The Safe House Read online

  “I don’t know, sweetheart,” I told her, and then I stood back away from the curtain. I figured that it had to be Ahmad because I texted him to meet me here. When he texted me and told me that he was in the car parked outside in the driveway, I was tempted to let the guys downstairs know that he was here. But then I figured that it wouldn’t be in my best interest to do so. Rich had instructed Paul to be the lookout person at the front door, so I let him do his job.

  We’re in the house, I texted him back.

  I saw him slowly emerge from the back seat of the driver’s side. And while he was doing that, I noticed that there were two other people in the car. The person in the passenger-side seat looked like a woman. From what I could see, the body of the woman was full-figured, like my mother was. I couldn’t see her face, so I prayed to God that it was her.

  The person sitting in the driver’s-side seat was probably one of the mafia hit men that Agent Sims was investigating. “I see somebody coming to the front door,” I heard Paul say.

  From there, all I heard were footsteps scurrying around downstairs. “How many is it?” I heard Rich ask.

  “I just see one, dude,” Paul told him.

  “Does he have anything in his hands?” Rich kept the questions coming.

  “Nah. He just walking with his hands on his sides. So, do you want me to answer the door if he knocks on it?”

  “Fuck nah! We don’t live in here, so we ain’t answering nobody’s door.”

  “But what if he doesn’t go away?” Paul sounded worried.

  “Nigga, are you all right? Because you sure are acting like a bitch right now!” Rich roared. Paul was irritating the heck out of Rich, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Before Paul could say another word, Ahmad rang the doorbell.

  “What are we going to do, stand here and listen to that dude ring the doorbell?” Monty interjected.

  “We ain’t gonna open the door and let him in.”

  “We don’t even know who it is. It could be a family member, so if we don’t answer the door, he may call the cops,” Monty suggested.

  “And that’s why we’re going out the back door and leaving this motherfucker,” I heard Rich say, and then I heard footsteps. I assumed that they were heading toward the back door of the house. I knew that it would be a bad idea to get caught in the house alone if Rich and the rest of them were able to get away, and especially without any fighting power. So I grabbed Hamina’s hand and told her that we were going to take a walk.

  Without giving me any problems, she allowed me to hold on to her hand and walk her downstairs. While we were walking down the staircase, the doorbell chimer continued to ring. “That’s probably my daddy,” Hamina said with excitement. And as soon as we made it down to the last step, she tried to run toward the front door. I held on to her tightly and pulled her back. “No, we’re not going that way, we’re going this way.” I showed her by pointing in the direction of the kitchen, and when she looked in that direction, she saw her mother’s and her grandmother’s lifeless bodies on the floor. She took off running.

  “Mommy . . . Nana.” Hamina started whining. I looked into her pretty little eyes and saw how they were quickly filling up with tears. Damn, I couldn’t believe that I fucked up and allowed this little girl to see her dead mama and grandmother. Ugh!

  “Come on, baby girl, everything is going to be all right.” I tried to console her, but it wasn’t working. I could tell that she really wanted her daddy now.

  “My daddy is at the front door and he wants to come in the house,” she told me. She knew in her heart that something wasn’t right and she made me aware of it. “I want my daddy!” she started screaming, walking midway through the kitchen.

  As she began to resist me, I started hearing gunshots. Pop! Pop! Pop! Boom! Pop! Pop! This startled Hamina and we scrambled down to the floor. We hid underneath the kitchen table. With the tablecloth in place, no one would be able to see us, but we were able to see them. Truthfully speaking, we could only see their legs and their feet. Nothing more.

  After hearing the popping sounds from the gunfire, Hamina and I saw two sets of feet scramble back to the kitchen. “Be quiet, okay,” I whispered in her ear.

  “Okay,” Hamina whispered back in my ear as the tears continued to fall from her eyes. My heart went out to her. She was a sweet little butterfly and it bothered me that I couldn’t stop her from crying. She wasn’t supposed to see the lifeless bodies of her mother and her grandmother lying on the floor. Rich had already warned me that if she got a look at him, he was going to murder her in an instant. So I hoped and prayed that I could keep her alive, at least while I was here.

