Since turning himself around and coming out of his funk Tupac had been busy. He'd been staying in Las Vegas for a little while scoping out an operation of one of his former friends. It was while he was here on business he'd met a business man by the name of TM who had an operation he was running out of LA and had offered him an invitation to join. The prospect of working out of the city he spent so much of his life in, so he took the man up on his offer.

He knew with joining a new crew that he'd have a modicum of protection but also he'd have to get out there and start earning money so that he could contribute. He had just the idea in mind. A former friend of his was talking to him about an operation he was running out of Las Vegas. Since said friend was no longer around and since he had planned to bring Makavelli in on it, he was sure his friend wouldn't mind if he took up the mantle for him. Besides with all the death in Vegas it was probably just going to waste or in need of new management. Either way he felt like he was the perfect candidate to take that over so he nominated himself.

He was no fool however. He knew that at the very least he could expect some form of resistance. Even if there was none it was better to be safe than sorry. Good thing about living in LA most of his life is that he knew the local criminals and the hook ups. Acquiring weapons and a small crew of willing workers was no big deal for him. He needed gunmen, people who would have his back for the right price and he knew the right ones to see. They wouldn't be deadly loyal to him but that was fine. They were professionals and they were getting paid so he had no worries about them. Besides he could watch his own back just fine anyway.

It took a bit of looking and asking around in the right shady places to get word on a few of the dealers who were working for his old homie.  From there it was trying to crack the structure of things. Corvus had mentioned that he wanted to become the man who was supplying the drugs to the streets not receiving them and selling them himself. This would've been easier with their two heads together but that was no longer an option. Makavelli was undeterred anyway, he'd figure this out and expand this himself.

After speaking to a few of the right dealers it didn't take him long to find the hotel that Corvus mentioned they were running shop out of. This was where the hard part came in. Makavelli and his small crew had to sit on the hotel to see if they could find an exact place of where they had set up shop. Makavelli wasn't a wait and see kinda guy and neither were the guys he had with him. He was never one for stuff like this as he preferred the straight forward approach.

He had to wait and spend a couple of days of watching people come and go from the hotel until he seen a shady looking resident return to the hotel with a large duffel bag. He could suspect that this was money that he had picked up and cleaned from the dealers on the streets. Makavelli and his gang followed the man inside the hotel but kept a distance. When the money man called for the elevator they waited with him but tried their best to look innocuous. People in the drug game were naturally paranoid if they were smart so none of them were surprised when this man kept glancing their way.

He wished he had a better plan than for them all to pile onto the same elevator but at the moment that was the best he had. He kept conversing with his crew trying to pay the man no mind. They seen the man press the button for the 7th floor so Makavelli pressed the button for the 6th. Him and 3 of his guys would get off on the 6th and walk up the last floor while the last one would get off on the same floor as their target.

Makavelli and 3 of his people got off on the 6th floor as planned. They kept up their act of nonchalantly talking and laughing until they heard the elevator doors close. They then rushed for the door to the hall so that they could walk up to the next floor. When they got to the 7th floor they were surprised to see that the bag had been dropped just outside the elevator. Makavelli looked around and the two men were nowhere in sight and there was no movement anywhere in the hall.

"Damn, where the fuck they go?!" He asked loudly feeling somewhat panicked but trying to fight down the feeling.

One of the people who had came up the stairs with him went to examine the bag while the other two went looking further up the hall for their missing member and the target. He turned one of the corners in the hall and came face to face with the barrel of a gun in his face. Makavelli froze and looked behind the man who was holding the gun to see the lost member of his crew knocked out on the ground. His eyes then returned to the man holding the gun who was glaring at him.

"Keep your fuckin' mouth shut and do what I tell you to do and I might let you die quickly." The man said before grabbing Makavelli roughly by the front of his shirt and pushing him into one of the nearby rooms.

Makavelli could hear him locking the door behind him and for the time being could only hope the people who he'd brought along with him heard the door movements and would come follow along. Either that or this man would give him the opportunity to reach in his waistband and pull his own gun. He wasn't too optimistic about that happening though.

The man faced him again with the same glare he had out in the hall. Makavelli watched the man and the gun he was holding intently just waiting for the right moment to possibly make a move but not making a move until he was sure he could do so without catching a bullet.

"You had to know how this would go. Do you have any idea who you're trying to rip off? Who are you working for?" The man asked with anger evident in his voice.

Makavelli couldn't help how weird this felt. The man was angry about being robbed but yet he left his bag in the hallway while there were the other dudes that he'd come with but this man didn't seem worried about them at all.

"If I tell you who I'm with you'll have to let me go. I know all about this thing you got goin' on here. I was actually gonna try to talk things out. Just had to figure out how. I ain't trying to rob you. If I was I would've just jacked you on the elevator." Makavelli said.

The man looked like he wasn't buying it. He adjusted his grip on his gun but didn't take it off Makavelli for a second.

"Uh huh. Really convenient for you to say when you and you're boys are caught up in a bind. All four of you are held up and now you're saying you don't wanna rob us." The man replied with skepticism all in his voice.

Makavelli was confused to where his response was coming from.

"The fuck you talkin' about? Last I checked you only knocked out me and my homeboy. That's only two of us."

