Pretty.Young.Thugs

By Candace Mumford

This is Part One of a Two Part series.

Meet Mahogany, Antoinette ( Toni ) and Nadina, three close childhood friends from Las Vegas,Nevada. The casinos, star-studded shows and the celebrity lifestyle was great, if you could afford it. But these ladies are too busy trying to put a roof over their heads. Each coming from similar dark backgrounds that drew them together. Mahogany Cartwright's life has been a struggle since the day she took her first breath and life hasn't given her a break since. Now just 21 years old weighed down with the responsibilities of women twice her age she's down to do whatever it takes to survive.
But one break-in gone wrong changes everything in her life for the good. Even though she doesn't know it right away.
Antoinette a young woman who's always been so sure of her self is suddenly faced with choices about her identity that she was certain she'd come to grips with since she was a small child and Nadina is going along for the ride stealing anything in her path.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A.N.C. Media Publishing
• Release date: Jan 27, 2017

Candace Mumford

Candace Mumford aka Ms.Bam is the Author of Urban Fiction and Romance. An avid reader and fan of the Urban Literature genre herself,she's excited to write in a genre she's enjoyed for years. Ms.Bam hopes to offer any reader that decides to purchase any of her books a page turning story full of characters they love and a few they love to HATE!

Book preview

Chapter 1

Meet The P.Y.T

Mahogany

Oh my God Toni! Turn the damn music down before your neighbors call the goddamn police! I yelled rushing over to the stereo to cut that damn noise off. As if robbing folks wasn't ratchet enough, Toni claimed it made her feel high afterward when we got away with it. So in celebration Toni had her favorite station playing on Pandora. It primarily consisted of Migos and Rich Homie Quan. At the moment she was blasting Trap Queen by Fetty Wap throughout the apartment. I didn't care if Nadina and Toni stayed in the hood or not. Nosy ass Ms. Simpson stayed down the hall. All the tenants in their building knew she considered herself to be the neighborhood watch of the entire apartment complex. You would have thought rent money was going directly into her purse the way she patrolled the building and the grounds. Hell I didn't even live here and I knew who ran shit over this way. Ms. Simpson may have been seventy-six years old but she was spry as hell, and didn't hesitate to let you know she'd whup your young ass.

Toni sucked her teeth.

Man, Ms. Simpson better sit her old ass down somewhere before she find herself at the bottom of that staircase courtesy of these Balmains Toni spat kicking up her size seven designer clad foot. I couldn't believe this hoe went out of her way to rob and steal in $1200 shoes.

My eyes widened and my hand flew up to my mouth. I felt like I was choking on a cross between a laugh and a gasp.

Toni that's an 76 year old ass woman! I said finally giving way to my laughter. I don't know which was funnier to me. The comment Toni just made or the fact that I knew old Ms. Simpson would give Toni a run for her money. I could picture that old woman molly-whopping Toni's ass all over this complex! As bad as Toni talked behind her back, Toni showed Ms. Simpson nothing but respect when they crossed paths.

" I don't give a damn! Her old ass can get it too. Why that old lady tell me at the mailbox last week she was gonna whup my ass? I threw a piece of junk mail into the trashcan and it missed right? Before I could even pick it up and put it in the trashcan, she just assumed I was gonna leave it on the ground! Shiit, Ms. Simpson better watch her back fuckin' around with me! Toni said laughing as she pulled a blunt out of an old Coach clutch she'd turned into a spot to contain her weed and supplies and fired up. So let's see what we got." Toni said raising up from the sofa and walking over to the dining table where we had out latest haul of stolen merchandise displayed.

All right here's the rest. I said walking over and emptying my duffle bag filled with our latest acquisitions. My heart was still beating  double time. It had been a close call. None of us had anticipated the owner of the Treasure Inc. Pawn shop we'd just robbed to have a guard dog inside.

I hope y'all let Jasmine's monkey ass know she's gettin' money taken out of her cut too. Fuckin' dogs? Y'all know damn well I don't like animals of any kind! Look at my damn pants. I shouted getting mad all over again at the state of my shredded,black Dickies. There was a long red scratch running several inches down my thigh where the dog had clawed me before I put a bullet in his head. It was lucky for me I was the one holding the gun tonight or a bitch would have really been fucked up. Knowing my high yella ass, that scar was going to be around a good two weeks before it would begin to fade. I hope I have some cocoa butter at the house, I thought frowning.

