Time is Money (9 page)

“I got you,” was all Ghost said before exiting the car and heading inside the airport.

* * *

Ghost boarded the plane and took his seat. The only thing on his mind was killing Brent. He still couldn’t believe that he had let Brent trick him into giving him all of his hard earned cash. Brent had robbed Ghost without a gun and now he had to pay for his actions. During the plane ride, all Ghost could think about was how many other people Brent may have conned out of millions.
“You done fucked with the wrong one this time,”
Ghost said to himself. Thoughts of violence and horrible acts ran through his head for the entire plane ride. The streets gave Ghost his name because he was known for always flying under the radar and not being on Front Street. Being a flashy show off was never his thing. If the spot light were on him, he would always head in the other direction. That strategy had worked for him for years, but tonight. Brent had awaken a sleeping giant.

Ghost walked through the airport at a quick pace. He came here to handle business and that’s all that was on his mind. He walked out of the airport and slid into the back seat of an
Escalade
that was parked curbside waiting for his arrival. The driver of the
Escalade
was an old friend of Ghost’s who went by the name, Big T. Back in the day, Big T used to be Ghost’s right hand man until a four year prison bid slowed him down.

“Everything you need is in that bag,” Big T said and then pulled away from the curb out into traffic.

Ghost opened the black duffle bag that sat on the seat next to him. Inside he found a 9mm with a silencer attached to the barrel, along with two extra clips, and a black ski mask. Ghost rested his head back against the head rest and closed his eyes. His mind was moving a thousand miles per second and he took this time to rest his brain for a minute.

Big T pulled up onto the big estate over in the cut, not to draw too much attention to them. He placed the gear in park. “Time to roll.”

Ghost rolled the ski mask down over his face, grabbed his gun, and quickly stepped out of the
Escalade
. He made his way over to the front door and shot the lock off. The shot was muffled and sounded like someone had pressed a key on an old type writer. Ghost entered the huge mansion with fire dancing in his eyes. He was on a mission and refused to be denied. Ghost tipped down the long elementary school like hallway. The further he walked, the louder voices could be heard. From the sound of it, it sounded like Brent and his family were having dinner or some kind of get together.

* * *

Brent sat at the dining room table alongside his wife and business partner, an older man that went by the name of Sal. Brent’s personal chef served them porterhouse steaks with a bake potato and vegetables on the side.

“Any new clients?” Sal asked raising his glass of wine to his lips. He and Brent had been getting rich off of others hard work for so long that they had forgotten what they were doing was wrong.

“I’m working on these two new guys looking to invest some big money. If all goes well I should be able to reel them in by the end of the week,” Brent boasted. For him, his thrill came from outsmarting his clients. He loved to feel like he was the smartest person in the room. “By the end of the month, we should pull in another fourteen million.”

“That’s great,” Ghost said stepping out from the shadows with a big gun in his hand. He snatched the ski mask off so Brent could see his face and know who was going to take his life. “I’ll take my two million plus interest now if you don’t mind.”

“Gh… Gh… Ghost, hey man,” Brent stuttered. “What are you doing here?”

“I tried calling your cell phone and your office and got no answer,” Ghost said. “So I figured I’d drop by in person.” He pulled out a chair and joined them at the table.

“Ghost, I was going to call you first thing in the morning and give you all my new numbers,” Brent lied with a straight face. He was trying to keep cool and not show the fear that was inside of him. “Me and my partner Sal over here were just talking about you.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes. We were saying how smart it was of you to invest with us and that in the next two years your money...”

“Cut the shit!” Ghost snapped cutting him off. “My money, I want it now! All of it!”

“I’m going to need some time Ghost,” Brent told him. “Things like this, take time.”

Ghost turned his gun on Sal and shot him out of his chair. Brent and his wife looked on in horror. The scene was so graphic that Brent’s wife leaned over and threw up her meal.

Ghost then turned his gun on Brent’s wife. “I need my money and I’m not going to ask you again.”

“I have $30,000 upstairs in my safe; that’s all I have,” Brent said raising his hands in surrender. “Take it, it’s yours.”

“$30,000?” Ghost repeated. “Motherfucker where’s my two million?”

“I don’t have it. I used your money to make me more money and now all the money is currently tied up,” Brent explained.

Ghost gave Brent a sad look and blew his wife’s brains out right in front of him. Brent watched as his wife’s body slid out of the chair and down to the floor as warm blood splashed across his face. Ghost roughly grabbed Brent by the back of his neck and forced him upstairs. The fact that Brent didn’t have his money only pissed Ghost off even more. Ghost spun Brent around and slapped him across the face with his gun. Brent’s head violently bounced off the wall before he crumbled down to the floor in a fetal position.

“Please don’t kill me! I’m so sorry! I swear I’ll get you your money back,” Brent pleaded.

“How you gonna get my money back, huh? How?” Ghost barked as he cracked Brent over the top of his head with the gun opening up a huge gash. “You like to steal from people right? You like to rob people without a gun right?” Ghost blacked out and hit Brent repeatedly in the face with the gun until he was no longer recognizable. “Get your punk ass up!” He roughly snatched Brent up to his feet and shoved him towards the safe. “You have ten seconds to open that safe or I’m going to blow your brains all over that wall,” Ghost said in a stern tone as he began to count.

Brent wiped blood from his eyes and slowly began to punch in the combination to the wall safe. Now he was willing to do whatever it took to get Ghost to stop hitting him. “Here it’s open.”

Ghost quickly moved towards the safe, removed the $30,000, and then turned his attention back on Brent. “Look at me you piece of shit!”

Brent looked up at Ghost from his knees. His eyes were begging Ghost not to kill him. The last thing he ever expected was for him to come back to his home blasting.

