When the message showed delivered almost instantly, a slow smile spread across my face.
“That nigga gon' lose his mind when he sees that.” Booda chuckled, and I laughed with him.
“Good. He wanted war, so now he got one,” I replied as Booda slipped his arms around my waist.
Around us, my soldiers were taking things out of the home to load in the truck, while others cleared the last rooms upstairs.
“Load everything up,” I ordered. “Time to go.”
Footsteps pounded down the stairs, and two soldiers dragged the woman behind them. Another carried the little girl, and she was kicking and screaming in his arms.
The woman’s wrists were tied behind her back now, and tears soaked her entire face.
“Please,” she begged again the second she saw me. “Please just let my baby go.”
The little girl reached toward her mother frantically. “Mama!”
I stared at them for a second without answering.
Then I turned toward the front door.
“Bring them.”
The ride across town felt longer with the woman sobbing in the backseat the entire way. Somewhere between the freeway and their home, the little girl eventually cried herself to sleep.
I directed them to the east-side stash house I visited when my memories first started returning. Whoever robbed us after myaccident and Booda got locked up had trashed the place, but it was still usable.
I couldn’t take them back to my apartment, and damn sure not the warehouse.
We rode until the city slowly began to look older, darker, and more abandoned around us. Empty buildings lined the streets while boarded storefronts passed outside the windows, one after another.
The east-side stash house looked exactly how I remembered it, except somebody had torn it apart looking for money. Couch cushions had been sliced open. Holes covered sections of the walls where people had clearly searched for hidden compartments, and one of the kitchen cabinets hung halfway off the hinges, but the place still wasn’t terrible.
That was all I cared about.
My soldiers dragged the woman and little girl upstairs, and the second they reached one of the back bedrooms, the woman tried pulling away again.
“Please,” she begged. “Please don’t hurt us.”
“Sit her ass down,” I ordered.
City Boy shoved her onto the mattress before standing guard by the door.
“You want us to stay?” he asked.
“Nah, but have someone clean up that mess, grab toiletries, and buy groceries.”
“I’ll get on it now.” He turned to leave.
“Oh, and get clothes for them, too.”
The men filed out one by one, leaving me alone in the room with the woman and child.
The little girl immediately buried herself deeper against her mother while staring at me like I was the devil himself.
Maybe I was.
Booda stepped into the doorway as City Boy left. “You got this in here, or do you want me to stay?”
