I never expected it. I was raised to see rivals as enemies—nothing more. But sometimes the most dangerous person in the room isn’t your enemy. It’s your mirror.

This chapter is about an encounter that challenged everything I thought I knew—about loyalty, about enemies, and about myself.

At the time, it was just another buy.

I had come to purchase drugs from a spot watched over by a man with an AK-47. I’d met him before—cold, calculated, never said much. This time, after the transaction was done, he tapped my shoulder and nodded. It was a sign of respect, but it didn’t register then.

Later, I found out he was a rival.

Someone I should have hated. Someone I’d been told to see as less than human.

But something shifted.

I kept coming back. Business was good, and the drugs were potent. But over time, so was the familiarity. We kept running into each other. Eventually, we spoke.

One day, he was sitting on the porch, cradling his submachine gun like a baby. Smoke curled from a stick in his mouth like a chimney. I asked if I could sit with him. He nodded.

I took a hit off the stick and almost coughed out my lungs. The smoke was choking me. My eyes watered. My chest burned. I thought I was going to throw up. He just laughed.

At first, I didn’t think it was funny. But as the coughing settled, my whole mood shifted. The high made everything feel brighter—like someone had painted the world in neon.

We sat in silence. Then small talk. Then real talk.

We laughed. We shared stories. For a few hours, we sat there like we had known each other for years. It felt surreal. This man, my “enemy,” had become my friend.

When I finally told him who I was—what crew I was from—he just shrugged like it didn’t matter. Like we were from the same side.

That shook me.

I had spent my whole life fighting people like him. People who wore the wrong color. People I’d gone to war with. And now I was sitting beside one, feeling something I hadn’t felt in a long time: human connection.

I started to wonder: What am I really fighting for?

But questions don’t always lead to answers. Sometimes they lead to grief. When someone I loved was killed by his people, everything I thought I was becoming… shattered.

Part 5 Coming soon….