by Lewis, R. J.
I landed the girl.
He didn’t.
But his story was far more fucked up than mine. The kind of fucked up that made my spine tingle and my head shake by how messed up it was. For him, there would be no happily ever after. Not now. Not ever.
“What’s her problem with me anyway?” he went on, leering at me. “Too creepy for her or something?”
“Oh, yeah. She thinks you’re the fucking devil.”
He laughed. “I don’t blame her. Is it the menacing look I give others? Or does she just have a thing against Macedonians?”
“Nah, man, I think it’s your tats.”
The good thing about Marko was how understanding he was. While he had a vicious temper, reason always broke through. He was rational, level-headed, someone I could trust. He didn’t get shitty when people judged him. He knew he was scary to look at, so Allie’s disdain was natural to him.
“My snakes? Ah, man, she’s not the first. I’m devastated, though.” No, he wasn’t. He was used to being hated. I laughed at the exaggerated way he slumped his shoulders in mock despair. Fuckin’ Marko Aleksander Brankov. It was impossible hating him. I just needed Allie to see him in my eyes instead of the way she regarded him with suspicion.
“Just get the hell out of here,” I said. “We got shit to do, right?”
The humour left his face as he nodded. “Abso-fucking-lutely, man. You bought the sledgehammers?”
“Yeah, I bought the sledgehammers.”
With a wicked look in his eye, he replied, “Then let’s get the party started.”
Four
Heath
I’d driven past this house every day for a week. It was on a quiet street, the actual unsuspecting red bricked home on a cul-de-sac. There were no cars parked in the driveway. The blinds were closed, interior lights out. The porch light was on, and it’d been on during the day too. I knew it was a pathetic attempt at deterring anyone, giving the illusion there was someone inside.
There wasn’t. Marko and I had watched closely. He’d even taken days off just to sit out front. We detected no movement. This was made to hide the one thing we were here for.
I parked the car in the driveway and reached for the moleskin notepad I’d found in the duffel bag the day I’d killed Ricardo and counted the money. To anyone else, it was a notebook filled with gibberish; consisting of countless lines of random letters, it formed no words. But I knew these were codes the second I laid eyes on it. Once broken, I’d made sense of the gibberish.
Unlocked, it was a list of addresses with dollar signs next to them.
I always looked back on that moment I’d discovered the notebook. I was confused, surprised, and even eager. I was shaking with the need to find out the meaning to them because I knew if they were at the bottom of a money bag, they must have been important.
“What’re you doing?” Marko asked, sitting stiff as a bone next to me.
“Just making sure,” I answered.
“Making sure of what?”
“This is the exact address.”
“And?”
I looked over the line repeatedly, knowing for sure it was. We’d stalked this house for a week straight – the plan had been put in place for a lot longer. It was exactly the right address as it said in the book, but I was doing this to prolong the inevitable. Truth was, I was terrified on the inside. I was sure Marko was too. This was insanity.
“It is,” I muttered, shutting the book and throwing it in the glove compartment. I turned to him in the dark, barely making out his face. I stared at him hard, letting the silence dominate the space before I whispered, “You ready?”
Without hesitation, he returned with, “Yeah.”
I tossed him his mask – a black balaclava – and put on my own. “Grab the sledgehammers.”
“How do you know we’re going to even need them?”
Turning off the car, I didn’t answer that. Just like breaking the code, it was my own little secret. “Just do. Let’s go.”
We were swift, escaping the car and shutting it quietly behind us. We barely made any noise. These were the moments being a fighter paid off. We were light on our feet, hurrying to the front of the house without making any noise. Marko already had the lock picks out by the time I made it to the door. I kept my body turned to the street, standing behind him as he worked the locks with expertise – the kind that made you wonder what the fuck he’d done in his life to accomplish this.
The weekday had been the perfect time to strike. I knew it would be. It helped that on this particular night the clouds in the sky completely hid the moon and stars, making it particularly darker than usual.
“Got it,” Marko said with a grunt as he shoved open the door.
We hurried inside the house, leaving every light off. I pulled out a small flashlight from my pocket and aimed it at the walls as I went room to room. Marko followed after me, not saying a word, breathing just as hard as me. My adrenaline was through the damn roof. I knew nobody was coming, but the thought of it happening scared the fuck out of me. We would be unprepared and the unluckiest shits in the world.
Marko didn’t know what I was looking for, but he’d find out soon enough. I could feel his impatience as he trudged behind me, leaving one room after another.
It was the last bedroom that caused me to halt in my steps. I aimed my flashlight directly at the wall with a triumphant smile on my face. The wall was freshly painted over, standing out against the rest of the walls in the room. I walked over to it and brushed my gloved hand along the rough surface. It’d been painted over fast, some of the paint bubbles crunched against my fingertips as I pressed into them.
“Here,” I whispered to Marko, “this is where it is.”
“In the wall?” he shot back doubtfully.
“Yeah, man. In the wall.”
“How the fuck do you know this shit? First that book, now this.”
I chuckled lightly. “My own little secret, Marko.”
He studied the wall for a moment and sighed. “Jesus, this is gonna be loud, Heath.”