Aww Mahogany you'll be all right girl. Nadina said laughing at me. Nadina always found something funny to laugh about after each and every one of our escapades because Toni and I had long ago delegated her to mainly just a look-out. I mean Nadina was my girl so I wasn't gonna put her out there like she didn't pull her weight. But she was more pretty than she was a thug. Nadina had gotten us out of more than a few situations just by flashing her pretty smile. Though if shit got tight she was down to get dirty right along with Toni and I. Nadina also didn't hesitate to fight. We all had our strength's and hers just happened to be looking out,plotting and helping us unload the shit once we got it.

At least get me some band-aids or something. I said gritting my teeth as I leaned down and pulled the shredded fibers of my pants away from my wound. This shit stings like hell!, I thought again grabbing a chair at the dining table to sit down. Granted half the time I was dressed down in jeans and t-shirts but when I did decide to stunt I wanted to do it with my skin smooth and scar free. I had tattoos all over my body yet here I was complaining about an out of place scratch. But hey, my body was my canvas and I wanted it to be perfect.

When is Trent bringing his ass over here to give us the money for this shit? I need to be home in the next hour. I said pulling off the black hat I had perched on top of my head. I wore it to conceal my hair and face along with the cloak of darkness the star filled Las Vegas nights provided. A sista was sweating something terrible in this damn heat. It was May and the heat was miserable some days. It didn't make it any better that Toni's cheap ass refused to run the air conditioning in their apartment when they weren't home. So every time we came in their spot it was hot and musty as hell. It took damn near an hour to cool of in this bitch. The heat in Las Vegas could be stifling and smothering. You would have thought Toni actually went out to a job everyday earning a living as cheap and stingy as she was being with the air conditioner! Everything up in here from the bills to the food was paid with illegal money.  Toni was just like some of these niggas out here though. Cheap as hell.

I don't know how Nadina put up with that shit. They'd been roommates for the last two years. Toni claimed she picked up the habit from her Grandmother. Insisting you could hold out until June before you started running the air full-time but goddamn, Ms. Evaline had been dead! It was time to let those old habits die right along with her old mean ass. Why the hell would you sit around being hot as hell behind a dead lady for?

He's on the way just relax,damn. Yo' Mahogany you sure this is it for you? We need ya' ass bad. Toni pleaded. I mean you know we can bring Jasmine in easily but after what she did,you know I don't fuck with her too tough.

I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. Lord have mercy! How many times were these hoes gonna beat me over the head with this shit? My mind was made up! I was gonna need to have a serious talk with these two if they were under the impression career criminals was the best move for them. It damn sure wasn't for me. I was out here doing stupid reckless shit but it ain't like I didn't know I was doing wrong.

Look Mother Hubbard, your ass the one sitting over there with all those mouths to feed. I can't believe you ain't the first one trying to hit a lick!With everything you're trying to do for your sisters, why the hell would you be trying to stop? That's the shit I can't figure out. I promise  you the second my fingers start itching I'm picking it up! Anything I lay my eyes on! Clothes,shoes,watches. You name it I'm taking it! Nadina said rolling her eyes at me. A good part of me felt like Nadina was talking shit because that would mean she'd have to step up and help Toni more with me not being involved.

All I knew was that as far as I was concerned, something had to give. For the last five or six months I had the sinking feeling I was walking on borrowed time if I didn't leave this shit alone. It left me feeling fucked up when I thought about it. So I'd finally said to myself anything weighing this heavy on my mind I needed to change. Nadina was right though. I did have mouths to feed and I damn sure couldn't do that if my ass was locked up somewhere. And that's exactly where I was headed if I didn't leave this shit alone sooner rather than later.

Because I can't raise my little sisters if my ass is sitting behind penitentiary walls! How many times do I have to tell you bitches that? Damn just stop bringing the shit up. I made up my mind and that's it. The fuck y'all think this is? 7th grade? You gon' peer pressure me or some shit? I asked groaning loudly.

My two best friends Toni Wilson and Nadina Lawson knew me and my current situation better than anyone. But I guess when you didn't have the same problems as me it was easy to distance yourself. Now I'm not going to act like they lived on easy street because they didn't. But Toni and Nadina didn't have half the shit to deal with that I did. Never had. Even though I loved them to death they should already know trying to pressure me wasn't going to make me change my mind. Not on this issue. I had two other people to think of other than myself.

