Page 15

I laughed.

“Go downstairs first.”

Avery listened at the door before slipping out.

I waited.

Ten seconds.

Twenty.

Thirty.

Then I turned off the shower, splashed some water on my face and looked at myself in the mirror.

Samantha had probably been gone twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes.

That was all it took for me to fuck up.

Again.

I headed downstairs.

Before I even reached the bottom, I heard Levin talking to Zion.

“You supposed to be Batman?”

“I am Batman.”

“You?”

“Yes!”

“You eight years old. Gotham got child labor laws.”

Zion started cracking up.

I smiled and came down the last few steps.

Levin was standing in my living room.

Seven years hadn’t broken my brother.

If anything, prison had made him quieter.

Harder.

Before Levin went away, he had already been getting real money.

And I ain’t talking about no little corner-boy shit either.

My brother had his hands in a lot of shit back then. Coke. Heroin. Whatever was making money and moving fast enough to make the risk worth it. He used to fuck with them Union City niggas heavy too. Had people over there, Newark, Jersey City, New York. Levin had connections everywhere and somehow always knew somebody who knew somebody.

That was the difference between me and him.

I might’ve known some niggas.