Page 11 of The Wrong Idea (The Kinky Bank Robbers #2)

Chapter Nine

We headed into a random nightclub. Zeus pulled off his hat and sunglasses and handed the hostess a few hundreds, winking at her. “We’re looking for a friend,” he said, like it was secret between them.

She smiled and pocketed the bills. “Go on in, then.”

As we crossed the dark interior, Thor took off his hat and glasses. So did Odin. I followed suit. Apparently it was disguises off time.

Deep in the dark club, Zeus handed a busboy more hundreds. “We want to say hi to a friend.” Without waiting for an answer, he pushed through the kitchen door.

Thor grabbed my hand and pulled. “Just follow.”

There were protests in the kitchen until Zeus slapped a pile of hundreds on the stainless-steel counter.

The man was a regular Robin Hood tonight.

“For your awesome work tonight, guys. Keep it up.” Then he turned and led us out the back.

We burst out into the cool night air and walked fast down an alley and across another street.

Finally, we slowed.

“Did we lose them?” I asked.

“Yup,” Thor said.

“They were just plainclothes,” Odin said. “They weren’t going to do anything.”

Zeus said, “I didn’t like his shoes. They didn’t say cop to me.”

“He was a cop,” Odin said.

“What did you say at the massage place?” Zeus demanded.

“What does it matter?” Odin said. “You were about to pull out your piece and go hot.”

Zeus just grumbled in response.

“What if it’s ZOX?” I asked. “And that dangerous, horrible Agent Denko?”

Zeus slung an arm around me. “If it’s ZOX, then it’s ZOX. Is anybody following us now?”

“I guess not,” I said.

“Are we safe right now? And together? Are we fucking awesome right now?” he asked.

“I guess,” I said.

“The answer is yes,” Zeus said. “Yes, we’re all of the above.”

Guvvey’s was livelier this time around, maybe because it had been relatively early when we’d met with Tabby, whereas now the club was in full swing.

But it was even more than that. When we’d come before, I was just a friend of the gang.

Now I was an official member, with a tattoo to prove it.

I felt like a debutante at a ball—the newest member of the God Pack.

My heart pounded a little bit faster just thinking about it.

Whatever my guys were into, that’s what I wanted to be into.

They were my allies now, and I was theirs.

I wanted to help them.

I wanted to save them.

I didn’t know what that meant, really, but there had to be a way to save them. Because seriously, how long could they go on living this dangerous lifestyle?

Drinks were served. Lots more people came around, and I showed my tattoo some more. Thor ordered us the appetizer flight and the dinner flight.

“You’ve got the menu memorized?” I asked.

“You get whatever they’re serving here. Like when you go to somebody’s house,” he explained.

“What if I don’t like it?” I asked.

Odin narrowed his eyes. “You have to eat it. Even if you don’t like it. Or else.”

Thor hit Odin on the arm. “Stop teasing her. You don’t have to eat it, Isis.”

A cheer went up from the dance floor where a tough-looking man in a tux with a machine gun slung over his back was doing a robot dance.

The guy looked so strong and dangerous, even in the tux. The dyed yellow ends of his hair shone like a bright, badass crown over his dark roots. Yet he was dancing like a freak.

“That’s something you don’t see every day,” I said.

“That’s Matteo,” Zeus observed grimly. “There was exactly one other crew who would ever consider taking down the Prime Royale bank, and that’s Matteo’s old crew, but the rest of them are locked up now. The Prime Royale is all ours.”

“Would you get off the Prime Royale?” Odin snapped, downing his scotch. “They didn’t take it down because it’s stupid to try.”

“I thought Matteo joined the Giraffes after his crew got arrested,” Thor said.

“The Giraffes booted him out,” Zeus said. “He’s back to having no gang.”

“Hold on, the Giraffes?” I asked. “There’s a bank takeover robbery gang called the Giraffes?”

“They don’t do takeovers,” Zeus said. “They’re all about jewels.”

Odin sniffed. “ Fucking-g Giraffes.”

“Seriously? The Giraffes?” I repeated. “Who would name their criminal gang after an animal whose only natural advantage is the ability to eat leaves off treetops?” It seemed weird in light of the murals. And just…weird, period.

“Most people call them the Gigis,” Thor said, which didn’t exactly clear up the mystery.

The waiter delivered our appetizers. Tapenade, bruschetta, fancy cheeses, crab puffs.

A breadbasket and mini bottle of olive oil with a spout, just like a normal Italian restaurant.

Somehow, I’d expected less regular food.

Maybe weirdly giant, King-Henry sized drumsticks or octopus tentacle soup or something.

“Do the Giraffes threaten to munch on people’s potted palms if they don’t give them all of their jewels?”

