First she took off the coat she’d worn over her clothes, then carefully removed the watch, which was actually one cool gadget and placed them gently on top of the table. She would have preferred not to take off that watch at all, but she did not want them damaged as she worked.
Next, she knelt down and studied the safe. “Let’s see what will make you sing, baby,” she muttered as she looked at it.
She knew from experience that it was an electric lock with four one-inch bolts. The cheapskate hadn’t even bothered to buy a top-of-the-line safe, just something he’d picked from a regular department store.
She dragged the bag that she’d dropped on the floor just a moment ago and zipped it open. Inside the bag was the rare earth magnet that the Silver Shield people had procured for her at a moment’s notice. She had no idea how they’d been able to get hold of it so quickly. Really, those people were beyond resourceful. They were so ingenious it was slightly scary.
Shaking her head lightly, she reached for the magnet. She had wrapped it in an old sock to minimize her exposure to the neodymium contained in the magnet. She’d had no trouble with them, but she’d read up a lot—yes, she was capable of searching the internet for more than just the latest deal from her favorite clothing brands. She took her job seriously and she was a cat burglar after all. So yeah, she read up on it and it had some side effects. However, it was the quickest and most efficient way of bursting that safe open.
She placed the magnet encased in the sock on the body of the safe. Then began to gently move it around. This could not be rushed, even though she knew her time was limited. Anyone could come in at that instant and she knew for sure that if Cruz found her there, she was dead meat.
Biting her lip in concentration, she gently tried to open the safe as she moved the magnet around, trying to locate the nickel piece. She moved the magnet to the top of the safe and tried to open it again. This time she had more luck as the door swung effortlessly open.
“Ha, bitch!” she crowed quietly in triumph.
She quickly replaced the magnet back into her bag. Just then the watch on the table crackled. She reached for it and tapped it.
“Yo, what’s up?”
“You got company.”
“How many?”
“Two ugly-looking SOBs.”
She chuckled, even as her heart rate sped up, but she remained calm. “How long do I have?”
“They’re just pulling up, so a little less than five,” came the answer.
“Great. Thanks.”
She quickly went back to what she was doing. There were several wads of cash in the safe, but she ignored them and went after the plans she could see right behind the cash. They were still folded the way she’d left them. She quickly scanned through to be sure she was picking the right thing. She dumped that into her bag.
She heard the front door being opened and her heart began to thunder. She had only a few seconds to be out of there. She picked up some of the cash and dumped it in her bag. Child support she knew she was never going to see from the asshole.
Next she quickly and noiselessly shut the safe. There was no sign of entry and she was proud of her work. She got to her feet and grabbed her coat as well as the phone and watch. She’d put her phone on silent mode and she knew whoever her lookout was, he was not going to say a word.
She heard footsteps coming towards the room and glanced around quickly. There was a small bathroom, a closet really, which Cruz had converted into a bathroom. She rushed in there and shut the door, turning the lock just as the door to the room was opened.
“How do we get this shit opened?” she heard. She frowned, that was not Cruz’s voice. It was one of his guys, Little Sam.
Little Sam was a big bear at over six feet tall and could kill a man with his bare hands. She had her suspicions that he’d actually done that.
“We don’t. We’ll just rip it off the desk and go with it. We’ll head for the border. We can get it open on the way.”
This time she knew who was speaking. A shark called Ricardo. He had creeped her out no end. It looked as though they were robbing Cruz. Well, she was not going to hang around to find out. She climbed on the toilet seat and glanced out. The window faced the side of the house.
She had no idea whether she was in the clear or not, but she was going to take the risk. She opened the window. There was just enough space for her generous ass to pass through. Without another thought, she climbed up the water system and was out the window.
“What was that?” she heard.
Without waiting, she turned and ran towards the back of the house. The snow was now falling heavier, so she shrugged on her coat as she went and pulled up the hoodie, she got to the next house and paused to listen, grateful for the falling snow that had covered her tracks.
From where she was hiding, she saw a ratty, broken down car parked by the side of the house and crawled beneath it. She was just in time because she heard footsteps running down. They stopped just a few yards from the car. She could see them from where she was lying flat on her belly.
Keisha prayed with everything in her that they wouldn’t look in her direction because if they did, they would have seen her. It seemed someone up there decided to answer her prayers this time around because one of the men gestured to the other and they walked back the way they’d come.
She waited a beat, listening to make sure everywhere was quiet before crawling out from beneath the car. She hurried down the street and began to walk briskly towards the bus stop.
Suddenly, a rundown, beaten up car pulled up on the street before her. It was the sort of vehicle that would not draw any attention. She looked at the driver to find him staring directly at her. She was sure that was it, she was dead. Then she looked closely and knew she recognized those eyes. She closed her eyes in relief. Next she took a deep breath then walked calmly to the car.
“Hey, lover, where did you get this damn hooptie?” she asked, referring to the rundown state of the car. Then without waiting for an answer, she got into the car and said, “Please get me out of here, Ryan.”
