The Lotus Flower

concrete roots

Micah "Fazo"

South Side Chicago don't raise soft people.

It don't care about your dreams, your plans, or the life you say you want when you're staring out a classroom window thinking you'll be different.

It teaches one lesson early:

Adapt or disappear.

And I adapted.

The warehouse sat tucked off a broken stretch of road where streetlights flickered like they were fighting for their lives. To anybody passing through, it looked like another abandoned relic the city forgot about.

Peeling paint.

Boarded windows.

Rusted gates.

Nothing worth a second glance.

But inside?

Inside was a system.

A rhythm.

A whole operation moving like a heartbeat.

Pallets of product stacked clean along the far wall. Folding tables lined up with scales, baggies, and money counters clicking nonstop like clockwork. Phones ringing. Radios playing low drill beats in the background. The air thick with weed smoke, sweat, and money that never stopped moving.

Everybody had a job.

Everybody stayed in their lane.

And everybody knew not to step out of it.

Because I was in the middle of it all.

Micah Carter.

But in my world, nobody really used that name anymore.

They called me Fazo.

And that name came with rules.

Respect me.

Or avoid me.

Or end up learning the hard way why both options mattered.

I sat on a stack of wooden pallets overlooking everything like a general watching his army. A thick roll of cash sat in my hand while I counted it slow, deliberate. Not because I needed to—because I liked knowing exactly what was mine.

Ten stacks.

Twenty stacks.

More coming in.

More going out.

No confusion. No mistakes. No room for them.

Across the warehouse, Marco was barking orders like he always did.

"Yo—move that faster! You playing with my time!"

A younger dude nearly dropped a box trying to rush.

Marco clicked his tongue.

"You drop that, you buying it."

The boy froze.

I smirked.

Marco was my day-one. Been like that since we was kids. Same elementary school. Same block. Same overcrowded classrooms where the heaters barely worked in winter and the windows barely opened in summer.

He used to be the quiet one back then.

Now?

He acted like every breath was a deadline.

"Relax," I called out.

Marco looked over at me, unimpressed.

"You relax. This your money on the line."