Page 21 of If I Gave You My Heart
"Hurry up," I whispered again through gritted teeth. Because he was moving too slow, I snatched the money, jewelry, hell, even the social security cards up out of the safe and tossed it in the empty pillowcase in my hand.
"This is by far the best one we hit all muthafucking week, huh Drayk—"
The bright light in the basement turning on caught the words in Smooth's mouth.
"Now… now both of you tu-tur-turn around and let me see those hands."
The Stricklands weren't supposed to return from vacation for at least four more days. Smooth and I slowly turned around.
"Don't make me bust a hole in your chest wide enough for his fat ass to fit through. Don't do anything crazy," the man said directly to me.
His old short white ass was leaning over, trying to hold up the double-barrel shotgun.
"Strickland, right?" I asked.
I was breathing so heavily under my ski mask. I wasn't afraid of death. I had looked that shit in the eyes too many times to be scared. I just never wanted to get done so bad that Joy couldn't even have an open casket for me. Judging by how close this old man was with that shotgun, I knew if he decided to set that shit off, the casket would be a closed one for sure.
"You know me? Boy…"
I gritted my teeth because here that word goes again. This time, though, I had to bite the bullet. The nigga had a shotgun facing in my direction. After robbing a few houses, I started to make it my business to do a little homework on the owners of the houses. Ol' girl from the post office who had given us the information would just give us an address and dates. She never gave us the names of the people who placed the mail on hold.
I took the initiative of buying subscriptions to websites that will do a full background check. At this moment, I was glad that my ass took that extra precaution.
"Nah, I don't know you, but I do know that your daughter, her husband, and your two granddaughters live in Cumming. Now, if we don't walk out of this house, we got some people that's gonna pay them a visit."
"Bullshit! You don't know my girl." His old ass hands shook with the lift of the gun.
"Her name is Lizzy. She's a brunette with brown eyes like yours. Do you really wanna pull that trigger and test what I just said?"
He stood there for a while like he was contemplating taking that risk. When he lowered the gun and then placed it at his side, I tapped Smooth's shoulder twice so that we could make our exit.
"God is gonna handle you," he mumbled as we breezed past him.
I didn't doubt that one bit. I had done more wrong than I had ever done right in life, and I knew when my judgment day came, I was taking the escalator to the sub-level. I made peace with that a long time ago.
We didn't get a chance to clean house how we had been doing in all the prior robberies because of our interruption, but this was by far the most lucrative lick we had hit. Cash money was inside of that safe. I didn't know why they didn't have their money somewhere in a bank account, but I was grateful they hadn't. Smooth, and I had gone straight to the storage unit. When I opened the gate to the unit, we still had a little stuff in it from the other licks we had hit. I looked at the bright, purple-colored sectional that we had taken from our first robbery. Some shit we took was harder to get off than others, but that's what came with this shit.
Smooth and I sat at the square folding table in the unit, counting our earnings. Once the last twenty-dollar bill graced my fingertips, I just smiled brightly.
"That number, right?" Smooth asked with a smile on his face, too.
"Damn right."
We had profited two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. With a two-way split, I was walking away with one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. My phone was vibrating in my pocket. I leaned up in the chair and saw that it was Dom FaceTime calling me. The skin on his bald ass head must have been tingling as soon as we finished counting the money.
I had already told Smooth that whatever we had made for the night, we would both give Dom fifteen hundred each for giving us the info to begin with.
"What's up, gang?" I answered.
"Y'all good? I called Smooth's fat ass, and he ain't answer."
I turned the camera Smooth's way before answering.
"Yeah, we're good. We got something for you when you get back, too."
Dom had taken Talia away to the casino in North Carolina. She had been complaining about spending time with him, reminding me that I had to set that date up with Nyoka. I had been chasing the bag, and now that I had hit that shit, I was going to set up the best date night ever.
"Aight, cool. I was just checking on y'all. Y'all had a nigga nervous."
