made it to the townhouse and everyone was inside, Vanity and Boss allowed Lloyd to look through the house and pick out a room he wanted. But then Boss gave the young boy one rule, and that was to fully respect Vanity. He then left Vanity and Lloyd alone to meet up with Trigger.
Boss found his boy and Gigi together and peeped their vibe they were in. He then changed his route and headed into the kitchen to grab a Corona from the refrigerator, just as his cell phone went off.
“Boss, it’s Wright. I’ve got that information you asked me to pull up for you,” the detective explained. “I had to make you copies because the file isn’t small.”
“Alright. Meet me in a little while. I’ll call you and let you know where I’m going to be at.”
“I’ll see you then.”
After hanging up with Wright, Boss tossed the phone onto the countertop just as Vanity walked into the kitchen.
“You look tired,” she told Boss as she walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“I’ll be alright,” he replied. “How’s lil’ man doing?”
“He’ll be alright,” Vanity answered. “What happened to his face, Boss?”
“His pops beat ’im up!”
“Let me guess. You beat up his father because of it, didn’t you?”
Boss smirked at Vanity, realizing how well she was beginning to know him. He then changed the subject.
“I gotta leave town in a few minutes, shorty. I gotta handle something with the fellas, but I’ll try to get back before it gets too late.”
“I won’t expect you back too soon,” she told Boss. “Just be careful and get back home, okay?”
“You got that, ma,” Boss told her, kissing her forehead.
“Oh yeah!” Vanity said, remembering she had something to tell him. “I was talking to Gigi, and Brandi’s name came up. From what Gigi told me, Brandi left town. I guess because her plans didn’t work out how she hoped they would.”
Boss nodded his head but didn’t respond to what Vanity had just told him. Instead, he kissed her on her lips.
“Call me if you need me, or if you decide to come back into Miami.”
“Yes, daddy!” Vanity playfully said, just as Trigger walked into the kitchen.
“What’s up, big bruh? You ready to bounce?” Trigger asked Boss.
Vanity said her goodbyes to Boss and then kissed Trigger on the cheek. She followed them to the front door and then stood watching both her man and his best friend climb into Trigger’s Chevy 1500.
“Girl, don’t look all sad!” Gigi told her girl as she walked up beside Vanity. “That man will be back.”
“I already know that!” Vanity told Gigi, even though she was in the middle of saying a silent prayer for both her man and Trigger.
* * *
Destiny sat on the sofa at her rented condo and was supposedly watching the news, but she was actually waiting for Boss’s call. He had promised her that he would call her back after he finished up whatever the hell he was doing. Destiny then looked from the television to her cell phone that still sat silent beside her on the sofa, when it was supposed to be ringing off the hook with calls from Boss’s ass.
“Who the hell does he think he is?” Destiny heard herself say while still staring at her phone.
She really had a problem believing Boss wasn’t blowing up her phone, when she was always used to ignoring different guys calling and trying to get her attention and a little bit of her time.
She snatched up the cell phone from the sofa before she realized what she was doing. She pulled up his number and called. She listened to the line ring one and then twice, only for the voice mail to pick up.