The Heist

Book 1: Heist

by Kiki Swinson, De'nesha Diamond

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

Accustomed to a life of luxury, Shannon Marshall is devastated to lose everything after her husband, Todd, is sent to prison for gun running. So when Todd plans the ultimate stickup from behind bars, Shannon's ready to put her neck on the line. But she'll have to pull off the hustle of a lifetime and play one dangerous gangster who always gets what he wants. . .DEA Agent Jordan Hayes has vowed to never walk in her ex-con father's footsteps. Suspecting her father is planning another robbery, she begins keeping close tabs on him and his crony--sexy gangster Keston Bishop. Jordan soon becomes addicted to the danger that radiates from Keston like street candy as she takes part in a daring theft that could cost her everything...

Release date: November 1, 2013

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

CRASH! BANG! “What the fuck?!” I was out of bed and on my feet with one big jump when I heard the sounds of crashing glass and wood smashing. I immediately started searching the side of my bed for my ratchet. I felt down around on the floor in the place I usually kept it.

Nothing.

“Fuck,” I cursed as the sounds grew louder and louder. Shannon had moved my shit. I told her not to ever move my shit without telling me. She was always so worried about guns being around Lil Todd.

“What the fuck!” I exclaimed as I heard feet thundering in my direction. My heart pounded through my wife-beater like the shit was going to jump loose of my chest bones. My mind was not foggy with sleep anymore; I was wide awake and on alert.

I didn’t know if it was jealous motherfuckers from the hood or those hating-ass five-o bastards who had a vendetta against me, banging up my fucking minimansion doors. The shit sounded like a fucking earthquake was happening right there in my crib. At first I didn’t hear them say “POLICE!” but as soon as I was facing down the end of an MP5, I knew what the fuck was up.

“Get on the floor! Get the fuck on the floor!”

Those commands were very familiar. I put my hands up, folded them behind my head, and assumed the position. I was pushed down to the floor roughly, and about five of those bastards dropped knees in my back and legs. My arms were yanked behind my back, and I was cuffed and made to lie facedown on my own fucking floor. Those fucking pigs were swarming my crib like flies around a pile of freshly dropped shit. It seemed like there were a million of them. All of them against just me.

“Punk bitches,” I grumbled under my breath. I recognized one of them—a bigheaded white boy who thought he was the shit. A snake motherfucker named Labeckie. He was the sergeant of the Norfolk Police Department’s narcotics and gun unit, and he hated my ass.

“Take out that wall! Tear this fucking place up until we find some shit!” I heard that bastard yell as he looked down at me and smiled.

I closed my eyes when I heard them axing down walls and cabinets. Didn’t they fucking know they could’ve just opened that shit up? My mind was racing, and I immediately hoped that Shannon didn’t walk in on this shit with Lil Todd.

I lay there, facedown, knowing right away that somebody in my camp had snitched. I knew my gun-running shit and five-o radar were airtight. There was no fucking way they could have known about my operation unless somebody told them. It had been three years since I had done my last bid on a drug charge, and when I got home, I had gone into a different line of work. Before I got knocked on the trumped-up drug charges, I was one of the biggest kingpins in the Norfolk area. I had all of Tidewater on lock, and I was bringing in at least fifty thousand a week. Almost all of the trap boys in the area were employed by me. I ran a tight ship, and the narcos found it hard to get my ass. The cops who arrested me the last time weren’t gonna rest until they got my ass. I had beat so many charges because of my high-paid attorney, and those fucking pigs were mad as hell, so when they finally got me on some ol’ caught slipping shit, they was happy as hell.

When I came home, I promised my wife I was leaving the drug game behind me—the money, the bitches, and the fucking five-o too. I knew she was tired of riding with me through all this bullshit, so I told her I was going legit, and that is exactly what I did . . . at first. I opened my own short-distance trucking company. That shit was all good, but it wasn’t enough money for me. Shannon was used to living a certain lifestyle, and I was going to provide it. I got into the gun-running shit by coincidence, and it was all up from there. I was bringing in cake, and my wife and kid were fucking happy. I was sure I was careful, and I surrounded myself with only a few cats who I thought were real. It seems one of those motherfuckers wasn’t a real cat but a fucking snake-ass rat.

These bastard-ass cops had me facedown on the floor for mad long. The circulation in my hands felt like it was completely cut off. All I could hear was them destroying my beautiful home and rummaging through my shit. I bit into my cheek until I drew blood when I heard one of them whistle and say, “Hmm, the missus must be a pretty bitch—look at these pretty-ass panties.” Then the bastard took a long sniff and said, “Ahhhh, pretty pussy smell. Think I could fuck his wife while he does his life sentence?” and then he started laughing. I squirmed around with the handcuffs biting into my skin. He was so lucky I was shackled like an animal or else I would’ve fucked his ass up. Shannon was my world, and I didn’t want a nigga, especially a bitch-ass pig, even looking in her direction.

