Chapter 14
brENDEN
Atrick I learned a long time ago: always leave a back door.
Or a side window with a false lock.
I lower myself into the Haik mansion and pause to listen.
I adjust my gloves and tug on my black mask.
It’s scratchy but it’s thin and it’ll cover my identity on the off chance I’m spotted.
The house is dead silent at two in the morning.
It’s starting to get familiar sneaking around this place after dark.
I’m in a second-floor guest bedroom in the northwest corner, not far from where the blueprints indicated I needed to go.
This job is fucking thin. It’s god damn water at best. Arsen’s envelope contained the blueprints with a first-floor room marked and listed a few models of electronic safes I might encounter.
All I know is, whatever’s in that room, in one of those safes, has to come with me when I leave.
Could be a pile of gold coins or it could be a vial of Ebola virus.
Don’t know and don’t care.
I want to get this over with.
The floor is mercifully quiet. I stay on the carpet, ghosting through the house by memory. The envelope and its contents are long burned and the ashes were scattered in the gutter.
It’s strange being here without Tallie. Before, I only snuck into this house because I was desperate to see her. Now I’m avoiding her because I don’t trust myself when she’s around. It’s a messy marriage.
A sound makes me pause. It’s a soft, mewling whimpering sound coming from a bedroom door left cracked. I should keep going, but I can’t help myself. Curiosity gets the better of me.
I peer inside and can barely make out a feminine space. Lots of pretty pillows, lacy window coverings, a dress tossed over the back of a chair. There’s a shape in bed, a hump vibrating, and it takes a moment for my brain to make sense of what’s happening.
That’s Annie, the sister.
And she’s crying herself to sleep.
I pull away from the door. This is too private and not my business. But what’s a girl like that got to cry so much about? From what I’ve seen, Annie Sarkissian is smart, attractive, well-liked, and has the world at her feet. And yet there she is, sobbing into her pillow.
I don’t know what’s going on in her life, and I don’t have time to worry about it. I can’t even mention this to Tallie without her knowing I was here tonight. Sometime soon, I’ll check on her and see if there’s anything I can help with, but for now, I have to concentrate.
I make it downstairs and into the indicated room without issues.
Surprisingly, it’s a game space, dominated by a pool table, with a couch and a big TV against the far wall.
Videogames are stacked on shelves, some new, others very old.
One of the children must be a collector.
Maybe Davit or Sam? Or one of the oldest siblings?
Doesn’t matter. I get to work in the darkness, checking all the obvious places for a safe and coming up empty. I’m starting to despair when I feel a false latch in the cabinet beside the mini-fridge. I jab it and a panel pops open in the wall, revealing exactly what I came for.
I try the usual suspects on the pin pad first. Birthdays, obvious patterns, stuff like that, but get nothing. Always worth a try. I’ve learned the hard way—more than once—that sometimes the simple solutions are the best.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’s happening this time.
I crack my knuckles, roll my neck, and take a deep breath.
Then I get to work.
It takes a few minutes to get the keypad housing off. I have a few specialized tools made for slipping in extremely thin cracks. I remove minuscule screws until I can carefully sift through the wiring. Lucky for me, Arsen’s intelligence was solid, and I was able to prepare for this exact situation.
Cracking safes is both simple and complicated. The easiest, most fool-proof way is to drill through the locking mechanism and essentially rip it open from the inside. But that makes a ton of noise and involves a whole bunch of big tools. I don’t have the luxury of drilling.
Instead, I have to go with the other method.
Which usually involves getting access to the electronics that work the internals.
That’s easier on some models than others, but fortunately for me, whoever bought this safe didn’t go for the top of the line.
I’m somewhat suspicious about what I’m going to find inside already.
If this safe was owned by the father, why isn’t it the best he could buy?
Why rely on a mid-tier model when he can clearly afford something much nicer?
And why is it hidden in this room of all places?
After some digging, I find the reset contacts and short them out with a small piece of metal until the whole mechanism overrides.
That forces the system to restart back to factory settings.
Then it’s as simple as entering the default code, and I’m rewarded with the most glorious sound in a thief’s life.
The thud of a bolt throwing open.
“Let’s see what you’re hiding,” I say, heart fluttering with excitement.
There are very few things in life better than cracking into somewhere I don’t belong.
It’s the rush of winning mixed with the fear of danger and getting caught.
I’ve always loved this ever since I first learned how to pick locks back when I was a little kid.
