Page 23 of The Deeper Game (The Kinky Bank Robbers #3)

Chapter Sixteen

Matteo and the Gigis were gone by the time we returned from our wild woodland adventure, but Matteo told us all about it later that day, a Thursday.

He’d spilled to Macy about his plan to give her his part of the jewels, that the whole thing was a scheme to win her back.

And he reflected responsibility to her, as Odin had suggested.

Macy still didn’t believe him.

“Did you believe what you said?” Odin asked. “Or are you just saying shit to her?”

Matteo’s noncommittal answer showed he didn’t quite believe it.

At eleven in the morning, Matteo, Odin, and I sat on the bank. Thor was already inside as a patron.

This was the point where Zeus needed to break away from his crew and go out on the floor and input the security virus in preparation for the robbery tomorrow.

We watched the manager walk down the sunny sidewalk toward the bagel shop. Things would be soft inside. It was time.

“He’s out,” Odin whispered over the two-way. “I’m killing fuse twenty-three now.” This would give Zeus the excuse he needed to be fucking with the panels. He’d be confused and get to the wrong panel first.

“Roger,” Zeus whispered back.

I got out and strolled up to the entrance.

The doorman opened the door for me. I passed the security guard and then, as if recalling something, I went back and asked him if he had any experience with the high-end mechanic two blocks down.

We knew that the guard took the bank fleet there, and that he and the owner had become friendly.

He talked up the mechanic like we knew he would.

Thor sat at the desk across from a low-level banker, looking all Hollywoody in a beautiful red silk shirt, sunglasses perched on his head, asking about checking services.

Through careful logistical manipulation, a sheer, nipple-displaying shirt, and, if you ask me, a bit of leftover elf magic, I’d gotten the guard facing outside as he talked up his friend’s business.

I was careful not to look over his shoulder at the flurry of activity across the lobby.

That would be Zeus, the bumbling subcontractor at the wrong panel.

I smiled brightly and listened, pulse racing.

Soon the buzz returned to normal.

I continued in to make my deposit. When I got back out to the Navigator, Odin was grinning. The code was in. Zeus was back on the job.

A bit later, Thor came back out.

We watched the bank until after business hours, satisfied things were normal. Matteo went off to try to iron things out with Macy, and my guys and I went home and engaged in wholesome activities—grilling veggies, drinking healthy juices, and cleaning guns.

We sat on the porch together after dinner, lounging around, discussing the job. Everything was done, everything ahead of schedule—it was kind of amazing.

My eyes fell to Zeus’s massive upper arm. Each of us now had just the cherubic angel holding the scroll that said motherfuckers on it. The tattoo looked fucking awesome on him, but it wasn’t done.

“Odin,” I said. “How long to complete that lettering?”

Thor looked up from his book. “We are ahead of schedule here.”

“An hour or two each,” Odin said.

“Let’s do it,” Zeus said. “Can you?”

Odin looked over at me. “I could.”

“Do me first,” I said. “We go into this job with everything right.”

Odin’s eyes glittered. “Get the chair.”

Four hours later we were all freshly inked with the full message: You WISH we were dead, motherfuckers. I felt happy and free, like even more of a real outlaw than before.

Zeus declared that finishing them had strengthened the psychophysical play of the robbery—like a sign to the universe that the bank robbers were unstoppable. They were so voodoo about robberies, my guys.

Friday morning, my guys and Matteo and I met up bright and early to wipe bullets and study traffic cams. The job wouldn’t actually take place until after the close of the business day. The plan was to sit there in shifts all through the day in different vehicles.

We grabbed donuts on the way to the bank block, then found our favorite parking spot and began the long stakeout—minus Zeus, who was, of course, inside with the HVAC crew. Things looked normal. Like many businesses, the Prime was the most lax on Fridays.

“I hope you won’t be expecting us to wear tights from now on,” Thor said when Matteo was off for a pee break. We hadn’t spoken much about the elf and woodsmen role play. Really, what was there to say?

“I hope you don’t drug and abduct me every time you want to fuck,” I said, adjusting a curl on my wig.

Thor snorted. “I wouldn’t recommend it simply from a medical standpoint.”

“I legit thought you guys were the feather guy,” I said. “It freaked me out.”

“The feather guy is in jail,” Thor said, eyeing the guard out on a smoke break.

“Well, if he had a partner.”

“There could never be more than one feather guy,” Odin said. “He works alone. It’s his profile.”

“Though he never did confess,” I said.

A strange hush fell down around us. “I know,” Odin said finally. Which was way too long to respond to something so obvious.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. You know. Who doesn’t prefer a confession?” Odin said, eying me. “It’s a closure thing.”

I lay my head on Thor’s shoulder. “I trust you guys.” I flicked my gaze to Odin.

I’d decided to trust. To trust in everything.

I hated that Odin had that bad feeling, but that’s something I had to live with.

I had thrown in with them all the way. I didn’t tell them I hadn’t slept at all the night before.

Thor put his arm around me and kissed my hair. “We got you,” he whispered.

I smiled. “Woe betide anyone who messes with the God Pack.”

Odin laughed, but it was just a courtesy laugh.

He was barely listening.

We all got a little remote before a big job—pulling into ourselves, or sometimes out of ourselves. You had to go somewhere before a heist, that was the thing I’d realized over the months with my robbers. You had to prepare your soul for the intensity.

But this seemed like more. “Something up?” I asked him.

“I’m thinking we could put Thor out here with you.”

“What?” Thor protested. “During the job? I’m bag man.”

“We’re in there for so long,” he said. “Leaving Ice unprotected.”

Thor said, “Ice can protect herself.”

