Riley’s voice is low and calm in my ear. “Are you in position?”
I crouch down in the narrow alley. My boot’s in something wet. “I’m good.”
“We’re in the system.” Daron’s voice now. I halfway expected him to give me shit for bringing my wife on this job, but he didn’t say anything when she climbed into the van. “Give me a minute to drop the security.”
“Eric here. I’ve got eyes on Navarro.” There’s loud music in the background of wherever Eric’s chiming in from. “He’s, uh, heading into a strip club.”
“Two strip clubs in one week?” Daron laughs lightly. “Lucky boy.”
“Concentrate,” William says, sounding tired.
“I’m going to mute my line,” Eric says. “I’ll update if I lose eyes or if he moves.”
The noise ends. A short silence. Then Riley says, “Are you guys always this unprofessional?”
I grin to myself. I can almost see the annoyed look on Daron’s face right now as he tries to ignore my wife. “We’re working on it,” I tell her, shifting my weight so I can reach up to the top of the fence. I pull myself up and stare into the backyard of Navarro’s silent, dark house. “Tell me when it’s time.”
“Another minute,” Daron says.
“Going comms quiet,” Riley says. “Good luck, baby. Let me know if you need me to walk you through anything.”
“Will do.” Riley’s here in case I come across a lock I can’t handle. But also, because she’s safer in a van with my crew than she is sitting at home in my house. Even though my system’s good, I still worry when she’s not around.
I hang tight and keep myself calm. I should be jittery, but I’m strangely not worried. My specialty is cybercrime, and I don’t usually do many breaking and enterings, but we’re on top of this one. I’m as confident as I can be.
“Go now,” Daron says. “You’ve got ten minutes tops.”
I pull myself up over the very nice back fence and drop down into a well-manicured lawn. I skirt around a small pool and head to the door. I think of Riley’s training as I take out the lock picks and glance up at a camera in the corner of the house. There’s no red light. No indication that it’s working.
Fucker better be dead, or else we’re screwed.
I picture my wife, topless and smirking, as I get down to business. It takes me almost five minutes, but eventually, I turn the tension rod, and the lock makes a quiet snick noise as it comes undone.
“Good job,” Riley says in my ear. “Proud of you.”
“Enough of that,” Daron grumbles. “Half your time’s gone. Get moving.”
I slip into a back entryway. There’s a closet on the right and nice-looking shoes lined up in an expensive rack. I hurry down the hall, turn right, and take the steps to the second floor.
The office is at the front of the house. I slip inside, careful not to disturb anything, and stand quietly for a moment as I acclimate to the room.
“What do you see?” Riley whispers in my ear.
“Desk near the windows like we figured. Bookshelf with lots of pictures and shit.” I recognize Navarro standing among men and women, likely all cartel members. “There’s a filing cabinet.”
“Ignore that,” Riley says. “Find a safe. Hurry.”
I start rifling through the place. I can’t just leave the watch out in plain sight. If I do that, Navarro’s going to get suspicious. I need Mantis to find the watch right here, in his house, where he can’t deny that he ever had it.
“Got one.” I find a safe hidden behind some sawed-off books. It’s a clever disguise, except the books were clearly glued together, and not all that well either. “Fuck. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“Describe it.”
“Digital. Basic keypad.” I give her the make and model numbers, grunting as I pull it out and lower it down onto the floor. Asshole Navarro didn’t bother to anchor it to the shelf. “Talk to me.”
“Try default numbers first. 0000, 1234, 0123.”
I enter those and nothing happens. “Next please.”
“Mallet time.”
I pull a big rubber mallet from my bag. “You sure this works?”
“Oh, sure, on the cheap ones. Give it a shot. Smack the top and yank the handle at the same time.”
I slam the mallet on the top and jerk the handle. I can feel the mechanism inside jolting when I hit it, but that doesn’t work. “Nothing,” I say, feeling the time crunch. “I have to crack it.”
“Unscrew the keypad.”
I get to work. I have the tools with me. The front facing comes off easily enough after I use a jeweler’s screwdriver to remove the tiny bolts. Then I disconnect the wiring and look in at the bare control board.
“Hurry up,” Daron says. “I’m giving you more time, but not a lot.”
