My Milf Conqueror System

[Darius's POV]

Darius counted cash in the back office of the body shop on 68th Street.

Forty-seven thousand, two hundred. He said the number to himself the way he said everything — quietly, completely, without emphasis. The money sat on the desk in stacks of fifties and twenties, banded with rubber bands Nina had bought in bulk from Office Depot. Forty-seven thousand, two hundred. Not bad for northwest Miami. Not good enough.

He split it. Supplier cut to Salazar: fourteen thousand. Crew pay: twelve thousand, divided between Marcus, Nina, Oscar, and the three dealers who'd earned bonuses this week. Reinvestment: ten thousand for product, packaging, and the warehouse lease in Medley. Savings: eleven thousand, two hundred, into the fireproof safe bolted to the floor.

The numbers were tight. Growth meant more product. More product meant more exposure. More exposure meant more risk. Darius wrote the figures in the ledger — pen and paper, no digital trail, no records that could be pulled from a server. The ledger was the only document that existed, and the ledger stayed in the safe, and the safe stayed locked, and the key stayed around Darius's neck.

Marcus knocked on the office door. "Oscar's back."

Darius closed the ledger. "Send him in."

Oscar came in smelling like salt air and gasoline. He'd been at the docks, running a pickup from Salazar's stash house in Pembroke Pines. He sat in the chair across from the desk and put his feet flat on the floor, the way he always sat, the way a man sat when he was ready to move.

"Salazar wants a sit-down," Oscar said. "Not at the restaurant. At a house in Pembroke Pines."

"When?"

"He said this week. He said he wants to talk about the south."

Darius looked at him. "The south."

"Hialeah."

Darius didn't respond. He turned the pen in his hand. Hialeah was Rodriguez territory. Tomas Garza ran it for her — twelve corners, thirty dealers, fifteen kilos a week. Moving south meant crossing a line that had been clean since the beginning. The northwest was his. The northwest was safe because it was small and quiet and nobody wanted it. Hialeah was different. Hialeah was occupied.

"What exactly did he say?"

"He said he wants to talk about expanding territory. He said the Rodriguez lieutenants in Hialeah are soft. He said there's room to grow."

"Soft."

"That's what he said."

Darius set the pen down. Salazar wasn't his partner. Salazar was his supplier, and a supplier who suggested expansion wasn't suggesting — he was positioning. If Darius moved south, he entered Rodriguez territory. He became either a competitor or a target. Either way, Salazar won. He got a piece of Rodriguez's pie without risking his own name. Darius was the proxy. Darius was the buffer.

"Tell him I'll meet. This week. I'll come alone."

Oscar raised an eyebrow. "Alone."

"That's what I said."

Oscar left. Darius sat in the office and listened to the sounds of the body shop — the pneumatic wrench in the bay, the radio playing something in Spanish from the station Marcus left on, the sound of a car pulling into the lot. He listened to all of it and he thought about the south.

Nina came in an hour later. She had the weekly report — dealer counts, corner activity, revenue per zone. She put the report on the desk and sat in the chair Oscar had vacated.

"Salazar wants to go south," Darius said.

Nina looked at the report, then at him. "South is Rodriguez."

"I know."

"You go south, you're not small anymore. You're not invisible. You're a player, and players get noticed."

"I know."

"So don't go."

Darius leaned back. "I didn't say I was going. I said I was meeting. There's a difference."

Nina studied him the way she studied numbers — looking for the error, the discrepancy, the thing that didn't balance. "What are you looking for?"

"I'm looking for the shape of it. I can't see the board if I don't sit at the table."

"You don't need to sit at the table. You need to watch from the door."

"I've been watching from the door my whole life, Nina. That's what I did. I stood at the wall and I watched and I said nothing and I saw everything. And it worked. It kept me alive. But it didn't build anything."

Nina was quiet. She picked up the report and flipped through it. "There's a dealer in Hialeah Gardens — Rene found him. Name's Miguel. He's got ties to a Rodriguez lieutenant. Garza's people. If we bring him in, we get a window into Garza's operation."

"Or we get a window that gets us killed."

"Everything gets us killed eventually. The question is whether it gets us killed building something or gets us killed standing still."

Darius took the report back. He looked at Miguel's name. A window into Garza's operation. A thread that, if pulled, could unravel the whole northwest strategy — or could pull Darius into the center of Camila Rodriguez's empire, where the light was brightest and the knives were sharpest.

"Watch him," Darius said. "Don't approach. Don't contact. Just watch. I want to know his schedule, his corners, who he talks to, and whether Garza's people check on him. Two weeks."

Nina nodded. She stood, then stopped at the door. "Darius."

"Yeah."

"If you go to that meeting in Pembroke Pines, wear the vest."

"I don't own a vest."

"Then buy one."

She left. Darius sat in the office alone. The pen was on the desk. The ledger was in the safe. The key was around his neck. He thought about Jake, who was somewhere he couldn't follow, doing something he couldn't see. He thought about the wall and the door and the difference between watching and entering.

He picked up his phone and typed a message to Jake: Salazar wants to talk about the south. Meeting this week. Holding for now.

The reply came back in sixty seconds. One word: Careful.

Darius put the phone down. He looked out the window at the lot, at the street, at the northwest that was his because nobody else wanted it. He thought about the south.

Then he got up and went back to work.