Freeze met them at JFK airport in New York at 10:30 that morning and drove them straight to Cuisine, a supper club that Mike owned. Their flight left Miami at 5:30, but they had an hour layover in Atlanta. During the flight, Nick and Bobby slept, while Mike looked out the window at the early morning sun above the clouds. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t sleep.
The only thing on his mind was Shy. Was she all right? Who had her? Where were they taking her? If they were holding her for ransom, why no demand? Hundreds of possibilities and countless questions rolled around in his mind. When they arrived at Cuisine, they stopped at the bar before heading to what was now Freeze’s office.
"Freeze," Mike said.
"Yo."
"Tell me what’s up with Bitch-ass D-Train?" Mike asked, more to take his mind off Shy than anything else.
"Last couple of nights his people been postin’ up in our spots. I thought he was smarter than that, to just roll up in our spots and set up shop. What they think I was gonna do? Nothin’ they could do to avoid the consequences."
"He sees this as an opportunity. Me gone, Bobby layin’ back, makes it look like your strength is exhausted. We need to deal with this now or other muthafuckas will raise up outta nowhere to try some shit like this."
"You knew sooner or later this was gonna happen. We had a long run. Peaceful," Bobby said, "everybody respectin’ everybody’s position and everybody making money. Muthafuckas ain’t got no respect for shit."
"Don’t be so hard on them, Bobby. That was us ten years ago. Young, not afraid of shit, we took power. We saw Andre slippin’, layin’ back, lettin’ us run the show. Like we doin’ now, me kickin’ it in the Bahamas, you playin’ the role. This was bound to happen sooner or later."
"See what you started when you killed Chilly, Nick?" Bobby asked, and Nick simply nodded his head. Before Nick killed him, Chilly ran most of the drugs uptown. He used to deal for Andre back in the day. It was Chilly who made peace with Mike, and they set up the dead zone where nobody would deal. Now D-Train was trying to step up to Chilly’s position by moving on the dead zone.
"What do we do now? Freeze asked. Whether Mike intended to or not, he made Freeze feel like this was happening because somebody, maybe everybody saw him as weak; somebody they could roll over. He knew that whatever happened from this point forward, he would have to take the lead, step up and crush this nigga quick.
"The thing to do now is figure out what your enemies are plannin’ and stop them. The next thing to do, and hopefully you have, is prevent any more of his people from tryin’ to set up in our houses."
"We need to start takin’ the shit to them, Black. He set up in Rocky’s old spot," Freeze recommended.
"Just fall up in there and start blastin’?" Bobby asked.
"We used to," Mike said. The timing of this wasn’t lost on him. This couldn’t be happening at a worse time. What he should have been doing was concentrating his attention, his efforts, and his power on fighting off the takeover bid, but he couldn’t. All his resources were tied up in finding Shy. His enemy would know that and exploit it. A smart enemy would make it happen.
As Nick and Freeze went to the office, Mike and Bobby continued the conversation. "I remembered reading once that it is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can understand the profitable way of conducting it."
"And the best thing is to take over our operation intact. Destroying it isn’t the smart move," Bobby said.
"Exactly my point, Bobby. That ain’t Curl. On his best day he wouldn’t have the brains to try this. He wouldn’t see the profit in it. You want somebody to kick in some doors, do some killin’ and be brutal about it, Curl’s your man, but not like this." Mike paused. "Somebody is pullin’ his strings. That’s who our enemy is."
When Mike and Bobby came in the office, they found Freeze on the phone, nodding his head, and Nick seated comfortably on the couch. Freeze looked at Mike and then to Nick.
"Who was on the phone?"
"Angelo. He says he needs to see you as soon as you can. Says it important."
"He say what it was about?"
"Nick."