“With pleasure.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
8:45 p.m. Somewhere in the Bronx
Tamika glanced at the men who had their weapons trained at them. She did not look at Nico. If she did, she would probably fly at him in rage and that would have been counterproductive at that moment. But once they got out of this she was going to kill him. She was determined to survive this if only for that reason.
“You’ve got your five million and the plans, why don’t you let us go, asshole?” she shot at the slim man with the slicked back hair standing before them. He was practically crowing.
He walked up to her and hit her across the face. The huge ring he had on his finger cut into her skin. She felt the sting and then wetness.
“Shut up, bitch! I have something special planned for you,” he said with a snarl.
She met his eyes unflinching and then spat into the eyes. Bullseye.
“You fucking bitch!” he yelled.
Tamika could not stop the slow smile that formed on her mouth. It did not reach her eyes though. No. Her eyes were as mean as a rattlesnake as she planned all the ways he was going to pay for hitting her.
Cruz cleaned his eyes and raised his hand to hit her again.
“Just try it, son.” she dared softly.
Something in her voice must have gotten to him. She held his gaze and whatever he saw there had him bringing his hands down.
That’s right, sonny boy. You are so going to pay for all the years you’ve been beating on my sister.
Not to talk of the beating they’d given Nico before she’d caught up to him. She was so going to kill that asshole, she thought, still not looking at him.
“Let her go,” Nico said. “Your beef is with me, no need to get her involved.”
“Hell no. That bitch has it coming,” Cruz said.
“Well, if you’re going to kill us why don’t you go ahead w
ith it? What’s with the fronting?”
Tamika knew she was goading him, but at that point she did not care. She needed a way to get them out of this mess and except for the knife she had sewn to her lapel and the glove gun inside her hand gloves, she had no other weapon. Thankfully, she was scary good with a knife. And the gun could do serious damage at close range.
She looked at the windows high up, close to the roof of the warehouse. It was dark outside. She wondered if her teammates knew where they were. Somewhere between where Drew had dropped her off and the warehouse, both her phone and her watch had gone missing.
**
Almost twelve hours earlier
Tamika woke up, instantly alert. The apartment felt empty and she knew in that instant that Nico had gone out without her. How could he do this?
She’d searched the apartment, just in case she was mistaken, but there was no sign of the man. His phone was also gone. She knew he would not have gone to keep the assignation; it was still too early. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was not even nine a.m. yet. Just then her phone rang. It was Rusty.
“Your bird has flown the coop,” he said.
“Yeah, I just found out.” She was in a decidedly bad mood. How could Nico do something so irresponsible?
“Don’t worry, we have Pete on his trail.”
“Thank you.”
There was a pause. “Are you okay?” She heard the concern in his voice and sighed.
“I’m just so mad. Why would he deliberately put himself in the path of danger like this?”
“To protect you,” Rusty said simply.
“Damn it!” This was the sort of thing that drove her crazy. She was a professional, but he had not trusted her to do her job and protect them both. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Go easy on him, he cares a lot about you,” Rusty advised.
Yeah, but he did not trust her. She didn’t say that loud though. “Thanks,” she said and ended the call.
She quickly got dressed and hurriedly brushed her teeth, all the while wondering how he’d been able to get past her. Thanks to her stint in the Middle East, she was a really light sleeper. She woke up at the slightest sounds.
She looked at her reflection in the mirror. Keisha had given her some of her clothes for a more authentic feel. The skinny jeans felt comfortable enough, but the hot pink crop top was a bit too much for her. First, she did not like showing off that part of her anatomy and second, hot pink?
She did not have time to debate her sister’s questionable taste in clothes, since it was her questionable taste in men that had got them in to this mess in the first place. No, if she was being honest, she could not honestly blame Keisha for this. Nico and Cruz went way back and the gangster would have found a way to get Nico eventually. Keisha had only been a tool.
As for Nico, when she found him, she was going to kill him.
She picked up her customized jacket and wore it. She’d sewn a small knife on the lapel of the jacket knowing that it would probably come in handy. Next she pulled on a pair of gloves. Hidden in one of them, was a small glove gun. It would not be detected during a body search.
Her phone beeped again. Target spotted at location.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She repeated this two more times until she was able to channel her rage to laser focus. Next she picked up her phone, slid it into her pocket and walked out.
She found Drew waiting outside for her in a vehicle.
“Get in,” he said and drove off once she was inside.
“Thanks,” she said.
“I’ll drop you off at the location,” he said.
She nodded. The plan had been to take the underground and walk the rest of the way. But there was no time for that now.
Drew dropped her at the assigned location and zoomed off. She had barely taken a few steps when she was surrounded by a group of men. She counted about eight of them.
“Yo, Chicha, nice to see you again,” one of them said.
“What’s goin’ on, my G,” she said with a flirtatious smile. “Didn’t know y’all missed me.” She batted her eyelashes.
