Chapter 2 Chris
CHRIS
No strings. No attachments. Nothing that could potentially land you behind bars.
That’s my code. I’ve been living by it since I was first locked up at nineteen. It’s not some crap I picked up from Hollywood. It’s the reason I’m not dead or in prison.
Every guy I ever did a job with who got caught got caught because of something he couldn’t walk away from. A woman, a house, a kid. That’s not me. When you love something, it becomes a pressure point. And anyone can put pressure on that point and bring you to your knees.
Not me.
I have a rental in Pacific Beach with a month-to-month lease that I pay in cash.
I’ve got a bed, a couch, and a duffel bag in the closet with fifty thousand in cash, two clean IDs, and unworn changes of clothes.
I’ve got a car registered to someone that isn’t me, and I can be gone and out of town in the time it takes most people to find their keys.
That’s how I live a free life.
So why the hell can’t I stop thinking about a girl who works in a bookshop? Those thin legs, innocent eyes, and adorable voice. She wasn’t even trying to look cute, and that’s what made her devastating.
I’m in deep shit.
The warehouse sits two blocks off the 163 in a strip of industrial buildings that look like they haven’t been touched in thirty years. Danny rented it up front using a fake name and paid six months up front with cash, no questions asked. The landlord didn’t even ask for ID.
He’s sitting on an overturned milk crate when I arrive, boots up on a folding table, chowing on a breakfast burrito the size of his forearm.
Marco is by the far wall, tacking fresh surveillance photos to a corkboard.
Neither of them looks up as I come in through the door.
We’ve been crewing together long enough that we know the sounds of each other’s footsteps.
“You’re late,” Danny says, mouth full of burrito.
“I’m two minutes early.”
“Which is late for you.” He grins at me.
Danny is thirty-one, wiry, good with his hands, and quick with his mouth.
We met eight years back in a job in Phoenix that went sideways.
Together, we managed to get out without being busted.
He’s also a degenerate gambler but is the closest thing I have to a friend in this business. “You eat yet?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re always fine,” he scoffs. “You know what fine really means? It means you haven’t eaten yet cause you’re too lazy to get something.” He tosses me a foil-wrapped burrito with a wink. “Carne asada with guac.”
I catch it one-handed and take a seat in front of him. “Let’s get started.”
Marco turns from the corkboard and comes over.
Marco Silvia. Forty-four, former military, and the calmest guy I’ve ever worked with.
Never raises his voice, never loses his temper, and never moves faster than he needs to.
He drives, handles logistics, and has inhuman patience.
He’s been married to the same woman for nineteen years and has two daughters.
They think he installs commercial fire alarms for a living.
“Bank’s clean,” Marco says. “No unusual foot traffic. No new cameras we don’t already know about. We’re good.”
I pull the blueprints from the tube and spread them across the table. The schematic shows the ground floor of Pacific Waves Bank and Trust, a mid-sized branch in the financial district with a vault that holds just over three million bucks on any given Monday.
“Monday morning,” I say, tracing the entry point with my finger. “We go in at nine-oh-five. They’ll have a skeleton staff, minimal customers. I’ll take the floor and employees, Danny, you take the vault, and Marco, you’re outside with the engine running. Ten minutes, in and out.”
Danny smirks, looking pumped and ready. “What’s the take?”
“Conservative estimate, three point two. Split three ways after expenses, that’s a million each.”
“Hell yeah.” Danny sits back, grinning like a skull. “Lisa’s been on me about a house in La Jolla. One with a pool where we can…have a little fun, if you catch my drift. After this, I’ll get it for her.”
Marco nods. “Carmen wants to open a bakery. She’s been talking about it for years. My youngest needs braces too. Gonna take care of all of that.”
I listen to them talk. Danny and his wife’s dream house. Marco and Carmen’s bakery. They’re not talking about money like it’s money; they’re talking about it like it’s a future. A life for them and the people they love.
I’ve never seen it that way.
For me, money has always meant survival. A means to get from one place to the next. But now, they’ve got me thinking…
About a gorgeous girl I met briefly who has made her way into my head, and I can’t get her out.
What am I thinking?
I focus my attention back on the blueprints, channeling the clean focus I need at this stage of a job. But it’s not there. All I feel is the empty house I’m going back to tonight.
“Yo, Chris?” I look up. Danny’s watching me, burrito paused mid-bite. “You good?”
“Fine.”
“You’re spacing out, brother.” He takes another bite. “That’s not like you.”
He’s right. It’s not like me. I don’t space out.
My mind doesn’t wander. I’m always focused on the job.
That’s what keeps me alive. What keeps me free.
But for ten seconds just now, I wasn’t thinking about the job.
I was back in the bookshop, sitting in the leather chair, watching a stunning girl with chestnut hair and warm brown eyes hand me a cup of coffee.
“What you spending your cut on?” Marco asks. “New car? That cabin in Colorado you mentioned?”
A cabin in Colorado. I said that once, years ago, after a job in Salt Lake City.
