“Why did you turn on us? We’ve been working together for so long.”
“Truth be told, beautiful,” he said, stroking her cheek softly right before cupping her jaw and squeezing tightly, “I didn’t plan this out. It just happened. My nigga Amos came along and just started making sense. I got tired of Justin getting the bigger cut of the licks.”
“He was the one who caught the bodies. You always acted like you had too much heart. He got the biggest cut because he deserved it.”
Malik nodded his head in a mocking fashion. “Ehhh, fuck that. I put in just as much work as anybody on this team. I deserve more than the occasional ten measly bands a job.”
“You forgot the first rule of being a bandit,” Robin growled, fighting against her binds. “Never turn on your brothers. And if you hurt my brother, I swear to God you will bleed.”
“Oh.” He let her face go. “You mean like this?”
On the last word, he took a step to where Justin was, across from her in the middle of the room, and kicked his wounded knee. If Justin wasn’t awake before, he surely was then. He leaned forward to double over, but his bonds wouldn’t even allow his back to leave the chair. He was forced to stomach the pain, and Robin felt tears well up in her eyes. She’d never in her life seen her brother look so defeated, and she couldn’t help but think that it was all her fault. Because it was. If she would have just kept her mouth shut, then none of that would have been happening. Malik then proceeded to pummel Justin’s body while he was tied up and couldn’t do anything but take it.
“No!” Robin screamed. She was fighting so violently against her restraints that the chair she was in shook. “Stop! Stop it! Coward! You fucking coward, stop!”
Her last word came out as a long, dragged-out sob, and Malik stopped, not because she was crying, but because he was panting so hard. His fists were covered in Justin’s blood, and so was the ground by them. Justin’s eyes were swollen, and his lips were busted. Robin watched her brother’s head nod as he fought to not lose his newfound consciousness.
Amos came around her chair and blocked her view. Placing his hands on the arms of her chair, he leaned in and put his face close to hers. The smile on his dark face was a sick one, and the expression on his face read that he’d defeated them.
“He should have never put you on,” Robin spoke through clenched teeth. “I always knew something wasn’t right about you.”
“Where I’m from, baby girl, there’s no such thing as a team. It’s every man for himself and, well, that mindset has kind of stuck.”
“I’m going to kill you.” She said every word slowly and clearly to make sure Amos heard her.
He heard her all right, and the words did the opposite of intimidate him. He laughed. “I think you’re forgetting about one key part in this equation, beautiful. You’re tied up.”
Using his big right fist, he reared back and landed a hard jab in her stomach. She tried to lean forward to ease the pain shooting up the front half of her body, but her restraints restricted her from doing so. Her cries filled the air, but that did not stop Amos from continuing to lay into her like she was a random man off the street. Robin felt like her chest would explode if she got hit in it one more time, and blood had begun to spill from her mouth.
“You should have kept your mouth shut to lover boy about these diamonds,” Amos taunted her. “You want to go to a place far away? I have two options for you: heaven or hell.”
He slapped her hard across the face with the back of his hand and made her head rock to the right. He reared back to do it again but was interrupted mid-slap.
“Yo. Fuck is going on?”
Arrik stepped through the entrance of the secret room behind the bookshelf with Roley by his side. The way that he was dressed showed that what he saw was not at all what he was expecting. The only thing that was not white on him were his jeans. From the looks of how bloody it was in the room, he doubted that his crisp white button-up and new white Air Force Ones would come out as clean as they were when he arrived. His eyes instantly fell on Justin and the woman tied to the chairs. He was a man who had seen a lot, and he had also done a lot. From what he could tell just by looking at the two bloody people, they must have loved each other very much if Amos wanted them to watch each other be hurt and tortured. Arrik didn’t care about all of that at first. What he cared about was the fact that he’d specifically told Amos that he wanted to have a few words with Justin himself; but, from where Arrik stood, it didn’t look like Justin could say much.