  “Yo, what the fuck just happened?” I heard Monty panting.

  “Did you see those two dudes shooting at us?” Rich asked him. He sounded out of breath, along with Monty. “I think they got Jason and Paul,” he continued as he huffed and puffed. “Did you get a chance to bust a shot at him?”

  “I think I did,” Monty replied, but I could tell that it was a lie. And I knew Rich could tell too.

  “Turn the kitchen light off,” Rich told Monty.

  “A’ight,” he said, and flipped off the light switch that was near the sliding door to the patio, which was how they had run back into the house.

  They stood there quietly. And so did the little girl and I. But that didn’t last long, because a few seconds later, we heard movement coming from upstairs. I knew it had to be the other little girl that was in her bed asleep after the other little girl and I walked out of that bedroom. “Nana, where are you?” I heard the little voice call out.

  The one that was with me couldn’t hold her tongue. She shot out from underneath the kitchen table and sprinted toward the staircase to see her sister. “Bella, I’m coming,” she said.

  My heart went out to her when she ran away from me; I knew her life was about to be over. Rich and Monty both ran in her direction. “Get her, and I’ll get the little girl upstairs,” Rich instructed Monty.

  “What are we gonna do with them?” Monty wanted to know.

  “We’re gonna use them to get out of the house,” Rich told him, and then I heard footsteps running up the staircase.

  “Who are you? And where is Nana?” I heard the little girl from upstairs ask.

  “Get off me! Don’t touch me!” the little girl down here demanded.

  “Get off of her!” Bella, the little girl upstairs, said.

  “Shut up before I kill you!” Monty’s voice boomed. And then I heard a gurgling sound. I knew then that Monty was choking Hamina.

  Thank God Rich heard it and demanded that he stop it. “What the fuck is wrong with you? We gotta keep her alive until we get out of here!” Rich roared.

  “She wouldn’t shut the fuck up!” Monty tried defending his actions.

  “Touch her again and I’m gonna kill you myself,” Rich warned him.

  I couldn’t see Monty’s facial expression, but I knew he wasn’t too happy about Rich’s threat. I thought he would have a rebuttal for Rich, but, surprisingly, he didn’t. I knew the relationship between these two was gonna fall apart, and I didn’t want to be around when it happened.

  Meanwhile, they had to figure out a way to get out of this home without being shot. Their ace in the hole was keeping those two little girls alive. I just hoped neither one of them got killed in the process.

  “Come on, let’s go,” I heard Rich say to the little girl named Bella.

  “I know we got them, but how are we going to let the guy outside know that we have them?” Monty wanted to know.

  “We’re going to yell outside the window. Trust me, they’ll hear me,” Rich assured Monty.

  As soon as they both had the girls in hand, they escorted them toward the front door. Rich cracked the door open just enough so that the guy outside could hear what he had to say. The lights in the house were still out, but the light from the street slightly lit the foyer area around the front door. This allowed me to see their every move.

>   “Hey, whoever you are, I just want to let you know that I have your wife and kids. So, if you try to shoot us again, we will kill the rest of your family!” Rich yelled outside.

  No one returned any dialogue, so Rich repeated himself again. “Whoever you are, I just want you to know that I have your wife and your kids. So if you try to shoot us again, I will personally kill the rest of your family slowly. Don’t try anything now, because I am a man of my word,” Rich continued, and then he closed the door.

  “Think they’re gonna go forward?” Monty asked him.

  “For the sake of these little girls, they better,” Rich said with finality.

  “So, what are we gonna do now? How are we going to get out of here?” Monty’s questions kept coming one after another.

  “We’re going to leave out of here with that truck in the garage,” Rich told Monty, and then he turned around and led the way to the door that opened to the garage. Monty followed him with Bella in tow. “Monty, I want you to drive, and I’ll sit in the back seat with the girls,” Rich said.

