Chapter 6 #2
The sun peeked through the blinds, causing soft streaks of light to cut across the room.
Eternity was still asleep beside me with her arm draped across my chest. She was snoring lightly.
If you let her tell it, she wasn’t even a snorer, but I knew better.
My baby sounded like a little grizzly bear in hibernation when she slept.
I looked down and admired her beauty. She didn’t even tie her hair up last night, so it was all over the place and stuck to her face.
Her button-shaped nose was pressed against my chest as she lay on her side.
I looked in her face, and I mean really looked.
She must have gotten her brows threaded recently because they were perfectly arched.
But she had a few spaces in her lashes, so I knew that she must have had an appointment to get them done coming up.
There wasn’t much that I didn’t notice about my wife.
Gently, I kissed her forehead as I breathed her in.
The faint scent of vanilla hit my nostrils.
It was her signature and had been since the very first day I met her.
The warmth of her body was pressed closely against mine.
We were skin to skin because once dinner was done, the guest was gone, and those kids were in their rightful places.
I tore her ass up in this bed. For a moment, I felt at peace.
Dinner had gone well enough. I still had to have that one-on-one talk with Tahari, but for right now, he seemed respectful.
He knew how to work the room, and he even got a smile out of MJ.
Little me was acting tough, but still, I saw the corners of his mouth turn up a bit before the night was over.
Even with him impressing everyone under my roof, I still couldn’t shake the nitpicking unease in my gut.
I’m sure that by getting to know him more, the feeling would fade.
I just had to etch out time in my schedule to do so.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. Which was odd because, besides Sha and Ty ringing me occasionally, the only other people who hit my line were the residents of this house.
My brow rose when it started vibrating insistently.
The way I laid dick the night before, I knew that Eternity wouldn’t wake when I moved, so I rolled onto my side and squinted at the screen.
Five missed calls. All from Reggie, the manager at one of my auto shops.
Before I could even think, a text notification popped up:
“We’ve been robbed.”
Time froze for a second. I dropped the phone onto the bed as my heart started pounding.
A cold rush shot through my veins. Robbed?
I have been in business for over twenty years, and this has never happened to me.
I jumped out of bed and tossed my robe over my naked frame, all while trying to stay calm.
The last thing I wanted to do was wake Eternity.
My hands were steady, but my pulse was racing.
Whoever did this didn’t know what they were stepping into.
No one steals from me. Only one person in my life was successful with that shit, and she was dealt with accordingly.
Once I was locked behind the door of the bathroom, I called Reggie immediately.
“Tell me everything,” I spat out once he answered.
As I listened to him tell me how the place was trashed when he walked in, and some things were missing, my mind was calculating and planning like it always did in situations like this.
I had to protect my assets, protect my family, and find out who thought they could take from me.
After getting some brief information out of Reggie, I told him that I would be on the way.
If, for whatever reason, I was being targeted, then I needed to do something that I hadn’t done in years.
I needed to awaken the side of me that had been lying dormant for a very long time.
All without waking Eternity, I brushed my teeth, put on a sweatsuit, jotted down on a sticky note that I would be back, and then jetted out the door.
My Durango’s tires crunched against the gravel driveway leading to the shop.
My pulse was already high, my nerves were tense, and every muscle was coiled and ready.
I was on edge, and I hated the shit. Funny thing was, Tahari and I were just talking about this shit last night.
A man isn’t going to let anyone take something from him, so whoever did this shit was going to be dealt with for sure.
This feeling was one that I hadn’t felt in a while, but it was too damn familiar to me.
A nigga was retired, and out of the way, so this sensation wasn’t something that I should be feeling at all.
But here I was. I stepped out of the truck, and naturally, my eyes scanned the lot.
The front doors were ajar with the hinges bent.
Windows were shattered, causing glass to litter the ground.
I pulled the broken door open, and when I got inside, I just shook my head.
Tools and parts were scattered everywhere like a hurricane had ripped through my establishment.
My chest tightened as my hands naturally fell into fists.
When Reggie saw me, he started talking a mile a minute.
“Boss, it’s stuff everywhere. Because the cameras are broken and have been for a while, they didn’t help. I’m trying to make a record of everything that was taken. I have the list down. I just don’t know what was in this locked supply closet.”
I looked at the lock that was broken on the door to the room he was talking about.
“What do you usually keep in here?”
I walked into the supply closet and then turned around to see if I could spot anything that was left behind.
“Oh, me? Nothing, boss. Sha has the key to that closet there. And he was here the other day messing around back there, but I didn’t pay it any mi—”
“Wait outside for me,” I ordered, cutting him off.
He followed my instructions, and once he was out of the door, I moved back into the lobby.
I stepped over broken shards. The smell of gasoline and burnt rubber fell heavy in my nose.
I pulled out my phone and called Sha immediately.
My voice was low but tense. I didn’t even wait for him to say hello because as soon as he answered, I spoke.
“One of the shops got robbed.”
There was a pause on the line.
“What the fuck? How? Who?” He paused, and then I knew that he was thinking about something deeper. “Which location, bro?”
I clenched my jaw as I scanned the wreckage again.
“The one on 25th Terrace.”
“Fuckkkkk,” he yelled in my ear, “bro, check the supply closet and tell me if it’s—”
“It’s empty,” I cut him off.
“I’m on my way to you,” he said instantly.
I didn’t even bother to respond because I was still in utter shock. If Sha was panicking, then that meant he had left some shit in this shop. We had a whole warehouse that was under lock and key for this very reason. Whoever did this must have known what they were after.
They knew exactly where to hit. That wasn’t a random smash-and-grab.
This felt professional and calculated. I stepped deeper inside the storage room and kicked aside a fallen toolbox in anger.
My eyes scanned for anything. I was looking for prints, tracks, anything that could give me a lead.
The whole situation had a high sense of audacity attached to it.
Who the fuck thinks they can steal from me?
My thoughts were all over the place. It was clear that they had no idea who the fuck I was.
I was in so much shock that I still had the phone placed at the side of my head, although no one was on the other line.
I shook my head, more to steady myself than anything.
And as I stood there, taking in the devastation, one thought piqued my interest more than anything else.
I had to step my ass back into the streets.
The dog had to come out to play, and I didn’t know if I was quite ready for that.