Episode I : Law of Thieves

1993 -Dallas,Texas   The loud blaring sound of a bell rings throughout the high school as Lawrence exits his math classroom sliding his red backpack on, schools out."Damn nigga you walkin like you stole something." A voice says behind Lawrence. Lawrence turns around smiling, it's his cousin Rodrick. "This damn school is the one robbin me cuzzo..of my time." Lawrence replies as they both chuckle. The duo walk down the school hallway out and exit, along with multiple students. "So look I got this nigga named Zack, I talked to em this morning he's gone front us a brick we flip it and he'll get us more, watchu think cuz?" Lawrence caresses his face in heavy thought. "Alright fuck it, come to my moms later on and we'll talk more, I'll call you." Lawrence insists. Rodrick nods they approach the parking lot getting into their matching 92' Mercedes Benz's speeding off in opposite directions, the hip-hop bass from their speakers shaking the ground as they depart, students stare at their cars in awe. Lawrence arrives at his mothers house the hot Texas sun beaming down on his black Mercedes and shining off of his chrome rims as he enters the driveway and shuts off the engine. Lawrence's mom Layla walks out of her house to greet her son with a adoring smile on her face."There's my baby boy." Layla says hugging Lawrence kissing his cheek. "Hey mama." Lawrence says smiling as they both walk inside. "Oh my god, am I smelling what I think I smell?" "Thats right! I made your favorite." Layla replies as Lawrence takes a seat at the kitchen table placing his backpack by his feet the heavy fragrance of food crowding the kitchen. "I'll make you a plate baby." Layla prepares a bowl of her famous chili and serves Lawrence. As Lawrence picks up his spoon ready to eat Layla slaps his hand. "Boy you might be a senior in high school, but you are not grown say your grace." "Damn Ma, my bad I forgot." Lawrence says smiling, prays over his food then begins eating. "Where's Baz at? He missin out for real." Layla sits across from Lawrence lighting a cigarette and sighs. Lawrence stops eating abruptly. "What going on mom?" "Pigs raided the house arrested his simple ass this morning after you left for school." Lawrence sighs. "Again? what the hell is the charge this time?" Lawrence's cell phone goes off in his pocket he digs around for the phone urgently, finds it and sees that it's Rodrick he flips it open to answer the call. "Yo Rod what's up?" "Aye Law...u need to come to the spot right now we got a big fuckin problem." Rodrick says with a trembling voice. "I'm on my way now, sit tight cuz." Lawrence closes the flip phone, grabs his backpack and stands up. "I gotta go ma Rodrick just called and he didn't sound good I'll call you later." Lawrence walks in a hurry outside to his Mercedes and gets in, Layla follows him out to his car as he pulls out of Layla's driveway and drives off, his tires screeching. Layla watches him leave with a concerned look on her face.

Night falls upon the big city as Lawrence travels down a dark abandoned dirt road towards a unoccupied old church. Lawrence arrives and parks in the front of the church. He reaches over to his red backpack that's sitting in the passenger seat, grabs hold of a heavy, cold, and black M9 handgun. Lawrence exits his Mercedes with the gun in his hand, cocks it back putting a bullet in the chamber as he opens the door to the church. Lawrence enters cautiously, his finger on the trigger, exploring the old charred church. "Rodrick! where you at bro!" Lawrence yells, his voice echoing throughout the church. Lawrence creeps down to the basement of the church, as he descends down the stairs a tied up coughing man in a chair slowly comes into view, blood drips from a gash on his face onto the floor adding to the puddle of blood in front of him. Lawrence notices the man and runs down the stairs towards him. "Sebastian!? What the fuck! Who did this to you little brother? Lawrence asks as he tries to untie the rope from Sebastian, Sebastian is trying to tell Lawrence something but his mouth is taped. A handgun presses on the back of Lawrence's head with ease. "Drop the gun and stand the fuck up now." The armed man says with a Latin accent. Lawrence rises from Sebastian and hands over his pistol to the man with the gun still aimed at the back of his head. A brown-haired middle aged Latin woman in a black pantsuit steps out of the darkness behind Sebastian with two other men armed with Ak47's. Lawrence recognizes the woman. "Carmen Salazar? what the fuck is this? I got no beef with the cartel." Carmen smirks at Lawrence and glances at one of her guards. "Bring them in." Carmens guard perches his ak47 on his shoulder, opens a closet door, Rodrick and his classmate Zack walk out with their hands tied behind their back with rope as they are forced to their knees by Carmens bodyguards. "I'm sorry cuzzo they said if I didn't call you they'd send someone after Layla and bring her here too I couldn't let that happen." Rodrick says to Lawrence ashamed. "It's cool Rod don't even worry I'm gonna get you both outta here." Lawrence says with determination. "I'll be the judge of that." Carmen assures Lawrence staring him down. "Today I got a call from my cop inside the D.P.D. and he tells me I got a rat inside my Texas operation that got caught with a kilo of my product." Carmen pulls a small silver pistol with a black handle from inside her all black pantsuit jacket, and one of her leather clad henchmen hands Carmen a silencer, an old dome light flickering on and off over the group in the cold basement.

