Animal by K'wan Foye Read Free Book Online

but a female. In his haste for vengeance he had almost made a horrible mistake. Animal barely had time to throw the gun back in his pants before she was on them and furious.
    “Boy, have you lost your damn mind?” The woman shoved Animal out of the way and snatched the boy from the vehicle. She was dark skinned and beefy with salt-and-pepper hair that she wore in feathered curls. “This ain’t the South. Little naïve boys get kidnapped in New York City,” she scolded him.
    “Suge, I was only listening to the music,” the boy tried to explain.
    “I don’t give a hoot what you were doing; it was dangerous. You know how your cousin is over you and ain’t no telling what he’d do if I let something happen to you,” she said. Animal could pick up the genuine fear in her voice under all her gruff bravado.
    “It was my fault, ma’am,” Animal interjected. “He liked the song, so I was trying to let him hear it. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
    Suge looked Animal up and down. “What you did or didn’t mean is anyone’s guess, but you look like you got sense enough to know you can get in a mess of trouble for inviting children into your car.”
    “You’re right, and I’m sorry,” Animal said sincerely.
    Suge nodded, neither accepting nor rejecting his apology. “Let’s go,” she ordered the boy and stormed back toward the car. The boy gave Animal a sad wave, then made to follow Suge to the SUV.
    “Hold on, kid,” Animal called after him. He popped the CD from the player and placed it in the CD case. “Here you go.” Animal presented the boy with the CD.
    “I can have it?” The boy’s eyes widened in excitement.
    “Since you like it so much, run with it. I ain’t got no more use for it,” Animal told him.
    “Thanks a lot, man!”
    “What’s your name, kid?” Animal asked, though he wasn’t sure why. There was something about the way the boy carried himself that made him intriguing.
    “Nicholas, but everybody calls me Nickels.”
    “Nicholas Clark, if I gotta call you again we’re gonna have a problem!” Suge shouted through the window.
    “I gotta go, but thanks again,” Nickels told Animal and hurried to the truck.

    Animal had spent the entire ride from New Jersey back to Harlem fuming over the cancelled hit. This wasn’t just some street punk he was after; it was Angelo, one of Shai’s capos and closest friends. Angelo was a cagey street vet who kept with no set routine except taking Nickels to basketball practice on weekends. Animal wanted to chalk Angelo’s absence up to shitty luck, but something about it didn’t feel right. The fact that Angelo wasn’t there meant that Shai and his crew had gotten the message and were gearing up for battle. The fact that they were now aware of the threat did little to take away from Animal’s element of surprise because he was pretty sure none of them knew how to defend themselves against a ghost.
    Animal jumped off the highway and took the streets. He rode down Broadway, looking at the General Grant Houses looming to his left. He had had some wild times in the hallways in his days as a street punk. The last he’d heard, King James had Grant in a headlock and was gobbling up more and more territory by the day. Animal knew firsthand that King had been groomed by one of the greatest criminal minds of the underworld to be the next heir to the throne of Harlem. Much like his mentor, he quickly established himself as a force in the streets, but unlike his mentor, he was a novice at the arts of manipulation and diplomacy. King James had built a reputation as a bull on the streets, and Animal respected his gangsta for taking the hood the way he did, but wondered if he possessed the qualities it would take to hold onto what he had taken.
    Animal sat waiting for the red light to turn green at the intersection of Broadway and LaSalle. He was admiring the renovations they had done to some of the stores when he spotted a familiar face coming out of the