Chapter Twenty-Two
Twenty-Two
Here’s the thing with heists: They only work if everybody does their part. If even one person slips up, the entire operation collapses like a house of cards.
I would never have imagined Anil would be the one to bring us down.
My first inkling that things were about to go awry was Anil’s frantic video message forty minutes after we’d separated echoing from my phone in the stillness of the night. “I think the dogs found me. I was eating a burger and—”
“Get off the video,” I snapped. “The guards will hear you. And why would you eat burgers when there are dogs around?”
“My mom made me promise to eat every few hours, so I don’t have a blood sugar crash. I picked up a bag of cheeseburgers when we went for supplies and…HELLLLLLLP.” He screamed and the camera showed flashes of the ground, a paper bag, a worn sneaker, and the corner of a container. I could hear dogs barking. A man shouted, “He went that way!” and then the screen went dark.
I moved to run in his direction, but Jack grabbed my arm. “We have to keep going. Now that they know someone is here, they’ll start looking for accomplices.”
“We can’t just abandon him. He’s got a dog phobia.”
“Pretty sure he’d rather deal with the dogs than the Mafia, which is who we’ll be facing if we don’t find that jewel.”
My heart squeezed in my chest, and I forced myself to check the next container as Anil’s screams faded into the distance. I told myself he’d be fine. He’d spent a year training to be an MMA star. He was smart and resourceful. So, he had a tendency to panic, and he was still very naive about the world and an awkward runner…
“Simi.” Jack’s voice broke my train of thought. “You need to focus. This is—”
“Focus?” My fear turned to anger, and Jack became my outlet. “Anil is in trouble. How can you be so calm? Don’t you care?”
“I do care, but…” He trailed off when my phone buzzed again. This time the message was from Chloe.
“Oh God.” I held up the phone. “Chloe sent Gage to help Anil, but before she could get out of the control room, one of the guards came back. She’s hiding in a closet. Even worse, the guard knows there is a problem with the cameras. I don’t know if he has the skills to figure out how to remove her hacking software program, but we have to go and help her because if he calls the police—”
“Simi.” Jack’s voice rose to an impatient shout. “This is it.”
“The end. I know.” My shoulders sagged. “But we can’t just leave them to fend for themselves.”
“This is the container.” He said each word slowly and emphatically until he had my full attention.
“This is the container?” I stared at the red door in front of me, trying to get my brain to process any information besides the fact that my bestie needed me. “The one we’re looking for?”
Jack nodded. “You’ve been standing in front of it for over a minute.”
I double-checked the white painted numbers with what I had on my screen. Finally, the information sank in, and I stared at him, incredulous. “We found it.”
“Yes.” He pulled the bolt cutters from the pack on his back. “Help me break the lock.”
“But Chloe…”
A loud BOOM rocked the night and the sky glowed with an eerie green light. I heard shouts, a whistle, and the fading barking of dogs.
“Vito’s on the case,” Jack said. “Trust the crew to do what they do best. You know Chloe can take care of herself, and you know she would tell you to get the damn diamond so we can be free of this mess. You also know that once Gage finds out that she’s trapped, he’ll drop everything to help her, and nothing will stand in his way.”
He was so confident, utterly unshakable in his faith in the crew. I wanted to believe him, trust him, trust them, but something felt wrong, like the tide was shifting, and any moment we were going to be swept away by forces beyond our control.
“Jack…I have to go.” I turned in the direction of the control room and Chloe.
“I’ve got it.” Jack broke the lock on the container and pulled open the door. Gritting my teeth against the urge to run to Chloe, I turned on my flashlight and stepped inside.
“What’s that smell?” My noise wrinkled at the acrid chemical smell coming from the tightly packed rolls of carpet in front of us.
“Volatile organic compounds,” Jack said. “They’re chemicals used in the manufacturing of household products like paint, wallpaper, and some floor finishes. It’s why I prefer natural hardwood floors.” Jack moved aside roll after roll of carpet, clearing a trail to the boxes stacked at the back of the container. “This must be the shipment that was consolidated with ours.”
“I hope you told our architect about your love of hardwood,” I teased. “I would hate to move into our fake new home only to have to move out again because you’re unhappy with the flooring.”
“I told him there should only be carpet in the bedrooms.” Jack looked back over his shoulder and gave me a naughty smile that made my stomach tighten. “To dampen the sound.”
“This isn’t the time,” I warned him.