“Yo, these cuffs is tight!” I called out while they continued going through my shit.

“I don’t give a fuck! You lucky we don’t hog-tie you like the animal you are,” the pig guarding me barked in my ear. His punk ass knew if I could get out of the fucking handcuffs, his wig would be twisted back.

It seemed like they were searching for days when one of them yelled, “Jackpot! I knew we would find something!” I just shut my eyes and thought about Shannon and our little man. I was a three striker, and my ass was going down. I had always made it a practice not to bring my shit where I live, but Jock—one of my boys—had met up with me the night before with a military-grade AK47 left over from his sales meeting. Apparently the cats he met up with had gotten cold feet on that shit and didn’t buy it, leaving Jock to drive around with the shit on his way back to Norfolk. Jock was shook and didn’t know where to take the shit, so being the man I am, I met up with Jock and took that load off of him. My intention had been to get that shit sold today. Either I was a few hours short or I was set the fuck up.

“Yo, I get a phone call, right?” I asked as two cops hauled me up off the floor.

“Don’t ask for shit!” one of them barked.

“How do these look?” I asked Satanya as I sashayed around the Saks shoe salon.

“Mmmm, girl, those shits are hot on your little-ass feet,” she said, smiling.

“I’m about to get them, then,” I said, sitting down to let the salesgirl take the hot-ass Christian Louboutin booties off my feet. “I will take those and the other two pumps too,” I told the girl as she scrambled to get the shoes together. We both knew her commission depended on me.

Satanya wasn’t buying nothing, and I thought about slipping in a pair for her but changed my mind. Not today, I thought. I dropped $2,885 on my shoes like it was nothing. Then I went upstairs to find something for my hubby and baby boy. I always picked up something for my two men. As long as Todd was providing, I was buying. He always said he wanted to repay me for riding with him through his bid. Damn, how I loved that man.

“Girl, you the shit,” Satanya said, paying me a compliment as I peeled off enough bills to pay for my merchandise. I already knew I was the shit, but I played modest.

“Oh, girl, please, I don’t do this too often,” I lied. Shit, I still had like five g’s in my bag to spend. As we eased off the escalator in the men’s section, my cell phone started going crazy. “Who is calling me?” I asked, looking down at my phone, annoyed as hell. I knew Todd was at home sleeping after a long night’s work. It seemed like a bunch of old texts were coming through on my phone.

“I hate being in that shoe section in Saks. I never get my messages,” I said to Satanya. It turned out to be a bunch of voice mails coming through. I decided to check them later. Chances were it was my begging-ass family, who called me almost every day begging for shit. My cousins still couldn’t believe I was with Todd and living like a star. They had all shitted on me when I was younger because their mothers worked, and my mother was cracked the fuck out and never bought me shit. Well, the tables were turned now. All those bitches were scrambling for rent money even though they were on Section 8, and I was living in a minimansion in the exclusive Ghent section of Norfolk. I had a good man while they had those fake-ass hand-to-hand corner boys. Those chicks were glad to take my designer hand-me-downs now.

I wasn’t trying to hear their begging-ass messages today, talking about can they borrow a hundred dollars to pay their rent or get food—that shit was always their story.

Satanya and I continued to blow Saks out, and I dropped another $2,500 before we left. Feeling bad, I took her back downstairs and picked her up the cheapest pair of Gucci slides they had. The shits were only $395; it was the least I could do for her keeping me company. Don’t get me wrong; Satanya wasn’t no slouch, but her man was on lock right now, so shit had gotten tight for her. I had been in her shoes once, too, when Todd was locked up, so I couldn’t judge her. I knew she’d be back on her shit sooner or later, and besides that, she was my girl.

“I’m going to my house to drop this stuff off, and then we going to pick up the baby from day care,” I told her.

We laughed and joked all the way to my exclusive gated community. As I pulled through the black gates, something seemed a little different today. A bunch of my neighbors were standing outside on their lawns looking up and down the street. Now, I knew most of these rich folks didn’t work, but usually they stayed inside, and I would only see them coming in and going out, or if they hosted dinner parties, I’d see them greeting their guests. As I drove, some of them pointed at my car and looked like they were whispering to each other and talking about me.

“What the hell is going on? I ain’t never seen this many people out in your neighborhood, Shannon,” Satanya said, looking out at the neighbors.

“Damn right. I have no idea,” I replied, confused as hell. As I rounded the corner toward my house, which was the biggest one at the end of the cul-de-sac, I noticed a bunch of tire marks on my circular driveway. My heart immediately started thumping. Todd’s Mercedes CLS was in the driveway but looked like it had been sideswiped.