Toni Wilson, who I had been friends with since the third grade had grown up with her Grandmother. Her single mother had been found murdered and that left her in the care of her elderly Grandmother. It felt wrong even describing Toni's Grandmother, Ms. Evaline as elderly since her ass was so goddamn mean. Just mean for no reason at all. She was a hard woman who took out her frustration at being stuck spending her golden years raising a child she had absolutely no use for on her only grandchild.

Toni is a beautiful girl.5ft 6 inches of curves, light brown skin, doe shaped eyes and a killer smile. When Toni wasn't busy grimacing at you that is. The only problem with Toni...at least for other people, is that Toni with the exception of her manicures and pedicures was a tomboy times ten. I couldn't figure it out. 95% of the time all she fucked with was females but that last 5% was reserved for a nigga we met in the 9th grade, Kenyada Watkins. I don't really know where or when the fascination with him began since in the 7th grade Toni had tearfully confessed to me that she felt like something was wrong with her because while most of our eyes were now on boys. She was looking at girls. With the exception of Kenyada. Toni simply said he was cool. Kenyada was a distant memory once his parents divorced when we were in the 10th grade and he moved to Texas to live with his mother. They still kicked it on Facebook and talked on the phone from my understanding but that was about it.

Back in 7th grade when I asked her why she was crying she confessed the only thing that scared her was that I wouldn't want to be her friend anymore. My friendship with Toni meant the world to me. Hell we were 13 years old at that point.  I'd seen so much in my short life the very last thing I was concerned with was having a friend that was gay. Besides, even though she had just confessed it, it was kind of apparent Toni was a little more than a tomboy! Much to her Grandmothers chagrin, Toni during high-school would only wear her hair slicked back in a long ponytail. Toni had a nice wavy texture of hair so her waves were always poppin' but you weren't going to ever catch her with her hair combed any other way. Toni was flyer than any boy in our junior high class. Toni was curvy and had a nice round ass with full round breasts she easily concealed with tight wife beater t-shirts to hold them down. Toni used to press them down so flat she appeared to have no breasts at all. I can only imagine she'd let the ace bandages go once they grew a little more. I never asked not wanting to embarrass her. Pair that with jeans and an over-sized t-shirt and all of her body's natural femininity disappeared. Now at twenty-one, all of her womanly assets were nicely concealed in the latest designer baggy men's clothing.

After we graduated high-school Toni chopped all of her hair off and had the flyest low cut fade and waves you could swim in. She was a dude on all fronts with the exception of the hidden breasts, the pussy between her thighs and that face. Hair or not, nothing was concealing her pretty face. The local lesbians...hell visiting ones too shit,after all we did live in Las Vegas, couldn't get enough of Toni Wilson. Also occasionally addressed by her given name Antoinette.

Regardless of how much her Grandmother tried to beat the lesbian out of her it wasn't going anywhere. Toni's Grandmother was a cruel bitch towards Toni until the bitter end but the one thing I loved about Toni was that she was loyal. If only for the fact her Grandmother taken her in. Do you know she still went and laid that evil ass woman to rest in style after the way she'd treated her. Toni had robbed her ass off  to pay for that funeral and lay her Grandmother away like she was royalty. I think it meant so much for her to do it that way because even though that woman had never shown her a day of kindness, she was all Toni had and she was gone.

Nadina was the opposite of Toni. And the very polar opposite of me.

Nadina was a 5ft 8inch tall drink of dark, chocolate milk. Smooth to the very last drop to hear her tell it. Nadina was the most feminine of all of us and grew up in large household, the youngest of six siblings. Nadina, I could only describe her as what I would imagine an African queen looking like. High cheekbones, full shapely lips and her hair was her crowning glory. It was in it's natural state. Flowing past her shoulders thick and luscious. Had we been born to families that had a different station in life, Nadina would be the next Naomi Campbell. Even better in my opinion. My friend was so beautiful she should have been one of those chicks strolling in the mall and some strange man stopped her and signed her for a modeling contract on the spot. But who had the time or money to be strolling around the mall? Shit like that didn't happen for ghetto girls. Growing up the only one of us who even had a steady meal was Toni and her Grandmother didn't even want to provide her with that claiming she was eating her out of house and home.

