Keep Your Friends Close (A Makaveli’s Prince Novella)

By Sam Hunter

Cameron Hicks is a twenty-three year-old hustler. On the surface he has it all. Luxury house, fast car and only a few months left on probation. But what he’s got he fought hard to get and Tiana, his ex-girlfriend, is trying to take it away from him.

He wants out the game because his music career is about to take off and he can’t risk anything that would send him back to jail. Tiana has a hold over him. She knows it’s over between them but won’t move out. Now she’s pushing Cameron into doing one last job so she can get a cut and leave.

The only thing is he won’t do it. He can’t take the risk.

Cameron sets his sights on a girl he meets in a bar and things heat up when she turns out to be Tiana’s younger sister Laila. She’s come down to Miami from New Orleans because Tiana needs her help.

Cameron is in for a long hot summer. Is the only way out to take the job? And can he trust his crew if they know he wants out?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sam Hunter
• Release date: Aug 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311752833

Sam Hunter

Sam Hunter is the best selling author of the Makaveli's Prince books. His first novel, Book One, was described by Street Literature as a "true tribute to hip-hop" and weaves a thrilling ride through some of hip-hop's darkest secrets. The urban fiction genre has no rival when it comes to action, gun-play and life on the streets. Sam Hunter is a writer with depth, whose books you won't be able to put down. Packed with conspiracy, drama and centered on strong female characters, you're in for a ride.Sam Hunter welcomes you to reach out to him via Facebook and Twitter.

Book preview

Keep Your Friends Close

A Makaveli’s Prince Novella

Sam Hunter

Keep Your Friends Close

Sam Hunter

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Keep Your Friends Close is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by Sam Hunter

Smashwords Edition

www.samhunter.org

@_SamHunter

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First Edition, 2014

My father taught me many things here — he taught me in this room. He taught me — keep your friends close but your enemies closer. - Mario Puzo / Francis Ford Coppola

ONE

Cameron Hicks ducked and the drinking glass missed his head by inches, smashing into pieces on the kitchen cabinet behind him. Shards of glass showered the counter top, the tiled floor and his Timberland boots. Tiana glared at him from across the room. He turned around and saw a mark on the cabinet door.

God damn girl, you gon’ do that after I just had this shit done? Cameron said. He’d dropped a stack of cash for the new kitchen.

If you weren’t quitting then maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about where every dime is going, Tiana said, over exaggerating.

We? What you talking ‘bout we for? Ain’t no we no more. I tried my goddamned hardest to make this mother fucking relationship work and for what? The pain still struck deep. Tiana was the first girl he’d ever loved.

Tiana’s face softened at his hard words and she crossed the room to soothe him.

I’m sorry baby, she said, putting her arms around him. She always tried to play him like that and Cameron wasn’t having it. He knew he was stupid for not having kicked her ass out a long time ago. She was still creeping to him, trying to prolong her ride on his dollar. He wondered if that was what she had been about all along.

Tia, after all the fights they’d had, her name alone made him angry, get it through your head, we’re done! I’m no more takin’ another job with Tyrone than I’m gon’ fuck with your ass again. And get your hands off me!

He pushed her away. She feigned a hurt look. If it had been genuine he might have cared but Cameron just turned and walked out the house, slamming the front door as he left. His blood was boiling. He pulled out the keys to his brand new Ford Mustang. He pressed the key fob and the central locking chirped. Tiana was standing on the front porch.

Cam, your black ass had better be going to pick up Laila, Tiana screamed at him.

He said nothing and got into the car. As he sunk into the supple leather seat he took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. The roar of the engine relaxed him. He glanced out the tinted window and saw Tiana still calling out to him. Cameron revved the engine harder and pretended he couldn’t hear what she was saying.

How was it possible to be so angry at her? He’d once felt so deeply for Tiana, with her light skin, big beautiful eyes and outgoing personality.

The wheels spun for a fraction of a second before they gained traction and he sped off the driveway and down the street, leaving his problems behind him.

He adjusted his rear-view mirror. That was where he needed to put her. Cameron was a good looking twenty-three year old black man and he knew he’d have no problem finding another girl. It just wasn’t that easy after what they’d once had together. Tiana had changed and the girl he’d fallen in love with two years before was gone.

The way it had gone down a couple of months back was still like a dagger in his heart.

Cameron had taken Tiana out to dinner, her favorite restaurant in Miami, and right before dessert he slid the box onto the table casually. Inside was a diamond ring with more carats than even Tiana could have imagined.

Her eyes locked onto the box immediately and Cameron got down on one knee.

We been through some ups and downs girl but I wanna know if you always gon’ be down for me?

It wasn’t the most romantic proposal but that didn’t matter, it was real. Tiana said yes to him and Cameron was happy. Tiana put the ring on and he looked at his fiancée up and down. She was stunning.

He started talking about the future and when he explained to Tiana that he was going to quit hustling, she ripped his heart out.

Cam I got to be straight with you since you laying your cards on the table. I’ve been fuckin’ around on you.

His whole world collapsed. At first he’d tried to shake it off. He told himself she’d been honest with him, that she was trying to do the right thing, and that was the most important thing. But after days of turmoil he knew it wouldn’t work anymore.

Tiana didn’t seem to understand what she had done to him. She just moved into another room in his house and carried on doing her thing.

Cameron had started to see a whole new side to her. Maybe it had been there all along but either way she seemed a lot more superficial to him now. She watched so many music videos and was always bitching about how she wanted to look like