“Nah.” He shook his head. “Nah, you ain’t going nowhere. Give me the code. I’ll send somebody to get it.”
I let out a breath through my nose. I knew he wasn’t going to go for it, but I had to try. “Alright. But I think it’s best if you go. What if you send somebody and they tell you it’s empty but pocket all my muthafuckin money? The code is Four. Seven. One. Nine. Zero.” I held his stare. “It’s in the back of my closet behind everything. You’ll see it.”
Savage repeated the numbers quietly to himself, committing them to memory. Then he pointed at me. “If you playing me right now. If I get there and that code don’t work, or that money ain’t in there—” he tapped the side of his own head twice, “—I got a man right outside that door that will come in here and redecorate these walls with your brains. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“I don’t think you do.” He leaned down close to my face. “I actually respect you Griz. Always have. But if Grim dies, you die. It really is just that simple. So if there’s even a part of you thinking about being slick right now, I need you to think again about that.”
“The money is there,” I said flatly. “Take what you need and leave the rest of my shit alone.” I lied, trying to make my shit sound believable.
Savage looked at me for a second then smirked. Stood up straight and started zipping the duffel bag back up. “Leave the rest of your shit?” He shook his head laughing to himself. “Tied to a chair about to get his head blown off and still worried about your shit. You always been something else, big bro.”
He threw the bag over his shoulder and headed toward the door then stopped with his hand on the frame. Turned back around halfway.
“My people are outside. Every exit. You even breathe too loud they coming in.” He tapped the door frame twice. “Sit tight.”
Then he was gone and the warehouse went back to silence.
I sat there in the dark with my wrists burning and my shoulders feeling like they were being ripped from the sockets. I ran through everything in my head. The code I gave him wasn’t real. The money was there. But what Savage didn’t know was that I’d make that nigga have to kill me before I ever willingly gave him or Grim my hard earned shit.
As I sat there wondering how long it would take for Savage to make it to my place, then make the call to his guards letting them know I’d given him a fake code.
The door to the warehouse came off the hinges about twenty minutes later and I didn’t even flinch.
Once my eyes focused on what was going on, I couldn’t believe this shit. I just closed my eyes and let out the longest breath I’d held in two days.
“Griz!” Deuce was across the warehouse floor in about four steps, Marco right behind him, soldiers flooding every corner, waiting to lay down anything moving. Deuce got behind the chair and started working at the restraints. “You good? Talk to me nigga. What the fuck happened?”
“I’m straight,” I said. My voice came out rougher than I expected.
“Who the fuck did this? We’ve already killed the guards. Is somebody else here?” Deuce got the last of the rope loose and I brought my arms forward slow, my wrists raw and stiff. The pain shot all the way up to my shoulders when I moved them.
“My own brother.” I shook my head.
Deuce came around and looked at me. “Grim or Savage?”
I looked up at him. “How you know about my people?” I asked, concerned. I didn’t share my past life at all, so now I was in shock.
“Because I do my homework.” He said it simple. Like it was nothing.
I almost laughed. Deuce was a smart ass nigga. He really came and found my ass.
I stood up slow, legs stiff as hell, and I started running everything down for him. All of it. Cherish, the ransom, the seventy two hours, the ten million, all the moves Savage had made to scrape together seven of it. Deuce listened without interrupting, his face steady the whole time.
When I finished he asked, “Where is he right now?”
“On his way to my house. I gave him my safe code. Told him the three million was in there.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. Way more than that, but the code I gave him won’t work. And nobody will be able to get into my safe.”
Deuce looked at Marco. Something passed between them without either one of them saying a word. Then Deuce pulled out his phone and stepped two feet away from me and made a call. Whoever picked up got instructions fast and clean. No names. Just an address and instructions to handle that nigga, but not to kill em. Take him to the safe house.Listening to that call, I knew that Deuce had just ordered someone to snatch my brother from my house and take him to the safe house.
He hung up and walked back over. “What you trying to do about Grim?”
I was standing there working my wrists in slow circles trying to get the feeling back in my hands. I thought about it for a second. “Stall it out. Run the clock down to the last minute.”
