Brianna Barksdale ran the numbers like a machine running slow, cold oil. Her office was a small, brutally clean space above a legitimate barbershop in Harlem, a world away from the soot and squalor of the South Bronx. It was here, at a functional, organized desk, that she oversaw the cold, quiet logistics of her brother Avon's burgeoning empire.
The report she was staring at was an internal ledger provided by Prop Joe, chronicling the cash flow of the "Hunts Point Mascot" operation. Joe's numbers were usually neat, reflecting his own meticulous greed, but the source of the profit was an absurdity she couldn't dismiss: a two-year-old child named Eli Rivera.
Brianna looked at the totals for the end of October. The unit movement was solid, hitting the necessary targets to maintain the overall stability of the heroin supply line they'd inherited from Nicky Barnes. But the overall Net Cash Flow from Stringer's books showed a $1,000 discrepancy—a loss labeled simply "OPERATIONAL EXPENSE."
She tapped her pen on the desk, the sound sharp and final. She wasn't Stringer's age-peer, and she certainly wasn't Eli's. She was the family's financial future.
Stringer (7) stood across from her, his composure already strained. He was smart, but he was afraid of this room and the woman who controlled the ledger.
"Explain this operational expense, Stringer," Brianna said, her voice low and even, like a bank teller denying a loan. "This is not a petty loss. This is one thousand dollars. Did Joe skim too much on the wash? Did one of your boys—"
"No, Brianna," Stringer interrupted, sweating lightly beneath his crisp sweater. "Joe's fee is twenty-five percent, exactly. That thousand—that's Eli's."
Brianna leaned back. "The mascot? Why does the mascot have operating expenses?"
Stringer shifted his weight. "He uses it for... intelligence. Comics, cards, maybe a few clean payoffs to keep the lookout spots quiet. He said we needed the expense line for 'non-trackable assets.' He said it was strategic."
Brianna felt a twitch in her jaw. Stringer was repeating the toddler's language. This was the source of her constant anxiety: the mascot's uncanny foresight was responsible for the $42,000 Strategic Score back in April—a move that had secured their entire organization's capital base. But now that success was being chipped away by nonsensical, child-driven expenses.
She pulled up the cumulative figures. The books showed that Eli was dangerously close to securing the $35,000 Net Fund he seemed so obsessed with.
This child is not an asset, she thought, he is a liability waiting to be activated. He was too smart, and his motivation was too abstract.
She looked at the ledger, specifically reviewing the itemized losses. The $1,500 Apple Stock loss from May had been a necessary annoyance, a child playing games with real money. But this $1,000 expense now meant Eli's fund was taking unnecessary hits just as they were preparing for the final phase of laundering.
"Stringer, I need you to understand something," Brianna said, her voice hardening. "You are running this operation to secure the future of this family, not to fund a child's hobby. That money belongs to us. If Eli needs an expense line, he needs to justify it to me. With names. With locations. Not with comic books."
She closed the ledger with a sharp snap.
"You go back to that block and you tell that boy that the Operating Expense line is now closed. He owes us that thousand dollars. And I need to know why it was spent, or the rest of his clean money is going to stay right here until I vet the full cost."
Brianna knew the threat was empty—she couldn't actually stop the final laundering process without exposing her brother's operation. But she needed to assert control. She needed to know the mascot was predictable.
Outside the barbershop window, a radio crackled with the local news: DEA activity was spiking in Brooklyn, suggesting Robert "Bob" Lucci was closing the net on the city's heroin supply. Brianna sighed. The streets were getting too hot. She needed that entire $35,000 Net Fund secured, and she wasn't going to let a mysterious $1,000 loss—or a prophetic child—mess up the balance sheet.