"Now I don't care why this person is trying to fuck me over, I just need to know who is trying to fuck me over." Carmen explains as she screws on the cold, black, steel silencer. "There are 4 of you kneeling before me, but only 3 of you are leaving this basement, so unless all of you want a bullet in the fucking skull, someone better come clean." Carmen tells the 4 with her pistol at her side. The 4 stare at Carmen in silence and fear. "Do you boys really think I don't already know who it is? If you come clean now I promise it'll be quick and painless. Or I can just tell my men to bring out the chainsaw and they'll cut pieces off of all 3 of you until there's nothing left...choose wisely." Carmen smirks as the trio stays silent. "Ok suit yourself." Carmen nods to one of her 3 armed henchmen, and he drops his ak47 leaves the basement returning with a chainsaw and starts to rev it up. "OK! it was me, I'm the fuckin rat." Lawrence yells, Sebastian turns his head slowly towards Lawrence a shocked look on his face his mouth still duct taped. "See? Now was that so fucking difficult?" Carmen cocks back her pistol and aims it at Lawrence, Lawrence closes his eyes accepting his fate. But Carmen switches targets swiftly and aims her gun at Zack firing 2 silenced shots through Zacks forehead as he kneels before her, Zacks blood paints the grey colored wall behind him as he falls backwards onto the cold basement floor blood gushing out of his head like a faucet. Lawrence, Sebastian, and Rodrick still kneeling in front of Carmen are so shocked and frightened by what's transpired that none of them utters a word. Carmen kneels down to Lawrence. "Nothing, and I mean absolutely fucking nothing goes down without me knowing about it you understand? The next time any of you set up a deal with one on my distributors without my permission, I will personally erase your entire bloodline, stick to selling weed, coke is where the big boys play." Carmen tells Lawrence with a slight smirk, Lawrence stares back at her anger and fear filling his veins. Carmen and her henchmen exit the basement and leave the church. Lawrence scrambles to quickly untie Sebastian and Rodrick, he succeeds and they team up to get rid of Zacks bloody corpse, wrapping his body in a tarp and then they proceed to putting his corpse in Lawrence's trunk. " Come on we'll take him to the lake nearby." Lawrence insists as they all get into his Mercedes and drive off. They arrive at the Lake a couple miles down the road from the church, and carry Zacks body towards the water dumping the body in the lake, the city lights and skyscrapers of Downtown Dallas linger in the background of the lake. Zacks corpse slowly sinks to the bottom as the trio watches in awe. "It was either him or us." Sebastian explains. Lawrence & Rodrick both gaze at Sebastian with disgust, and he looks back at them puzzled by their anger. "What? you niggas both heard what that psycho ass bitch said Zack was a fuckin rat, rats deserve to die end of fuckin story." Sebastian says trying to justify what's happened. Lawrence walks over to Sebastian looking him directly in the eyes with a look of suspicion. "Ma told me the feds picked you up this morning how did you get sprung so quick? are you the real rat?" Sebastian shoves Lawrence. "How the fuck could you accuse me of some shit like that Law? yeah I got picked up this morning but the cops that  scooped me up are on the cartels payroll those fuckin bitches took me straight to the spot, Carmen and her hitters were already there waitin for me." Lawrence & Rodrick shake their head in disappointment. "Did they even have a fuckin warrant? Did you even ask?" Lawrence asks Sebastian. Sebastian limps over  to Lawrence's Mercedes still in pain from the beating he endured and sits down on the hood. "Me and Zack were working with Carmen as her Texas distributors, bringin in the big fuckin dollars,

everything was perfect until a brick went missing from her shipment and it turns out Zack was using the brick to set you up, so I decided to get ahead of this thing before it got outta hand, I gave Carmen a call and told her Zack was stealing product, she didn't believe I wasn't stealing too so she had her goons beat me the fuck up until I told her what she wanted to know." Lawrence caresses his bare face realizing why everything has transpired. Rodrick stares down Sebastian angrily. " That's because you were stealing with Zack don't try to play me nigga, me and L had a deal setup with him and he told me that him and his partner were secretly robbing his supplier, his supplier was Carmen and his partner was you." Sebastian sighs in shame, he knows he has to come clean. "You're...right." Sebastian says with his head down. Lawrence looks into Sebastians hazel eyes with his fists balled moving closer to him. "You fucking did this...you almost got all of us killed because you were stealing product from a fucking drug cartel, how fucking stupid can you be? They could've went after Ma, what then huh? WHAT FUCKING THEN!" Sebastian stays silent ashamed of his actions. Lawrence grabs 2 handfuls of Sebastian's shirt pulling him off the hood of his Mercedes looking him right in the eye with disdain. "Since we were kids you've been a fuck up, ma knows it, our deadbeat father knows it, and even you fucking know it. I was always the only one in our dysfunctional ass family who believed you could change, but now I know this is who you are, you couldn't change if your fucking life depended on it, I'm done believing in you I'm leaving for college next year and I don't want anything to do with you or the dope game, you're not my brother anymore, just a clueless piece of shit." Lawrence shoves Sebastian into the dirt away from his Mercedes, Sebastian lays in the dirt sobbing, dried blood all over his white t-shirt Lawrence gets into his Mercedes, so does Rodrick walking past Sebastian tossing 100 dollar bills at him. "Go get cleaned up." Rodrick says to Sebastian showing no sympathy towards him. Lawrence & Rodrick drive off into the night down the long dirt road leaving Sebastian behind.