Fireworks 3 and 4

Fireworks: Forever Chapter Twenty-Nine

    Drake sat on his patio, flipping open the top of a small, square velvety blue box. He flipped the lid open and closed while deep in thought. The item in the box sparkled, caught light, reflected light, and then was returned to the confines of the darkness within its container. 

    More and more celebrities were trying to get in touch with him. He'd deliberately missed calls from Nicki, The Game, 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, J. Cole, Ari Lennox, and Kehlani. The calls never really stopped. He wished he could answer them to warn them that their calls were being monitored, but he'd be incriminating himself. At this point, he couldn't even trust in-person communication. Any artist could be gathering information for the execs. 

    If I were the one in charge of all of this, that's what I would do, he thought, continuing to flip the lid on the small box in his beefy hand. If I were deep enough into this to where I'm monitoring phone calls, I'd definitely assign a few artists with the role of spying on other artists. That's why he'd been cautious with Central Cee initially. Although the two had collaborated on a few projects and even though they were on good terms, that didn't mean he could be fully trusted when randomly popping up in person after flying here from London. But Central Cee's distaste for what was happening was evident; he wasn't acting.

    Drake was going to have to speak to Nicki, but continued to procrastinate. If there was anyone who would be against all of this, it would be her. She had her happy little family and would spit on anyone who thought to break that up for any reason. 

    I'm procrastinating because our relationship hasn't been the same, ever since the Meek Mill bullshit, he thought, leaning back in his chair. Talking to her is different now. It used to feel like she was a sibling or an old girlfriend I was still on good terms with and now it feels...awkward. Forced. It doesn't feel genuine anymore, and I hate that for the both of us. Avoiding her would only work for so long, because Nicki didn't really allow anyone to ignore her.

    "Another visitor," a member of his security team announced.

    Drake turned his head to the side.

    "So, you really thought you could avoid me?" came a familiar high-pitched New York accent. "Like I forgot where you lived and couldn't just pop up on you?"

    He cracked an eye open to see Nicki standing to the left of his chair. "You're not going to believe this, but I was just thinking about you," he said, flipping the box open one more time before closing it and pocketing it.

    Her eyes followed the box briefly. "You've been ignoring my phone calls."

    "Our phone calls are being monitored."

    "I was trying to tell you that," she said, sitting across from him in a huff. Long, manicured nails fluffed and straightened blunt-cut bangs. "So, what's the plan?"

    He turned and gave her a look.

    "Cut the bullshit. I know you're not letting them run your life like this. What's the plan?"

    "I don't know yet," he said, adjusting his seated position and tilting his head back to soak up some of the sun's rays. 

    She sputtered, mocking his response. "You don't know yet? Did you see what they wanted us to do?"

    "I saw."

    "I doubt Mia likes that plot point."

    "Neither one of us does," he replied. "Was your phone taken?"

    "Yeah," she muttered. "Security treating me like one of your random hoes. Like they don't know who the fuck I am."

    "Mia, SZA, and I are playing along with the story for now," Drake told her, closing his eyes. "We don't really have a choice. You see what they're doing to the artists who are refusing to play along."

    When he cracked an eye open, he found Nicki shaking her head. "They want me to split up my family. Do you know how confusing that's going to be for Papa Bear? It won't even be real, just... forced fake trauma so record labels can sell a few records?" She popped up and started pacing in front of him.

    "If you have any ideas on how to fight them, I'm all ears," he told her. "We're having meetings and brainstorming, but aren't able to come up with anything. The people we're going up against are too big. Too powerful. They make me look broke. I don't know how to fight that."

    One of her long, colorful nails tapped her cheek in thought. "We could always dig up dirt on them," she suggested. "Men that powerful, who have the ability to create and stage accidents at will have to have some kind of dirt on them. Right? We dig it up and expose it."

    "They'd kill us if they even suspected us of doing that," he told her.

    "With the way shit is going, they'd kill us regardless," she said, halting her steps and pointing. "At least this way, we have a fighting chance."

    "How do we look into their dirt without leaving evidence we were searching?" he asked, peering up at her.

    She shook her head. "Your guys have always been good at finding info."

    "They have been, but they'd leave a trail leading right back to me," he said. "Once they start asking around, the guys up top know we're looking into them. They cut down me and my team before we even find out anything worth bringing to the public or media."

    "Fuck, this is hard," she growled, balling both hands into fists.

    "We voted on this and the vote was for us to go to war," he stated, "but we haven't the slightest idea what our strategy is. As much as we want to take these guys down, we don't know how. We can't speak freely on the phones. Okay, so I considered hosting a party here, where we can all meet up and put our heads together. A party of that size with that many big names, and the execs would be onto us. They could easily send someone here to spy on us. None of our moves can be that obvious, and being subtle is too time-consuming."

    She rolled her eyes. "Have a maid set up a room for me," she said, and stalked back inside the house.

    Grateful for the silence, he slung an arm over his eyes.