Page 15

“And if she doesn’t wake up for her usual pee, Abe? What then?”

“We’ll tackle that if we come to it. That’s why I’m here with you.”

I look at my partner with unease, understanding now why Paul was so insistent I have back-up inside the house.

Lady Astor is Abe’s assignment, I realize.

If it comes to that.

“Let’s go.” Abe heads for the hallway. I wait patiently while he crouches, clicking tumblers back in place to lock the door.

“Like we were never here,” I murmur when he rises.

When we reach the closet, Abe chivalrously swings the door open.

I squeeze myself inside, wiggling like a fish on a hook as I try to maximize space.

Abe takes one look at my fidgeting and shakes his head.

He pulls me by the arm and switches our positions.

Once inside, he sits on the floor and leans against the wall, stretching his legs the length of the closet.

He holds his arms out to me and lowers his voice. “Come here, Kat.”

“You want me to sit on you? For two hours?”

“You weigh ten pounds. I’ll be fine. ”

I stare at him, unconvinced.

“Come here, Kat,” he urges again.

Reluctantly, I step inside. I straddle him, still standing, and pull the closet door shut, plunging us into darkness. I sink onto his lap and wrap my arms and legs around Abe’s middle like a monkey. He grunts softly as I jockey my position.

“Kat, watch where you’re…distributing your weight.”

“This was your brilliant idea.”

“I know. I just want to make sure I still have the ability to procreate after this.”

“I’d be doing the world a favor if you couldn’t,” I mumble, nestling my chin on his shoulder.

“Hilarious.”

My eyes slowly begin to adjust, making out the angular planes of Abe’s face and eyes. “Now what?”

“What do you mean, now what ?”

“I mean, what are we going to do in here for nearly two hours, Abe?”

“I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I’m going to catch some sleep.”

“You’re gonna sleep ?” I ask, disbelieving. “In the middle of a job?”

“Yup.” He yawns mightily and tightens his arms around me. “I’m tired, you’re warm. Wake me in ninety minutes.”

I huff in annoyance but say nothing more. I try to sit still, but after only five minutes, my legs are already stiff. My adrenaline is pumping, endorphins running full throttle. How can Abe possibly sleep at a time like this? I could climb back up the chimney and dance on the rooftop naked.

“Abe?”

“Ya?”

“I’m bored.”

“Christ, Kat.” He opens his eyes .

“Play with me?”

“ Play with you? We’re in a fucking closet,” he hisses. “What could you possibly have in mind?”

“We could try…three times in one week?”

“You wanna start necking?” He’s dubious.

“I wanna do something .”

“Like make Paul’s ears bleed? Because, again, I’d like to retain my ability to procreate, and if Paul heard you ask that, he’d have my hide. And my front.”

“Paul doesn’t mind sharing me with you.”

“Paul only shares when he’s around to supervise.”

“Is that a no?”

He groans, shifting beneath me. “It’s not a good idea, Kat.”

“Okay. We can do something else then.”

“Like sleep?”

I shake my head. “I can’t sleep. You shouldn’t either.”

“All right,” he sighs. “You win.”

“I do?”

“Yes. Come here.” He reaches for my face.

“Really?”

“Yeah. If you won’t let me sleep, I may as well get something out of it.”

“So romantic,” I grumble.

“Watch yourself.” His tone is sharp. “If you want romance, go to Paul. Now clam up, Kat.” His fingers lightly graze my cheeks before he presses his lips to mine.

Hunger, fast and stabbing, flares. We are a tangle of demanding lips and groping fingers. All impulse, no thought. Hips pressing into groin.

My endorphins sigh. Adrenaline sings.

When my lips become swollen from his kisses, I move to the base of his neck, sucking and tugging. Little nips. Hard pulls. Abe groans .

His hands slide up and down my waist. Time blurs, the whispering ticks of our synchronized watches urging us on. We’re feverish at first, then slow and thorough. No nerve ending left untouched. Every knot languidly unkinked.

I’ve never kissed Abe like this before, and now I know what a mistake that’s been. Romance or not, I taste love on his lips.

“Kat.” He pulls back. “It’s almost time.”

“Is it?” I mumble, dazed.

“We should get into position.”

On shaky legs, I rise. Blood rushes painfully in. I cling to the wall as Abe wiggles to stand beside me.

“Fucking Christ,” he groans. He kicks out his long legs, hands sneaking to adjust the tented crotch of his pants.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

“You’re not sorry,” he grumbles, still rearranging.

I don’t reply because he’s right. I’m not sorry.

In the hallway, we stare at our watches, bated breaths coming in time with the tick of every second. We press our ears against the master bedroom door, listening.

One o’clock comes and goes.

Then 1:05.

1:10.

At 1:15, I start hyperventilating.

“What if she doesn’t get up tonight?” I whisper. “What then?”

“She will.”

“What if she doesn’t ?”

Suddenly, light streams into the hallway from beneath the door. Abe steps back, and my heart stutters. He points expectantly.

I put my hand on the doorknob. If I believed in God, this would be the moment to pray .