Jack chuckled. “It’s always time when we’re alone in the dark.”
“I think those are paintings.” I pushed past him when I spotted a stack of thin boxes leaning against the wall. “Hand me the knife.”
Jack passed over a box cutter and I sliced open the top of the nearest box and shone my flashlight inside. I recognized the erotic painting of the woman and the octopus right away. Even on my second viewing, it made my stomach churn.
“This is it! Jack! We found the collection.”
We set up our flashlights on one of the wooden crates and started slicing open the boxes one by one. Everything was there, from the fertility statues to the Chinese pillow books and from the suggestive paintings to the gruesome skull. We worked quickly and steadily for another ten minutes until, finally, I found the diamond wrapped in its blue velvet cloth, tossed in with the rest of Peter’s fake treasures like a worthless piece of trash.
“I got it!” I ran over to Jack and threw myself into his arms. “We did it. We’ll get the necklace, hand it over to Angelini, he’ll free Cristian, and we’ll all be safe.”
“I like this happy, excited you.” Jack wrapped his arms around me, pulling me against his solid strength, and to the place I wanted to be. Taking me by surprise, he leaned down and kissed me. “I want to keep you right here and never let you go.”
“Your wish is about to come true,” Clare said from the doorway. “Give me the diamond.”
I froze as Jack whirled to face her, blocking me with his body. He was fast, but not fast enough. I caught a glimpse of Milan with a knife in each hand and Vito with a gun pointed in our direction. I wished I’d listened to Gage and let everyone take a gun from his bag. I wished I hadn’t declared this a “no guns” heist.
“We’ll hand it over when you give us the necklace.” Jack’s voice was deceptively calm, but his arm pinning me against his back was as solid as steel. “As we agreed.”
Clare’s laughter echoed through the container, and her lips curled into a sneer, turning her features into a twisted grin of malice and triumph. “I’m taking it now, and I’m keeping the necklace. Did you really think I was going to hand over something worth $30 million?”
“No,” he said. “But I thought Xavier would make you do it as a matter of honor.”
“There is no honor among thieves. You taught me that.” She stepped to the side and Anil walked into the container behind her.
“Anil!” My heart soared. “Show her your MMA moves. Call Gage. She’s trying to steal the diamond.”
“That was always the plan.” He stared at the floor and toed the rough metal surface with a worn sneaker.
Nothing in my life had ever shocked me more. Not Clare double-crossing us. Not the appearance of Tony Angelini in my office. Not the sight of Rose doing a Mission Impossible drop from the ceiling of a warehouse to save us during the last heist. Not even the twist of events that had led us here in the first place. I opened my mouth, and no words came out. Not even a sound. Instead, I felt the punch of betrayal hitting my gut, knocking the breath from my lungs.
At a gesture from Clare, Vito walked toward us. Jack took a step back, keeping me behind him with one arm twisted behind his back.
“Phones.” Vito held out his free hand. “And the diamond.”
“Vito…” I swallowed hard. “I thought we were a team. You ate fire for us. You blew things up. You made that special Vito blend that lit up the sky. You have a PhD in chemistry. Surely, you realize Clare is going to double-cross you, too.”
“It’s a job,” he said. “Nothing personal.”
“What are you going to have him do if we don’t hand it over, Clare? Shoot us?” Jack’s voice was tinged with exasperation. “Do you really think Xavier wants me dead?”
Xavier had to be the real name of Jack’s nemesis, the mysterious Mr. X. He had plucked Jack from the streets on the pretense of giving him a better life, only to force him into a life of crime instead.
“He wouldn’t complain.” Clare’s throat tightened as she swallowed. “Not after what you did.”
My blood ran cold, and I reached behind me for something to throw. Seconds later, I was pinned to the crate, a knife through the sleeve of my hoodie holding me in place. The sudden impact and the sheer precision of the throw took my breath away. Behind Clare, Milan gave an apologetic shrug.
“Jesus Christ.” Seemingly oblivious to the threat, Jack turned his back and yanked the knife out of the crate. “Show me your arm. Did she hurt you? If you’ve even got a scrape…”
I wasn’t sure what Jack would do in the face of Vito’s gun and Milan’s knives, but I appreciated the sentiment beneath his protective fury.
“I’m okay.” My voice wavered despite my best efforts to remain calm.
“Phones.” Milan gestured with her knife, and Jack and I reluctantly gave Vito our only means of communicating with the rest of the crew.