  “What if they don’t see the kids and shoot me while I’m trying to get away?”

  “Don’t worry. They won’t try to shoot the truck. Get inside the driver’s seat now, or I’m gonna do it, and when I do, I’m gonna leave you here,” Rich warned him once again, and then he stormed off into the garage.

  Monty heeded Rich’s demand and followed him into the garage. Knowing that Monty and Rich were about to bail out of here and use the truck in the garage to do it, I knew that if I didn’t leave with them, my chances of rescuing my mother wouldn’t happen. That is, unless I got in the truck with them and derailed their escape before they could get off the block. This way, I could possibly get them to hand over my mother in exchange for the little girls. Who knows? I might not be able to trade my life at all.

  While they were getting into the truck, I climbed from underneath the table and ran toward the doorway that led to the garage. “Don’t leave me,” I said loud enough for them to hear.

  “Where the fuck was you?” Rich asked me before he closed the back door of the truck.

  “I was looking around all the rooms for my mama,” I lied.

  “Get in the front seat,” Rich told me.

  “Nah, let that bitch stay here. She was ghost the whole time we was popping these pistols at them cats around the back of the house.”

  “Nigga, fuck you!” I said, gritting my teeth at Monty. I was fuming on the inside of my body. This guy had no knowledge of how bad I wanted him dead. He would find out tonight after I turned his ass over to these cats.

  “I ought to smack you in your face, you dumb bitch!” Monty hissed. I could tell that he was seconds away from hitting me. Thankfully, Rich wasn’t in the mood to watch Monty beat me up. He was more focused on getting out of this house and he wasn’t going to let Monty interfere with it.

  “Monty, shut the fuck up and close the damn door. I’m ready to get out of here!” Rich’s voice boomed.

  Seeing the urgency, I jumped into the front passenger-side seat and shut the door behind me. I watched Monty as he started up the truck and revved the engine. “Hit the gas and back out of here!” Rich shouted.

  “Do you want me to open the garage?” he asked Rich.

  “Just let it up a little bit and then flood the gas, just in case they start shooting.”

  “What about the car that’s parked in the driveway? I’m gon’ run into that when I back up,” Monty expressed.

  “I don’t give a fuck about that car! Back into it!” Rich roared.

  “I want my mommy,” Hamina said.

  “Yes, I want my mommy too,” Bella whined.

  “Shut up! I don’t wanna hear shit else out of y’all!” Rich snapped.

  Both little girls started crying. “Can you get them to shut up?” Monty shouted at the girls. He thought that he was going to shut them up by yelling at them, but it only made things worse. Both girls started sobbing uncontrollably. And Rich couldn’t handle it, so he slapped both girls down on the floor.

  One of the girls screamed at the top of her voice, scaring me and Monty both. Shocked that he could be so violent to a child, I stood up and screamed, “Stop it!”

  I guess he was surprised by my audacity; Rich immediately let go of the girl. “God help me,” I said quietly, sitting back in my seat. I couldn’t wait to get away from these assholes.

  Instead of opening the garage door first, Monty put the truck in reverse and sped backward through the door.

  Boom!

  The garage door burst open. We sped backward until we hit the car that was parked behind us.

  Boom!

  That was the sound that I heard when Monty slammed the truck back into the car. I quickly got a moment to see if my mother was still in the car, but when I looked a second time and saw that it was a man in the car instead of a woman, I knew that Ahmad was playing games with me. He wasn’t really trying to get me to trade my life for my mother’s. He tried to pull the wool over my eyes so I could hand him me on a silver platter. I thought of the intuition that I had to get in the truck when I had the chance. If I had stayed in the house, Ahmad would’ve found me and killed me right on the spot.

  Immediately after I realized that my mother wasn’t in the car, I got back down on the floor while Monty pushed that car back with the force from the truck. I couldn’t believe it, Monty was really able to get the car out of the way.

