by Zuri Day
“Going somewhere, little sister?” Dexter asked as he made himself a turkey salad sandwich.
Diamond picked a chip off of his plate. “He doesn’t know it yet but I’m taking advantage of the fact that my watchdogs, otherwise known as Donald and Genevieve, are out of town. I’m spending the weekend with Jackson. He works too hard and I want to remind him that there are more important things in life than running a business.”
Dexter laughed. “You’re one to talk. I think you’re more driven than me or Donovan.”
“Hey, I’ve got to hold my own!”
“Oh, you’re holding your own all right. And then some! So you’re headed to that fancy estate you told me about?”
“He’s at work. I’m going to surprise him there. What are you doing?”
“I’m headed to San Diego myself, to Donovan’s house.”
“He’s actually going to spend some time there?”
“Yep, got a poker game all set up. Time for some male bonding.”
Diamond hugged her brother. “You guys have fun. I love you.”
Dexter hugged her back. “I love you, too.”
About an hour later, Diamond pulled up in front of a tall office building in downtown San Diego. After a quick check of her makeup she exited the car and entered the empty lobby, looking for her phone where she’d stored the elevator access code that would take her to the Boss Construction offices located on the top two floors. She scrolled through her memos. Ah, here it is. She keyed in the code, and with it being the Friday after a holiday and the place empty, the elevator door opened almost immediately. She stepped in, turned around—and looked into a pair of the coldest eyes she’d ever seen.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, as her hand went to her throat. “I didn’t hear you behind me.”
“I know.” The stranger smiled. His teeth were straight and white and set in a handsome face. The smile didn’t reach his eyes.
A chill went down her back. Danger, Will Robinson! Danger, Will Robinson! If theirs had been a public company, she would have bet her shares of Drake Wine stock that she was staring into the reason that Jackson was jumpy last night.
Instinct took over. “Darn it, I forgot my phone.” She stepped toward the door just as it was about to close. And felt a strong hand wrap itself around her arm.
“Not so fast, pretty lady. I think you need to take this ride with me.”
“Oh, thank you,” Diamond said, offering as big a smile as you can muster when about to pee your pants. “But I’m seeing someone.”
“Let me guess. Jackson Boss Wright?” He sneered as if something profane had just been said.
Charm hadn’t worked, so she tried bravado. Attitude replaced the smile. The stranger’s grip felt like steel. “You really need to let go of my arm.”
“Okay.” He shoved her back against the elevator wall. “Go ahead and key in the code that will take us to the penthouse. I know that’s where you’re headed. I’ve been following your boy for days, was even at y’all’s bougie-ass hotel the day it opened.” Diamond’s eyes widened. “That’s right,” the stranger proudly continued. “I’ve been biding my time, waiting for just the right moment, and since seeing old boy’s ride in the garage, I’ve been waiting almost three hours for somebody to come help me get up in this bitch. So, with all this waiting I’ve been doing, you might not want to try my patience.”
Call her crazy, but Diamond didn’t think this guy wanted to go to Jackson’s office to sing “Kumbaya.” Again she lunged toward the door. An arm wrapped around her waist, slammed her against an equally hard chest. She squirmed, kicked, tried to bite. It would take the Jaws of Life to free her.
“Go ahead. Try and get away. I like my women feisty.”
Diamond froze. She didn’t want to appeal to any part of this man. Be calm. Think! Don’t let him know you’re scared. Shitless. “I hope you like them stubborn, too. Because if you’re waiting for me to start this elevator, we’ll be here all night.”
Diamond blinked, and there was a gun in her face.
“You’ve obviously got me confused with your punk-ass boyfriend upstairs. I’m tired of playing with you. Start the elevator.” He pressed the muzzle of the gun against her temple. “Now!”
“I don’t have it, the code, I don’t have it.” The man grabbed her hair. “Really! I swear. I’ve only been here once and I called Jackson to get in. The phone is there.” A shaky finger pointed to a box on the wall.
