Epilogue One Week Later
ISIT IN FRONT OF MY MIRROR, DOING MY MAKEUP AFTER MY SHIFT at Vive. I decided not to quit my job despite my newly won financial resources. It reminds me of what my circumstances looked like until very recently, and it helps me keep up the appearance of having not just stolen a million dollars… even if I can now indulge in one of the pricier handbags.
In my closet sit my heels, clean of the mud and grass I wiped from them a week ago. Everything is the same, except in the important ways.
My mom knocks on my door, then enters. She looks happier these days, ever since I sold her on the story that friends and family pressured my dad into providing more support to “his only daughter,” resulting in me receiving a substantial monthly allowance. Enough for rent, medical bills, and other expenses, with plenty left over.
It’s helped my mom return to herself more. She’s started painting again. Without the constant pressure of multiple jobs, she has the chance to find out what she really wants to do with her life. Once, over dinner, she even mentioned getting a degree in counseling.
I don’t know whether the cover story for the money has her completely convinced, knowing the kind of man my father is. I don’t know if she cares. The hope in her eyes, the spark in her smile—they’re precious beyond words, beyond dollar signs, beyond the precarious variables of The Plan. She no longer looks lost in unfamiliar hallways. She looks like she’s home.
“Will you be out late?” she asks.
“No, Mom,” I say, finishing my lipstick. “We’re just watching a movie.”
Her forehead creases in puzzlement. “Your chess club is watching a movie?” she repeats. “Do you… play chess ever?”
I laugh. It’s a fair question. “We’re between, um, chess games right now. I hope we’ll start again soon,” I say. In quiet moments, I’ve found myself missing the weeks when designing every facet of the wedding heist occupied my focus. It gave me a gift you can only find and never steal—purpose.
I can’t just rob my father again, though. It’s not as if he has much for me to take anyway, and besides, he’s no longer a challenge. Instead, I’m waiting for the perfect opportunity to arise. The perfect mark.
I want more. No, not more. I want everything.
The desire makes my father’s words repeat in my head. Like father, like daughter. I’ve decided he’s wrong. Heiress to an empire of thieves? Perhaps. Like him? No. I won’t steal everything from just anyone. If my future holds other heists, I’ll steal from people who don’t deserve what they have.
“Well, have fun,” Mom replies, placated. “Jackson just pulled up.”
My phone hums on my desk. I check the screen idly, confident of what I’ll find. Yes, once more it is Kevin, sending the group chat his favorite Master Oogway meme. We re-created the group chat on our own phones with one very obvious rule—no references to the heist—except for one. Privately proud of my code names’ endurance, I permitted Kevin to name the chat “Chess Club.”
I give Mom a quick hug on my way out, then fly down the narrow, creaky hallway. Yes, with the million dollars, I could probably convince my mom to buy something bigger, but I’ve grown to like this house and the ways it makes me feel not like an Owens.
At the door, I notice mail has been dropped in the mail slot. I recognize a postcard from London on top. Grinning, I pick up the glossy image of the River Thames. McCoy promptly used his million to visit the UK and “see Shakespeare the way it was intended in the Globe.”
I hold on to the postcard to show the crew. We’re meeting at the Webbers’ mansion for a promised cornhole rematch and a Kung Fu Panda marathon.
Everyone else is coming except Abigail. I’ve given her space, holding on dearly to the email I received the day after the wedding. I didn’t recognize the sender, obviously. It was no ordinary email address, composed instead of random letters and numbers. Encryption, designed not to be replied to. See you soon, sis, the message read.
While she hasn’t opened up to me, she hasn’t exactly closed the door forever, either. It’s more like she’s locked our relationship with a code or a key. Not impenetrable—just complicated.
Under the postcard, an embossed envelope catches my eye. It’s trimmed in heavy black lining, the address in handwritten calligraphy. Olivia Owens, it reads. Of course, I open it.
I read the cream-white card inside once, twice, three times. With every mechanism in my head starting to move, I calmly return the card to the envelope. Clutching it in my hand, I head out the front door.
Coventry greets me outside, the wonderfully familiar panorama of cracked cement and chain-link fences. My heart rate picks up as I walk down my driveway to Jackson’s waiting car. I lean over to kiss him when I get in. He smiles, catching my chin to make the kiss linger.
I can’t help letting his lips divert me from the envelope in my hand. Being with Jackson is the only time I don’t hunger for the next heist. Instead, in his arms, I want other things. Things I could imagine distracting or satisfying me… possibly forever.
He pulls away from the kiss finally, as if he’s forcing himself. “Whoa, what’s in the envelope?” he asks enthusiastically. “Looks fancy. Whoever did the lettering kind of went hard.”
“I got invited to Switzerland,” I say. “It’s my grandmother’s seventieth birthday.”
His face clouds with confusion. “Your grandma who you haven’t spoken to in years?”
I nod. “It’s going to be an Owens family reunion,” I say quietly.
Jackson’s gaze narrows.
I wait. He’s feeling me out. Intrigued. “Don’t tell me you have to go,” he ventures.
“Have to go, no. I don’t have to,” I reply. “But…” I fall silent while Jackson watches, no doubt perceiving the gears moving in my eyes. Dash is nothing compared to my grandmother, who has generationsof inherited wealth under her command, even royalty. Empire of thieves. Dash wasn’t referring only to himself. It’s impossible my grandmother’s dynasty claimed their fortune without a little filth.
What if the vengeance I wrought on my father’s wedding day was only the opening overture of my ruination of the Owens family? Empires fall as they rise—in pieces. What if I have more ruining to do?
The queen of endings.
It’s perfect. She’s perfect. The perfect mark.
Jackson laughs, shaking his head. “Do I even want to know what you’re planning?”
I settle into my seat, a smile playing over my face. In my head, a new scheme begins to unfold.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Do you?”