“Yeah, you know you can trust me out here,” I protested, feeling a little hurt. “I can handle it. You know I’m on board one hundred percent—”

“It’s not that,” Odin said. “It’s simply…we’ve got Matteo inside, so why not be safe? There’s the fact that Sleazy Travis didn’t confess, and I can’t stop thinking about that feather,” he admitted. “So dirty and dusty. And the pig’s blood…”

“Wait, are you worried it isn’t him?” I asked. “That it isn’t Travis? Like the feather guy is still out there? Because if he’s still out there—” We shouldn’t do the Prime, I was thinking.

Odin touched my hair. “It’s this bad feeling, that’s all,” he said. “I’m looking for every hole and patching it.”

“If he’s still out there,” I said, “it means he’s way smarter than we ever could’ve imagined.” I looked back and forth between him and Thor. “He’d know everything about us. He’d be a threat in every way—to all of us.”

“So we put Thor out here. Both of you alert and armed. Anyway, I’m quite sure it’s Travis.”

“But not certain,” I said.

“Nothing’s ever certain,” Thor said. “If feather guy’s out there, let him come at us. I’d like to see it. I’ll make him sorry.”

Matteo was back. Odin floated the idea of Thor staying out. Matteo liked the idea. “We’re lighter inside that way, but it’s extra muscle outside if we need an assist.”

Yeah, he’d never fully trusted me alone on the outside.

The three of them felt it was a good way to adjust the team. I wasn’t so sure.

I wondered if the call of it was getting too strong. The riches of it. The beautiful vengeance.

Odin met Zeus in the park over lunch and cleared the new configuration with him. They had to re-jigger the plans. In one way, it was harder, but they were used to going in with three guys.

Matteo, Thor, Odin, and I waited in the Navigator.

Five o’clock. Almost go time. Zeus was inside the bank, of course, working on the HVAC repairs like a good technician…a good technician about to go bad.

With a deep breath, I climbed out of the car and went to the nearby Starbucks where I purchased a coffee and did a preemptive pee. I’d be stuck in that SUV for at least three hours, likely more, and there’d be no leaving. Thor, being a guy, could rely on Snapple bottles.

For this phase, I wore my long blonde wig as well as a Christian Dior gown, as if I were on my way to some party. If the shit hit the fan, nobody would expect a woman dressed like that to have firearms strapped to her legs.

We watched the HVAC crew leave—in a hurry. Their hurried exit meant that the “emergency call” Odin had arranged for them to receive had worked.

It meant Zeus had been left behind to secure things with one other guy.

Over the next half hour, the bank employees drifted out, too.

The call came. Thor grabbed it. After a terse exchange, he clicked off.

“Go time.”

It meant that Zeus had done his part of the job—he’d forced the man left behind with him to leave a message with his family telling them he was hitting a bar after work.

The guy would be out cold now, and unlike when I was out cold, he wouldn’t be waking up with hunky woodland guys in tights chasing him.

Probably for the best.

Matteo and Odin had keys to the building next door. They were going to zipline across. The only sightline to the angle of entry was from the east, and at 5:45 precisely, the blinding sun would obscure them via window glare.

“Wait.” I kissed Odin like I’d kissed Zeus this morning—with all the passion I had. “Set that fucker on fire,” I said.

“You be safe, goddess,” he said.

“Always,” I said, trying not to cry. “You, too.”

“Always,” he whispered.

I let him go, feeling like my heart might break. I wanted, suddenly, to tell him how much I loved him, to tell them all. But we never talked like that, and it seemed a bad time to start. I wouldn’t jinx the job with teary ‘ I love you’ proclamations.

I shook hands with Matteo, who grumbled jokingly about not getting a kiss.

And just like that, they were gone.

I settled back with Thor, who turned on the radio on low.

The plan was for Odin and Matteo to get onto the roof of the bank.

Zeus would let them into the mechanical ceiling area.

At that point, Odin would go to work dismantling one of the four security systems in operation, activating the virus Zeus had planted yesterday.

We had the stolen codes—another level of security, thanks to that guard with a gambling problem that Matteo and the Gigis knew.

It would take another hour or two to get into the safety deposit boxes where the really expensive jewels were kept.

We were to move the SUV every hour to different pre-planned spots. When they were ready to run, they’d call, and we were to drive to the back of the building next to the bank—that’s where they’d come out if everything went smoothly. If things didn’t go smoothly, there were plans B, C, and D.

About twenty minutes after they left, Thor got a ping on his phone. He pulled it out and looked at the screen.

“Shit,” he said.

“What?”

“Lupe’s in labor.”

I straightened up. “She’s not due for…”

“I know.”

“Oh, my God,” I said. “Is she okay?”

“For now. Contractions are still far apart. It could be hours. A day.” His thumbs flew over the keypad. They used some sort of free IM app to communicate, and I waited as the messages bounced back and forth. He swore.

“You need to be there?”

He flicked his eyes to the Prime. “Sort of.”

“Go. It was always going to be just me,” I said.

“What about feather guy?”

“I’m on a public street, armed like Rambo in a locked and bulletproof SUV,” I said with a bravery I didn’t entirely feel. “Let him try me. Anyway, look, Travis had all that evidence in his garbage. He ran. A bad feeling never killed anyone,” I said, echoing Odin.

Thor looked down at his phone.

“She’s our fugitive sister. Take the Camaro.” We had cars stashed around the area. “It’s Friday rush hour. You don’t have time to waste.”

“I don’t know.”

“It was always going to be just me out here,” I repeated. “This is how we trained it.”

“Stay alert.”

“No, I’m going to take a nap,” I joked.

His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You sure?”

“Our beautiful sister in crime is having a baby,” I said. “I’ll stay here and make our enemies wish we were dead for both of us.”

He took off. I tried to tell myself it was good luck that he went. Doing something positive would result in a positive robbery outcome.

Five minutes later, A/V Robert Manning was knocking on the passenger window.