“Good, do that. We don’t need any more surprises. I’m workin’ on getting this shit handled as soon as possible. I need y’all to stay safe until then.”
“You too, tell Nova and Timber, we love them.” She said, hanging up.
I put my phone back in my pocket and caught up with everybody back at the house. I headed down the metal stairsto the command center where I knew they had all gone, drawn by loud voices. When I entered the room Blue was in front of his central monitor typing out code on his keyboard that would likely break through the encryptions securing Valdez’s digital files. Black, Mecca and Kema were going through printouts of locations, building schematics and offshore accounts. I wanted every dime we could gain access to gone today. I don’t care what you do with it, keep it, donate it to charity, buy out a strip club. I didn’t care, I wanted him to hurt just like he tried to hurt us.
I filled them in on what Jenelle told me about the bomb and like me they were ready to take the same kind of revenge I was, but we had to be smart about it. We could go in blind and make a mistake, that’s what he was waiting for. We needed to hit him where it hurt the most and I think Sabrina had led us right to it. If we could verify the information and transportation route for our next target Valdez would have no choice but to come to us. All we needed was one opening and it was checkmate game fuckin over for him.
“I got it. The plan is a go.” Blue said, with excitement in his voice.
“How many men are usually on duty with them?” I asked.
“They travel as a part of a three-car convoy, ten men all together. They leave their estate at 8 AM exactly Monday through Friday. They travel the same route each time with no deviations ever. Once they make their first stop at the women's only day spa, two minutes to drop off. Half of the detail remains with the female while the other heads to the second location ten minutes away to a private school out the outskirts of town where the rest of the detail part and wait for their charge until 3:30 PM. Once they have him in tow they head back to the first location and pick up their second passenger and the other half of the security detail before heading back to the estate.” He finished.
“On Tuesday’s and Thursday's, the target only has two guards present during his weekly, he spends those days at basketball practice and gets a ride home with a fellow student. Practice is immediately after school until 6 PM. The classmate does not have a detail and usually drives them both himself. The target's guards tail them. The classmate’s family is not connected, just the average rich parents.”
“We have the layout of the school and transportation routes. We also have the layout of the spa in case we need it. I think the best time to go will be on a Thursday. Our female target has a standing dinner date with her side nigga, including a visit to their the condo that she thinks no one knows about. We can take out the security at the estate and at the school, tail him back to the estate and take him when his friend drops him off.” Blue said.
“What do we do?” Mecca asked.
“We need you and Mecca to be on standby with the female. Keep her company at the condo, we might need her as a plan B. Tyra and Nova will stay here with the kids and train.” I said, watching the look that passed between them.
“We have three days to plan and execute it with precision. In that time, we need to be to do this shit in our sleep, no mistakes. Everybody got it?”
“Got it.” everyone said in unison.
We needed to hit Valdez where it hurt to get the upper hand in this battle, putting us one step closer to winning the war. We organized the data that Blue would study from now until Saturday in neat piles because no one wanted to hear his mouth about clutter and being unorganized while we tried to plan. The man was a neat freak that bordered on OCD when it came to his work area. When the last paper was in its rightful place everyone headed upstairs except for Blue. Once he started a task it was hard to get him to focus on anything else. Nova was sitting onthe couch watching the kids practice their knife skills with the wooden replicas the twins had made them as starter weapons.
The sight of them training gave me a sense of pride that warms my heart. Though this wasn’t the type of life I wanted for my daughter, I was proud that she would be able to protect herself in any situation that she might face in the future. Black collected them and after testing them on their skill he decided to take Tyra and the kids downstairs to the gym to work on a few new moves. Kema and Mecca volunteered to make dinner for everyone, leaving me and Nova alone to talk about what we discussed while she was here with the kids.
The green loungewear set she was wearing hugged her body in a way that made me want to hold her in my arms and spoil her. But right now, wasn’t the time for that. I sat down on the couch and pulled her feet into my lap and massaged them in the hopes of relieving any tension she may have been experiencing. I noticed how she relaxed on the pillows of the couch as my thumbs pressed into the arch of her foot.
“I thought I was still on punishment, this feels more like a reward.” Nova moaned.
“You are. But this is part of my job. Now be quiet and let me tell you about the next part of the plan.”
The tentative plan I laid out for Nova seemed simple, in my head at least. All we needed was for all the chips to fall in place, but to do that we had to be smart. She wasn’t happy about having to stay behind with Tyra and the kids, but she understood and agreed without much pushback. All it took was me bending her over the bed and eating her ass until she passed out.
Three days flew by while we gathered as much information as we could on the target's location, police routines, signals and routes in the area. The only reason we ate normally was because Nova demanded that we all join her and the kids for meals each day. She had even been able to coax Blue away from hiscomputers with the promise of cinnamon rolls and homemade lasagna. She may have been enforcing meals, but my brain would only let me get three to four hours a night, so sleep would have to wait.
Nova brought balance to my life in any situation, that was one of the reasons I had fallen so hard for her when we first met. She made what I had to do for this family easier. I had to go back to the old me. The old me that didn’t give a fuck about putting other men’s families in this war. It was time to check this nigga temperature. Since he liked to send messages, let’s see if he could handle that same energy. He had sent my enemies to touch my family and for that he was gon’ pay it back in blood.
Chapter 10
Nova
My emotions wereall over the place since Crew left two hours ago on another mission or kidnapping if I was being real. This is what our lives had been reduced to, kidnapping and torturing our enemies in order for our family to remain safe. His plane should have landed by now. I had to stop worrying about them being detected. Every person with him was skilled in the art of stealth and evasion so the chances of something bad happening were low. I had to force myself to remember that. He would be home soon.
My baby was also kicking my ass today. He was probably mad that I let his daddy leave us. But I had to let him go. If Crew knew that I was in any type of pain, he would have had the doctor here and the plans for getting us out of this mess would be on the back burner. We would be fine; Braxton Hicks was normal at this stage of pregnancy.
“What are you thinking about? You spaced out.” Tyra asked.
“Huh what?” I said looking up at Tyra’s concerned face.
Tyra was sitting next to me on the couch with her laptop on her crossed legs looking at me like I had grown two heads. We were supposed to be going over the travel nursing budget for one of the buildings, but my mind was elsewhere.
“You spaced out again. You been doing that a lot lately and I just chalked it up to pregnancy-brain, but something is off. Are you alright?” She asked, sitting her laptop down between us.
“Sorry, I’m just worried. Kyle really fucked our lives. He’s dead and his fucked up decisions are still coming back to haunt us.” I groan, grabbing my stomach.