At that moment there was a knock at the door. The man with gun in his hand allowed a smirk to spread on his face. He then backed up toward the door never taking his eyes or his gun off on Makavelli. He fumbled a bit for the latch to unlock the door. Once he got it open Makavelli seen his other two men being walked in by three guys pointing their guns at them. They must have had this floor locked down somehow.

Makavelli not liking the odds of this situation and also not feeling like he could talk his way out of this one dove to his right and crawled his way quickly on the ground behind a couch before he could get shot. He glanced back briefly to where he had been standing to see a bullet hole there and another one along the ground where he had just been crawling. In the confusion and scuffle the two men who had been held at gunpoint were tussling with a few of the men who had brought them in for their gun.

Behind the couch Makavelli had pulled out his own pistol and was taking the safety off getting it ready to fire when he felt the couch he was using as cover take a couple of bullets. He rolled toward the edge of the back of the couch to peek around and get a feel of the situation. He knew it was most likely that his crew would get shot in the ensuing tussle so he'd be on his own. He peeked around the edge of the couch to see two men taking cover. One was using a wall leading to the kitchen and the other was outside the door to the room using that outside wall and the doorway for cover.

Makavelli decided he'd focus on the one using the wall toward the kitchen first since he was the closest. He pushed out a little more around the edge just to give them a glimpse of him so they feel they had a shot. It was a trick and he was the bait. Luckily he was ready to shoot before his shooter was and as the man stepped out from his cover to take a kill shot, Makavelli was already ready with his gun and shot him once in the chest and another time in his throat before rolling back into cover before the shooter further away took his shots and missed.

Makavelli began to crawl back to the side of the couch that he had at first crawled behind hoping that his foes thought he would stay still in place and wouldn't be expecting him to keep moving. He knew there were two more outside at least and the other one he had already seen. He kept sliding toward the other side of the back of the couch and once he got to the edge he peeked his head over the top to see the man who was outside now inside trying to move on his position.

Makavelli stood quickly to his full height and brought his gun up while he saw the man freeze in surprise. Things felt like they were moving in slow motion as he saw the man moving his gun into position to try and shoot him but Makavelli had moved quicker and shot him in the leg. The man went down before he could completely focus his gun on him and Makavelli then shot him a second time, this time in the chest.

Then he was alerted to another loud bang and felt a sharp pain tear into his shoulder. He dropped down to the ground out of instinct the moment he felt the pain. Makavelli looked over at his right shoulder to see the blood seeping through his shirt. He had definitely been shot but in his mind he knew he couldn't focus on that now. He picked up the gun with his left hand and tried to listen to see which side the man was advancing on him from. He knew he would try to move up due to him feeling confident that he'd been shot.

He heard quiet steps coming from his left side knowing that the man must be advancing from his left. He'd have to shoot with his left which wasn't his primary hand so he wasn't that confident in his aim. He still had no choice. He gathered up his courage quickly and steeled himself to ignore the pain his jerky movements would cause his shoulder. He quickly stood and shot wildly in the man's direction three times. To which the man responded by hitting the floor. Whether he hit him or not he wasn't sure but seeing as this wouldn't really end well and he was in no shape to fight any longer Makavelli made a break for the door.

He got outside and saw three bodies laying on the ground. Two of them were bleeding and one was not. He didn't stop to figure out what happened but it didn't take much to see that two men were shot out here. The other was the first of his crew to get taken and knocked out.

Makavelli then headed the way he remembered toward the emergency exit. So he could head down and leave the building. This gunfight had been going on for a bit so it wouldn't be too much longer before cops arrived and he wanted no parts of that.

As he was making his way toward the stairs he saw the duffel bag that the money their target was bringing up was in. He went over to it and dropped his gun inside it and picked it up with his good arm. Since he went through all this trouble the least he could do was get a little something. He picked it up and made his way toward the stairs. He heard a couple of shots being fired behind him.

Guess that answered his question on if he hit the last guy in that room or not.

"Fuck, just get off my ass already." He said more to himself than anyone else as he continued to run for the door to the stairs. He burst through it and jetted down the stairs. He wasn't paying attention to how many stairs he was going down he just kept running and running for his life. Finally after some time he ran out of stairs to run down. He moved toward the emergency exit and kicked it open setting off an alarm in the building. In the grand scheme of things he figured that didn't really matter since most of the people were already exiting the building since they heard the first few shots be fired.

He noticed this exit took him out to the side of the building. He ran around to the front pretty sure the man who was just shooting at him upstairs wouldn't be too far behind him so he had not time to stop and try to figure things out. First thing was first. Just survive. He had to survive first then think about what to do next after. So survive he did. He ran until he got to the parking lot. He ran to the car he had driven to Las Vegas from LA and unlocked the doors, throwing the duffel bag in the backseat . He quickly put the key in the ignition and started it. He drove off as fast as he could. He heard shots being fired from behind him but none of them hit his car. He looked back in the rear view mirror and saw the man standing there trying to shoot at the car. He was getting smaller and smaller in the mirror the further away he got.

Makavelli couldn't help but let out a loud hearty laughter. He wouldn't die today. He would live and though he didn't get exactly what he had wanted when he first came to town, the blessing of keeping his life was much more important than taking this drug trade at the moment. And they didn't kill him so he'd be back stronger the next time they could count on that. But the most important thing was he was gonna live and that brought him great joy and laughter in the moment.