“Aww, babe, you gon’ get me in deep shit if the boss sees you smilin’ at me like this,” he said, but he returned her smile with a wink.
“Sorry, Chicha, gotta do this,” she heard before she felt the butt of a gun on her head.
It was hard, but not hard enough to knock her out. However, she went down and kept her eyes shut.
“Fuck, what you do that for?” she heard a voice ask.
“Boss’s orders,” came another voice.
“You got the other one? The one that came here first?”
For a second, Tamika thought they were talking about Keisha and her breath caught in her throat. But then the reply made her calm down.
“Yeah. He’s tied up.”
Which meant they got Nico. She could not afford to panic or get worried. She needed to stay calm and focused on a way to get them out.
She felt someone pick up her wrist.
“She’s still breathing. Out cold though,” the person holding her wrist said.
“Let’s get her to the boss then.”
She was lifted up and put into a car and drove off.
She knew that there were two Silver Shield agents around watching everything, but there was very little they could do in the face of a full attack. Even though at three to eight, they were outnumbered, she knew that they could easily take them out. But that would jeopardize Nico’s safety, and they would not have that.
So she cracked her eyes open to slits and tried to memorize what landmarks she could see. There weren’t many and half-laying on the backseat, propped between two sweaty bodies, did not give her the best vantage view.
They drove for several minutes before coming to a stop. Next she was half dragged, half carried into what looked like an abandoned warehouse. What was it with these types of people and warehouses? She wondered. They’d had to rescue more than a few people from abandoned warehouses.
Inside the dark and musty-smelling warehouse, she found Nico tied up. He was sitting on the floor with his hands tied behind his back and his legs bound as well.
“Nico, man, we brought you your whore,” a man spoke from the shadows. She got to know later that he was Cruz Fuentes.
“Nah, you both look good together,” Nico said in a faint voice.
One glance at him and she could tell that he’d been badly beaten. His eyes were swollen shut and his lips were twice their normal size. She felt a ball of rage unfurl in the pit of her stomach. She practiced the breathing techniques she’d learned a long time ago, until she got her rage under control.
She opened her eyes then.
“Come to join the party, babe?” the man said when he saw her staring at him.
She shrugged carelessly, “I think I’ll pass.”
Cruz laughed. “Always a sense of humor. Too bad it’s not going to save you today.”
Tamika tried to inject some distress into her voice. “How can you kill me, Cruz. What’s going to happen to our daughter?”
Cruz looked at her in disbelief. “Your daughter does not care if you exist and in a couple of years she won’t even remember you.”
“You bastard!”
“Tie her up,” he said, all traces of humor gone from his voice.
They bound her hands and feet and placed her right next to Nico.
**
Fourteen hours later
Through the slits that were his eyes, Nico glanced at Tamika. His heart ached to see her tied up the way she was. He’d wanted to spare her, but it hadn’t done any good. She had come after him. He noted the fact that she hadn’t spoken to him or even glanced at him since she came in. He knew she was mad at him, but that didn’t matter. She’d come after him.
No one had ever done that for him before. His mother had left him over and over again until she’d died and gone for good. He let out his breath in a sigh as the final walls aroun
d his heart went tumbling down.
He tried to think about how his life would be if Tamika did not make it out, and he felt like he was dying. His life stretched out before him, bleak and colorless without her in it. At that moment, he realized that he had fallen in love with the woman.
She was stubborn, tough as nails and so caring that she did not think of herself when it came to those she loved. And he loved everything about her. She made him laugh and when he was with her, he felt as though he belonged for the first time in his life.
Overcome with emotion, he looked around him. Cruz had left with most of his men, leaving behind four men to guard them. Well, at least there were four of them in the warehouse with them, he had no idea how many others were stationed outside. The four were not part of the crew that had grabbed him and beaten him up. They had come later with Tamika and had left to make sure no one had followed them. Peering at them, he was surprised to recognize one of them.
“Bobby? That you, man?”
The man named Bobby had been playing cards with another of the men. He lifted his head and looked in Nico’s direction. Then he stood up and walked slowly towards where Nico was seated on the floor.
“It’s me, Nico Ortega. Remember me?”
“Oh my fucking god!” the man said in shock, “Nico? Jesus, man! How did you get on the bad side of the boss? Thought you were dawgs, man.”
Nico heard the excitement and horror in the man’s voice and understood. They’d all creeped the hood together when they were younger and he’d been a part of Nico’s teen gang. He had not been particularly close to Bobby because he and Cruz had been a tight duo. But he’d always admired the guy’s cool demeanor.
“It’s a long story, G.”
“Wow. This ain’t good, man,” he said with a shake of his head. “It ain’t good at all. You hang in there, I’m gonna say three Hail Mary’s for you.”
The conversation seemed to have an effect on the man because when he went back to his seat, he was unable to focus on his game. After a few minutes, he stood up and lit a cigarette.
Silver Shield Security Box Set Page 72