The stranger’s eyes narrowed. “Pick it up,” he finally said, with a slight lift of his head. “Call your man. I’ll be listening, so don’t try anything foolish. Or else there’ll be two people dying tonight.”
Diamond swallowed, willed her nerves to stop jumping. She squeezed the receiver against her ear. Jackson answered, and her heartbeat went into overdrive.
“Hey, baby.”
“Diamond?”
“Who else, fool? And don’t even think about not buzzing me up there. I don’t care how pissed off you are about the note I left turning your ass down last night.”
Long pause. Diamond imagined Jackson looking at the phone as if it had sprouted horns. Note, note, the threatening note. Diamond thought with all of her might, trying to send a telepathic warning. I’ve never written you a note in my life. Think, Jackson. Who’s been sending you notes!
He didn’t get the memo.
The elevator began its rise to the top floor. Diamond’s heart dropped to her feet. A myriad of thoughts and escape scenarios raced across her brain. Would Jackson meet her at the elevator door or be in his office? Should she try and run in the other direction…divert the attention away from him? Then she thought of the gun—the sneer on the face of the man who held it, the hatred she saw in his eyes. No, this wasn’t the day to take a bullet. Unfortunately for her she’d forgone a bulletproof vest for the more everyday Baby Phat top with skinny jeans.
She looked at the numbers: 20, 21, 22… Think, Diamond! You have got to do something! She took a step away from the stranger. And the gun.
He stepped right with her. “Try anything and I’ll drop you like a bad habit,” he said, his tone deceptively soft. “Think I’m playing? Just try me.”
“Can I at least put my keys away? I locked myself out of the car once. Jackson knows it’s the first thing I do now, put my keys in my purse.”
The stranger adopted a wide-legged stance, trained the gun directly at Diamond’s chest. “Like a bad habit,” he drawled.
Diamond placed the keys inside her purse, pushing a button on her phone in the process. Thank God my handsfree is still plugged into the phone. We won’t hear whoever answers. Thankful, too, that she watched the occasional crime show. She forced herself to look at the stranger, took in smooth brown skin, the mole on the right side of his face, just above his mustache, and a tattoo partially visible at the neckline of his tee. If they needed an artist sketch later, she was their girl.
“Who are you?” she asked, careful to talk loud enough to be heard through the leather of her purse.
The stranger gave her the once-over. “You’ll find out soon enough. And who knows. Once I’ve handled my business with Boss I just might—” he licked his lips “—handle my business with you.”
Diamond knew that she’d use every ounce of fight inside her to not be assaulted by this man. Her mind went into overdrive. Who did I call last? Whoever it was…please pick up!
Chapter 35
Several men sat in Donovan’s luxuriously appointed, state-of-the-art game room. Six of them were around a mahogany game table playing poker. Dexter had just given up his hand to take a call from his flavor of the month, who’d joined the family at yesterday’s dinner. “Hold on, baby. This is my sister on the other line. Hello?”
“Does handling your business with Jacks
on involve using that gun?”
Dexter’s brow furrowed as he looked at his phone. “Diamond?”
“Don’t worry about my business with your boy. Just chill and you might not get hurt.”
Diamond raised her voice. “Do I look stupid to you? Do you think that I think you’re going to commit a crime and leave a witness? Murdering the owner of San Diego’s top construction company, in his swanky penthouse offices no less? This is going to be all over the news. You’ll never get away.”
Dexter stepped back into the game room. “Don. Come check this out, man.”
One look at his brother’s face and Donovan knew whatever was happening was serious. “Excuse me, fellas.” He walked over to Dexter, who quickly led them out of the room, down the hall and into a bedroom where he closed the door.
“What’s up?”
“Shh.” Dexter pushed the speaker button. “Listen.”
* * *
They reached the top floor. The stranger placed Diamond in front of him and put the gun to her head. “I’m warning you. Don’t try nothin’,” he growled, pushing the hard steel against her head for emphasis. “I’ll shoot your fine ass in a heartbeat.”
