B&E Brothers for Life xo
Flynn
I swipe the nail polish over my thumb, adding a second coat.
Lachlan lowers his binoculars and glances at where my hand is resting against the dashboard. “Violet, huh?”
I put the lid back on the bottle I swiped from Hope’s bedroom. “Lilac, actually.”
Lachlan’s gaze is heavy. “That girl’s in your head.”
I hold his stare and blow on my nails. He can disapprove all he wants, it won’t change anything. Hazel’s not just in my head, she’s in my whole fucking body.
“You’re supposed to be paying attention,” he scolds.
“There’re two guards. One at the front entrance, one around the back.
They walk the perimeter every hour, on the hour, and then swap places.
There are currently four construction workers still inside, along with Senator Claren, his aide, and Vanessa Creely, the CFO of Claren’s twisted as fuck charity. ”
Lachlan shakes his head and lifts his binoculars. “It’s weird how you can do that.”
It doesn’t feel weird to me, it’s just people watching.
I used to sit for hours studying the world, waiting for the right image to capture.
These people are boring to watch. I’d much rather have my eyes on Hazel but I need to find some dirt on Claren fast and while his political office is guarded to the teeth, the free clinic he’s building is slightly more…
breakable and enterable. Plus, if I was a corrupt government official, I wouldn’t hide my secrets in my work office and I have a feeling this so-called charity is nothing more than a cover.
“Claren’s leaving,” Lachlan says.
I lean over his shoulder. We’re parked across the street from the clinic next to a corner store with peeling paint and neon stickers in the window.
Claren, in his slick black suit, couldn’t look further out of place here if he tried but building the clinic in this neighborhood is part of his plan to provide services where they’re actually needed.
We watch as Claren, his aide, and Vanessa walk out of the half-finished building.
“Think she knows the director of her sexual assault survivor’s foundation is a rapist?”
“I hope not. You ready?”
I blow on my nails one more time then zip up my hoodie. “Construction workers?”
“Leaving now.”
I grab the flashlight from the glove compartment and climb out of my brother’s Mercedes.
It’s not dark yet but the sky is overcast and with a cap pulled low on my brow I’m unlikely to be recognized.
I wait till the senator’s been driven off in his fancy sedan before crossing the street.
The construction workers haul out their gear and lock up behind them. I keep my head down and start walking, not so accidentally jamming my shoulder into one of the builders as he heads to their van.
“Watch it,” he mutters.
“Sorry, man.” I bend to pick up the bucket he dropped, my other hand slipping into his coat pocket as I hand it back to him.
My fingers curl around metal and I smile at the guy before carrying on walking.
I keep going till I’m around the corner then I duck into an alleyway and take out the walkie talkie stashed in my pocket.
“Roger roger, over and out. The eagle has landed.”
The radio crackles but Lachlan’s voice comes through loud and clear. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I roll my eyes. “I’ve got the keys.”
“Jesus, it’s like working with a ten-year-old.”
“Joyous and heartwarming?”
“You’re lucky Hope made me promise never to murder you.”
I press down on the button. “Ditto brother, ditto.”
I’ve not got a coat on and the fine drizzle in the air seeps into my hoodie as I wait. I want to check on Hazel to see if she went straight home after her shift like I told her to, but I left my phone at home so I couldn’t be tracked.
I settle instead for replaying the way she felt under my hands in the storage room. Her breath on my skin as her lips burned my palm. Her hips pressing against mine.
I feel attraction like everybody else, but I have never wanted anybody the way I want Hazel.
Until now, any arousal I’ve felt has been sated well enough by my hand, but this is on a whole other level.
My desire for her is singing in my veins and I know without a doubt it’s not going to ease until I feel her around me. Gripping me. Slick and tight.
“Fuck.” I groan and press the heel of my palm against the growing bulge in my pants. I’ve never committed a crime while hard before, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.