“He’s moving.” Eric’s noise breaks through our comms. It sounds like he’s out of breath. “I don’t know why, but he just suddenly leapt up and got out of there.”
“How far away are you?” I ask him.
“Ten minutes tops. But he’s hurrying.”
“Fucker knows,” I say as I start to connect the keypad bomber to the circuit board. It’s a simple black device designed to brute force the key password by trying thousands of combinations every second. “He’s coming home.”
“Get out of there,” Riley says, sounding terrified.
I input the start sequence, and the bomber gets to work. “I can do this.”
“Alexan. Please. It’s not worth it.”
“Sorry, baby.” I stare at the bomber, sweat dripping down my forehead. “Daron, how’d he find out?”
“Don’t know. Trying to figure that out right now. Fucking motherfucker.”
“He’s in the car,” Eric says. “Shit, I’m sticking close.”
“Alexan!” Riley says. “Get out of there!”
I let the bomber run. If this fails, we’re fucked. We won’t get another chance, especially if Navarro got an alert that I’m in here. Daron must’ve tripped some layer of protection we didn’t know about, and normally that’s something we’d find during the planning phase. But this was rushed, and we fucked up.
The lights keep flashing rapidly. Numbers flit across the screen like grass in the breeze. I pace across the office and look out the front windows, but it’s quiet out there. “Eric, update.”
“He’s definitely coming back. Headed your way. Eight minutes.”
“Motherfucker had a dead man’s switch on the whole network,” William says suddenly. “Daron, do you see this?”
“I see it,” Daron confirms. “The second we took it down, Navarro got an alert. He knows something’s up.”
“Time to go,” Riley presses.
“I can’t.” I turn back to the safe. “The bomber’s still working.”
“Leave the watch somewhere else,” Riley pleads. “Under his mattress. In his sock drawer. I don’t care. Just get out of there.”
“Anywhere else will look suspicious. We have to make sure Mantis buys this.”
“Alexan—” She’s pleading now. “Just come back to me.”
Riley’s voice breaks my heart, but I’m staying for her. She has to understand that. If I back out now and half-ass this job, Mantis might realize we were behind the watch theft from the start.
“I love you, you know that?” I crouch beside the safe.
Her laugh is laced with tears. “Seriously? Seriously? Right now?”
“Right now,” I say gently, gently touching the safe. The bomber keeps buzzing, sending code after code into the electronic lock pad. “I love you, Riley, and I can’t leave until this is done.”
“I love you too,” she whispers, crying softly now.
“This is touching and all,” Daron says, cutting in, “but I’m inclined to agree with your wife. Time to cut loose.”
“Give it another minute.”
“Six out,” Eric chimes in.
“I say go,” William says. “Take the chance.”
I ignore them and wait. The numbers keep turning. “Five,” Eric says. “He’s driving like a fucking maniac.”
I close my eyes. I picture Riley smiling, her hips under my fingers, her mouth on mine. I can see a fork ahead of me. A life with her on one side and a smoking crater and our corpses on the other. The choice isn’t really a choice—it’s a slow-motion travesty.
“Three minutes,” Eric says.
I open my eyes again, and the bomber beeps.
I stare, mouth hanging open. Four numbers flash on the screen. 8517.
Then the lock bangs open.
“I’m in,” I say and yank open the safe door.
It’s chaos in my earpiece. Everyone’s yelling at once, but I tune them out and concentrate. “WE’RE CLOSE,” Eric’s shouting as I rifle through the safe. Papers, a gun, passports, money. I take the watch from my bag and shove it in the back, tucked under a stack of fresh twenty-dollar bills. “He’s on the block!”
“Get out!” Riley screams.
I slam the lock shut, shove my gear back into my bag, and fumble with the facing screws. I manage to get the keypad back in place, cursing the whole time.
“He’s parking!” Eric yells in my ear. “Go, Alexan! Run!”
I lift the safe up, growling as I strain, and get it back onto the shelf. I shove it into position, carefully putting the pictures back where they belong, and drop the fake books down into their slot—
When I hear the front door open.
“He’s here,” I whisper, snatching up my bag, and slip into the hall. “Daron—”
“I’m letting him have the system. It’ll look like a power surge took it out.” He’s talking quietly now.
