6. Vice Blackwell
VICE BLACKWELL
Iwas already on my feet before she finished her sentence, grabbing my keys and heading out.
“Where you at?” I asked.
“At home.”
“You inside the apartment?”
“Yes.”
I clenched my teeth as I grabbed my keys from the desk and headed for the door. Somebody had gotten inside her apartment, and instead of getting the hell out, she was still in the mothafucka.
“Get out...”
She got quiet for a second before saying, “Vice—”
“Milan, get the hell out of the apartment.” I tried to keep my voice calm, but the thought of somebody still being inside had already put me on edge.
I didn’t know who had been there, how long they’d been gone, or if they were even gone at all.
The only thing I knew was that I needed her out of there.
“You don’t know if whoever broke in is still inside. ”
“I don’t think anybody’s still here.”
“You don’t know that,” I told her. “So stop trying to figure it out and get the fuck out of the gotdamn apartment.” I pressed the phone closer to my ear. She was quiet on the other end, and that shit made me move faster. Huffing out a heavy breath, I then asked, “Where are you in the apartment?”
“The kitchen.”
“Leave everything where it is and go downstairs. Don’t touch nothing else.”
“I didn’t touch anything.”
“What did they leave?” She got quiet again. “Milan... what did they leave or what they do for you to know someone been in there?”
“A bullet...”
I stopped walking.
“A what?”
“There’s a bullet sitting on my kitchen counter with a note.”
Whatever little patience I had disappeared. “What the fuck the note say?”
Her voice was lower when she answered.
She said, “‘You should’ve minded your business.’”
For a second, I didn’t say anything. I already knew what the message meant. Whoever killed Sam knew exactly who Milan was, and somehow they’d found out where she lived.
“Get downstairs. Now.”
“I’m going...” This time, I heard urgency in her voice.
“Stay on the phone with me.”
As I got inside my truck, I called Mace from my second phone while keeping Milan on the other line. He answered almost immediately.
“What’s up?” He asked.
“I need you to meet me at the nurse’s apartment. The one that was with Sam that day.”
“What happened?”
“Somebody got inside her crib and left a fuckin’ bullet with a note.”
Mace got quiet for a second. “Send me the address.”
“I will. Call Boog too.”
Boogie was one of my top securities, right under Mace. Quiet as hell, but don’t let that fool you. That nigga was a straight-up killer… a fuckin’ gangsta who stayed down for whatever.
“Bet...”
I ended the call with him and brought my attention back to Milan. “Where you at now?”
“I’m waiting on the elevator.”
“You alone?”
“Yes.”
“Anybody around you?”
“No.”
The elevator doors must’ve opened because I heard movement on her end, followed by the sound of her breathing. She wasn’t crying or panicking, but I could hear the fear she was trying to keep out of her voice.
“You in the elevator?”
“Yes.”
“A’ight. Go straight to security when you get downstairs. Don’t go outside.”
“I know.”
“I’m just making sure.”
“I said I know, Vice.”
I shook my head. She was scared as hell and still had an attitude.
Normally, I would’ve said something slick back, but I let it go. She was dealing with enough, apparently, because of me. My cousin was dead, and now there was a target on her back. Whether I liked it or not, she was paying for a mess she never asked to be a part of.
“You downstairs?”
“Yes. I’m with security.”
“Put ‘em on the phone.”
“Why?”
“Milan.”
“I can tell them what happened.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t. Put one of them on the phone.”
I heard her mumble something under her breath before another voice came through.
“Hello?”
“Who am I speaking to?” I asked.
“Marcus. I’m the overnight security supervisor.”
“Marcus, somebody got inside one of your apartments and I’m trying to understand how that happened when identifications are supposed to be shown to even get on an elevator.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but who is this?”
“Vice Blackwell.”
The silence that followed told me he knew exactly who I was.
“Mr. Blackwell, we’re already contacting the police.”
“Good. Until they get there, she stays with you. Nobody goes upstairs, and nobody touches that apartment.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Put Milan back on the phone.”
A few seconds later, her voice came through again. “You done taking over?”
“No.”
“I figured.”
I almost smiled, but there wasn’t shit funny about the reason she was on my line. The fact that somebody had gotten into her apartment had my jaw tight. Every second she was standing outside that building, I kept picturing whoever had been inside deciding to come back.
“I’m on my way.”
“You really don’t have to come.”
“Then why you call me?”
The question shut her up.
