Chapter 22 Bellamy
BELLAMY
Six pairs of eyes track me as I drag my fingertip across the plans.
Bishop's jaw tightens, Lola's fingers drum once against her thigh, and Cruz's head tilts a fraction to the right.
Gage stands motionless, arms crossed. The air in the room seems to thin, making each breath shallow.
A single bead of sweat forms between my shoulder blades, tracing a cold path down my spine as I step into the job mindset.
I flatten my palm on the edge of the worktable and lean over the spread of plans—city maps layered beneath old renovation permits Beckett pulled earlier this week.
The paper crinkles beneath my fingertips, releasing a scent of toner and dust that fills my lungs.
My racing pulse steadies, my shoulders drop a half-inch, and the room's edges sharpen into focus.
My knuckles tap against the blueprint's upper-left quadrant with a hollow sound that draws everyone's eyes.
“Lola and I take this room.” The paper crinkles as my fingernail traces Beck's red line along what should be a false wall, stopping at the faint X he's marked. My voice drops instinctively. “Assuming Highlight hasn’t changed their setup since they pulled permits for renovations, the safe will be along one of these walls. Beck found receipts for their eight-hundred-pound TL-fifteen, so we need to hit it from the top or the side, and ideally, have twenty solid minutes in there. Twenty-five would be better.”
To my right, Cruz’s sleeve brushes mine, cotton against cotton. On my left, Gage’s shadow falls across the corner of the blueprint. I force my eyes down to the map, blinking twice to bring the lines back into focus.
“You four hit this room,” I continue, shifting to the opposite side of the blueprint where the paper has worn thin from handling. “That’s where everything else is. Most of it should be in their transport cases, just waiting for us to grab it. That’s where the money is.”
The digital mixing consoles could easily bring us four-hundred grand if we get them all. Plus ten wireless mic receivers and a handful of big lighting controllers, if the festival specs match last year.
I slide my hand to the alley route sketched beneath the plans on the city map. “Beck will be in the van here.” My fingertip leaves a pressed indent on the paper.
“Absolutely not.” Bishop splays his palm down flat beside my hand, leaning over and into my space.
I inhale slowly, schooling every twitch off my face. “Okay, which part—”
His jaw tightens. “Every single part of that plan,” he says, voice dropping to a dangerous octave. “You expect me to trust some teenager”—he flicks a dismissive hand toward Beckett without breaking eye contact with me—”with my freedom? With whether I spend the next decade in prison? Not happening.”
To my left, Lola goes statue-still. Her jaw ticks once, biting back what I know she wants to say because I asked her to play nice. The small, fierce swell of gratitude I feel for her nearly cracks my composure.
“I’m twenty, asshole,” Beck mumbles.
I exhale through my nose and press on. “The soundboards are heavy, especially in their transport cases. You need two people minimum to carry one. Four boards alone clear us almost half a million. That’s two trips if the four of you hit this side.”
Bishop's eyes narrowed to slits. “You expect us to leave a Hale alone with the van?” His voice dropped to a growl. “With our entire take sitting right there for the taking? Not a chance in hell.”
Lola lets out a sharp laugh. “Trust goes both ways, Bishop. It’s not like you’re inspiring confidence when it comes to guarding the take.”
Cruz's mouth curls at one corner, there and gone like a match struck in wind.
Gage shifts his weight, the leather of his jacket creaking as his shoulders pull back a quarter-inch.
Across the table, Rafe's hands hang at his sides, but his eyes narrow to obsidian points, tracking every movement between us.
Bishop stares at me from under lowered lashes. “I wouldn’t leave my family behind.”
My spine lengthens by instinct. “But we’re not family, are we, Bishop?” The calm in my voice has an edge sharp enough to draw blood. Another ripple of tension rolls through in the room, thickening like humidity before lightning. “Trust works both ways,” I repeat, holding his stare.
Bishop's eyes narrow a fraction, his jaw flexing beneath stubble as he swallows. The silence stretches between us like a rubber band pulled too tight.
“Fine,” he bites out. “The kid and I will both drive.”