“Arrik, so nice of you to join the party,” Amos said, standing back straight again and wiping the blood from his hands.
“Who is she?”
“Oh, her? She’s his sister.”
“I didn’t lend you my manpower for you to be up here beating on females.” Arrik’s voice dripped with irritation.
“Don’t let her looks fool you.” Amos leered down at her. “This one is a deadly weapon. She was there on the job with us that night. She works for her brother.”
That alone piqued Arrik’s attention. He had no clue Justin had a female working under him. He walked around so that he could get a better look at her, leaving Roley standing by the entrance. Although Amos seemed to have done a number on her face, she was still beautiful. Beyond it, actually. She kind of put him in the mind of Lauren London with her light brown hair.
Her eyes found his, and her lips curled. “You.” She scowled weakly. “After we do a job for you, you cross us.”
“What is your name so that I can address you properly?” Arrik asked in an even tone.
“Robin.”
“Robin Hood?” He looked in amusement toward Roley before turning back to her. “Well, the name is fitting, being that I know you also stole fifty thousand dollars from me.”
“We didn’t steal shit.”
While the two of them were having their exchange, Amos made his way to the medium-sized black Hollon BHS-45E safe. He felt his fingers begin to tingle the way they always did when he got closer to a new challenge. He couldn’t wait to crack into that bad boy. In all actuality, he didn’t know if he was more excited to crack the safe itself or to get to what he knew was inside.
“I know you did. There is no need to lie about it,” Arrik was saying behind him. “The thing is, it isn’t about the money; it’s the principle with me.”
“Principle?” Robin laughed softly as her head nodded. “The principle is that the money was earned. The payment that you gave us did not suffice for the fact that small children had to die. You paid us for one body, not a family. Justin caught all of those bodies, so instead of splitting it with these ungrateful sons of bitches, he should have kept every penny for himself.”
“Justin caught the bodies?” Arrik said, seeming to be stuck on that part.
“Justin always catches the bodies,” she told him, her chin unwillingly hitting her chest again. “He always puts in the most work. We are his team, and he is our leader.”
“Okay.” Arrik nodded his head and turned to Malik and Amos. “You niggas care to explain what the fuck she’s talking about?”
“You would have never given us the manpower if you knew we ain’t really put in no work at that last job,” Malik said with his gun already pointed toward him. “And these two motherfuckas are deadly. We wouldn’t have even gotten this close to the diamonds without you. Long story short, we used you. We were never going to cut you in on the diamonds.”
Boom!
The gunshot was so loud in the room that it seemed to have an echo. Arrik looked down at his body and saw that he didn’t have a hole there. However, he looked and saw that Malik’s gun was not even pointed in his direction. A choking noise got his attention, and he looked behind him.
“Roley!” he yelled as his friend dropped to the ground, clutching the fatal wound on his neck.
Blood was spewing through his fingers as he jerked on his knees, gasping for air. His lungs filled up with blood, and he stared back, wide-eyed, at Arr
ik before finally collapsing dead on the floor. Arrik made a move to go to his body, but Malik jerked the gun at him.
“Don’t move, nigga,” Malik said. “You’re going to abide by everything we say until Amos gets this safe open and we split these diamonds two ways. Then you’re going to call your dogs off downstairs so we can walk up out of here, and I might be nice enough to kill you quick. Amos, hurry up and get that safe open so I can get my half of them motherfuckas and we can go.”
“There’s only one thing.” Amos’s voice was low as he fingered the box. His back was to them all, so nobody saw the sick smile that slowly formed on his face. “The diamonds are only getting split one way. My way.”
He was a quick draw, and Malik never saw it coming. He hadn’t even fully processed Amos’s words when he felt the bullets rip into his body. Amos grabbed the heavy safe and fired wild shots, forcing Arrik to duck for cover so that he could run out of the room. Arrik hopped up and made to follow him, but by the time he had his gun drawn and ready, Amos was gone.
