Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Novalee
“All good, Little Thief. Just a little mass panic.”
The roar of the Lamborghini’s engine fills the rooftop, but it’s the chaos in my ear that has my pulse hammering. I clamp down on the matchbox in my hand, my knuckles white as I listen to Koen’s and Ezra’s voices through the comms.
“We need to get out now, or we’re going to be buried under these people.”
I glance at the ramp, considering the glittering Strip below and the impossible gap between rooftops.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
How did this spiral so far out of control? What the hell happened down there?
“I can’t see you anymore,” Sylus pants out. “Ric, where are you?”
“Too many fucking people. I’m trying to—”
“Nico!” Koen cuts him off. “Put your fucking earpiece in case you get pulled away.”
There’s rustling over the line, a muffled curse, and then Nicholas’s voice. “Done.”
“Sparkle?”
“I’m in the Lambo. Fuck, what do I do?”
“You move your ass down here,” Koen’s voice is laced with an edge of panic I’ve never heard from him. “And try to get to Sylus.”
I glance at the car, at the transmitter sitting on the passenger seat, and the ramp ahead. “What about the car and the evidence plastered on the Strip and—”
“I don’t give a fuck about that!” Koen snaps. “ I can’t get up there now. Come the hell down. We have to get out of here.”
“Koen!” Ezra’s growl cuts in.
“I’m trying!” Koen snaps, strained.
What the hell is going on down there?
“Fuck!” Ezra barks. “Dove, don’t let go!”
“Ouch.” Levi gasps. “I can’t… I—”
“What’s happening?” Ace demands, his breath harsh.
“People are grabbing Levi!” Nicholas bites out, panic lacing his words. “I can’t hold them.”
And I’m sitting here safe in a fucking Lamborghini.
My mind races, spiraling with their voices. The chaos. The crowd. The panic swallowing them whole. They’re outnumbered, overwhelmed, drowning in the crush of bodies below.
Chaos. That’s what this is. It’s chaos swallowing them.
And chaos is opportunity.
Pickpocketing. Sleight of hand. It’s all about creating distractions. Using the noise, the confusion, to your advantage. You guide their attention somewhere else so you can slip away unseen. A little bit of magic, a little bit of misdirection.
It’s all in the art of making them look the other way.
My lips move before I even realize it. “They need a distraction.”
“What was that, Sparkle?”
“The jump.” Cold resolve locks in my veins. “If I do the jump, it would distract them.”
The comms go silent for a beat. Just chaos crackling in the background.
Then Koen explodes. “Don’t you fucking dare, Novalee!”
“Of course it would distract them!” Sylus snaps. “They’d all stop to watch a Lamborghini pancake itself against a wall! I’d still rather have you alive.”
“I can do it.”
“No, you can’t!” Koen is panting. “This isn’t simply driving. It took me three years. Three years! To know the exact speed, the timing, the angle. You’ll kill yourself if you try. Get the fuck out of the Plaza.”
“I’m already in the car.”
“Stop that shit right now.” Ezra’s voice is sharp. “You’re going to crash, fall off the fucking roof—”
“Don’t you dare, Little Thief.”
“Sylus—” I start, but I get cut off as Levi lets out a panicked shriek that makes my blood freeze.
“Ezy!”
This isn’t looking good.
“Get your fucking hands off him!” Ezra rumbles, but the sound of the crowd around them grows louder.
“Sparkle, baby. Talk to me.”
“What do I have to do to get the evidence on the transmitter?”
“Nothing. We don’t have time. Everything’s set to hit the cops anyway. This was for dazzle, but the dazzle just left the fucking building. Get your pretty ass down here.”
But I’m already moving, flipping the switch on the transmitter and gripping the wheel tighter. My pulse races, every nerve alive with fear and adrenaline.
If this is going to work, it has to be perfect.
“Baby,” Sylus tries again. “Look, I love your style, I really do, but I don’t love it enough to scrape you off the Heights.”
“Don’t act stupid, Sweetness. I know you’re not!”
I don’t even have a license. The last time I was behind the wheel, everything spiraled. And now here I am, in a Lamborghini no less, contemplating a jump that could end just as disastrously. If I let that fear win now, chances are they get caught or crushed. And I can’t. I won’t lose anyone else.
The comms crackle, more frantic yells slicing through my thoughts.
