Money's gang affiliation

He was going to fake it till he makes out alive, but like Botttles said he's not going to last as a lone wolf. He then realize before getting paroled with the phone call with Beast that life as a gang member after prison goes on. Either that or he will put his family in danger that explains his restrained relationship with his wife and son or he could run away with his family and risk looking back over shoulders for the rest of his life.

I think he saw it as a means of survival in prison. He thought he had to join a gang to survive in prison. The movie kind of makes it seem like that but IRL its not really the case.

I don't think anyone "joins" these gangs like doing some kind of cost-benefit analysis of whether they want to be a member.

They wind up getting protection from other gang members, get pressed into small-time shit like smuggling drugs or running interference and then get put up for participating in heavy crimes like murder. Then they're kind of hooked into it and there's no getting out.

In the last scene, Money's tattoos have been filled in. The Beast told him to keep them clean so people would realize he was not a made man yet i.e. he did not call the shots. So when he returns someone has inked him up -we do not know who or when, but what we do know is, he is now at the end the shot caller.