Page 15 of The Wrong Idea (The Kinky Bank Robbers #2)

Chapter Eleven

“Ex-sheep farmer,” I clarified.

“I’m Macy Gigi,” the woman said, holding out a hand in the lounge-like bathroom. “But you can call me Macy.”

“The Giraffes,” I said, taking her hand. It made sense. They were so leggy, what with those shoes and outfits.

“Yup,” Macy said.

“Cool,” I said, sort of stupidly.

She introduced me to Angel Gigi, who had brown eyes and lots of tattoos and wore a red chiffon party dress that looked very 1950s; her long hair was dyed a light caramel, and she had a tiara. Jenny Gigi had a golden suntan and white-blonde hair. She looked like a stripper.

Macy came right up to me. “We have a lot of names because that’s what we like. We switch out names as often as we switch out hair colors.”

I nodded and smiled as we shook hands. It didn’t strike me as the most efficient naming system ever, but who was I to judge?

“Nice tattoo,” Jenny said from behind me.

“Let’s see.” Macy patted the counter. “Come on, I just want to see,” she added when I hesitated.

These Gigis were so…outlandish. And they wore outrageously high-heeled platform shoes. I put up my foot and let them check out my gang tattoo. Showing it off made me feel incredibly proud. The tattoo told the world that if anybody messed with me, they messed with the God Pack.

“Odin does some nice work,” Macy said. “So you all have four lightning bolts now?”

“Yeah. I got the whole thing, and they all got an extra bolt.” I tried to act like it was no big, and not an entire afternoon of me saying eep and acting like a baby.

“Sweet. But the shoes are a little sad,” Angel said. “Your boys pick those out for you?”

“We picked them out together.”

“Yeah, right. Means your guys picked ’em out.

Guys have shit taste in shoes.” Macy fixed me with a gaze; her silver eyeliner and silver fake lashes made her brown eyes appear strangely deep and dark.

“You get tired of taking orders from little boys…” She whipped a card out of her pocket and held it toward me with elegant fingers.

The card was smaller and thicker than a normal business card, with rounded corners.

“We know you drive, Isis. And we hear you’ve got nerve.

We’re down a member due to some grievous disrespect on the part of our last member.

You don’t seem the disrespecting type.” She smiled.

“You get tired of those dudes, you call us.”

“I won’t get tired of those dudes,” I said coolly. “Ever. We’re together.”

Macy smiled. “Gotcha.” She pushed the card closer to me. “Still, no reason you can’t make new friends, right?”

It was weird. As soon as she said it, I realized something I was deeply missing: female companionship, aka girlfriends! I’d spent my life surrounded by sisters. I missed it. And these girls knew my guys, knew what they were into.

I took the card. There was a little line image of a giraffe on one side and a phone number on the other.

I thought of what my guys had told me, that they were into stealing jewels, and Matteo, the hot, thuggish robot dancer, had once been in their gang. I wondered what kind of disrespect Matteo had shown to get himself kicked out.

Macy Gigi straightened her shirt. “You’ll be reconsidering my offer when you figure out your boys are a sinking ship.”

What?

The hairs on the back of my neck rose. “Nobody’s sinking.”

Angel laughed. “Your guys, they’re being hunted by the worst people on earth. And how do they respond? Robbing banks in broad fucking daylight. If I had an agency like ZOX after me, I’d be on the moon if I could get there, not in the middle of fucking LA”

She fixed me with a hard look. What was she trying to tell me?

“ Takeover robberies, Isis. That’s the most difficult and fucked-up crime to pull off. They do it because it’s high impact, high profile. It’s a big fuck you. And I’ll tell you something else: it’s a death sprint.”

I straightened up to my full height, feeling protective of my guys. “They’re awesome at bank robbing,” I said. “And we’re having fun here in LA, so apparently it’s not as dire as you think. And we knock over banks with total impunity because we can.”

“That doesn’t make it smart,” Macy said.

“It’s smart if you’re awesome at it,” I replied. “ZOX wishes we were dead. In fact, we’re thinking of having that as our motto. We might do a new tattoo.” I framed the air just as Zeus had. “You wish we were dead, motherfuckers.”

Macy smiled. “Yeah?”

I shrugged. “It’s an idea we’re tossing around. We might have it be on a banner that an angel holds.”

Jenny adjusted her breasts inside her slinky white dress, plumping them a bit.

Her holster was silver, as was her gun. “Cowboys. That kind of defiance gets you killed, and that’s what they’re up to.