“Fuck!” he yelled when he came back into the room. “Fuck!”
Malik was still writhing around on the ground, holding his wounds. From the looks of it, Amos had hit him in places where he could survive the attack with medical treatment. Arrik saw to it that he would never get it. He stood over Malik, who tried to scoot away, but there was no point.
“You killed my day one,” he said, cocking the pistol. “Say hello to him in hell for me.”
With that, he unloaded the weapon into Malik’s face. A big chunk of Malik’s head blew off due to the close range, and by the time Arrik ceased fire, there was barely any head attached to the neck. Arrik breathed heavily and spat down at the body and turned to leave.
“Help us.”
He was so clouded by his own anger that he almost forgot about the two other bodies in the room. A part of him wanted to just grab Roley’s body and bounce, but looking at Robin, he knew he couldn’t just leave her.
“No,” she said when Arrik tried to untie her first. “Get my brother. He’s hurt bad, and he has lost too much blood. No ambulances. He got hit by a car on his way home from work.”
Arrik nodded his head and went to untie Justin first. Eventually, his goons made their way upstairs and looked at the massacre in the room. They all had bags full of things from Justin and Robin’s house. When Amos knocked Justin and Robin out, he told them that they could take whatever they wanted on top of what Arrik was paying them for the job. They didn’t know it, but that was his way of keeping them out of his way.
“If you motherfuckas weren’t so busy downstairs filling your pockets, none of this would have happened,” Arrik barked, making a mental note to tighten up. The mistake he made that night cost too much, and he would have to live with it forever. “Get him to the car. Drive him to the hospital. Drive off before they begin to ask questions.”
“What about her, boss?” the young goon by the name of Clax asked as he untied her.
“She’s going to the hospital too.”
“No!”
The voice shocked both Arrik and Robin being that it came from Justin. His arms were around the shoulders of two of Arrik’s men, and it seemed as though he was using his last bit of energy to look at and speak to Robin.
“Go with him, Robin,” he said. “Please get that safe back. Promise me you will. Before he’s in the wind.”
Robin, whose arm was around Clax’s waist for support, wanted to say, “Fuck those diamonds.” But they must have meant something to Justin if he was asking her to go after them. After all of the things Justin had done for her, she just didn’t feel right telling him no, even in her weak state. So, she nodded her head.
“Okay, brother.”
Chapter 6
“Ouch!” Robin winced in pain when the alcohol touched the small gash under her eye.
“I told you it was going to hurt,” Arrik said, grabbing a bandage to put over the gash.
The two of them were at the table in his large kitchen as he played doctor to her wounds. Trying to get her to settle down proved hard at first since she was restlessly waiting for someone to call with news on her brother’s condition. A big part of her knew that he would be okay, but a small piece, the one that had the biggest effect on her mood, knew that anything could happen. But when Arrik got the call saying that he was stable, her mood calmed and after she showered, she allowed him to approach her with bandages and cotton balls doused in alcohol.
None of what Amos had done to her caused her to need stitches, but she was still pretty banged up and would need a couple nights of rest to be back at full strength. She kept her phone close to her, because she gave the doctor her number to call if anything worsened in Justin’s condition. She didn’t dare go to the hospital and disobey his orders; plus, she needed to put together a game plan to get the safe back.
Arrik was treating her the same way a person would treat a child when they were sick, except with Robin he was talking a little bit of shit instead of babying her. “For a motherfucka who dropped four niggas, you sure are jumping and crying like a punk right now.”
“Because that shit hurts!” Robin glared up at him from her seat. “And it was five, not four. Get it right.”
On the way to his home, she explained to him the events that had taken place that night and the night of the job he hired them for. He was intrigued by her combat-ready skills, and he wished he would have known before all that she was telling him. Not only would he have never allowed Amos in his home, but he would have seen about hiring Robin and Justin full time. They wouldn’t ever need to do another lick or hit again.