I didn’t want to alarm Satanya, so I decided to play it cool; meanwhile, my bowels felt like they were going to release. I threw my car in park and took the front steps in one leap. As soon as I reached the door, I knew.

The front door was splintered like it had been hit a million times with an ax. There were no locks left on it. I gently pushed the door open, and it practically came apart with pieces of wood falling. I threw my arms up, and Satanya was right on my heels. When I looked through the doorway, my eyes widened so big they felt like they were going to just pop out of the sockets. My chest started heaving, and my entire body became numb. I couldn’t breathe, and I grabbed on to Satanya to keep myself up.

“Girl, what the fuck!” she screamed.

“Oh my God! Todd!” I screamed out before my knees buckled. Satanya held on to me as we both moved forward.

“Todd!” I screamed out again, breaking free of her grip and running through the mess toward the stairs. It looked like a tornado had hit the inside of my house. All of my furniture was either chopped up or thrown over. I could hardly get up the steps—the entire banister on the winding staircase had been broken into pieces, and wood splinters littered the carpeted stairs. I slid on wood as I scrambled up the stairs to try to find Todd. I finally got up the stairs and ran through all of the Sheetrock and plaster in the long hallway straight to the master bedroom.

“Todd! Todd!” I screamed out with tears flowing down my face like a river and my pulse racing so hard it felt like it was beating in the back of my throat. Todd was nowhere to be found.

Our bedroom was in even worse condition. The artwork that usually adorned my walls was sliced up and the expensive frames shattered. The wall right before you enter the suite had a huge hole in the center like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it.

“Oh my God!” I yelled as I raced around what was left of our once-beautiful bedroom. All of my clothes were on the floor of my walk-in closets. My dresser drawers had been emptied onto the floor, and the dresser had been hit down the middle, completely split in two. The dresser mirror lay shattered on the carpet in a million pieces. The mattress and box springs were on the floor, and cotton spilled from the middle like a gutted pig. I knew from the looks of things it was definitely the police that had come up in my house and destroyed it. If it had been one of Todd’s rivals from the streets, there may have been bullet holes, but all of this destruction couldn’t have come from anyone else but those hating-ass police.

As I tried to compose myself, my mind immediately went to Todd’s safe. It contained our life savings and all of the money I needed to live off of if something happened to him. It was a plan that Todd had put together after the last raid and prison bid. He promised me that he would always make provisions for me and the baby so that I would not have to struggle if he had ever gotten into anything again. The safe also contained his “attorney stash”—an allotment of money Todd set aside for his defense attorney should some shit like this ever happen. I immediately scrambled toward the closet for the safe. My body immediately became hot and drenched with sweat as the possibility of the safe being gone made me see my life flash before my eyes.

I swallowed hard and climbed through the piles of clothes and shoes boxes that littered the floor of my closet, falling and pushing shit aside until I was at the back of the closet. Before I could reach the spot in the floor that had the loose piece of carpet, I dropped to my knees.

I could clearly see that the carpet was peeled back, and the big hole in the floor that usually contained the safe was empty. The electronic hoist that lifted the safe out of the floor was smashed to pieces, and the large Picasso that usually covered the switch for the hoist was also destroyed.

“Noooo!” I screamed, holding on to the side of my head as my ears began ringing. I screamed so loud I scared the shit out of Satanya.

“Shannon! Oh my God, girl!” Satanya screamed, too, rushing into the closet. She grabbed me and we both fell to the floor screaming together.

It seemed like a lifetime had passed. My eyes were swollen, and my throat was sore. I just spun around and around in circles trying to figure out how this had happened. Satanya helped me compose myself. I had a banging headache, and I had to think. I dumped out my purse and saw I had a total of $2,500 left after my shopping spree. Todd never really kept money in the bank because of the fucking questions and those fucking stupid-ass suspicious-activity reports those bank people filled out if a person brought in certain amounts of money. He had explained to me that even if he kept his deposits right under ten thousand, the bank would start filling out those reports after he did that a couple of times. In his case, it would send off red flags to the police, especially since those bastards hated the fact that Todd had gone legit. Todd also always wanted to have his money at his fingertips in case we had to get the fuck out of dodge. I had a bank account that I opened for Lil Todd, but it had only about another two g’s in it. Todd just always encouraged me to put money away in the safe stash. When I calculated what I had in total right now, I began to cry again. Five thousand dollars couldn’t do shit for me.

I was used to spending that in one day. My house mortgage was $6,500 a month alone. Not to mention me and the baby had to eat, plus the light, gas, and other expenses we had. This little-ass bit of money wouldn’t last no time. I took a deep breath and realized that I would have to wait on Todd to tell me what to do next. I was hoping he had some money stashed somewhere outside of the house. After calming down, I found a co. . .