Before I can respond, Gage cuts in, his voice a controlled rumble that settles over the tension. “Me, Cruz, and Rafe can handle the storage room.”
My breath catches mid-inhale. I keep my eyes on the blueprint as the room subtly rearranges itself into us versus them. His cologne mingles with the paper dust as he shifts his weight toward me, barely perceptible but unmistakable. My pulse skips once, then races to catch up.
“No.” Bishop’s voice drops an octave, the single syllable vibrating through the table.
He drags his fingertip across the office with the safe, the sound like sandpaper against the silence.
“You and Rafe. This side.” His eyes lock onto mine, jaw muscle twitching beneath stubble.
Then he pivots, finger jabbing toward the other room. “Gage, Cruz, Lola. That one.”
Irritation straightens my spine another notch. “Your plan is inefficient. And your inability to trust us will cost us—”
“Literally,” Lola snaps.
Bishop’s head swings to her, brow arching in a slow, taunting curve. “Not strong enough to hang with us, Hale?”
Lola bares her teeth in a feral sort of smile. “Try me, tall, dark, and insufferable.”
I slice my hand through the air between them. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.” My jaw tightens around what comes next, but I force it out anyway. “This time.”
“If it blows up, that’s on you, man.” Gage’s voice is rough, edged with something protective, and it brushes along the inside of my heart in a way I refuse to acknowledge.
I tap the blueprint with two sharp knuckle raps, cutting through the tension like a blade.
“So. Beck and Bishop will be here in the van,” I say, sliding my finger along the alley. “Rafe and I clear the safes and anything we find on this side. Cruz, Gage, and Lola take boards, receivers, controllers, anything of significant value from the storage side.”
Cruz shifts forward, cotton sleeve grazing my bare arm as he taps the prints with his index and middle fingers.
The mint from his gum hits me in small puffs with each word.
Behind me, the heat from Gage's body radiates against my shoulder blade, and when I glance up, his jaw is clenched tight enough that a muscle jumps beneath his stubbled skin.
“We’ve got a thirty-minute window, but twenty-five would be better.
” Cruz drags two fingertips across the alley, tracing the line with deliberate pressure.
His head remains bent over the blueprint, but his eyes slide to the corner, catching on my wrist, lingering on the pulse point there before climbing slowly up to my face.
“So tomorrow night, meet here at eleven, drive to Bayview in the van you picked up, arrive at Otto’s and park here.” I shift closer to reach the corner of the map, and my hair slips forward.
Before I can tuck it behind my ear, Cruz’s hand lifts and brushes the strand back, fingertips grazing my temple—warm and unexpected. The garage air suddenly feels too thick to breathe.
A laugh bubbles out of me before I can stop it—half-breath, half-sound.
Cruz's fingertips linger at my temple, warm against my skin. His mouth curves upward at one corner, and he murmurs, “Can't read the plans behind your hair, Bells.”
His eyes never drop to the blueprint. Instead, they flick upward, past me. Beside me, Gage goes rigid, his sleeve suddenly heavy against mine, the cotton of his shirt catching on my bare arm with static electricity.
The air crackles between us. My heartbeat stutters against my ribs, a single betraying thud loud enough I'm certain everyone can hear it.
I clear my throat, fingers pressing into the blueprint's edge. “Right. Anyway. We're in and out. Quick, quiet, easy.”
Everyone shifts closer to the table. Lola's elbow jabs into Gage's side as she wedges herself between us, her breath warm against my shoulder.
“Everyone clear?” Bishop stands up straight, irritation still rolling off him like heat shimmer.
“Crystal.” Cruz flashes his brother grin sharp enough to cut glass.
Rafe's chin dips once, a precise quarter-inch movement, his expression never shifting.
Beckett lifts his donut in salute. “As long as nobody fucks with the pastry luck, we’ll be fine.”
Lola sighs dramatically. “The job gods have been appeased. Barely.”
I shake my head, but a smile tugs anyway. Then my gaze snags on the lone donut left in the box—the one I bought for Coco. I close the lid gently and slide it toward Cruz. “Make sure your mom gets this.”
“I will,” Cruz murmurs.
The room shifts around us. Not quiet, not loud, just charged.