And also, avenging the doctor. Doctor Thor.

It’s all about Thor, too. Have you figured that out yet? ”

I sniffed all cool and opened my clutch like I was rooting around for something. I didn’t like that this conversation was making me feel like I didn’t know things about my own gang.

All about Thor? What was that supposed to mean?

What did they know that I didn’t know?

I pulled out a chapstick and snapped my clutch shut.

“As for death sprint, you couldn’t be more wrong.

Have you ever been with them on a job? Have you ever eluded agents with them?

Any of you?” I looked from one Gigi to the other.

“Do you even know the extreme level at which they operate? Are you basing your doom-saying on anything at all?”

The Gigis exchanged glances.

“I’ll take that as a no,” I said. “I have seen them in operation. And I can guarantee you, they’ve got skills. Nobody’s going down. Nobody’s crashing and burning. And whoever comes after us will be sorry.”

“You’re loyal, we like that,” Macy said.

She snatched the card from my hands and slid it down the bodice of my dress so that it sat against my breast. The cool backs of her fingers brushed against my skin.

“If the heat gets too much, or if something happens and you want out, you come around and we’ll give you a try on a job.

When you’re a Giraffe, you can have all the men you want—even manwiches, if that’s your thing, but without the side dish of cowboy decision-making. You understand what I’m saying?”

Manwiches ? I felt my face heat up.

“And we wear cooler clothes,” Angel said.

Macy smiled slowly. “You’ll be Ice Gigi.” With that, she turned and snapped her fingers in the air. “Gigis.”

The two Gigis followed her.

I stared after them, feeling sick. Why would they say my guys were crashing and burning?

I told myself it was just them wanting me to join, but I couldn’t forget that sense of doom that had washed over me in the hotel room earlier—things too bright, too wild.

Also too beautiful.

And thrilling. And I did have faith that my guys were the best. And nothing was certain.

I needed to get my guys to start thinking about the future—that’s what we needed. Saving their money. Thinking more about safety. A long-range plan.

They deserved more.

I touched up my lipstick and strolled out of the bathroom and around the bar, heading to our table. Thor stood and I slid in next to Odin, who handed me a glass of champagne.

“Thanks,” I said.

He reached into the bodice of my gown and pulled out the card. “What’s this?”

“I made some new friends in the bathroom.”

Odin gave me a dark look, then slid the card to Zeus, who scowled at it.

“The Giraffes aren’t anybody’s friends,” Zeus growled.

“Did they try to recruit you?” Thor asked.

I shrugged. “Not like I’m going to join them.”

Odin slammed down his glass. Scotch splashed over the rim. “Those bitches tried to poach you?”

“Who cares?” I said.

“We care,” Odin said. “It’s an insult.”

“It’s not like I’m going to join them!”

“What else did they say?” Zeus asked.

“They think you’re on a death sprint. That you’re going down. Like cowboy outlaws in a shoot-em-up movie.” I waited. I wanted to hear what they said to that.

Zeus spoke up. “Do you think we’re going down?”

“No, I don’t think that.”

But Zeus heard the hesitation, and a shadow crossed his face. “We aren’t going down. And if we were, we sure as hell wouldn’t drag you along with us.”

“I know.”

“Do you, though?” he demanded.

“I’m telling you what they said.”

“You don’t know,” Zeus said. “And they don’t know.

We have training nobody else here has. We have skills they couldn’t even begin to imagine.

You think we wouldn’t know if we were going down?

” He sat up. “It’s because of what happened at your bank, right?

Taking you as hostage and getting caught in that jam? ”

“I don’t think you’re going down,” I insisted.

Zeus exchanged looks with Odin. “What happened to us with your bank, that kind of thing never happens to us, Isis.”

“That was a fluke,” Odin said.

I nodded. It’s what I needed to hear.

“I can’t believe they tried to poach you,” Odin said. “They even gave you a card? That shit doesn’t stand.”

I snatched the card off the table and put it into my clutch. “You need to trust me a little more,” I said. “They can try to poach all they want. It doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere. They don’t say where I go; I say where I go. Got it?”

“Ice,” Zeus said. “Hey.” Something in his voice pulled on my heart and I looked over to see that vulnerability still there.

A kind of pain. “You are always free to leave us if you feel we’re going down.

You have options. We can make sure you’re safe somewhere.

” Zeus looked so serious and sad saying that.

And suddenly I knew one thing for sure: it cost him to say it.

It was why he hadn’t wanted me to join up in the first place, hadn’t wanted us to get attached to each other. Because of the idea they might get attached to me, and then I might leave.

