The Syndicate by Brick Page B

stepped to the car seeing Shanelle exit it and then threw it in my black Lexus. Turning back to everyone, I glared at my family and pushed up the sleeves of my black button-down shirt just to try to rein in my devastation. Yeah, I was wrecked. Broken by what just went down and I didn’t have the words to communicate that I was legit scared for my family at this point.
    My brother dropped his head as I stared at him with my arm out pointing. I could see Lamont was conflicted too but he didn’t back down.
    â€œI wasn’t about to let no nigga take you out, not by just sitting there doing nothing when I know that I can fight. Yeah, I graduated last year but I’ve always been in the streets, you know that. Handling those bitches wasn’t nothing for me because it’s what I do and how I’m wired, brah. So yeah, I guess I am ready to be on some G shit if that means protecting you and protecting family, man,” he said pounding his fist against his chest.
    Anguish cut across my heart. I lived my life up to the point of living with Mama Claudette by crafting a survival plan for my little brother and me. It was easier back then. All I had to protect was me and him. This shit was different. I wasn’t an innocent child making threats just because someone got in my face and was trying to harm me or take from me.
    Now, I was a grown-ass man, making threats that I had to follow through on to keep my family alive. I had to become the streets I was born into. I had to become that nigga I hated. A nigga who killed and took with no remorse because his dick got off on the power of eliciting fear in others. Or, because he was just too fucking dumb and lazy to even be able to think that he could do more than fuck up a community and kill people for his own gain. I had to become that.
    Naw, I was now being forced to become that and it was driving me crazy. Mama Claudette had rewired my mind to see that I could do more than be the streets, and now I had to flip that switch back? Everyone around me was looking to me to do that?
    Fuck.
    My life wasn’t my own.
    Stepping up to me Cory locked eyes on me but kept his distance. “What we did ain’t nothing new, Von. There was no way that we wouldn’t watch your back.”
    â€œWhy were y’all there? That’s what I don’t understand. Why were y’all there? I asked, incredulous.
    My little brother blew out steam, looked around then slid his hands in the pockets of his jeans before addressing me. “First off, none of us want this life either, Von,” Cory said with a gentle touch in his voice; but there was something off about him. I couldn’t place my finger on it just yet and my mind was still trying to process all that had gone down anyway. “But it’s falling in on us. We came to talk to you about it since you haven’t been answering our phone calls.”
    I shook my head cutting my eyes as I thumbed my nose. “So you’re not in front of me right now to plead your case of why I should be accepting of all this bullshit? You’re not trying to live the grandiose life and kick it like Tony Montana huh?” The last of what I said was spit out in sarcastic Spanish.
    Mimicking my sarcastic laugh, Cory glanced briefly at Shanelle then Lamont before sighing. “Nah, but we need you to be.” Walking up on me Cory pointed back with urgency at where we came from. “ Hermano, did you not see how those fuckers were? They were testing you and ready to take you out in one blow because you are a threat to them. We are a threat to them. Clear your mind. None of us wants this shit, none of us, but we got it. We inherited it and now we have to follow through with it or we’ll all be lying right next to Mama.”
    Turning from them my head spun out of control with everything that was being said. A closed-off part of me that remembered what it was like to be in the streets whispered in my mind. It was a