I want to trust them. I don't.
I need to trust them. I can't.
My pulse hammers against this impossible contradiction as six pairs of eyes reflect the same war. A thread pulled taut through seven people who are about to gamble their freedom on a bet none of us is sure we want to win.
I straighten, stack the plans under my arm, and force my breath steady. “Okay. We’ll see you all tomorrow.”
Cruz lifts his chin, one corner of his mouth hitching up as his gaze travels from my eyes to my lips and back again. Rafe's jaw unclenches a fraction, the hard line of his mouth softening for exactly one heartbeat before returning to granite.
“Don’t be late.” Bishop doesn’t look at me when he says it, which tells me more than if he had.
Gage says nothing at first. His eyes catch mine, hold them, dark lashes lowering slightly as his gaze travels across my face like fingertips. My spine straightens involuntarily, something liquid and warm pooling beneath my sternum, sliding lower.
“Night, Bells,” he finally murmurs, the nickname vibrating in the small space between us, his voice pitched just below the others' conversations.
The two syllables slip past my defenses and settle somewhere dangerous, somewhere I thought I'd locked years ago.
I clear my throat, nod once, step away before something warmer can take root.
We make it halfway down the driveway when Lola bumps her shoulder into mine.
“Don’t look now,” she says under her breath, “but a certain Calloway is brooding after you.”
My neck prickles, heat climbing up my spine. My feet slow. My head turns before I can stop it, as automatic as blinking.
Gage stands at the edge of the garage light, broad shoulders cut in gold, expression shadowed.
His gaze follows me with the intensity of someone trying to solve a puzzle they once knew by heart.
My skin prickles under his attention, and I find myself counting my steps away from him—one, two, three—as if measuring the exact distance needed to breathe normally again.
I snap my gaze forward. “Good. Let him look.”
Lola snorts. “Oh, yeah. Totally convincing.”
“I have a job to do,” I mutter. “No time for whatever the hell he thinks he’s promising with those dark eyes of his.”
“Mm-hmm,” she hums with a grin on her face.
Beck falls into step beside us, juggling keys. “Can we table the Calloway Thirst Conference until we get home? I’d like to survive tomorrow night.”
I exhale, my shoulders falling as the tension bleeds out. My middle finger flicks the shell of Beck's ear with a satisfying thwap. “Just drive the car, Beck.”
“You know you love me,” he fires back, his body twisting sideways as Lola's hand cuts through the air where his bicep had been a millisecond earlier.
“Unfortunately,” she draws out each syllable, her eyes rolling skyward.
Beck and Lola's voices rise and fall like a tide as we cross the quiet residential street, their words washing over me.
My fingers drum against my thigh in a staccato rhythm I can't control.
My heart flutters like a trapped bird beneath my ribcage while my mouth still tastes of frosting, sickly sweet.
I inhale deeply, letting the night air cool my lungs.
Goosebumps rise along my bare shins as a breeze catches the hem of my shorts.
With each step toward Beck's car, my shoulders drop a fraction lower, my jaw unclenches just a bit.
Five steps. Ten. The concrete beneath my feet solid and real, just like every job before this one.
Just another job, I tell myself.
A traitorous voice whispers, Liar. It’s sharp, feminine, and annoyingly familiar. It’s my mother’s voice. A persistent pessimistic ghost. Always ready to list the thousand ways something could go wrong.
Lola glances over at me. “You okay? Or are you in some weird Calloway-induced sugar high?”
“I’m fine,” I grunt out, rolling my eyes.
Beck slings an arm around my shoulders. “Of fucking course you are. We’re clearing seven figures tomorrow. I can feel it.”
“That’s the Santa Ana winds, dumbass,” Lola says, shoving him. “Not whatever fake intuition you think you have.”
He shoves her back, laughing. “Don’t worry, little sis. One day you’ll be as intuitive as me.”
“God, I hope not,” she mutters. “And just because you’re taller doesn’t mean you’re older.”
I shake my head, warmth spreading through me despite the cold.
Tomorrow night, everything changes. For better or worse.
And I know exactly what I’m risking, which makes it worse that I’m still choosing it.