All is fair in love and war.

Just seven words speak the most honest of truths.

Whether in the streets, a recording studio or in a corporate boardroom filled with sharks disguised in thousand dollar suits.

The strategies still the same. It's only the battleground that changes. The reasons why only seem justifiable to those who bled first. Some destroy kingdoms using calculated and underhanded moves because of bruised pride. Some betray a lover for a broken heart that's been damaged once too many times. Others will pit blood against blood just to see who will be the last standing to gain it all. A form of twisted entertainment just to see who's worthy to wear the coveted blood stained crown.

Lucious always thought that animals were only six degrees from being human. The world around him was nothing but a glamorous but disturbing version of the Animal Kingdom. Homo Sapiens base functions are fueled off of pure instincts and a need for survival. Those instincts morph and become warped by outside forces into the many sins that define us today. Its the bad side of the tossed coin. Surviving the unforgiving streets had a way of toning up your mental. Common sense or street smarts were essential to making it another day as water to a lost man wandering around helpless in the desert.

Protect your neck. Trust no one.

To get to the acclaimed status he was now -a musical God, blood was spilled. It stained his hands and his conscience. How many nights he tried to make himself clean was a number to high to dwell on.

When you distance yourself from your humble roots, you can become comfortable almost too damn comfortable in this manufactured reality you have build for yourself. Especially if the reality is a vast billion dollar entertainment empire that was built on the ultimate sacrifice of the only woman that ever laid claim to your soul. The price was her freedom. She willingly gave it up so a shared dream could have a fighting chance of coming true.

And it did. Lucious was living proof of it. Their three boys were proof of it.

He never did tell her Thank You. How could he when the gesture would pale pathetically in comparison to the cost. Every opportunity to look her in the eyes through a pane of cracked dingy glass was given to Jamal. During her long seventeen year stint to keep his mind off of her, he focused on his music and battled his demons between the thighs of multiple women. The faces of the random hoes blurred in his memory. He always yearned to see something that could remind him of Cookie in each one.

Now she's back and the sudden shock had rattled a part of Lucious's cold heart where he kept the bittersweet memories safely hidden. Her ghost conveniently forgotten so he could survive without reminiscing of the good times where he didn't have to put on airs because you were now rubbing elbows with those who have never heard of a dime bag or even own stacks of paper food stamps in different colors.

She was out.

Lucious couldn't stop his heart from racing as his eyes fell upon her. Time has been too damn kind to her. She was still the most beautiful woman to ever look his way. His body recognized his equal and for a moment he marveled in its sharp reaction to her being in arm's length of his reach. Right in front of him in all her beautifully ratchet and untamed glory was the reason why late at night as the new woman in his life was tucked away sleeping off  coital bliss , Lucious would sneak away to tell the ivory keys a somber tale of a girl he once knew and the boy he used to be.

It was a tune comprised of simple words strung together that told a hood fairytale and the streets of South Philly was the stage. A young, hard-headed boy with noone fell for a pretty girl with beautiful brown eyes and a heart of a lioness.

Each night he told that story and many others to the always listening keys. The walls that surrounded them soaked in the raw emotions as he sung the closing number. It was his tribute to her. It was the only time he would let memories of her roam free. His voice would break everytime, but the words never stopped.

"...you're so beautiful...I'll still wait for you...you're so beautiful...I'll wait for you..."