I nodded. “I know. That’s why we have to do this fast.”
I threw the flashlight to the ground and faced the wall again. Holding tight the sledgehammer, I said a little prayer to a god I wasn’t sure I believed in… and then I swung the baby straight into it.
*
Adrenaline.
Adrenaline.
Fuck, it was only adrenaline that pushed us forward. We tore through that son of a bitch with everything inside of us, taking no longer than ten minutes to get to the jackpot. Money stacked atop of one another in thick bags of plastic, lining the interior of the wall from top to bottom, looking like a giant canvas of green.
It was unbelievable, and the rush I felt put Ricardo’s money to shame. This cash house was nothing like the one he’d been at. It hadn’t even been hidden away when I’d stumbled upon that duffel bag. But this… this was real.
The gang was going to be pissed when they realized one of their secret cash houses was raided. This was going to cause more grief, more violence, but that was the whole fucking point. Plus it helped my shelved debt would be knocked even further down the priority list.
We didn’t take time to voice our excitement. We stacked the bagged money in more bags and threw them in the car. Then we were out of there, tense and filled with nerves until we escaped the street and raced out of town. Marko whooped and I chuckled, reigning in my disbelief at what we’d done.
Now we were headed straight for the location I’d buried the duffel bag. It was in a dense, unfrequented bush, accessed only by trail. I’d made this drive at least two dozen times in order to keep the location fresh in my mind. I’d been paranoid the first couple months that someone would find out about the money. That they’d happen to walk past it and know it was there. It was pathetic, really, because there was no indication over a hundred thousand dollars was buried beside a limping tree. I’d managed to cover it up with soil and a giant thick
bough that had fallen nearby from a storm. Despite its obvious features, I’d hammered a few nails into the tree trunk just to be sure I’d always know it was the one.
I parked the car on the side of the deserted road and we stepped out. We both held shovels and a flashlight. I took my usual path to the river and we followed it for some time. My body moved for me, already recognizing my surroundings. We veered away from the river, passing a familiar ground littered with hundreds of bullets. People did a lot of shooting here, and that was something to watch out for.
When we finally made it to the tree, I sat down on the cold ground and rested my back against the trunk. We waited another twenty minutes, making sure no one was around or that we’d been followed at all. We were overly cautious for the right reasons.
We couldn’t afford to fuck this up.
After the coast was clear, I picked up the bough and set it aside before we hastily dug beneath the soil it had sat on. The cold I felt soon dissipated as my sweat broke. The earth was frozen solid, taking every ounce of my energy cutting into it. I was surprised I even had any energy at all.
Not only did I work all day, but I had done overtime too. Then I’d gone home to help Allie with Kayden. After that, I fought a desperate drug addict on an empty stomach in front of a crowd of hungry eyes, returned home and finally fucked the hell out of the sexiest woman I was privileged to call mine, and now I was here, digging into my past, seeing nothing but Ricardo’s flattened head while I was at it.
I deserved a damn good rest, no?
“Come on, you little cunt,” I mumbled aloud, tearing through the soil with my boot pressed against the shovel. It gave way. We shovelled the dirt out within minutes, working hard and fast. I didn’t like doing this at night, and all I kept thinking about was Allie and hoping Kayden hadn’t stirred enough to wake her up.
Allie didn’t need to know I was gone. This was meant to be an in and out thing, and so far it was. But every part of me wanted to hurry back home and be with my family, and the minutes ended up feeling like hours.
“Alright,” panted Marko, “that’s deep enough. Put the bags in.”
We filled up the large hole with the bags of money we had no time to count.
“How many more times are we going to keep doing this?” he asked after we started filling up the hole.
“As much as we can,” I answered. “There are that many fucking addresses in that book. Keep an eye out after this and we’ll be seeing more violence from the Syndicates.”
“Keeping the violence up like this will do what exactly?”
“They won’t trust each other to deal. They’re going to lose a lot of money. We’re going to bring the Syndicate down to their knees once they war with each other some more. You saw what happened after Ricardo. They won’t suspect this after so much time has passed. Once they fall apart, we’ll have that much money left to pillage.”
He paused, stopping once to glance at me, dirt already stuck in his brown hair. “That’s very manipulative shit. No one’s ever gonna be able to trace it to us if we keep doing this randomly.”
“Exactly. We keep doing what we’re doing and nobody will pay us any mind. In the meantime, we lay low. Live comfortably and be as unsuspecting as a pig in shit.”
“Maybe we should find another place to hide the money then?”
I chuckled wryly. “If you can think of one as secretive as this, be my fucking guest.”
I personally hadn’t found a spot.
When we finally finished, we stood around, catching our breaths, looking down at the buried money with dazed expressions and hopeful hearts. So absorbed, we stared on until the wind picked up and the sky finally broke with rain.
Then we left.
“I’m going to be fucked in the morning,” complained Marko, slapping a hand against his cheek to wake himself up.
“We don’t get a lot of customers on a Friday,” I replied.
“Yeah, but I’ve picked up overtime for all those side projects. If I can’t touch the money yet, I still need to make ends meet somehow.”
