G was like that with his people, too. Everybody who worked for him, from the cleaning ladies on up to Greco, who was in charge of the staff, and Moonie, who was the chief of security, got paid out the ass. G was conniving and cutthroat, but he believed in sharing the sugar, and his philosophy was that when everybody got fed, everybody stayed happy. I guess he was right because he’d been running things in Harlem for years and, while one or two had tried, none of the young bucks out there were bad enough to take him down. The wall of soldiers surrounding him was just that solid.

The only thing G asked his people for was exactly what he expected from me. Honesty. Honesty and loyalty. He was hip deep in hustlers and hoes every day, and in a woman he wanted somebody who had been touched only by his hands. And for what he was putting out, that should have been a simple request. But in the back of my mind I knew it was only a matter of time until I failed him. G was forty-six and I was only nineteen. He liked it cold and I liked it hot. There was just too much wrong with that picture. It wasn’t even a matter of if I would mess up, but when, where, and with who.

Chapter Three

There were twenty-six students in my dance class, including me. I didn’t socialize with most of them because I didn’t want them asking questions about my life. I could tell we were different. They lived in the dorms and went to campus parties at night. I had a Samoan driver named Pacho who dropped me off at school and picked me up after my last class. Then I hung out with strippers and hoes until the sun came up.

I liked school and would have been a better student if G would let me stay home and study sometimes. I was failing my science class. I could not get the hang of chemistry with all those symbols because I did not study. When I told G he said not to worry about getting an F in the class. Just take it again next semester.