Free Checkmate: The Baddest Chick by Nisa Santiago

understand me?”
    He nodded nervously.
    The alpha male of the pack spoke. He crouched down near the man, roughed him up by pulling at his suit jacket and smacking him around violently, and then said, “This is easy for you. I want you to get on that phone, call up the top floor and say to them, Kola’s coming back up. She needs to speak to Eduardo about something.”
    The doorman looked reluctant to comply.
    “You understand?”
    “They’ll kill me.”
    “Nigga, you think we ain’t, if you don’t do what we say? Nigga, get ya ass on that phone and make the call.” Cross clutched the doorman by his collar jacket tightly, pulling him up harshly and pushing him toward the counter. He pressed the gun to his head and cocked back the pistol. “I’ma count to five. One . . . two . . . three—”
    “OK!”
    “Do it now!”
    The doorman slowly picked up the phone and pushed a button that directly connected to the top floor. His call was quickly answered. Cross and his goons listened in closely. The doorman swallowed hard.
    “She’s coming back up, Kola . . . . OK, very well.”
    He hung up. Cross nodded and smiled. “You did good.”
    Cross then looked at his goons and asked, “Y’all ready to do this?”
    “Nigga, we ready! I’m hungry, nigga,” one young boy replied eagerly.
    Cross nodded to one of his young goons and said, “You stay and watch him. He moves wrong, you know what to do.”
    The boy nodded.
    Cross, Edge, and the other two shooters approached the elevator. They knew that they had the element of surprise—especially with no cameras. They stepped into the lift and pushed for the penthouse floor. The men were slightly caught off guard as they were shot up toward the sky. Silencers were placed onto the barrels of the guns, which were cocked back, ready and loaded to cause havoc.
    They approached the top floor instantly, and the bell chimed and the doors began to open. Eduardo’s men weren’t on high alert, thinking that it was Kola coming back to see Eduardo about something. They sat back relaxed, with only one of them moving toward the elevator to greet her.
    Sandro moved closer and caught the shock of his life. Four masked gunmen rushed out onto the floor and began firing, with the silencers suppressing the gunshots.
    Poot! Poot! Poot! Poot! Poot!
    Sandro caught three slugs directly into his chest, and got pushed back, falling dead. The other two scrambled to react.
    Cross didn’t want the sound of gunshots to alert Eduardo and his other men. But before they got to mow down all three guards, one of them was lucky enough to squeeze off a few rounds from the Uzi he carried, alerting whoever was waiting behind the door.
    The hallway erupted with chaotic gunfire, and the last guard caught a bullet to his head, pushing him violently back into the door with a loud thud.
    Cross knew he had lost the element of surprise. “Go! Go! Go!” he shouted.
    Edge and the others quickly rushed for the door and tried to kick it in, and then a shotgun blast took the door completely off the hinges. The four masked men rushed into the room blazing, gunfire erupting between both camps in the posh-looking room.
    Eduardo was startled by the sound of gunfire. His right-hand security, Andrea, rushed into the room screaming, “We’re being hit!”
    Eduardo scrambled to get his gun and some other belongings, while Andrea was posted by the door keeping a watchful eye out with a .50-cal. clutched tightly in his hands. Eduardo hurriedly got dressed. “Who got balls to come at me?” he shouted.
    Andrea pushed his boss into the next room, while the intense gunfire scattered all about. Men were heard screaming and it sounded like a small war in the next room.
    Cross and his goons had killed three of Eduardo’s men who’d tried holding down the fort. Now their bloody, bullet-riddled bodies lay sprawled across the gleaming black-and-white marble floors.
    “Let’s do these niggas and get this fuckin’ money,” one thug