“There,” Arrik said once the bandage was on. “All done.”
“You must have children,” Robin said when she touched the bandage and felt how perfectly smooth it was.
“Why do you think that?” Arrik was amused by her speculation.
“Because only parents can get these damn things on this smooth.”
For the first time that night, Arrik smiled. He put away everything he used to clean her up and placed it back into the first aid box. “I have a daughter. She is upstairs sleeping with the nanny.”
“What’s her name?”
“Naomi,” he said fondly. “She just turned three back in November.”
Robin heard the love drip from his voice when he spoke about her, and she smiled. “Pretty. She’s lucky to have a dad who loves her so much,” she said, and then her expression turned serious again. “Look, Arrik, about your friend, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Arrik told her. “Nah, it ain’t okay. But it has to be eventually. The shit ain’t really hit me yet, though, but I have to take the bad with the good.”
“What good? Everything tonight was all bad.”
“We’re still alive, right? Both me and Roley knew the ins and outs of this game, and it could have easily been me on the floor tonight instead of him. Fate ruled in my favor.”
He and Robin connected eyes for a second, seeming to have a silent conversation. She’d watched him kill Malik for killing his friend, but somehow, she knew that did nothing for his soul. She would never admit to him the way she and Malik were involved. That was an embarrassment she would take to the grave; plus, there was not even a point in bringing it up.
She studied Arrik’s face and guessed that they were around the same age. Still, the creases in the corners of his eyes aged him. She couldn’t imagine being a kingpin and having to do everything Arrik had to do to maintain the spot, always having someone gunning for him or trying to manipulate him. To be a king, a thick skin was required. Robin could tell that he was hurting more than he would let on, but she didn’t press him. She did, however, grab his hand and press it to her lips in gratitude.
“Thank you,” she whispered into his fingers, “for saving me and my brother. For that, I owe you my life. If you hadn’t come when you did, things would have been worse than they were.”
“No.” Arrik’s baritone voice was barely abo
ve a hum. “If it weren’t for me, none of us would even be in this shit. I keep fuckin’ up. It’s like I want to see the good in people, even when I know there isn’t any. I ain’t wanna run the streets with an iron fist like my father, heartless and cold. But it’s looking like I’m going to have to switch my approach. I can’t afford to have niggas thinking I’m soft out here. This is the second time in too short a time that a nigga has gotten one over on me.”
“That’s why you rule in peace, but you make those who cross you bleed. Like Amos. He will pay for all that he has done. You just have to find that balance,” Robin told him and placed his hand on the beechwood table. “And you will. I have faith in you.”
“Why?”
“Your eyes,” Robin said in wonder. “Your eyes don’t lie.”
“What about yours?”
“My eyes don’t lie, but they hold secrets.”
“What kinds of secrets?”
Just that quickly, the tables had turned. She didn’t know if she should open up to him, but then again, he didn’t know her to judge her, so why not?
“About how I really feel about the things around me. Stuff I’ve never been able to really talk about. This life that I’ve been living has kind of masked my true thoughts, you know?”
“No, I don’t.” Arrik encouraged her to continue: “Enlighten me some, ma.”
“It’s . . . it’s stupid.” Robin shook her head and looked away.
“Nothing that you feel is stupid. Ever. Talk to me.”
Robin closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she noticed that Arrik had scooted his chair closer to her. He smelled like gunpowder and Acqua di Gio cologne, and he rested his hand on her knee. Somehow the scents and his touch comforted her. She sighed and rolled her eyes and tried to ignore the electric shocks racing through her veins.
“Okay, but if you laugh, I’m going to stop.”
“Deal.”
“Okay. When I was little, before I knew anything about things that went bump in the night, I believed in magic. I believed in the universe because some things we can’t explain. Some things are left for the stars to explain. That’s why when my parents died, I just put it to the back of my mind.”
Hood Tales, Volume 1 Page 15