“Don’t underestimate the Giraffes,” Odin said. “They’ve got a streak of chaos a mile wide.”

“The God Pack is a way better name than the Giraffes,” I said, grabbing a piece of bread.

My guys agreed.

We feasted and drank and talked.

When the appetizers were gone, I leaned against Zeus and let Odin inspect the healing of my tattoo. Odin kept my feet in his lap when his inspection was finished, and Zeus kept an arm flung around me. Thor lounged at the very end, his lanky self stretched out elegantly.

“I heard once that Matteo had intel on the Prime Royale,” Zeus said.

“Then why didn’t he and his old crew hit it?” Odin asked.

“Good question,” Zeus said. “If they had intel on the Prime, they would’ve hit it.”

“No, they wouldn’t, because they’d know it was fucked up to try,” Odin said. “That’s my point here.”

“They’re also not as good at robbing banks as we are,” Thor said. “Let’s recall, they did do mostly supermarket bank jobs.”

Zeus twisted his big, beautiful, thuggish man lips into a sneer. “Supermarket banks.” Apparently, supermarket banks were way beneath my bandits. “Anyway, I want to know if Matteo has intel on the Prime.”

I ate a roll while my bandits discussed Matteo’s sources and the possibility of his having good intel.

Odin waved to a stout guy in a tuxedo. He guy sauntered over, smoking a cigar. “And then they were four,” he said.

Thor grinned and introduced us to Bentley. Bentley complimented the tattoo, and it came to me, from the way he talked about it, that everyone in the place had noticed the tattoo.

It made me feel proud.

“Bentley, is it true Matteo’s got a line on the Prime?” Zeus asked.

Bentley sat down next to Thor. “That man’s got a whole file on the Prime Royale from what I hear.”

“No shit,” Zeus said. “Why not rob it?”

“Aside from the fact that nobody robs the Prime Royale?” Bentley joked.

“Why get the file, then?”

“To impress the G’s,” Bentley said. The G’s, I took it, were the Giraffes, aka the Gigis. “Those girls are interested in the Prime.”

Thor narrowed his eyes. “The Giraffes are jewel thieves, not bank robbers.”

“Exactly,” Bentley said. “Not their skill set. But the Liz Taylor jewels are in there. A lot of jewels they want are in the Prime Royale.”

“Giraffes love their jewels, that’s for sure,” Odin said.

“Not when those jewels are locked in a bank.” Bentley puffed on his cigar. “They don’t love that. Banks are not their jam.”

They gossiped about Matteo and some other crime figures. Apparently, the crème de la crème of the LA criminal underground gossiped as much as high school kids.

Bentley left, and Zeus and Odin argued some more about hitting the Prime Royale. Some time later, another man came up, a bespectacled blond man in a brocade jacket. He seemed unhappy, or maybe he was just really serious.

The brocade jacket guy sighed and gave Zeus a key ring, a small notebook and a cell phone, and said he’d bring some gadget later. They talked about eyes on the neighborhood and the terrain being clean. The conversation was sort of technical, and I zoned out. It was late, maybe three in the morning.

My legs were still resting over Odin’s lap, and he trailed his fingers up my shin, underneath the cover of the tablecloth, as they all talked.

“That was Manning,” Odin said once the man was gone.

I squinted. Manning . They’d said the name earlier. “He seems a bit odd.”

“He is a bit odd, but odd people are often great at their jobs. He’s the AV guy who was at our place,” Odin said.

“He checked it out and put in new surveillance around the perimeter and the surrounding neighborhood. We get to go back now. You know what that means, Isis?” His fingers trailed up past my knee, now, inching up my inner thigh. “Can you guess?”

My belly tightened. Yes, I could guess what it meant. I could have a lot of fun guessing, in fact. We’d go back to their place, where they apparently had lots of exotic sexual implements and a case of paddles and even a Medieval sex room of some sort.

Odin gave me a heated look as he inched his fingers up a bit more, pushing my dress along with it, his strong hand stark against my pale, freckled skin.

I felt Zeus’s hot breath on my ear, and I closed my eyes.

My insides trembled as Odin touched me even higher, his movement concealed by the table and the darkness of our corner. It was super hot, here in the middle of the crowd. “You know what it means?” Odin asked again. He loved making me answer rhetorical questions.

My core pulsed. “I know what it means,” I said.

“Say what it means,” Zeus said from behind me.

I swallowed as his hands roamed possessively over my stomach.

“Say it,” he commanded.

I opened my eyes and glanced over at the wall mural with the antelope getting its neck bitten. Things were feeling wild suddenly.

Dangerous.

I liked it.