“We can touch the money, as long as it’s a little. A few grand here and there in the grand scheme of things won’t make it obvious to anyone. This means we can afford skipping some fights to get our shit down. We’ll just compensate by pulling a little out. That way we won’t feel the hit.”
His face relaxed, and he let out a relieved breath. “Thank fuck, man. You should’ve told me that before I decided on overtime tomorrow.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, well, I didn’t know if this was going to happen for sure. Kept thinking it couldn’t be that easy.”
He raised his hands up and looked down at them. “I’m still on a buzz. Look how much I’m shaking.”
Yeah, I was shaking too. I kept staring at the rear view mirror, half expecting someone to be tailing us. I had to remember I was as invisible as anyone else to the Syndicates. They wouldn’t even know where to look when they found out about the house.
I dropped Marko off by the apartment building. He’d driven there and his car was parked out front. He got out into the mid-March air, scanning the streets as he walked to it. I waited for him to be gone, and then I drove into the parking lot and got out.
When I stepped back into the apartment building, I ached all over. I was plagued with exhaustion, and the sudden sight of a tall, limp body beside the elevator doors had me wishing I’d come a lot sooner instead of having to witness this shit.
Trudy, dressed in a pair of non-existent shorts and thin, white see-through top was passed out in the most awkward, uncomfortable position. I would have left her there if she hadn’t reeked of alcohol. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen her drunk or passed out, but the difference was she was alone and not surrounded by her girly posse. I sighed and kneeled down to her level. I shook her, hoping she’d wake the hell up and get herself in the apartment without my help.
She stirred a little but didn’t open her eyes.
“Trudy,” I said, shaking her again. “Wake up. You didn’t make it to your apartment and you’re passed the hell out in a place any seedy bastard can get to you.”
She opened her mouth and uttered words that didn’t make sense. “I… wha… don’t care…”
I glanced around, hoping someone would come and take over this chore for me. I didn’t want to have to explain to Allie tomorrow that I’d helped Trudy to her apartment. She might not take well to that, and I didn’t want to give her reason to be suspicious of it. Because chicks were always fucking suspicious. One could trust you with her life, but tell her you helped a girl you used to fuck to her apartment and she was going to lose her shit. First was the stink-eye as you explained it, and then the flood of questions designed to look innocent, but it was really an interrogation you had to pass with flying colours or else your day was going to consist of a fight of your life.
Yeah, I had this relationship thing down pat.
Regardless of the consequences, I grabbed Tru by her waist and lifted her off the ground. She sagged against my side while I dragged her into the elevator. Her hand shot up and gripped my sweater. I looked straight ahead, pursing my lips as she tried to get as close to me as humanly possible.
“Heath? You smell…” she mumbled, her eyes half-opening. “You smell… good.”
I stiffened and didn’t reply. What the hell had gotten into this girl lately? I was always seeing her around the fights, draping herself around guys, practically throwing her dignity away. The reason I’d been attracted to her before wasn’t just because she dressed to kill. It was that she’d been as picky as me. She didn’t throw herself away to any guy. She loved a good chase, and I appreciated that.
Now she didn’t give a flying fuck.
Once the elevator opened to her level, I helped her to her apartment.
“Where’s your key, Tru?”
She didn’t answer, but her lips quirked up in a smile. I tried her pockets – pockets that were longer than her damn shorts – but they came up
empty.
“Tru, your key,” I pressed, not wanting to stand here another damn second.
Her hazel eyes met mine, and the mischief beneath them irked me. I don’t have time for this shit.
“If you don’t tell me where it is, I’m going to drop you on your ass,” I threatened her.
She leaned into me, her face nearing my own. I stifled a curse when she whispered, “Bra.”
On reflex, my eyes shot down her top and to her pink bra. Goddammit. I quickly looked away, shaking my head slightly at how I found myself in this stupid fucking situation.
“Grab it,” she said in a slur.
“Grab it yourself,” I retorted.
“I can’t.”
“Bullshit. Put your hand in your damn top and pull it out so I can at least unlock your door.” And then throw you inside and hopefully never see you again.
She shook her head slightly, and her gaze fell on my mouth. Those familiar “fuck me eyes” bored holes into me, trying to get me to unravel to her charm. “I want you…Heath. I want you to touch me. I know you want it too. I know… I know you been pin-pinan-pining for me.”
Was this bitch serious?
“No,” I told her in a low, emotionless tone. “I haven’t been pining for you at all actually. And you shouldn’t bother talking when you’re drunk. You sound like a fucking idiot.”
“Don’t lie,” she retorted, strengthening her voice. “You do want it!”
I sneered. Fuck this shit.
I let her go and she dropped straight on her ass, letting out a pained grunt.
“Get inside and clean yourself up,” I told her in a hard voice. “And stop getting so drunk off your ass all the damn time. It’s pathetic. You look desperate humping any guy in front of you like some bitch in heat.”
“You jealous?” she shot back, glaring up at me.
I scoffed. “Hell no.”
“You sure? Because I’d be jealous, especially if I had a shit thing on the side.”
“Bitch, you’ve got nothing on Allison. How many times do I have to say that?”
“Enough times ‘til you realize what a lie that is.”
