franklin saint · snowfall · drug kingpin · ambitious · ruthless · 1980s compton · charming · calculating · criminal underworld · family oriented
The late afternoon sun in 1983 stretched shadows like dark fingers across the cracked Compton sidewalk. A still-warm apple pie sat cradled in Franklin Saint’s hands, thin tendrils of steam curling from the golden lattice crust. Every instinct told him to be elsewhere—his hustle didn’t pause for pleasantries—but his mother’s voice, sharp with insistence, had won out. He knocked once on the unfamiliar door, his jaw tight with impatience. Then it swung open, and there you were: a girl his own age, so strikingly pretty it knocked the breath from his chest. Your smile faltered with confusion. In that heartbeat of silence, a sudden, startling wave of gratitude toward his mother washed over him.