Vito tucked the phones in his jacket and then pointed his gun at Jack. “You first or her?”
Jack stepped in front of me again, shielding me with his body. “Clare…you don’t want to do this.”
“It’s been fun, but I’m getting tired of you interfering with my work.” She waved a dismissive hand that belied the pain and anger on her face. “You should have stayed with Xavier. With me. We were good together. We were a good team.”
Jack stared at her for a long moment, and his voice softened. “We weren’t a good couple, Clare. You know that. We’re too much alike. We didn’t trust each other. You can’t have a relationship without trust.”
“I thought we had something more than trust.” Her bitter voice echoed in the container. “We had a bond. We were forged in the same fire. No one else could understand what we had to do to survive on the streets—to survive Xavier.”
“It made us hard,” Jack said. “It made us cold. And Xavier took us and turned us into ice. That’s why it didn’t work. We each needed someone warm, someone who could undo what Xavier did. If I hadn’t left, I would have wound up just like him.”
“You were supposed to take me with you,” Clare spat out. She plucked one of the knives from Milan’s hand and threw it hard and fast. Jack jerked to the side, pulling me with him, and it narrowly missed his shoulder.
“You’re out of practice,” he said, all cool and calm like his ex-girlfriend hadn’t just thrown a knife at him with almost Milan-like precision.
“You can’t win this one,” Clare said. “Give me the diamond.”
“Fuck you.”
Another swish. Another knife. This one from Milan, and this time it grazed Jack’s ear before clattering onto the floor behind us. Jack grunted but he didn’t move, a protective shield of muscle in front of me.
“You missed.” He had me pinned between his body and a packing crate. I could feel his heart pounding inside his chest, hear his rapid breaths. Fear soured in my mouth, bitter and acidic, as I watched Clare’s eyes narrow. I didn’t understand why he was taunting her. We both knew Milan could turn him into a pincushion in seconds if she was serious about killing him.
Clare sighed. “This is getting tedious. You have nowhere to go. You have no weapons. You could knock out the flashlights and try to escape, but you won’t last three seconds once Vito starts shooting. If you manage to get past him, you still have to deal with Milan. And me. And even Anil. Apparently, he’s got some serious MMA skills.”
I couldn’t look at Anil. His betrayal made me feel sick inside. I thought we were friends, but it turned out I didn’t know him at all.
“Vito…” Clare gestured behind her. “Get the diamond. Now. Do what it takes.”
“Xavier will never forgive you.” Jack’s muscles tightened as Vito stepped forward, his body going rigid. Clearly, he didn’t think we’d leave here alive.
“No. Stop.” I stepped out from behind Jack. “I’ll give you the diamond on the condition that you take it and walk away. No knives. No bullets. No killing.”
“You aren’t really in a position to make demands,” Clare said.
“And you’re not in a position to have to deal with the rest of the crew coming after you if you kill us, because they will. We’re family and there is nothing we won’t do for each other, even if it is to avenge the death of one of our own. There is nowhere you can run. Nowhere you can hide. No corner of the earth too remote. Nowhere you will ever be safe—”
Clare laughed, the sound cutting into my heart like shards of broken glass. “You forget I’ve seen your crew in action. Trying to get them to do anything is like herding cats. They are easily distracted. They bicker and fight. They’re never serious. Without you, they can’t even agree on what to order for dinner. I’ll just tell them you and Jack ran off with the diamond.”
“Chloe will never believe you.” I had absolute faith in my best friend. No one knew me better.
“I can be very convincing, and I have two…no, three witnesses, including one of your own.” Clare waved vaguely behind her. “People have done crazier things for love.”
“Except for Jack, you’ve never had a friend,” I said, finally understanding. Milan and Vito were mercenaries, not friends. Clare was alone. She had always been alone. This heist wasn’t just about the diamond. It was about Jack. He’d hurt her and she wanted to hurt him back.
“I’ll take my chances with your ragtag crew.” She nodded at Vito and Milan. “Take care of them. I’ll pry the diamond out of her cold, dead hand.”
“If you shoot them, the sound will echo in the container and carry around the shipyard,” Anil said, his voice curiously flat. “It would immediately draw the attention of the rest of the crew and the security guards. A better option would be to lock them in the container.”
