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I could smell something else as we got closer to the money room. Burned fabric, maybe. Then I saw the blood.

One of our guards was down near the doorway.

I stopped long enough to crouch beside him and check his neck. I couldn’t catch a pulse. His radio was still making noise near his shoulder.

“Fuck.”

Prime looked down at him, then past me into the room.

I got up.

Bryce stood near the counting tables with his gun pointed at a man on the floor. His suit was covered in blood. It was on his collar, down the front of his shirt and smeared across one sleeve.

His aim stayed locked on that nigga.

“Bryce.”

He looked at me so quickly I thought he might swing the weapon around. But he recognized me.

“Yo,” he replied.

“I’m here. Were you hit?”

“Fuck nah.”

There was another guard behind one of the tables. It was a young nigga that I saw at the entrance earlier.

Now he was lying beside a chair with his eyes open.

Bryce followed my gaze.

“I hired him,” he said. “Trained him myself.”

I went over, although I already knew.

There wasn’t anything I could do for him.

“He was doing what I told him,” Bryce continued. “He stayed where I put him.”

He sighed and shook his head. “He got two lil girls.”

I looked around the room. Two men in dark clothes were down near the door. Another had fallen beside an overturned cart. The one Bryce was watching had his hand pressed against his side, and blood was spreading underneath him.

There were stacks of money on the tables. A few bundles had fallen to the floor, but nobody had gotten them out of here.

“Anybody make it out of here?” I asked.

“No.” Bryce shook his head. “They ain’t get shit.”

My brothers moved farther into the room. Quest checked behind the tables while Prime went toward the wounded man.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Those niggas tried to rob us. I don’t know how they knew so much. They knew when we turned over. They knew where to hide…”

“It was Kira’s brother,” I replied.

“How?” Quest asked.