At 17, Candyce's small worldview is maginifed when her big brother, Ace, invites her into his world as punishment. Ace may have been an overbearing big brother at home, but in the streets he was feared and respected as a young drug dealer, proving h...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Chapter 1
The chances of someone in the crowd recognizing me as Santana's daughter is high enough to send my nerves spiking. We aren't some boujie ass family whose reputation can be tarnished by having a stripper in the family. Instead, I am the daughter of Santana Ortiz, the biggest and best drug dealer the city had seen since Deeno got sent to prison. Although Daddy is dead and gone, his name still holds weight in the streets. The last thing I need is some stranger telling me my daddy would be rolling in his grave if he saw who I turned out to be.
Trust me, I've heard it before.
The pressure is on as I shake my head free of any paranoid thoughts. After a year and a half of doing this, my nerves still managed to bite me in the ass while I waited backstage for Lucky to introduce me.
"Now we all know what y'all came here for," Lucky starts saying into the mic.
The crowd starts making noise. I give my outfit-- if you could call it that-- a once-over in the floor-length mirror we have next to the stage for this exact reason. My red wig is sitting to the left of my head when it should be directly in the middle. I roll my eyes at all the raggedy hoes I walked past who didn't bother to tell me nothing. They didn't give a fuck what I looked like. To them, the more tore up I looked, the better they felt about themselves. We fought for confidence more than we fought over money.
"Welcome to the stage, Ms. Kandi Redd!"
I give Lucky a kiss on my way up. He ain't the least bit fazed by me. He had to introduce girls all night long. Kisses was just our way of thanking him for saying our names right.
My heels clank as I walk on stage. Trap music starts playing in the background as I drag my feet to the pole. Midway, I stop, and crawl over. This gets the men going crazy like I knew it would. I take my time licking my lips at the ones with the most chains slung around their necks. I don't waste my time with the lame niggas sipping their drinks, enjoying the show but too cheap to pay for it. I slide my body around the pole as the thin weight of the green bills hit my back. I only play up the aerobics routine for so long. These boys came here to see half-naked ass shaking and that's exactly what I give them. I pull the string around my iridescent silver bathing suit top, and let my girls speak for themselves. The crowd gets louder and even the cheap niggas pull a few one-dollar bills out and throw them at me. I make sure to give them a nice look before grabbing onto the pole for balance while I bend over.
I get caught up in the music and the Henny I sipped in the locker room and lose track of all I'm doing. All I know is more fellas join the party and wads of money is being thrown at my back. When I realize all the dough is coming from the other side of the stage, I twerk across the stage doing my signature trick where I slide across the stage on my hands and knees, twerking the entire time. Once I make it across, the big spender starts hyping me up with my back to him. I turn around to thank him and my heart stops.