“Anil!” I looked at him in horror. “You can’t—”
“That way you won’t get in trouble with this Xavier person,” he continued, cutting me off. “Or Chloe, because I could tell her in all honesty that you didn’t kill them. We can lock the container and paint over the number. Its location in the shipyard is already in the database so it will be picked up by the crane and put on the ship to Belize, but after that it can’t be traced.”
“That doesn’t help if they’re still alive when they get to port,” Clare said. “They’ll just come back and cause trouble.”
“They’ll be dead well before then.” Anil still wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I calculate that they’ll have roughly 48.7 hours of oxygen if they breathe an average of fifteen times per minute and the shipping container is tightly sealed. However, the carbon dioxide buildup will kill them well before that. And even if my calculations are off, they won’t survive ten days without water, which is how long the trip will likely take. You still achieve your goal of ending their lives without getting your hands dirty or taking any risks. If their bodies are discovered at their destination, they’ll have no ID and people will probably think they were stowaways.”
“You really are brilliant.” Clare gave him an appreciative look. “You were undervalued in your crew. I won’t make the same mistake. It’s a good plan, although I’m still tempted to just get it over and done with because the idea of the merry band of misfits coming after me is the most amusing thing I’ve ever heard.”
“We’re wasting time,” Vito said. “One of the guards saw Anil before Gage knocked him out. They know someone messed with the cameras. They’ll be looking for us.”
Clare nodded. “Get the diamond.”
Vito gestured to me with his gun, and I put the diamond in his outstretched palm. A chance at living was better than resisting and dying an instant and painful death. Maybe Clare would let us go once she had the diamond in her hand.
Vito passed the diamond to Clare and she tucked it in her pocket before murmuring a few words in his ear. She gestured to Anil and Milan, and they followed her out of the container. I took a step forward and Vito raised his gun.
“Don’t move.” He walked backward, his weapon pointed in our direction. The hair on the back of my neck prickled and my blood ran cold.
“You’ve got the diamond,” Jack called out. “Let us go, or at the very least let Simi go. This is between you and me, Clare.”
“Are you going to…?” My mouth went dry. Had Clare decided to kill us instead of locking us up? Was this it? Was my life really going to end with a gunshot to the heart in a dusty shipping container in Newark? What about my family? Chloe? Olivia? I hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye. I hadn’t told Jack that I loved him and forgave him and wanted to be with him forever.
“Clare…” Jack grabbed my hand and yanked me forward as soon as Vito stepped out of the container. “Don’t do this…”
“Do what?” I stumbled behind him, my arm almost leaving its socket with the force of his tug. At first, I thought he was going to use me as a human shield, and I mentally took back the loving thoughts I’d had only a moment before. Only when I heard the creak of hinges did I understand what was happening. But by then, it was too late.
The door slammed, the vibration knocking our flashlights to the floor. Barely able to see in the flickering light, we hit the door at full speed, forearms slamming against the plywood-enforced steel.
“No,” I shouted. “Let us out. You don’t need to do this. You have everything you want.” I pressed my ear to the door, but there was no response, only an eerie silence that seemed to devour our voices.
“Clare!” Jack was livid with rage, his voice raw and ragged and filled with fury.
“We’ll die in here.” My heart pounded in my chest as panic set in. I could feel the darkness closing in on us, suffocating and relentless. “There’s no water. No food. No oxygen…” My lungs seized and I bent over, gasping for breath.
“Don’t panic.” Jack pulled me into his arms. “You heard Anil. No more than fifteen breaths per minute.”
“I am panicking. This is exactly the kind of situation panic was made for.” My words came out in a terrified rush. “Why else would humans be born with the capacity for panic if not to use it when they’ve been locked in a shipping container by an evil psychopath, her hench people, and a betraying friend? The bigger question is…why are you so calm?”
“I’ve been in worse situations,” Jack said.
“Worse?” My voice rose in pitch. “What could be worse than being shipped off to Belize? My parents won’t even have a body to bury. They’ll probably think I ran off with you, and they’ll spend the rest of their days telling everyone that they knew white boys were trouble and they should have married me off to a nice South Asian boy as soon as I turned eighteen.”
“I am trouble.” Jack brushed his lips over my hair. “You’re here because of me.”
“We’re here because of Clare. She’s the villain of this story.” I leaned against his chest, soaking up his warmth until my tension eased. “I feel better now. It’s time for screaming and shouting and pounding our fists against the door. Whoever makes the most noise wins.”