Page 27 of The Thief

“How about I make it your fucking problem,” Number One spat, leaning in his face as he spoke. “Clean up your fucking mess and get rid of the body before you do anything else.”

Two just stared back at him, and I watched him take a deep breath before he answered, “I’m not cleaning up shit. We have a job to do. I’m here to make money. He can stay where he is. It’s not like he’s going anywhere.” And he grinned down at the dead body bleeding out on the floor, giving it a kick as he gave a sick, twisted chuckle.

Number One lifted his gun and pointed it at Two, telling him, “You’ll do as you’re fucking told, or you’ll be the next one to take a bullet.”

Another beat, and then Two started to laugh.

“Jesus fucking Christ. Will you chill the fuck out? I was joking.” He turned to look behind at the dead guy. “Five, clean it up.”

“No,” One shot back. “You both do it.”

Two huffed, shook his head, and then did what he was told, leaning down to grab the dead man’s arms and pull his body to hide it behind a desk. Then he yanked a poster off the pinboardby the door and pinned it over the mess on the wall.

“Happy?” He turned to face One.

“Ecstatic,” One replied, and for some reason, he turned to glare at me.

Interesting.

Number One was... different. In his own twisted way, he had looked out for Jess and Ava. He’d shielded them. He wanted the dead guy gone, for them. He’d gone against Number Two on more than one occasion in front of us, and now, he was glaring back at me as if to say, ‘Don’t you fucking dare. I’m in charge here.’

He knew I had a phone.

Maybe he knew the kind of help I could access with it.

I wasn’t sure.

But one thing was clear.

There was trouble amongst the ranks.

I pushed my hand into my pocket and took out my phone, dropping it into the bag as I kept my eyes on him. But I didn’t give them everything, and in the aftermath of what’d just happened, he didn’t push it. He told Four to get us suited up, cable tied, and then he walked away, shouting over his shoulder, “But just the guy. We’ll handcuff the mother to the radiator, leave her other hand free so she can still hold her little girl. And don’t touch the girl!”

“Right you are,” Four replied in his Scottish drawl.

“We’re here for money. Let’s try to keep the casualties to a minimum. We get this done and we leave. Stick to the plan,” One announced, and when they had us all restrained, he made his way to the counter to join Two and Three, ready to take what they were here for.

Chapter Nine

TYLER

“I’ll get you both out of here safely. Trust me. Nothing’s gonna happen to you today,” I said to Jess, desperate to do something, anything to make her feel less helpless as she sat chained to the pipes of the radiator on the wall.

She went to whisper back to me, but a booming voice from the back office stopped her, making both our heads whip around.

“Take us to the fucking safe,” Number One barked. “Take us there and use the fucking code to get us in. It’s not fucking rocket science.”

The three bank workers were on their knees, hands tied behind their backs, all in a line on the floor of the office area as the gunmen worked on them, trying to get access to the bank vault. The manager who’d been out the back was their first target, and Number One stood directly behind him with his gun pointedat the back of his head.

“I don’t know the code.” He snivelled as he spoke, and the other two workers flinched at his words.

He knew the code.

And they knew he knew it.

He was playing hardball in a situation that needed a whole lot of fucking compliance on his part.

“You know the fucking code,” Number One hissed. “We’re not fucking stupid. This is your bank. You’re the manager. Tell us or I’ll put a fucking bullet in your head and move onto your colleague next to you.”