OUT THE MUD

An Urban Crime Novel by Vince Lacy

Thirteen years in prison couldn’t break him. But the streets he comes home to might.

Malik “Stone” Carter was once a kingpin whose name carried weight on every corner. He moved serious product, commanded loyalty, and lived by one rule: never fold, never tell.

After thirteen years behind bars, brutal prison fights, and surviving a stabbing, Malik walks out with his reputation intact. But the world he left behind is gone.

The streets have new rules. And the new generation doesn’t respect the old ones.

Women are running the drug trade and outearning the men. Teenage crews are turning neighborhood rivalries into deadly scoreboards. Car burglars and scammers are chasing fast money, and social media has turned murder into entertainment.

Malik struggles to rebuild his life until one desperate decision puts him back in the game. With a crew of ambitious female hustlers moving his product, he quickly rises to power.

But his success comes with enemies.

A ruthless dealer wants his empire back. A neighborhood war is swallowing the young men Malik once watched grow up. And the woman he falls in love with refuses to surrender her independence-even when their relationship and her life are on the line.

As betrayal spreads through his inner circle, Malik discovers that money can’t buy loyalty, violence can’t guarantee respect, and some debts can’t be settled with cash.

He survived prison. He survived the streets. But can he survive his own past?

Out the Mud is a gritty, emotionally charged urban crime novel about drug kingpins, fearless female hustlers, neighborhood wars, forbidden love, betrayal, revenge, and the devastating consequences of a life built on the streets.

Everybody wants to make it out the mud. Not everybody makes it out alive.