One of the men moved toward the bed while the woman started screaming. The little girl cried hysterically as her mother held onto her with everything she had.
“Bring the car around back,” I ordered, watching as the soldier grabbed the woman’s arm.
She fought him hard and tried to pull away while the little girl screamed bloody murder.
The woman’s desperation reminded me of something I couldn’t quite grasp, a memory just out of reach that made my jaw clench.
“Move,” I said coldly, turning away from the bed.
Booda headed into the hallway, and I followed him down the stairs, where my soldiers were loading bags of money and kilos of coke into duffel bags. The smell of gunpowder and blood hung thick in the air, mixing with the acrid stench of spilled liquor.
“We got at least three hundred thousand in cash so far,” Twan said, holding up one of the bags.
I nodded. Three hundred thousand was solid, but it was nothing compared to what Rich had been moving before we started hitting him. The real victory was the message we were sending. Money could always be replaced. Fear was harder to recover from.
“What about the pills?” I asked.
“Whole operation,” City Boy replied. “Scales, bags, everything. We’re talking major weight.”
I moved through the living room, stepping over bodies. The woman’s screams from upstairs had stopped, which meant they had her secured. Even with my memories still broken in places, I knew taking a woman and child crossed a line I’d never crossed before. But another part of me, the part that understood leverage, knew this was necessary if I wanted to get to Rich.
He could replace the money. He couldn’t replace peace of mind.
City Boy dragged another duffel bag across the floor before tossing it beside the others near the doorway.
“We need to move,” he said. “Neighbors definitely heard all this shit.”
“They heard it,” Twan added while checking the magazine in his rifle. “Question is how long before police start flooding this side.”
I looked around the house one more time.
Bodies were scattered across the hardwood floors and furniture. Blood streaked the walls near the staircase, and shell casings covered almost every room downstairs. Rich spent a lot of money turning the place into a fortress, but now it looked like a war zone.
Good.
I wanted him sick when he saw it.
A loud crash echoed upstairs a second later, followed by another scream from the woman.
“She tryna fight again,” one of the soldiers yelled down the staircase.
“Then tie her ass up,” I shouted back.
Booda stepped beside me while watching City Boy zip the last duffel bag shut.
“You know Rich gon’ crash out after this,” he said.
“That’s the point.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and opened the camera.
The flash lit the living room, and I snapped pictures of the bodies, the blood, the destroyed walls, and the empty drug tables we cleaned out.
Then I typed Rich’s number.
Koko:Checkmate, bitch!
I attached the pictures.