Once Brent looked at Ghost, he fired four shots into Brent’s chest. Then he stood over him and put a bullet right between his eyes. Ghost then walked out the front door as if nothing never happened and slid back in the backseat of the
Escalade
.

Once Ghost was back in the truck; Big T smoothly pulled off the property and backed out into traffic. It was an unspoken rule not to talk after a job, so the two men rode in silence all the way back to the airport.

Thirty minutes later Big T pulled into the drop off area of the airport.

“Thanks for everything,” Ghost said dropping $15,000 onto Big T’s lap. “I appreciate it. I’ll hit you when I touch down so you’ll know I’m safe.” Ghost stepped out the backseat and entered the airport never looking back.

Chapter 22

I Need You

W
hen Ghost made it back to New York, the first thing he did was drop by Dana’s house. On the plane ride, he had done a lot of thinking and he wanted to ask his sister’s opinion on what he was thinking. Ghost slid out the backseat of the yellow cab, walked up to Dana’s door, and rang the doorbell. Seconds later Dana opened the door with a big smile on her face.

Dana hugged Ghost tightly. “I’m so glad you made it back safely. Now get in here and tell me what’s going on.”

Ghost headed straight for the bar and poured himself a drink. “I lost all my money,” he came straight out and said it. “I invested all my money with some conman out in Los Angeles and he fucked me over.”

“He conned you out of all of your money?” Dana asked with a shocked look on her face. “Well I guess your trip to Hawaii is off now,” she said sadly.

“No, I’m still going to Hawaii.” Ghost paused for a second. “I was thinking about robbing another bank.”

“No,” Dana said quickly. “You said we were out, especially after how the last job almost cost you your life.”

“I have no other choice.”

“Yes you do. If you need money I’ll be more than happy to give you half of my money,” Dana said. “I have close to two million dollars and I’ll split it with you.”

“Thanks Dana but I can’t take your money.” Ghost downed his drink and quickly poured himself another. “This one last job and we’re done.”

“This isn’t smart Ghost,” Dana said, shaking her head. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

“Plus Randy fucked up his money gambling again and I promised to give him a couple of dollars,” Ghost told her.

Dana sucked her teeth. “Ghost you can’t keep on bailing Randy out every time he messes up his money.”

“Dana I really need your help,” Ghost said seriously. “This one last time, this one last bank, are you in or not?”

Dana stood there for a second giving the idea some thought and then she finally said, “I’m in.” As soon as the words left her lips, she knew she was making a big mistake. Something about this job just didn’t feel right. This job felt forced and rushed and their crew didn’t work like that. Now that Dana had Stone in her life, nothing else really seemed to matter. The last thing she wanted to do was to get caught robbing a bank just when her life was beginning to change for the better. Dana watched as Ghost made his exit and all she could do was wonder if she was making the right choice or not.

Chapter 23

Life of the Party

D
ana pulled her
Benz
up in front of Ghost’s house and killed the engine. She looked over at Stone and could immediately feel the butterflies in her stomach. She was nervous about him meeting Ghost. She knew that Ghost could be kind of intimidating at times and she didn’t want Stone to feel uncomfortable.

“You alright?”

“Yeah baby, just thinking about a lot,” Dana said.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“We can talk about it later.” Dana put on a phony smile, stepped out of the car, and led Stone towards the front door. From all the cars that were parked out front, Dana could tell that the house was probably packed. For the past few days, the talk that Dana had with Ghost about taking down another bank had been haunting her.

Dana and Stone stepped foot in the house and the first thing they saw were people everywhere who looked to be having a good time. Young Jeezy’s voice boomed through the speakers at a loud volume.

Stone looked around and saw strippers scattered around the house. Him and Dana quickly made their way over to the bar area and helped themselves to a drink. Stone took a sip of his drink and was about to say something to Dana, when he saw Randy walking around the house.
“What is he doing here? He better not blow me up in front of Dana,”
he thought to himself as Randy walked up.

“Hey Randy I want you to meet somebody,” Dana said with an excited look on her face. “Randy meet my new boyfriend Stone and Stone meet my friend Randy,” she said introducing the two.

“Nice to meet you Stone,” Randy said acting as if this was his first time meeting Stone. “How did you two love birds meet?”

“We met at a lounge,” Dana said, smiling from ear to ear.

“How sweet,” Randy said in a phony tone. “Have you introduced him to your brother Ghost yet?”

“Not yet. I’m a little nervous,” Dana said honestly. The reason she was so nervous was because she had never went against her brother in her entire life, but if for some reason he didn’t like or approve of Stone, this would be her first time.

“Well it was nice to meet you Stone,” Randy said and then walked off.

Stone’s heart broke when he found out that Dana’s brother was none other than Ghost. He knew that sooner or later he was going to have to tell her what he did for a living and that her brother was one of his main targets. Stone’s thoughts were interrupted when Ghost walked up.

“I have somebody I want you to meet,” Dana said smiling from ear to ear. “This is my boyfriend Stone and Stone this is my brother Ghost.”

As soon as Ghost locked eyes on Stone, his jaw immediately went tight. He remembered Stone as the detective that chased him into the sewer and tried to lock him away for the rest of his life.

“Nice to meet you,” Stone extended his hand.

Ghost looked down at his hand as if it had just been removed from the toilet and then turned his attention to Dana. “Can I have a word with you for a second?” He roughly grabbed Dana by the arm and escorted her upstairs to his bedroom. Ghost entered the bedroom and slammed the door behind him. “What the fuck are you thinking?” he barked.

“I’m sick and tired of this shit!” Dana snapped. “I love him and that’s final! I don’t care whether you like him or not! I love him and that’s all that matters!”

“He’s a cop Dana!” Ghost told her. “That’s the cop that chased me down into the sewer and tried to blow my fucking head off!”