Chapter 23 Bellamy
BELLAMY
The van idles in the alley, engine humming low beneath my boots.
It’s one o’clock in the morning. The world back here is all shadow and concrete—brick walls, a pair of overflowing dumpsters, the faint sour-sweet reek of old dough and bleach from Honeybee Bakery’s back door.
Somewhere beyond the buildings, I can hear the distant rush of a highway.
Mostly, though, it’s just the sound of all of us breathing.
Lola exhales beside me, her spine straightening with a soft crack as she rolls her shoulders back.
Across from us, Gage's knee bounces once, twice, then stills as he flips his burner phone between his fingers like a casino dealer with a chip.
Cruz's eyes are half-lidded, his burner resting on his thigh, thumb occasionally brushing the screen to check the time.
Rafe's breath fogs a small circle on the window glass, his gaze fixed on something beyond our cramped metal box.
“Last chance,” Beck says from the passenger seat, twisting to look back at us. “Anyone forget to pee?”
Lola snorts. “Okay, Dad.”
“Bladders are weak, sis. Consequences are eternal,” Beckett replies.
The corner of my mouth twitches upward before I can stop it. My pulse hammers against my collar, each beat a countdown of its own.
Bishop's knuckles whiten against the black steering wheel. His gaze darts to the rearview, then side mirror, before his head swivels with precision. The dim glow from the dashboard catches the hard lines of his face as he locks eyes with each of us.
“Timers,” he says, each syllable sharp as breaking glass. His jaw barely moves.
Seven burner phones glow in the dark at once.
“Thirty minutes. Start them in three.” Bishop raises three fingers, folding one down. “Two.” Another finger disappears. “One.”
I hit start. The countdown flips to 29:59 and begins to fall.
My stomach does the same. Everyone stands up, and heat pricks under my skin, sharp and fast. I lean between the front two seats just enough that he can’t pretend he didn’t hear me.
“Don’t fuck me on this, Bishop.”
The words drop between us like a weight.
His eyes narrow, and his mouth curves. “Then don’t give me a reason.”
For a second, the alley is nothing but the sound of the engine and the soft, dangerous thrum of his temper. That muscle in his jaw ticks once.
Before I can reply, Rafe's fingers find my wrist, pressing into my pulse point where the blood hammers beneath my skin. His calluses catch against my sleeve as he tugs. “Clock's ticking,” he murmurs, the corner of his mouth hitching up, pupils wide in the dim light. “Let's go, Bellamy.”
The side door slides open on a squeal of metal and cold air rushes in, carrying the sharper scent of garbage and the yeasty warmth of the bakery next door. My boots hit the pavement a half second after Lola’s. The alley feels simultaneously too narrow and too exposed.
Cruz drops down beside me. Gage's boots barely make a sound as he lands on the asphalt, his eyes already flicking upward to trace the jagged silhouettes of fire escapes against the night sky.
Cruz's gaze sweeps methodically across the second-story windows, lingering on a half-open blind three buildings down.
“See you on the other side,” Lola says under her breath.
I hold my hand up between us, index finger sticking out. She hooks hers around it with her pinky—our stupid, ancient little ritual we used to do before exams and skating competitions and, later, small-time shop jobs.
Some things don’t change. Some things really, really do.
Rafe shifts his weight behind me, and the air between us seems to shrink despite the foot of space.
The hairs on my neck rise. Gage's pupils have gone dark and wide, his teeth working the inside of his cheek as he watches us.
Cruz tilts his head slightly, eyes narrowing first at me, then at Rafe's proximity, his lips pursing like he's solving an equation I can't see.
I find myself straightening my spine, shoulders pulling back as if preparing for something I can't name.
“Stay on channel,” Beck calls softly from the open passenger seat window. “If something feels wrong, bail. Money’s not worth prison.”
“Or a bullet,” Cruz adds casually, like he’s talking about the weather.
I nod once. “I’ll be fine.”
Bishop leans his forearm on the wheel, eyes on the alley mouth. “Clock’s running. Move.”
The building door is already propped, just like we planned, a sliver of darkness between the metal jamb and the frame. My fingers brush the handle as I slip inside first, the others a silent, shifting shadow at my back.
The stairwell smells like old paint and dust. Our footsteps are a muted thud on the concrete, the only sound aside from the blood rushing in my ears. One flight. Two. My thighs burn, adrenaline stretching every second into something longer, thinner.
On the landing, we split.
“See you on the other side,” Lola says again, voice barely a whisper now.
I meet her eyes in the dim light, hook her finger with mine once more, then let go.
