Chapter Nine – Pressure Grows in the Dark
Tone's presence filled the motel room like bad news.He didn't raise his voice. Didn't flex. He didn't need to.
He stood just inside the doorway, black hoodie unzipped, hands loose at his sides—but his eyes were sharp. Too sharp. Like a man who'd seen everything and already decided how this was gonna go.
Darius stood a few feet away, silent, unreadable, heart pounding just beneath his hoodie.
"Been watchin' you, D," Tone said calmly. "You out here makin' noise. Heard your name in Brownsville. Uptown. Cats talkin' 'bout this From the Dirt like it's the second coming."
He nodded toward the jars on the counter.
"You got joints movin' like crack in the '80s. And you never called me back."
Darius licked his lips. Didn't look away.
"I ain't need help no more," he said. "Was time to move different."
Tone's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile.
"You think that's how this works? You get hot, you disappear, you just… build a little empire on your own?"
He stepped closer.
"Lemme explain something to you, young blood. You don't just move weight on these streets without breaking bread. That name you got? That dirt? You built it on land I used to run."
Darius folded his arms.
"I ain't selling on your block."
"You don't gotta be," Tone said. "The minute your pack touched hands in Flatbush, it stopped bein' yours alone."
There it was.
Tone wasn't mad Darius had leveled up.
He was mad Darius had done it without him.
"So what you want?" Darius asked, voice steady.
Tone looked him dead in the eyes.
"A cut. You give me 30% of your take, and I make sure nobody touches you. Nobody tests your grow. No cops. No block drama. You just keep doing what you do."
"And if I say no?"
Tone's gaze sharpened.
"Then I start asking questions. Like where you growin'. Who's helpin' you. Who got access to your stash. And maybe I start taxing you without the paperwork."
A beat of silence.
The AC kicked in, buzzing like a hornet in the corner.
Darius knew this game. You either bent or broke.And bending? That wasn't in his new DNA.
"I'll think about it," Darius said finally.
Tone studied him for a long second, then stepped back toward the door.
"Do that. But don't think too long. Brooklyn's full of hungry mouths. And you're smellin' like a feast."
Then he was gone.
When the door shut, Darius sat on the edge of the bed, exhaled slow.Not from fear.
From fury.
He had worked too hard. Lost too much. Started from literal dirt.
And now someone wanted to leech off what he built?
Hell no.
Later that night, Maya came back with food and a file folder full of updates.
"Application's officially in," she said, eyes bright. "You're officially in the system. Next steps are site inspection and financial planning."
Darius didn't react.
Didn't smile.
Just looked at her for a long moment.
"Tone came by."
Her face dropped. "What?"
"Wants a cut. Said he made the block. That I owe him."
"That's bullshit."
"Yeah. But it's dangerous bullshit."
She sat beside him. "So what now?"
He lit a blunt. Took a slow pull.
"Now? We get serious."
He looked around the motel room—the same one he'd slept in, worked in, planned his empire in.
"This ain't gonna be enough. I need security. A real grow space. I need gear. I need structure. If I'm gonna fight a street war while building a business…"
He looked her in the eye.
"I need to go bigger."
They stayed up all night, sketching plans on notebook paper and pizza boxes.
Maya researched warehouses. He mapped out strain rotations and clone cycles.
She offered to tap in with an art student who could design real labels.
He called in a favor from a guy who sold old grow lights out of a barbershop basement.
"We don't bend," Darius said. "We build."
And as the sun rose over Brooklyn, painting the cracked motel window with gold and fire, Darius rolled the last of his stash into a thick joint.
He sparked it.
Inhaled deep.
And whispered,
"If pressure makes diamonds…Then they ain't ready for what's growing under me."