I was just speculating on what it would be like to live somewhere clean and quiet, no neighbors and no history.
Nobody who knows my name. Danny remembers because Danny remembers everything. Especially things you wish he’d forget.
“Haven’t decided yet,” I reply. Which is the truth.
I haven’t decided yet because there’s no reason to. No one in my life is pushing me for anything. Danny has Lisa. Marco has Carmen and the girls. I don’t even have parents. Dad died in prison when I was fifteen, and Mom ran off with some drug dealer six months later.
All I’ve got is a bag full of cash and a lease I can break with a phone call. A million bucks to me is just another million bucks in the stash. It can buy things but not the one thing that truly matters. Someone to share your life with.
No strings. No attachments. Nothing that could potentially land you behind bars.
My mantra runs through my head like it always does, but for the first time in years, it doesn’t quite land. Because underneath it, where my discipline lives, something else is taking up space. Something with a cute laugh that I only heard once but can’t stop replaying.
Avery.
I almost bit her head off when she handed me that coffee. In my line of work, random people coming up to you and asking you personal questions isn’t a good thing.
I wanted to tell her to leave and never come back. Not because I didn’t like her being there but because I liked it too much. Because for the few minutes we spoke, I forgot about blueprints, the vault, and the ten-minute window to escape.
She cut through my walls with ease, like she was cracking a vault. And that thrills me, but it also scares me.
I roll up the blueprints, say goodbye to the boys, and drive off. I drive home in silence, but my thoughts aren’t quiet. It hasn’t been quiet since she sat down in the chair in front of me. I think hard about my future. Where it could go. What it could be. And then, I make a decision.
Not a big one. Nothing dramatic. Just a quiet shift inside on how I do things.
This will be my last job. After the bank, I’m done. Out. Over ten years without a bust, and I’m walking away while I still can.
Danny and Marco have it right. A life isn’t a life if there’s no one in it. It’s just a schedule. One job to the next. Fake IDs and empty houses. Nothing real.
I don’t want an exit strategy anymore. What I want is a reason to stay.
Two days later, I go to the bookstore at noon. I’ve been up since four a.m., thinking about her long legs, the curve of her neck, and the way she said I’m not most people.
That’s for sure.
I park and wait, watching the shop door, checking my mirrors and entrances to the lot. Old habits die hard. Three minutes later, she comes out.
Hair down, wearing a patterned yellow sundress, and carrying a canvas bag over her shoulder. She’s beauty incarnate. Despite my self-control, blood starts rushing between my legs, awakening desires I’ve managed to suppress for a long time.
A thought strikes me like a blade. I don’t even know how old she is. She’s definitely young—far younger than me. I can never tell with girls in her age bracket, but she’d better be over eighteen because those curves have got my heart pounding.
She stops and glances around like she’s looking for someone. Me maybe?
I stick my arm out the window and wave. She spots me, and the brightest smile crosses her face, causing me to warm inside. My blood pumps faster as she skips over to the car. She’s not wearing a bra, which only makes me want to get her in the backseat and lift the hem of that dress up all the way…
No. Calm down.
I’m losing it. My edge. The thing that keeps me free.
I should honestly stay away from this girl. Just put the car in drive right now and speed away. Never see her again.
But I can’t. Not with her. She’s got a hold on me, and it’s only getting stronger.
“Chris,” she says, coming up to my window. “I wasn’t sure you’d actually come.”
“Get in,” I tell her before I change my mind. “I’m taking you to lunch. Wherever you want to go.”
“Really?” she asks, beaming like the sun.
“Yup. Just one thing. You’re eighteen, aren’t you?”
She blushes instantly, does this cute little thing with her arms, crossing them over her stomach as she looks down. She twists her hips, causing her dress to lift ever so slightly, giving me a glimpse of the soft skin just above her knees.
“I know I look young,” she says softly. “But I’m eighteen. You want to see my ID?”
“No. I trust you. Now get in the car.”
She nearly hops out of her shoes as she skips around the front of the car and climbs in beside me. What have I done in my life to be worthy of such a woman? Simply sharing her company is a gift I don’t deserve.
She shouldn’t even be here with a guy like me. Her friend spotted who I am instantly and rightfully tried to pull her away. But Avery saw something in me—something I’ve never even seen in myself. Something that makes her feel safe to go out with me.
And when she looks at me, there’s a thrill in her eyes that I recognize because I’m feeling it too.
“So you’re buying?” she teases.
I nod. “I’m buying.”
Without thinking, I place my hand on her knee as I pull out of the parking lot. The contact sends a pulse of impossible desire through me that almost hurts, causing more of my blood to rush south.
She doesn’t move my hand. In fact, she blushes harder and lets her hair fall over her face in an attempt to hide it. Such an innocent spirit. The opposite of who I am.
No strings. No attachments. Nothing that could potentially land you behind bars.
The mantra runs through my head one more time as I hit the gas. And for the first time, I let it go.