“Ezra, stop pulling me along. Get Dove out of here!” Koen roars.
“I’m fucking trying!” Ezra snaps back. “Dove, don’t let go—”
“I can’t hold him much longer!” Nicholas sounds frantic now.
“Fuck.” Ezra yells again. “Dove!”
I close my eyes, the noise around me fading to a dull roar as I force my mind to quiet. The fear, the doubt, the memory of that night, they all crash against me, but I plant my feet.
I can do this.
I’ll make this jump, allowing them to get out of there.
The decision locks into place as I take a deep breath, and Koen’s voice fills my mind.
“Sixty-seven miles per hour at the exact moment it leaves the ramp. No more, no less. Any slower, and you don’t make it across. Any faster, and the momentum’s wrong, you’ll overshoot and crash. From zero to sixty in three-point-two seconds.”
Three-point-two seconds. That’s all the margin I have.
Koen spent years perfecting this down to the millisecond, and I’m about to attempt it on adrenaline and sheer dumb luck.
The driver’s door next to me wrenches open, and my heart leaps into my throat. Did I just run out of time?
But then my eyes meet ice-blue ones.
“Scoot over, Trouble.”
“Ace,” I breathe out, half a gasp, half a curse.
“Move,” he repeats, climbing in even as the chaos below echoes through the comms. “We have to jump a gap, and let’s be honest, you’re a shitty driver.”
I slide into the passenger seat, pulling the flash drive with the evidence into my lap.
“You kids are fucking kidding me.” Ezra hisses.
“You’re both going to die,” Koen shouts. “If you’re even a millimeter off, you’ll die. I made the calculations with one person in mind, not two. Do you hear me? You’ll both die!”
Ace doesn’t even flinch. “We’re already dead, remember?” His grin is sharp as he glances at me, and I grin back, my heart catching in my throat.
“Not fucking funny!” Koen snaps.
“Guys, please don’t,” Sylus pleads with us.
Ace ignores both of them as he glances at me with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “What do you think, Trouble? Should we give them a little chase?”
The words drag me back to that night. That same spark in his eyes, that same reckless grin. Should we give them a little chase? It feels like a ghost whispering in my ear. Back then, I nodded without hesitation, high on the rush and adrenaline. That night, we crashed.
That night, we died—Ace, Rosalee, and me.
Not all in the same way, but none of us survived it.
And yet, even now, with the weight of that memory crushing me, something about this feels right. Like maybe crashing and burning is all we’ve ever been good at.
The wildness in his gaze mirrors the chaos in my heart. I grab his shirt, pulling him to me. His hand curls around the back of my neck, and our lips crash together. His kiss steals my breath and sends my pulse skyrocketing.
I pull back and whisper against his lips. “I dare you to outdrive them.”
His laugh bubbles out, wild and almost maniacal, as he turns back to the wheel. “Then put on your seat belt and hold on tight.”
My heart thunders in my chest, and my hand shoots to the seat belt, fumbling to pull it across my body as Ace does the same.
“Do you want to fucking die?” Koen snaps again.
“No. All of you have made me love life.”
The line goes silent for a beat.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Koen roars, but it doesn’t matter anymore.
The car surges forward, and the Lamborghini rolls out of the glass enclosure, then it skids onto the rooftop, the sheer momentum jerking me hard against the seat belt. The tires screech, and the car fishtails slightly before Ace steadies it. The entire rooftop feels like it’s shaking beneath us.
“Jesus Christ!” I shout, my heart hammering as the car straightens out.
Ace floors the gas pedal, the engine roaring like a beast unleashed. My eyes flicker to the dashboard.
The needle climbs rapidly—50… 55… 60…
My hand flies to my bracelet, gripping it tightly.
“Come on,” I whisper, my gaze darting between the ramp and the dashboard.
62… 63…
The distance between rooftops feels like it’s shrinking and stretching all at once.
64…
“Ace.” My eyes lock on the ramp.
We’re too slow. We’re not going to make it.
“Hold on tight, Trouble!”
The speedometer ticks to sixty-five.
We hit the ramp.
For one agonizing moment, time seems to freeze. My breath catches, the world narrowing to the roar of the engine and the sickening lurch of the car as it launches into the air. I check the dash one last time—the needle trembles a hair below sixty-seven.
Closing my eyes, my fingers grip my bracelet even harder as gravity drops away.
And we fly.