From Deadbeat To Doting; Something Is Wrong With My Husband!-Chapter 33: Click-clack I

Brianna’s stomach had indeed betrayed her. She looked at the greasy menu with a look of pure disdain. "A salad. And tell them to hold the dressing. And the croutons."

"So... a bowl of wet lettuce. Got it," Rochelle muttered, placing the order.

Just as the employee reached out to take Rochelle’s card, the black Cadillac’s lights flashed. The briefcases were in and the car was moving.

"They’re leaving!" Brianna snapped.

Rochelle didn’t even wait for the change. She shoved a thick stack of bills, more than the employee’s monthly salary, into the confused boy’s hand. "Keep the change! Keep the fries! Just give me the bag!"

Then she floored it, the car roared as it swerved out of the drive-through and back onto the tail of the black Cadillac.

"The heist continues," Rochelle panted, shoving a chicken nugget into her mouth with one hand while steering with the other.

Brianna sat back, her eyes narrowing as the wind began to howl against the windows.

After driving for what felt like an hour, Lucian’s car finally came to a halt in a district where the streetlights were either broken or flickering like dying stars.

"Is this the ghetto?" Rochelle said, as she maintained a slow pace behind Lucian’s car. Her flashing car drew attention from the street gangsters and children who haven’t seen flashy cars entering here before.

Her hands were visibly shaking from the onlookers, thinking they were going to get robbed.

"You just had to drive a Rolls-Royce to work." Brianna muttered.

Scoffing, Rochelle’s mouth dropped. Coming from Mrs. Colburn? The woman who breathed luxury?

Brianna wondered what Lucian was doing in a ghetto district. Now the money part made sense; but who was he giving?

Was Rosa living here?

Rochelle parked when Lucian’s car slowed down. Watching from a safe distance, they saw Lucian step down from his car. He had said something to Thomas before entering into a dilapidated house with Thomas following after, holding the two briefcases.

But the two bodyguards took their positions outside the fence with their hands hovering near their jackets.

"We can’t go in there. Mrs. Colburn, I don’t think it’s wise to go after. We should just turn around and go home. Clearly, this might not have anything to do with you."

Brianna didn’t respond. Her eyes were fixed on the bodyguards. Why was Lucian delivering a fortune in cash to a house that wasn’t worth the price of his shoes?

Since it wasn’t wise to just go into the house, she knew what she had to do.

Reaching into the backseat, Brianna grabbed Rochelle’s black baseball cap. She tucked her hair under the cap, pulling a mask and sunglasses she always carried in her bag, on her face.

Adjusting the brim of the cap low, she stepped down from the car, into the howling wind.

"Mrs. Colburn! Where are you going?" Rochelle hissed, but Brianna was already gone.

She followed behind the car, to the alley they had passed on their way, where a group of tough looking men smoked.

Their cigar butts literally glowed under the darkening cloud.

One of them tapped his friend’s shoulder, nodding towards the slender, mysterious woman approaching them.

"What’s up, chica?" the leader drawled. "You look a little lost for someone in fancy duds."

"I’m looking for the history of that house over there," she said, nodding toward the crumbling structure where Lucian had disappeared.

The leader let out a jagged, mocking laugh. His friends joined in, their eyes scanning her designer-adjacent silhouette with predatory intent. "Is that so? Well, we don’t speak for free, chica. In this zip code, information has a tax."

Brianna’s lips curled into a cold smirk. "I wasn’t looking for a handout."

She reached into the pocket of her blazer and pulled out a thick, rubber-banded wad of cash. With a disrespectful flick of her wrist, she threw the wad of bills directly at the leader’s muddy boots. It hit the ground with a heavy thud, rolling once in the dirt.

The laughter died.

The leader stared down at the money at his feet, his jaw muscles working.

Click-clack.

The sound of sliding bolts sounded off the brick walls. The three minions dived their hands into their oversized pockets. Within a heartbeat, three dark muzzles were leveled at Brianna’s face. One was pressed so close to her forehead she could feel the cold oily bite of the barrel.

"You got a lot of nerve, chica," one of the thugs seethed as his fingers tightened on the trigger.

"Ain’t no way this bitch thinks she gon’ buy us by throwing dirt on Top Dog."

In the ghetto, throwing money at the leader was the ultimate insult; a declaration that you owned him.

Brianna stared past the barrel of the gun, her eyes locking onto Top Dog. She needed to break his ego to get the truth.

Using an arrogant tone, "You gonna stare at the dirt all day or are you gonna pick up your paycheck and tell me what I want to know? Or maybe you’re too rich to need the money?"

The leader stared at her, searching for the tremor in her hands that never came. He found nothing but an ironlady. Slowly, he reached up and slid his sunglasses down his nose, while an appreciative smirk played on his lips.

He raised a hand, signaling his boys.

"Lower the iron," he commanded. "This one’s got more spine than the last ten guys who came through here."

He looked at her, truly seeing her for the first time. "What’s your name?"

"Maggie," Brianna lied.

"Maggie," he repeated, kicking the wad of cash back toward one of his boys. "Alright, Maggie. You paid for the premium package. What you wanna know?"

Brianna pointed a finger at the house. "Who lived there? And I want the truth, not the gossip."

They looked once before laughing. "No way... That was Ronnie’s place."

The thug known as ’Specs’ interjected, spitting on the ground. "We called him ’Ronnie the Saint.’ A real weirdo. Always acting like he was better than us because he wouldn’t touch the ’dirty’ money. Died like a damn fool, too."

"How?"