  I guess Ahmad and the other guys that were with him realized that the only way they were going to prevent the truck from leaving the house was by shooting out the tires. That was exactly what they did.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  One by one, the guys successfully shot both of the back tires. But that didn’t stop Monty from putting the truck into Drive and attempting to barrel down the street. The drive was rocky and I could smell the rubber burning as the air from the tires oozed out of them.

  But out of nowhere, I heard shots coming from behind us. Pop! Pop! Pop! The driver’s-side window glass shattered. “I’m hit,” I heard Monty say as shards of glass rained down on me. And before I knew it, I heard another shot, and that’s when the truck started swerving. And when I looked up and saw Monty’s lifeless body slumped over on the steering wheel, I knew that it was going to be a matter of seconds before this truck slammed into something. So I got up and grabbed the wheel and tried to steer it as best as I could. Meanwhile, Rich barked orders at me from the back seat.

  “Move him out of the way and drive this motherfucker before we crash!” he shouted. We had gotten at least a half of a mile down the road, giving us at least a three-minute head start to escape from their grasp, but the timing of preventing the truck from hitting the telephone pole had run out. The collision rattled me a little, but I shook it off. I knew I had to think quick; in a matter of seconds, I was going to be staring down the barrel of a gun. I needed to get out of here. But before I ran off, I wanted to get my hands on that ten thousand dollars. And I knew it would be in my best interest to get it from Monty. If I didn’t, Ahmad would take it back.

  While I was taking the money out of Monty’s jacket pocket, Rich climbed over the girls and exited the truck on the side where I was. I thought he was going to close the door behind himself, but he didn’t. He took the little girls with him and ran as fast as he could. Before I exited the truck, I took Monty’s gun too. I knew I was gonna need it more than anything else. The money portion was good, but it wasn’t going to save my life. So I held the gun as careful as I could and then I exited the truck, making sure that Ahmad and the other guys didn’t see me.

  I thought that I was going to run into Rich the farther I ran from the crash, but he disappeared into thin air. I didn’t even hear the little girls crying while I made my way out of the neighborhood. I saw two police cars and a paramedic vehicle coming my way, so I ducked down behind a massive tree alongside the road. I knew that they were going to that house we just left, so I made sure they didn’t see me.
r />   After they drove by, I put some pep in my step and got the hell out of that neighborhood. I came here with plans to get my mother back, but it didn’t work. So now I had to come up with a plan B. It was now or never.

  28

  RUNNING OUT OF TIME

  People will only do things that you allow them to do. In this case, I allowed Rich and Monty to treat me terribly within hours of meeting them. I swear, I can’t keep dealing with guys like this. Rich didn’t like me. Monty didn’t like me. Terrell didn’t like me, and Ahmad didn’t like me. What is it about me and this weird dynamic that I have with men? Am I allergic to them? Whatever it was, it hadn’t been conducive to me, because I’d been having some bad reactions because of it. Hopefully, I would get it right one day. But until then, I was gonna take the bitter with the sweet.

  I was afraid to take this taxi ride back to Rich’s spot, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so that was where I headed. I got in a taxicab with an older Hispanic gentleman, who, I believed, wouldn’t put me in any danger by being around him. For one, I knew that he wouldn’t recognize me, and two, if he did, I was sure that he wouldn’t rat me out. People from other countries tend to stay out of other people’s business, especially since there was a language barrier. All and all, I knew that I wasn’t in any risk of this guy contacting the cops, but to be sure, I paid him in advance and added a nice tip to it, and then we headed into that direction.

  I had no idea if I was going to see Rich when I got there. At this point, it didn’t matter. All I wanted to do was get into that neighborhood so I could hide amongst the street hustlers and blend in with the girls that hung around in that area.

  I couldn’t give the cabdriver the exact address to Rich’s trap house, but when we arrived within a mile of it, I pointed him to the exact location. It only took us a minute or so to get me to drive up to the building. After I got out of the car, I walked up to the door and knocked on it. Surprisingly, Rich opened the door. When he saw me, he acted like he saw a ghost.