Cruz gives me a nod that’s almost a salute. “Don’t make us look bad, Bells.”
“Try to keep up,” I murmur with a twist of my lips.
Gage’s gaze lingers on my face a heartbeat too long, something hot and unreadable in it. For a moment, it feels like I’m pinned between the two of them—Cruz’s cool calculation on one side, Gage’s coiled heat on the other.
“Twenty-five minutes,” Gage reminds me quietly. “Not twenty-six.”
“Relax,” I say, even if my pulse is anything but. “I know how to do my job.”
Rafe’s fingers wrap around my wrist again, firmly this time. “C’mon,” he says, a grin flickering at the corner of his mouth. “We’ve got a date with a safe.”
We pass the first door, the one Cruz and Gage will hit with Lola. My boots are near-silent on the carpet runner, Rafe’s steps matching mine in an easy, quick rhythm.
Our door waits at the very end—a plain, forgettable slab with a cheap keypad lock.
“Showtime,” I whisper.
Rafe’s grin sharpens. “Watch this.”
He drops my wrist, pulls a small leather roll from his back pocket, and flicks it open one-handed. Slim tools glint in the emergency light—steel, practiced and precise. His fingers move fast but unhurried, like muscle memory, finding seams and weaknesses I can’t even see.
The keypad gives a tiny, helpless click.
My eyebrows lift involuntarily. I've practiced that exact lock a hundred times in my apartment with a stopwatch running, and my record is fifteen seconds. He just did it in seven.
“Damn, Rafe.” I blow out a quiet breath.
His eyes flash up to mine, the corner of his mouth curling into something that makes my stomach drop. “You have no idea,” he murmurs, pushing to his feet.
He presses his ear to the crack in the door, one hand still on the knob. His breathing stops. The pulse in his throat freezes. After three heartbeats, he nudges it wider with his fingertips, then tilts his head toward the darkness beyond.
The office swallows us whole. Dark, stale air. Dust motes drifting in thin slices of streetlight leaking through half-closed blinds. My pulse hammers as I step over the threshold.
The safe dominates the inner wall, a dark silhouette against darker paint. Not one of those vault monsters that would need a demolition crew, but solid enough that we won't be carrying it out. I mentally trace the cutting path we'll need to take.
Rafe exhales a low, appreciative sound beside me. “There you are,” he murmurs, voice edged with something like hunger. “Let’s make you sing.”
He slips past me toward the inner wall, his shoulders dropping as he crouches before the safe.
His fingers skim the keypad with the delicate precision of a pianist, his usual swagger gone.
“We got a guy. Taught us what safes are worth the time to crack and what’s worth cutting,” he says absently.
He slips his backpack off and pulls out his tools. “I’ll have it open in ten.”
He pulls his kit out of his backpack, and I start searching the rest of the room.
A massive desk dominates the space between two windows facing the street. Papers spill across its surface, tangled with charging cables and a forgotten mug where something fuzzy and green has taken root. I ease the blinds apart with two fingers and scan the world outside.
“Still clear,” I murmur, noting the empty street.
“Good.” He slides his protective glasses over his face. “Here we go.”
My timer reads twenty-four minutes left.
Shit, time to move.
I yank open the desk drawers, but find nothing but pens, more paperwork, and a tangle of branded lanyards. The bottom drawer resists when I pull, then surrenders with a reluctant groan. There, wedged against the back panel like it's hiding, sits a matte black lockbox.
“Oh, hello.” I pull it out, set it on the desk, and fish out my handheld lock cutter. The tool’s small—borderline flimsy—but I’ve broken into worse with it. I brace my elbow, slide the cutter into the latch, and squeeze.
The lock snaps with a crack I can barely here over the buzzing of Rafe’s compact cutter.
“Bingo.” Stacks of rubber-banded cash greet me.
Rafe pauses and readjusts his protective gloves. “Found something?”
“Twenty grand or so.” I’m already stuffing stacks inside my custom vest, flattening them down so they don’t bulge too much.
“One side left,” he says, voice rising just enough to carry over the buzz of metal on metal. His eyes narrow behind the protective glasses, pupils fixed on the line of the cut with intensity.
Something itches at the back of my skull. This feels too easy, like we’re playing into some kind of trap.
Metal shrieks against metal as the safe surrenders, the cut-out piece breaking free and hitting the floor with a sound like a dropped pan in an empty kitchen. I flinch, the noise ricocheting off the walls and vibrating through the soles of my boots.
“Bellamy.” I hear the grin in his voice even before I see it.