“Whoa,” Keys said. “She a freak, though. They’re fucking hard as shit on the balcony!”
Tiara was disgusted, and Keys saw the look on her face. She shrugged her shoulders sheepishly in a silent apology.
Tiara ignored the statement and put her binoculars back to her eyes to look at the scene taking place. Keys was right, Vincent was tearing Cat up. Tiara’s heart wrenched with every delighted expression forming on her mother’s face. She had the face of a woman with no problems, still looking young and carefree. At first glance, you would never be able to tell that she was the type of woman to put a hit on her own daughter’s head. Or even the type to sleep with her deceased husband’s cousin.
“Hopefully, this puts both of them to sleep,” Tiara said, looking at the clock in the Toyota they were posted in. It read eleven-thirty. “Almost showtime.”
With masks that only showed their mouths securely on their faces, they began to load up and as soon as the clock read eleven forty-five, they made a swift exit. Guns drawn, they ran with Tiara covering the front; Keys in the middle and Stevelle in the back. The others in the car stayed back just as planned and would wait for any signal that backup was needed. They moved with stealth, cloaked by the darkness of the night. By the time they reached the gate, it was five minutes until midnight, and just like Tiara had said, the guard already had left his post.
“Do you remember the code?” Stevelle asked Tiara.
“Of course, I do.”
She entered her father’s birth month and number in the month, but the final numbers were the year she herself was born. The doors clanked open, and the three of them wasted no time sliding through. Once they were officially on the property, Tiara pulled the gate back closed behind them.
“Come on!” she whispered with urgency, and the three of them ran as fast as they could through the grass. “To the back!”
Tiara pointed at the other two to go toward the basement window. Her body still ached from what had happened to her the night before, but the adrenaline coursing through her blood made it easy for her to ignore the pain. They ducked and dodged the men patrolling the grounds with expertise, but were ready to pop off if anybody was to see them. Finally, when they reached the home stretch, Tiara grabbed both of them roughly by the arms and pulled them behind a bush. While they all ducked, she eyed the rotating camera.
“Damn,” Keys panted, “this is the biggest house I’ve ever seen! And don’t get me started on this fucking yard. We moving me in this bitch after all this is over. Got me running like I’m running from the police!”
Tiara didn’t respond to anything Keys had just said. She was too busy focusing on the camera and counting the seconds in her head. When she finally got the rotation in her head right, she turned to Stevelle.
“I’m going to go first because I know how to open the window. When I’m through, don’t look anywhere else but at me, OK? You will only have ten seconds to get to me. You have to run the exact moment I tell you to. Understand? You too, Keys.”
When they both nodded in agreement, Tiara turned her back to them and focused her eyes on the camera. Her timing had to be perfect or else it would only be a futile, and deadly, attempt.
Now! she told herself and took off running as fast as she could.
She counted from zero in her head. It took her four seconds to get to the window, two to push it open, and three more to slide through. She landed hard on her feet, but then lost her balance and fell to her knees. She hurried to get herself back up and pointed her gun around the laundry room. Of course, it was empty. When she was sure the coast was clear, she pushed a crate to the wall under the window. Standing on it, she waved and got Keys and Stevelle’s attention.
You have ten seconds, she mouthed to them and did a countdown with three of her fingers while watching the camera.
When the last finger came down, Keys took off running first with the speed of an Olympic track star and slid through the window. Tiara moved out of the way just in time, and Keys landed on her feet.
“OK,” Keys said, dusting herself off. “The hard part is over. I bet you fell, huh?” she asked with a huge smirk on her face.
“Fuck you.” Tiara stood on the crate and did the exact same countdown for Stevelle.
When he was safely in the house and Tiara was positive that none of them had been detected, she held her gun out in front of her and signaled for them to do the same.
“Follow me,” she whispered. “Their room is this way.”
Tiara had been right again. The only people roaming the hallways were the housekeepers, and it wasn’t too hard to stay out of their way. Tiara was taken back down memory lane when she smelled the aroma of the house. Lavender. It had always been her mother’s favorite scent.
They stepped quietly through the house and up the stairs until they reached Cat’s room. They held their backs to the wall and tried to listen closely and were able to make out the shower in the bathroom of the master bedroom running. The location of one of the people on the