Nadina is a stone cold bitch though and loves her some money. If you weren't talking bout money, you weren't talking about shit as far as she was concerned. Nadina took cash or credit...oh don't get it twisted Nadina never left home without her little Square reader to plug in her Iphone so folks could pay her! Nadina needed to have her ass in a business class at UNLV. Needless to say she was ruthless with these Vegas niggas. Only out for self unless you were part of her inner circle that sadly only really consisted of her mom, me,Toni and one of her older sisters, Tyra. Ironically Tyra was named after the model Tyra Banks and quite honestly she was one of the homeliest women I'd ever seen. Nadina had definitely been blessed with all the looks. Growing up in a house full of kids to a single mother struggling to keep food on the table had made Nadina hungry. And for more than just food.

Nadina claimed she's spent so many years standing in line waiting for everything she was at the point where she was gonna just take what she wanted from now on. I ain't gon' even lie. My girl was a beast when it came to boosting. If your shit wasn't nailed down she was taking it. Nadina wasn't on no basic ass kleptomaniac shit. Oh no. Those muthafukas stole shit for the simple thrill of just taking it. Nadina only took things of value that would leave her ...and us in a better position.

Clothes? Shoes? We all rocked the latest thanks to Nadina. Shit when I say she could be a model, I meant it! Right down to her slim,curvy body. That bitch could stack so many clothes on and walk out of the store it wasn't even funny. Nadina had all the tools necessary to remove security tags,dye packs and all. Nadina had stolen them the few times she did have a legitimate job for a few months here and there. Sometimes Nadina even got legit jobs with the specific intent just to rob them and find out how the stores security systems worked. Once Nadina felt like she knew the inner workings of a store, we were right there to hit them up.

Then there was me.

I'm Mahogany Cartwright. There are so many negative things in my life,honestly it would be quicker to tell you the few decent things about me. I'm  21 years old,people think a lot of things about me due to who my mother is but I'm not a whore. I'm actually very selective about any guy I choose to spend my time with.  Can't but one guy ever say he's laid with me. I'm not a drug user. I've never touched drugs a day in my life. Not a puff, not even a pass. Nothing. I'm too scared to try anything. That's if you don't count the day I slid out of that whore of a mother I was born to crack addicted.

I'm also was a good person inside. A really good person even if there were very few people in my life I could ever show that side of myself to. Despite the fact my self-esteem is non-existent even though I try not to show that side of me either. To anyone. If people feel like you're soft and know you have a heart, all they do is take advantage of it. I'll be damned if I invite someone to walk all over my heart. I keep so much about me hidden, I don't know what people see when they look at me.

At this stage of the game I can honestly say the only addiction I have is tattoos. I ain't gonna even lie I got it bad. I love em'. Every milestone in my life- the few good and the mostly bad is engraved on my skin. I've been getting them done since I was 16. I knew a few people who didn't mind doing them for me as long as I had the money and I'd been hustling for my sisters and myself for quite some time.

Las Vegas is a fast paced town. It can chew you up and spit you out in a nanosecond. It was only by the grace of God I'd made it 21 years in this cold, hard world because I damn sure didn't have anyone looking out for me. Let me not sound too ungrateful. God is a father tot he fatherless even though on more than one occasion I'd wondered where the hell he was. And as they say God watches over babies and fools. My sisters and I being the babies and my half-assed Mama being the ultimate fool.

I'm the oldest of three sisters born to a drug addicted, prostitute mother. All my sisters and I are trick babies and the only three that actually made it out alive. I say that because in-between having us, my mother had countless abortions. Who asks their 16 year old daughter to take you to and from the abortion clinic? My Mama, Olivia Cartwright.

My Mama I could tell back in her day was a beautiful Black woman. But Olivia Cartwright was so ran through at this point, her looks were a faded memory that she was holding on to by the skin of her teeth. And it wasn't as if she had any teeth left to spare! I mean that literally since the crack had eaten up most of the teeth in her damn mouth. Shit the way her skin was looking lately had me wondering if her ass had switched up the routine on me. Her skin had that meth-head  look to me. Unless of course those splotches all over her skin were because she'd caught the monster also known as AIDS. Which was highly likely given her chosen life-long profession. Hell I couldn't call it and my Mama had slowly worn away my give a damn toward her a long time ago. My Mama's mouth only had about 10 teeth dangling in her head.  About six on the top row and four on the bottom. The once shapely figure she'd once used to entice top of the line tricks...her words not mine, was withered away to skin and bones. But even in her current state you couldn't tell my Mama she wasn't the shit. I don't know what it is about people like that, addicts and junkies. They always chose to view themselves waaaaay back in the past. In their glory years instead of acknowledging their current fucked up reality. I don't know who the hell was paying her to fuck these days but she was still at