But I don’t. God doesn’t live in the dark corners of the Catacombs. God doesn’t breathe at the point of our knives. God didn’t turn water to wine, not for us. Only we have ever done that. For ourselves and for each other.

Emboldened, I raise my eyelids and crack open the door. The bed is on my immediate right, the blankets pulled back, an empty indentation in the sheets. The fireplace is across the room, and…

There she is.

The Dancer.

Bathroom light trickles into the bedroom. Lady Astor left the door wide open, but I don’t hesitate. There simply isn’t time.

Fortune favors the bold, I remind myself. Then that whispering, ubiquitous voice speaks. If they can’t see you, they’ll never catch you, Kat.

I sneak ahead, darting on light feet past the door and to the mantel. I reach up to seize the glimmering ballerina. She’s much heavier than anticipated. Solid. Easily the weight of a full gold bar, perhaps two.

Holding my breath, I dart back across the room. The toilet flushes when I reach the door, the bathroom light extinguishes.

I slip through the crack into the hallway and catch Abe finishing up his work. He’s painted our wolf mark across the white wood of the bedroom door. The now universally-understood sign the Wolfpack was here.

Abe takes my hand and pulls me down the hall, all the way to a corner room at the opposite end. It’s a bedroom, probably a spare if the lack of personal items and clutter indicate anything. He clicks the door shut and reaches for the figurine.

He whistles softly. “Wow. She’s the real McCoy, huh, Kat? What a beaut.”

“She is,” I admit, admiring the heftiness of the gold in my grip, the way the ballerina shines, her eyes twinkling in the moonlight.

“Let’s get the heck outta here.” Abe strides over to the window and unlocks it. It glides up without a sound. “Ladies first. ”

I swing my legs out and reach for the metal drainpipe to my right, dangling off the side of the house.

“Remember to close the window behind you,” I tell Abe. “See you at the bottom.”

I slide down, keeping the ballerina tucked securely in my arm as I plummet to the ground. Overhead, Abe swings his feet out and grabs the pipe, shifting his weight. I hold my breath. The pipe is solid, made of metal, and we’re trusting blindly it will hold him.

Once he has a good grip, Abe palms the windowpane with his gloved hand, sliding the glass down. Moments later, he drops down the pipe to join me. I don’t release my breath until he’s safely on the ground.

In a giddy daze, we traipse to the carriage house and give a coded knock, a familiar four-beat rhythm to signal Paul and Tony.

The door swings open, and there they are, the other half of our pack.

A little rumpled and ruffled, but none the worse for the wear.

There’s a good bit of blood on the floor.

Spatters on their shirts and arms. Peeking over Paul’s shoulder, I see the three guards piled in a corner.

They aren’t breathing.

“Did you really have to kill them?” I ask, looking at Paul. He has a small laceration above his left eyebrow, but it’s long since clotted over.

“When it turned into a three-hour job, yes,” he replies. “We couldn’t ensure they’d stay unconscious. Or that they wouldn’t wake and alert the authorities before we got away. You know the motto, Kat—fool me once…”

“Shame on you,” I finish the first part. “Fool me twice—”

“Nobody fools me,” he concludes. “We don’t allow that to happen.”

I nod. Risk management. I glance at the pile one more time. Remorse, a most unsettling mistress, tightens around my neck like a noose. It was nothing more than misfortune that cut these lives short tonight, leaving countless loose strings—family, loved ones—to dangle evermore in the wind .

The hot metal of our plunder grows warm in my hand, branding me.

“Can I see her?” Paul asks, reaching his hand out.

I pass The Dancer over.

“You’re unbelievable, Kat.” He examines the gold figurine, rapture in his eyes. “We really pulled it off.”

“We really did.”

Paul drifts to the window to admire the gilded loot in the moonlight.

“Plan B, huh?” Tony strides over. “Everything go smoothly on your end, guys? Enjoy your two hours of closet time?”

“We survived.” I’m evasive.

“I bet.” Tony leans in close, his eyes crinkling with amusement before he whispers in my ear. “You might wanna tell Abe to cover his hickey before Paul sees it. Just a suggestion.”

“What?”

“The vamp bite…on his neck.” He raises an eyebrow. “I mean, I don’t care what you two got up to in the closet, but I bet Paul will.”

I glance at Abe, and sure enough, he’s sporting a tiny red bruise where his neck joins his shoulder. I give his black shirt a quick tug to hide the evidence. Abe looks down and sees what I’m doing, his eyes wide and accusing. I smile apologetically.

Looks like Plan B was slightly more dangerous than either of us realized.

By noon the next day, pandemonium reigns. The news is everywhere. It’s all anyone can talk about. I can’t take two steps in the Academy corridors without hearing someone whispering about the heist.

“Did you hear?”

“The Wolfpack!”

“They hit Astor Manor. ”

“Astor Manor?”

“Was Harry home? Is he okay?”

“They’re menaces.”

“They’re vigilantes!”

“They’re extraordinary.”

“They’re dangerous .”