The summer air was thick with humidity and tension. Sirens howled somewhere in the distance, but in the hood, that sound was just another part of the soundtrack. Projects stood tall like concrete prisons without bars, and on the block of 128th and Holloway, four young kings were building their empire brick by brick-if by "brick" you meant keys of coke and baggies of dope. Rasuel Higgins, known as Huggy, leaned against a black-on-black Crown Vic, his gold grill catching the sun like a flash of warning. Huggy wasn't the biggest, but he was the brains. Calculated. Smooth talker. A real chess player in a city full of checkers. "Yo, Free," Huggy called out, nodding toward a pair of dudes posted by the corner bodega. "You know them?" Keith "Free" Freeman was already halfway across the street, shirtless, tatts on full display, a pistol tucked casually in his waistband. He didn't need to answer. If he didn't know them, he was about to. Free was the type to solve problems before they became threats. Some say he had a short fuse, but nah-he was the flame itself.
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