The door opened. Diamond tensed. Closed her eyes.
No Jackson.
They stepped into the darkened office area. Diamond drew short, erratic breaths. Her hands were clammy. Her heart beat a rhythm almost out of her chest. “Don’t do this,” she hissed.
“Shut up” was the whispered reply.
“Baby?” Jackson’s footsteps sounded as he stepped off of a carpeted area onto the marbled hallways. “What are you—”
Jackson rounded the corner, took in the scene and found out that a man could still live when his heart stopped beating.
He stopped in his tracks, his face hard and unsmiling. Touching his woman alone was worth taking this fool’s life. “Shay.”
Diamond tried to move forward but Shay pulled her back. “Damn, dog. No smile, no hug? What kind of greeting is that for a brothah you haven’t seen in a nickel and a dime?”
“Let her go, man. Whatever beef you have is with me, not her.”
Shay tightened his grip, removed the gun from Diamond’s head and pointed it at Jackson. “You may think you’re the boss, but I’m running this show. Now put your hands up and back into your office, nice and slow like.”
“Shay…”
“Shut up and do what I tell you!”
Jackson looked at Diamond. Eyes filled with fear stared back at him and belied the calm demeanor she was trying so hard to convey. Shay placed the gun against Diamond’s temple. “Back up!”
Jackson raised his hands and backed into his office. In his mind, his hands were around Shay’s throat squeezing the life out of his former best friend’s now worthless body. “Okay,” he said, once they’d entered. “Now what?”
“At first, I was just going to kill you, but in the time it took me to get into this fortress you call an office, I’ve come up with another idea…call it a farewell gift from one friend to another. Here’s how it’s going to go down. You’re going to sit down at that computer and conduct a little transfer. You’re going to deposit a cool mil into this account.” With the gun again in Diamond’s back, and his eyes darting between her and Jackson, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. Jackson clenched his fists. “Don’t move!” He prodded Diamond with the gun butt, over to Jackson’s desk, where he laid down the card.
Then he jerked Diamond up against him, ran a hand over her body. Jackson clenched his jaw, took a step. Shay raised the gun to Diamond’s head. Jackson froze. “And you, sexy, are going to do everything I tell you unless you want Boss to watch while I splatter your pretty brains all over the floor.” The shiver was involuntary and Diamond cursed herself for her nervousness. Shay laughed, sinister and dark. “Damn, man. She’s shaking and everything, like she loves you or something. What do you think, Boss,” Shay taunted. “I’d say taking your woman and making her my sex slave, screwing her brains out and then passing her on to my friends just might make up for one or two of the almost twenty years you made me do.”
Diamond struggled to break away. Shay laughed, rubbed the gun along her cheek.
He knew it was pointless to reason, but Jackson tried anyway. “Shay, we grew up together. You know me, man—”
“I thought I did.”
“And you know I’d never rat you out. I’ve never been a snitch, man.”
“Mighty funny then, that while me and Wesley both end up in prison, you don’t even do a day in jail. If you didn’t sing for the reward money or cooperate with the prosecutors, then how did that happen?”
“It happened because I didn’t do anything, man. You know this!” Jackson took Shay’s silence as a sign that he just might be listening. “Think about it, Shay. My uncle had hella paper. Why would I want ten lousy g’s?”
“Oh, so you do remember that lousy amount offered as reward money.” He took a quick look around. “Guess that’s chump change to you now.”
“Maybe Wesley tried to cut a deal, maybe that’s how the prosecutor found the gun in the side panel.”
“Well, now, wouldn’t that be convenient considering the fact that he’s dead!”
* * *
Donovan and Dexter pulled into the Boss Construction parking lot. One sentence was all Donovan needed to hear before they’d called the police and jumped into Dexter’s Mercedes. Had there been any doubts that the car could indeed do 155 miles per hour, they’d definitely been put to rest on the drive over. Dexter killed the engine. As one, the brothers exited and walked across the lot, their steps steady and sure.