“The idea of ever abandoning you guys?” I looked him right in the eye. “Fuck that ! This is where I want to be,” I said. “Did I not, just this morning, get a painful tattoo to prove it?”

“Still. They give you a goddamn business card,” Odin grumbled. “I changed my mind. We’re hitting the Prime Royale—that will piss off the Giraffes or Gigis or whatever they’re calling themselves now.”

“Wait, what?” I said. “You were so against it!”

“Now I like the idea,” Odin said. “As payback for trying to poach you.”

Zeus grinned.

“B-but…the foolishness,” I reminded him. “The danger.”

“I live for danger,” he said. “And I am going to personally grab the Liz Taylor jewels and I am going to wear them around here and watch those bitches stew. I’m going to wear them with something really fucked up.”

Thor laughed. “God, it would almost be worth it, just to see you wearing the jewels they always wanted.”

“Wait—you, too?” I asked.

Odin was into it. “I’ll wear an oily, grimy mechanic’s jumpsuit.

And these sunglasses. That’s what I’ll wear them with.

” Odin smashed the mirrored purple sunglasses farther onto his face.

“Yeah, for sure that’s what I’ll wear with the Liz Taylor jewels.

See how they like being poached. And we’ll grab the Princess Harrod sapphires for Ice to wear.

The sapphires are even better than the Liz Taylor jewels.

” He turned to me, and at that moment, he was irresistible.

“You will look amazing in them. We’ll wear ’em here. It’ll be savage.”

Odin seemed unhealthily into this new idea now. Did he honestly want to rob the Prime Royale? I liked a little danger, true. And I loved the idea of Odin and me being outrageous in jewels together. But I was still getting used to this new world—how much danger was too much?

“They liked your tattoo work,” I said.

Thor’s eyes sparkled. “They like Odin. They like him very much.”

“Oh yeah?” I turned to Odin, feeling a pang of jealousy. They like him? What did that mean?

“Not like that, goddess,” Odin said, brushing my hair from my eyes. “It's a frenemy thing with them. This right here, this is everything. The four of us.”

“We can do any bank in our sleep,” Zeus said. “Only the Prime Royale is equal to our talents. Every other bank is a cakewalk.”

“So true,” Odin said. “The Prime Royale is really calling to me now. It’ll be a statement to the world. Fuck you, because it’s us and Ice all the way.”

“Oh, that would be spectacular,” Thor said. “The Prime has our name on it. I changed my mind.”

Manning was back with the promised gadget. “Tell me I didn’t just hear you talking about the Prime.”

Odin snorted. “So doing it.”

“Why the Prime?” the man asked.

“Because the G’s should think twice before trying to poach Ice,” Zeus said. “Nobody comes between us and Ice.”

“Me and Ice will be wearing those jewels around,” Odin said. “It’s called a fucking statement.”

“Hmm,” the man said, stroking his chin, as if to ponder all of this. It was like he was doing a one-man show of pondering. Finally, he spoke. “Is that truly a wise reason to go for the Prime? Petty relationship issues?” He glanced over at me. “No offense, Miss.”

I shrugged. I had to agree that it didn’t sound like the wisest thing, but I also did feel a bit offended. Also, Miss ?

“Good enough reason for us,” Odin growled.

“Well…” Manning tapped the box and headed off.

“It seems unanimous,” I said. “On the Prime being a bad idea.”

“You need to believe in us more, Ice,” Zeus said, sitting up suddenly. “You need to see us in action on a successful robbery. You’ll see. Come in with us on First West.”

“She’s already the driver,” Thor said.

“No, she comes in the bank,” Zeus said. “We ran without a driver for years. We’re hitting it tomorrow.”

“Wait, what?” I said. “I’m going to be in the bank? The First West?”

“All you have to do is tag along and stay alert,” he said. “You need to see us in a normal robbery. It’s the only way you’ll understand that there’s nothing we can’t do,” Zeus said. “We’re not on a death sprint. The G’s are fucked for saying that.”

“And we’re hitting it tomorrow?”

“Technically, that’s today now.”

“Seriously?” I said. It seemed a bit soon, but the idea thrilled me, I have to admit.

“Why not? We’ve been watching it all week.” He turned to Odin. “How drunk are you?”

“Not very,” Odin said. “Tomorrow-slash-today’s good for me.”

“We’ll hit it when it opens,” Zeus said. “But first we need gear. We need outfits. Let’s make this one big.”