I wasn’t trying to be an asshole. I genuinely wanted to know since now she was kicking it like she didn’t want me there.
Milan had my number for days and hadn’t used it once.
Now somebody had gotten into her apartment, and out of everybody she could’ve called—the fucking police, for one—she’d called me.
Maybe she didn’t realize it, but that call meant something.
“I don’t know,” she finally said.
I didn’t believe that shit one bit, but I didn’t press it. Whatever made her reach for my number instead of anybody else’s, I’d figure it out another day. Right now, all I cared about was getting to her.
“A’ight.”
“That’s it?”
“What you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then we both don’t know.”
She let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh, and some of the tension sitting on my chest eased. She was scared, whether she’d admit it or not, so if I could get her to breathe for even a second, I’d take it.
“Stay downstairs. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“You know where I live?”
“You sent me the address.”
“Oh…”
“Fear got you forgetting shit already?”
“Shut up, Vice.”
This time I did smile. It wasn’t much, but hearing a little of that attitude come back told me she was okay… at least for the moment.
“A’ight. I’m hanging up, but keep your phone in your hand. You see anything that don’t look right, you call me back.”
“I will.”
“And Milan?”
“What?”
“Don’t take yo’ ass back upstairs.”
“I heard you the first five times.”
I rubbed a hand over my face before shaking my head.
“Make it six.”
She sucked her teeth before the line went dead.
I stared at my phone for a second before throwing it on the passenger seat and pressing harder on the gas. Whoever thought they could scare her had just made this shit personal.
Whatever Sam had gotten himself into had officially reached her front door.
Until tonight, all I had were questions and a conversation she’d overheard by accident.
Now somebody had gone through the trouble of finding out who she was, where she lived and how to get inside a building that was supposed to be secure.
That took planning.
It also meant they weren’t trying to kill her. Not yet. If they wanted Milan dead, they could’ve waited inside the apartment. The bullet was a warning. The next one… might not be.
By the time I pulled up to her building, Mace and Boog was already there. His truck sat near the entrance, and two police cars were parked along the curb. I got out and headed inside, finding Milan near the front desk with a security guard and two officers.
She was still in her scrubs.
That was the first thing I noticed.
The second was how different she looked from a few hours ago.
At the hospital, she’d been arguing with me, rolling her eyes and telling me she was fine. Now she stood with her arms folded across her chest, watching the elevators like she expected somebody to step off one of them at any second.
Her eyes found mine as soon as I walked in. I didn’t know what I expected her to do. She didn’t run toward me, cry, fall apart or any of that. She just looked… relieved.
For some reason, that did something to me.
I walked straight toward her. “You good?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
At least she was honest this time.
I looked toward the officers. “Anybody been upstairs yet?”
One of them stepped forward. “We’re waiting on another unit before we clear the apartment.”
I nodded before turning back to Milan. “You see anybody when you got home?”
“No…”
“Anybody following you?”
“Not that I noticed.”
“Anything strange happen at work?”
She shook her head. “No…”
“What about on the way home?”
“Vice, I don’t know.” She shook her head again, blowing out a breath as she closed her eyes just to reopen them. “I worked all night. I drove home and came upstairs like I always do.”
I could hear the frustration creeping into her voice, so I backed off.
“A’ight.”
Mace walked over from the security desk with his phone in his hand. “They’re pulling the camera footage now.”
“Anything?”
“Not yet.”
My attention moved to the security guard I had spoken to on the phone—Marcus. I knew it was him because of his name tag. “How the fuck somebody get upstairs?”
His face tightened. “We’re trying to figure that out now.”
“Fuck you mean, ya’ll trying to figure it out now?”
“Vice,” Milan called my name in a whisper. I looked at her. “They don’t know yet.”
I didn’t like that answer, but getting into it with security wasn’t going to change what had already happened.
One of the officers approached us a few minutes later and told Milan they were going upstairs. She immediately moved to follow then but I grabbed her arm.
“Where you going?” I asked her.
“To my apartment…”
“No.”
Her eyes dropped to my hand before coming back to my face. I let her go.
“I need to see if anything is missing,” she said.
“Let them clear it first.”
“I wasn’t planning on walking in before them or anything like that, Vice.
” I didn’t even say shit. Lil’ Mama just didn’t get it.
She wasn’t taking this shit for what it really was, and it was starting to piss me off.
She stared at me for a second. “You know, I managed to stay alive for twenty-eight years before I met you.”
“And somebody got into your apartment less than a week after you did.”