I was dying laughing on the other side of the call, seeing the sheer panic that masked her face. ”Jazzy, can I sleep with you? I heard something in my room.”
She tightened her robe around her before flipping me the middle finger now that I was hysterically laughing. “Yeah, baby. No problem. Give me a second.”
She snatched her phone up before giving the bedroom a once over to make sure nothing was out of place before she let him in. Luckily, she didn’t get in the motion of things because my son was a grade-A player hater. His timing was fucking impeccable.
“Ahkeem, it’s not funny. I feel dirty.” She washed her hands at the bathroom sink, which only made me laugh harder. By now, tears were coming from my eyes.
“Aye, welcome to the life of having kids, Lovey. It’s like his ass know whenever we about to get shit cracking.”
She smacked her lips while drying her hands. “This is all your fault.”
She went ahead and let Blue in, and he crawled into the bed. I remained on the phone while she threw on some pajamas before snuggling into bed right behind him.
“Daddy, when are you coming back? I heard something in my room.”
“Soon as I finish up out here, I’m coming straight home. You been watching them scary videos on YouTube again?” The guilty look on his face told me all I needed to know.
“It’s alright, Blue. I’m right here. I won’t let nothing happen to you.” Watching her wrap her arms around him and kiss his cheek warmed my heart. They were the reasons I went so hard. I wanted to give them the world.
Eventually, he fell fast asleep in her arms. She got to yawning soon after, which let me know she was ready to call it a night.
“Stay safe and make it back to us.”
“Forever, Lovey. I love you.”
“I love you more.”
“Not possible.”
She blew me a kiss before we ended the call, and like clockwork, I got a text from Jersey.
Jerz: We out.
It was time to put shit in motion. We met outside of the AirBNB, where Ezekiel and Kross’ boy Serge pulled up on us with a work van. It was branded with the company logo for Linen King Express, the laundry company that was commissioned to do all the cleaning for the hospital Silas was holed up in.
“Ghost tags, clean title just like you wanted.” Serge dapped up Kross.
“Good looks, fam. Shit look exactly like they van.”
“Yeah, it was easy work. Make sure y’all bring it back to the shop so I can handle it. I already got another whip waiting for y’all.”
Kross okayed him. I reached into my pocket and broke him off a couple stacks. “Oh nah. You good. K and I got an understanding.”
I shook my head. “This for me, not K. We ain’t got no understanding, so we gotta talk numbers. Feel me?” I pushed the stacks into his hand. His eyes shifted toward Kross, who nodded his head with a chuckle, giving him the okay to accept the paper.
Serge thanked me for the pay off and slid off with his stacks.
“Everybody got their burner cells and left their phone at the crib, right?” I asked before we got into the van.
“Yeah, we good. This shit gone be easy money.” Javi smirked with that menacing look sparking within his eyes.
When we pulled up to the hospital, we cut through the back, avoiding security, and pulled the van into the employee parking lot. Just liked we planned, a few seconds later, the back exit of the hospital was being pushed open, and a female with her curly hair pulled into a low bun came pushing out a laundry cart that was filled with black trash bags.
“Make this shit quick. I could lose my fucking job,” shorty stressed as we piled out of the van.
“Don’t worry, Amoura. We gone be in and out,” Kross assured her.
Amoura was Kross’ son’s godmother. She happened to work at the same hospital, and after we threw the right number at her, she decided to help us out. Although she didn’t work on the unit Silas was on, she made friends with the nurses who were working on him and was feeding us all the information she could get.
