Money, power, and respect seemed to make I.E. and Truth pretty much untouchable to most for years. Growing up in the streets of Newark, NJ, they made a pact at an early age to become two of the biggest and richest drug dealers around. By the age of 24, they had successfully accomplished their goal. Young, black, and paid, life was good in their eyes and they had no complaints. The ladies loved them, and the streets respected them.

With his height and the chiseled body to go along with brown eyes that fit perfectly against his golden caramel skin, I.E. was gorgeous, and he knew it. Let his aunt tell it, “that baby boy was born perfect.” Every female in the hood was pretty much willing to do anything to be his girl, or at least one of them, but he prided himself on being unattached. He’d never been in love or had a woman he called his own. And he loved it.

Truth loved his lifestyle just as much as IE loved his. Dark-skinned with dreadlocks, he was built solid and strong. The women flocked to Truth everywhere he went but they also knew that he was only concerned with getting money and his long-time girlfriend, Shafequah. She was his world, and everyone knew it. And there was no way he was going to replace her, ever.

One night at the club changes everything when Truth and I.E. meet the breathtakingly beautiful Tina, and her equally as beautiful God-sister, Ka’mirah. It’s in that meeting that everything in their world begins to change in the blink of an eye.

When I.E. and Tina decide to give in to their feelings for each other, it sends both I.E. and Truth into a street war with their rival and Tina’s ex, Raheem. Determined not to back down from his empire or the woman he wants in his life, I.E. is ready to defend his territory by any means necessary. Stuck in a street battle with I.E., Truth is also waging war at home when he finds himself caught up with two women he can’t choose between. Whatever he eventually decides, he knows for sure that life as he knew it will never be the same.

Zee Smalls