Kay’Lo laughed. “Nigga, shut up.”
Pressure shook his head, still lookin’ at me like he was thinkin’ about it now. “Nah… let our boy cook.”
With a smirk, I lifted my glass. “Say less.”
After that, the conversation moved on like it always did, with jokes flying, cards dropping and drinks getting refilled, but my mind stayed locked in on what I said. It wasn’t no drunk talk or some random idea I threw out just to hear them react. I had been sitting on that thought longer than I let on, watching how things were playing out, listening to what they were up against, and piecing together what I knew I was capable of doing.
Security didn’t impress me. It never had. All that meant was somebody spent money trying to feel safe, and I had spent enough time around systems, networks, and locked doors to know that everything built by a person could be taken apart byone too. It was just a matter of patience, timing, and knowing where to apply pressure.
As far as I was concerned, I was done sitting around watching this trial drag out while everybody waited on something to break in their favor. I didn’t come all the way back to Trill-Land just to sit on the sidelines and hope things worked out. I came because Kay’Lo called me, and when he said he needed me, that was enough for me to move without asking questions.
Now that I was here, now that I had seen what he was up against and what it could cost him, I wasn’t about to play it safe.
So while they laughed and passed more blunts around, I leaned back in my chair and let that thought settle in a way that felt right.
Walking into Roderick Lennox’s house didn’t feel crazy to me. It felt necessary. It felt like the kind of move that actually changed something instead of dancing around the problem and hoping it fixed itself.
And the more I sat here, the more I realized I didn’t give a fuck about whatever security he had lined up or how tight he thought his shit was.
I had already made up my mind.
It was time to walk in that man’s house with a plan, and whatever came with it, I was ready for that too.
Three nights later…
Three days passed since I told Kay’Lo I would get into Roderick’s house and here I was, standing right outside of it like I had beenassigned to be here.
Most people would’ve been somewhere across the street with binoculars, sitting in a parked car, watching patterns and waiting for a weak moment to slip through. That wasn’t me, though. I didn’t move like that, and I never had. If I wanted access, I made it make sense on paper first, and once it made sense there, the rest of it fell into place.
It took me those three days to get everything lined up the way I needed it. I tapped into the private security system Lennox used, and that alone told me what I was dealing with. It wasn’t no basic setup. They had a full roster, rotating shifts, logged access points, badge tracking, all that shit meant to make people feel untouchable. I didn’t rush it though, because rushing was how people got caught, and I didn’t have time for mistakes.
I sat back and studied it first. I watched how the guards clocked in, who showed up late, who left early, and who nobody really paid attention to.
Every system had a weak spot, even the ones built with money behind them, and I found mine in a guard who barely existed in their own records. He was always there, but never important enough to stand out, and that made him perfect.
I pulled his information clean, copied everything from his ID to his access level, and then I slid myself right into his place. I didn’t erase him because that would’ve been stupid. I just adjusted the schedule, shifted some hours, and added an overlap that made it look like coverage instead of a replacement. On paper, it read like I was supposed to be here, and that was all I needed.
The badge was the easy part after that. Once I had the credentials, I made my own. It was the same clearance, same access, same everything. If somebody scanned it, it hit the system like it belonged, because it did.
The uniform came the same way. Inventory logs told me what I needed to know, and I checked it out before anybody could question it. By the time I stepped on the property, there wasn’t a single thing about me that didn’t line up if somebody decided to look.
And that was the part most people never understood. You didn’t sneak into places like this. You walked in like you had every right to be here.
I had been outside Lennox’s house for hours at that point, posted up with the rest of the security like I had been doing this job for years. Nobody questioned me. Nobody gave me a second look. I nodded when they nodded, moved when they moved, and kept my presence low enough that I blended into the rhythm of everything else.
I watched Roderick come and go like I was just another guard doing his job. I saw his wife leave earlier in the evening, and when she passed by, I gave her a small nod like everybody else did. She didn’t hesitate or look twice, and that told me everything I needed to know about how clean my entry was.
Time moved slow after that. The sun dropped, the lights around the property came on, and the whole place settled into that quiet that only came with money and security wrapped around it.
By the time midnight rolled around, the house had gone still. There was no movement or noise, but just guards rotating and the occasional low conversation that didn’t mean nothing.
I stayed where I was, letting the hours pass without forcing anything. Patience was part of the game, and I had already committed to doing this right.
At some point, one of the guards near me started making small talk. He had a cup of coffee in his hand, and he looked like he had been up too long to be asking questions, but he needed something to keep himself awake.
“You been on this post long?” he asked, taking a sip.
“Long enough,” I replied, keeping it simple while I reached back and pulled a cigarette from my pocket.