My father thought it was funny when I wanted a training manual, picks, and a test lock for my birthday, but it was like giving an addict his first taste of pure heroin.
I was done the second I got those tumblers into position and I’ve never looked back.
It hasn’t faded, not after all these years. Not after failures, struggles, fights, near-death experiences, and more pain and trauma than any one man should go through.
No, I still fucking love stealing.
The safe door swings open. Inside is a gun, stacks of rolled bills, several diamond-studded chain necklaces, and a bundle of what looks like various documents. I ignore the cash and jewelry and grab the paperwork, sitting back against the wall to flip through the first few pages.
I don’t know what the fuck I’m looking at.
It’s a list of names, many of which are familiar, or at least the surnames are.
Each name has a number attached, some scratched out several times with new sums written over them.
It’s clearly a ledger of some kind, and I don’t know what sort until I reach the end of the list.
The last few pages are notes. They’re handwritten in meticulous script, mostly describing various payments, offered services, favors owed and borrowed, and more than a few weaknesses.
But it quickly becomes clear, this is some kind of poker game.
Cards are mentioned a lot. Gambling, stakes, all of that is woven throughout. With a sinking ugliness, I begin to understand what I’m looking at here.
It’s a high-stakes game. According to the notes, I suspect it’s played once-weekly at some undisclosed location, or maybe the spot rotates, I can’t be sure.
But it’s definitely not sanctioned.
The money involved is bad. Like really fucking bad. I’m looking at sums in the tens of thousands for some of the names, and overall it’s got to be in the millions.
A poker game for high rollers with obscene amounts of credit and cash rolling through it…
All happening on Sarkissian territory. Without Sarkissian blessing.
My mouth goes dry and my stomach feels sick. I sift through the safe one more time and find an ugly, gaudy chain with a name emblazoned in the front glittering with emeralds and rubies.
SAMVEL.
It takes a lot of effort not to groan. Of course it’s the fucking younger brother. That kid’s clearly a hustler of some kind, and apparently, he’s decent at it too, if he caught me that first night. This though, this is way over his head, and I bet the kid doesn’t even realize it.
One thing to run a game without getting Sarkissian blessing, especially on their territory, using their places and their people, but another to involve the children of important families.
Because now I can tell what I’m looking at and it makes me want to shove this notebook back into the damn safe, lock it up, and pretend like I was never here.
No wonder Arsen wants it.
This is proof that Haik’s own son has been breaking some serious rules for what looks like a while now.
“Hello? Sam, you in here again? I told you, it’s too late for this crap.”
I flinch back and freeze. The voice is achingly familiar. Footsteps come closer, shuffling. I tuck the notebook under my arm, forced to react as Davit comes into view, rubbing his eyes and frowning at me sleepily.
“What the fuck—“
I launch myself at him. No time to do this clean.
I smash into the kid and barrel him to the floor, shifting my weight as I slither behind him, and wrap my legs around his hips.
He elbows me in the gut but I get my arm around his neck and lock it in place, holding him like a python as he gags and thrashes, his legs kicking out and knocking over a chair.
The little fucker’s making a god damn racket.
I flex, squeezing him tighter, grunting with effort as I choke him out, but there’s no other option.
His fighting weakens, and after a moment he goes limp.
I hold on longer though, aware that he’s faking it in the hopes that I’ll release him early.
Another few seconds pass before I loosen my grip and roll aside, panting.
I check him first. The youngest of Tallie’s siblings is still alive. His breathing is ragged, but his pulse is steady at least. He’ll wake up soon. I shove to my feet, cursing myself for being so fucking reckless and stupid. How the hell did he get the drop on me?
But I know how it happened. I was too busy walking myself through the implications of Sam’s notebook.
I pause before leaving the room. Davit stirs, grunting.
If this were any other job under any other circumstance, I’d kill him.
I have a mask on, but I can’t be sure he didn’t recognize me.
When he wakes, everyone’s going to know there was an intruder in here, and Sam will quickly realize what’s missing.
Fuck, no other choice. I turn my back on Davit and hurry back the way I came. Killing my brother-in-law isn’t an option, even if it’s the right move from an operations-security standpoint. He’s a loose end now, and I don’t know what’ll happen from here.
But I won’t have his corpse on my conscience. I won’t do that to Tallie, even if it hurts me in the long run.
I slip out a window as someone starts yelling deep in the house, the notebook held securely against my chest, the cool night breeze sliding down my spine like the tongue of a hungry lizard.