Donovan opened the door to the building. “The police said to wait for them.”
Dexter shot his brother a look. “Yeah, right.”
They stepped inside and rushed to the bank of elevators. Dexter pushed the button. The elevator dinged. Entering, he hurriedly pushed the button to the thirtieth floor. The light indicator blinked. “Damn!” He slammed his hand against the code panel, then looked at Donovan. “What are we going to do?”
Donovan was already heading out the elevator. “Stairs! Come on!”
Dexter was right behind him. “Won’t the doors to the floors be locked?”
They reached the stairs and started to climb. “With our sister in danger on the other side of that door, it will take more than a lock to stop us.”
* * *
“Man, I’m tired of talking. You’ve got five minutes to make the transfer.”
“Shay, listen. I can’t transfer this kind of money by computer. They have checks and balances on any transactions over ten thousand dollars. This transfer can only happen in person or over the phone.”
Jackson watched Shay’s finger slide to the trigger. He was surprised to find that the cool, calm, collected voice being heard in the room was his own. “Listen, Toe-2-Toe,” Jackson continued, seeing a slight reaction at the use of his ex-friend’s childhood name. “You don’t want to do this, man. You just got out of prison. And you especially don’t want to hurt somebody you’ve just met, who’s never done anything to you. Let her go, man. Let this be between you and me.”
Shay glanced at his watch. “Four minutes.”
Jackson’s mind spun with ways to thwart Shay’s plan, for both him and Diamond to make it out of this mess alive. “Look, I can transfer ten grand right now and set up the rest on Monday. It’s the holidays, Shay, the banks are closed! Any more than ten thousand dollars won’t go through! I can give you ten, you let her go, and then I’ll lay low with you wherever you want until I can give you the rest.” Belatedly, Jackson remembered the safe in his office. “Look, man. I’ve also got some cash here. In the safe behind that picture. Probably another ten g’s or so. I’ll give that to you, to
o.”
Shay snorted. “Like you have a choice.”
“This is your game, player.” Jackson held up his hands in a sign of surrender.
“No! Get the cash out of the safe first.”
Jackson watched Shay trail him over to where the safe was. “Just open it. Reach inside and your girl becomes a pleasant memory.”
Jackson opened the safe and then stepped away, as Shay had commanded. “Get that money, sexy,” Shay ordered Diamond, his voice becoming higher as his thrill increased. “Get me something to put this money in. No, Boss, you stay still. I’m talking to your bitch.”
A curtain of fury came over Jackson. In spite of the gun, he began to walk toward Shay. “Disrespect my woman again,” he said, his tone low and deadly, “and there won’t be a gun big enough to keep me off your ass.”
“We’ll see about that,” Shay responded, with a touch less bravado than before. He took the bag of money that Diamond handed him and then ordered Jackson over to the computer for the bank transaction.
Jackson sat down at the computer and picked up the card that Shay had laid on the desk. “This is too many numbers.” He looked up. “This must not be a California account.”
“Don’t worry about where the money is going. Just know that I’ll be meeting up with it soon and living the good life the way you’ve been doing for all these years.”
Jackson began typing.
“Wait!” Shay moved himself and Diamond a bit closer to Jackson. “Turn that screen around so that I can see it. I need to make sure that you’re depositing my money, not sending an email to the police.” Shay laughed. It held no humor.
Jackson adjusted the computer and pulled up one of his smaller bank accounts. The balance showed just a little over one hundred thousand. He clicked a couple keys, put in the number Shay had given him, and within minutes, the screen showed that the transaction had been completed.
“There you go, man,” Jackson said, leaning back as if relaxing but actually gauging the distance between him and the gun. Could he make a lunge before Shay fired? “Ten thousand in your bank account with more where that came from on Monday. In fact, by doing the transfer in person I can get you two million. Because even though I had nothing to do with you going to prison, you’re my friend from back in the—”