Page 20 of Love’s Strongest Soldier

“That’s what I said. I need to go home and get it. Hopefully, it’s still there.”

“Luxe, after what happened at that house, you’re not going anywhere near it, and that’s the end of the discussion.”

“Well, you’re going to have to go over there and get it. I won’t be able to sleep unless I know that it’s safe.”

“Fine,” was the last thing he said before turning the music up on me. I knew he only did that because he wanted me to shut up, so I punched the back of his headrest and relaxed against the seat with my arms folded over my chest.

Ghost pulled up to this building downtown that wasn’t too far from my office. He punched in a code at the parking garage and then drove inside it. We stopped on the fifth floor next to some matte-black vehicles. He got out the truck and opened the back door for me.

“You’ll be safe here,” he said as he grabbed our suitcases from the trunk. I still felt like I would’ve been okay back at home, even though it probably would’ve been a war zone every other day. My garden damn sure would’ve been thriving. With how exhausted I was at the moment, I wasn’t even about to argue with him about it. I was going to go inside, take me a nap, and then work on finding the fucker who stole my damn shotgun.

I followed Ghost over to the door. He used a key card to get inside. At least you had to have a key to access everything. It probably wouldn’t be as easy to get in here and get me, but surely not impossible. If people wanted me bad enough, they’d do whatever to get me.

We stopped at a metal black door. All the other doors near this one had friendly welcome mats and outside décor. Meanwhile, Ghost’s was just plain—empty. That should’ve been expected from someone like him.

He unlocked the door and stepped to the side for me to enter. His home even smelled divine. From the scent and the décor, you could tell that a man stayed here alone. Everything was dark and boring. There wasn’t a touch of color in sight.

“You need some color around here,” I told him as I moved through the living room, taking in everything, being nosy.

“I haven’t been here in I don’t know when.”

I swiped my index finger against the end table and rubbed the dust against my thumb. “I can tell,” was my response.

“I’ll get someone to come in and clean tomorrow. I probably should’ve did it while I was gone, but I didn’t think about it. This is where you’ll be sleeping,” he said and stepped toward the hallway, so I followed. He brought me to the first bedroom. Everything in there was black and gray. I hated looking at it, but there was nothing I could do about it. This wasn’t my home, and I wasn’t about to change something in here to be more pleasing for the short time that I’d be here. Too much work for me.

As I stepped further into the bedroom, I noticed a lot of my things already placed around it. My feminine products were on the dresser. Two of my robes were resting on the back of the chair in the corner of the bedroom. I opened the closet to see that it was filled with most of my clothes.

“And who exactly did you talk to, to get all my stuff? My mama . . .?” I shook my head. I knew Ma wouldn’t have agreed to all that. Plus, she didn’t know most of the things I liked anyway. “No, . . . it was Sol. I know she’s the one who did this shit. Trader.”

“Just be happy that I tried to make your ass as comfortable as possible while you’re here.”

My eyes rolled heavenward. “You didn’t do all your homework because you left my most prized possession back at the house. And it better still be there or else I’m raising hell. Ain’t nobody gon’ be able to sleep in the city.”

“Just tell me what I need to get, and I’ll make sure that I get it.”

“I’m going to have to give you details on how to access it, and you’re going to have to do exactly what I tell you. Just make sure you bring everything back to me.”

Ghost nodded and exited the bedroom.

The following night

I wasn’t sure exactly what Luxe wanted me to go to her house and get, but she gave me detailed instructions on how to get to it. I waited until it was late to head over to her house. After they destroyed her place, no one had been back there, but I didn’t know what I was getting, so I didn’t want to try and move it during the daytime.

Pulling up to the house, I got out the car and headed up to the front door. Savion had sent someone over to replace all the windows and the front door. I was having someone to come over and clean the place up for me later on.

Luxe was mad as fuck about them tearing up her house like that. I was so ready for all this mess to be over with. She wasn’t cooperating like she should. I knew Luxe knew something about all this but didn’t want to tell us.

Stepping over the broken glass on the floor, I went upstairs to the third bedroom and opened the door. On her instructions, I had to go into the closet and push the clothes to the side. After I did that, I found the tiny button on top of the shelf and pressed it. The back of the closet swung in like a door, displaying an entire room. Soon as I stepped into the room, the lights flipped on.

This damn girl had an entire room filled with jewelry, inside cases. Most of it looked like one of a kind, so I know she had to have been acquiring most of this stuff off the black market.

Exiting the room, I went into her bedroom and grabbed a couple of her duffel bags to put the jewelry in. I placed all the jewelry inside the bags. How much stuff she had in here, I just knew it was worth millions of dollars. Now I saw why she was so worried about them getting it. If they got their hands on this shit, they would’ve been set for life.

Zipping up the bags, I grabbed them both and left out of the closet. I closed the door back on the closet in case the people would come back, so they wouldn’t find the secret room, and then left out of the house. Luxe didn’t ask for anything else here, and I wasn’t wasting any time going through anything else in the house. It was already going on one in the morning, and I was moving around her house like a thief in the night.

After placing the bags in the trunk, I hopped into the driver’s seat and sped out of there. When I made it back to the house, I grabbed the bags and headed inside. Luxe was locked in the bedroom when I snuck off. I wasn’t worried about leaving her because I left some men outside the door to watch her. They had instructions to guard her with their lives, and if anything was to happen to her, they might as well had killed themselves because I was gon’ torture the shit out of them. Had she not asked me to personally go get her collection, I would’ve have never left her.

“You’re dismissed,” I said as I approached them. They looked in my direction and nodded before stepping away from the door.