I hear Navarro downstairs. He’s cursing in Spanish as he jabs at the security console near the front door. I peer at the steps and realize he’s on the phone talking to someone.
“Don’t turn it back on yet,” I hiss softly, backing away. “The cameras.”
“Understood,” Daron says.
“I have an out.” Riley’s voice now, calm and clear. “Alexan, head to the master bedroom.”
“What? Why?”
“Do it! Just move!”
I follow my wife’s orders and sneak to the other end of the house. “If this is what the rest of our marriage is going to be like, I’m kind of into it.”
“Don’t joke right now,” she snaps. “Tell me where you are.”
“I’m in his room. It’s actually kind of nice.” Big bed on a raised platform in the middle, dark wooden bureau, several high-end watches lined up on the nightstand. And a big stack of vintage Playboys on the other. “Oh, no, he’s a sex pervert.”
“Focus. Get in the bathroom.”
“Not sure I want to go into a sex pervert’s private bathroom.”
“Are you seriously deciding to be funny right now of all times?”
She’s got a point. I quietly go into the bathroom and pause. There’s a vanity to the right, a shower straight left, and a toilet against the left wall. “Okay, I’m here. What should I do? Get into the tub?”
“Windows,” Riley instructs. “The one on the right corner. There’s a drainpipe next to it.”
“You want me to scale a downspout? Not sure it’ll hold my weight.”
“Either that or you get caught. Move it, Alexan.”
I smile to myself. “So bossy.” I head to the window as instructed and softly get it open. Any second, Navarro could come into the room behind me, and that would be the end of all this. But I manage to get the screen up and my body half out before that happens.
And there’s the pipe. The building is relatively old, which means it’s made of metal and bolted into the facade. That’s good news, actually. I test it with a few stiff tugs, and it doesn’t move.
“I’m going for it,” I say, swinging myself out.
Cold air whips around my body as I cling to the pipe. I careen into open space, fingers gripping hard and nearly slipping. I grunt as the pipe scrapes against my forearms, leaving red marks on my skin.
“Talk to me,” Riley says.
“I’m busy.” I reach back over and scramble at the window. “Fucking thing.”
“Better hurry,” Daron cuts in. “He’s coming upstairs. I’m watching through the cameras.”
“Alexan,” Riley says, sounding desperate. “Move it.”
“Almost—” My hand grips the window. I slide it down so slowly it’s like a knife in my chest. “Okay. I got it.”
“Go, damn it,” Riley yells.
“Wait!” Daron’s voice is urgent. “Don’t move! He’s right there!”
I go totally still and press myself as flat to the wall as I can. If Navarro comes to the window, he’ll see me. No doubt about it. My heart’s racing in my chest, and god, I hope a pedestrian doesn’t walk past right now.
“He’s taking a piss,” Daron whispers. “I can hear it. Just hold tight.”
“Not much else I can do.” My arms are tired, but I’m in good shape. I could dangle here for an hour if I had to. “Well? What’s he doing? Playing with himself or what?”
“Move,” Daron says. “He’s heading back downstairs.”
I lower myself down hurriedly but steadily, doing my best not to make any noise. The wrong bump or jerk could bring this whole pipe down, and that would alert the whole building. I get close enough to the ground and let myself go, dropping the last few feet. I hit with an awkward stumble.
“Daron? Did he hear?”
“Not a fucking thing. He’s messing with the alarm system right now. Hold on…” I hear him typing in the background. “And now it’s back on. You good?”
“I’m good,” I say and start walking away down the block. “Someone meet me at the corner.”
A van pulls up the second I reach the crosswalk. The door slides open, and Riley comes streaming out. She slams into my arms, wrapping herself around my chest and hugging me so tight it’s enough to knock the wind from my lungs.
“That was too close,” she says, fighting tears.
“Nobody said it would be easy.” I grin over her shoulder at where Daron’s sitting behind a makeshift computer desk. William’s behind the wheel. “Come on, let’s get out of this place.”
Riley slams her mouth to mine, kissing me furiously and possessively, then pulls back and slaps me.
I stare at her, touching my cheek. “The fuck?”
“Don’t you ever make stupid jokes while in the middle of a life-or-death situation again, do you hear me?”
Then she kisses me again.
Fucking hell, this girl is a whirlwind.
And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t absolutely love it.