My watch says it’s one minute to five, so I make my way out of the alley and back towards the clinic. I hang just out of sight until Lachlan’s voice crackles over the radio.
“Guards are on the move.”
I turn the volume on the walkie down low and stroll across the makeshift parking lot for the clinic, timing my steps so I approach the door only once the guard has rounded the corner of the building.
I put the key in the lock and twist, disappearing inside just before the second guard makes it back around to the front. I go through a second set of glass doors then turn my flashlight on and look around.
The clinic is almost finished, the walls plastered and dust sheets covering the linoleum floor.
The corridor opens onto a bay with hospital beds stacked to one side and to my left frosted glass doors separate individual cubicles.
I swing my flashlight up, the glow bouncing off the fluorescent lighting and bundles of wires hanging from the ceiling.
My boots pad against the dust sheets as I walk to the door at the other end of the open area.
Claren is really going all out with this clinic.
There are several rooms off the second corridor, including what looks like an MRI suite.
I keep going until I reach the end and a door with Claren’s name on a plaque.
I take out the walkie talkie. “Claren’s got an office here.”
“Why does he need an office at the free clinic?”
“Exactly.”
I try the handle, but it jiggles under my grip. Locked. I don’t have a key for this one, but I’d be a poor excuse for a criminal if I couldn’t pick a lock so I slip my tools out of my back pocket and get to work.
The office inside is fairly non-descript. Claren may be trying to look the part of a dedicated civil servant, right down to the metal filing cabinets and the cheap desk, but the fact this office was locked is telling.
I go to the desk first. The blueprints for the clinic are spread out on the surface and I let out a low whistle.
He wasn’t kidding when he said this is going to be the largest free clinic in the state.
The building I’m standing in at the moment is only phase one.
These plans show a full-blown maternity ward and emergency operating rooms.
There doesn’t seem to be anything sketchy in the blueprints though, so I move on to the rest of the desk.
It’s got those flimsy metal drawers down one side but apart from a pen and some sticky notes they’re all empty.
The filing cabinet is much the same except for one drawer at the bottom labeled patient files.
“Now why would a clinic that’s not open yet have patient files,” I mutter to myself.
The lock on the drawer is flimsy which bizarrely makes picking it harder. I’ve almost got it open though when my radio beeps.
“Flynn you’ve got company. One of the guard’s heading inside.”
I snatch the walkie talkie up. “What, why?”
“I don’t know, just get out.”
“I can’t. Not yet.”
“Flynn.”
“Shh.” I mute the radio just before footsteps hit the floor outside the office. I click my flashlight off and slow my breathing.
A phone rings.
“Hey hun. Yeah, I’ll be home soon. Mitchell’s taking over for the night shift.” The guard keeps on talking and I glance down at the filing cabinet. I’ve almost got it, just one more pin. Fuck it. I wriggle the lock pick, feeling for that tell-tale click. There.
The drawer screeches as I open it, the sound like chalk down a board. I cringe.
The guard’s boots slap against the floor and my muscles coil, firing up to fight, but then the footsteps stop again. “Alright, tell Jenny I’ll be there to tuck her in.” A door opens and the footsteps fade away.
Close call, Flynny.
I turn my attention to the now open cabinet. There’s only one folder inside, the tag marking it as Project Zeus. I pull the file out, rushing now because even I’m only willing to push my luck so far.
I flip through the pages. There are at least a dozen patients, all women.
Each patient has what looks like their entire medical history listed, along with contact details and an address.
Without my phone I can’t take a photo, but I memorize the names as best I can.
Hannah Kozak, Letty Jones, Ana Zhang, Hope Lawson—
I stop turning the pages, caught in Hope’s gaze as she looks up at me from the file. The word deceased is printed under her date of birth. The pressure in my brain grows violent.
Outside the office, a door bangs. I hurry up and tuck the pages with Hope’s details into the pocket of my hoodie. Then I close the file, compartmentalizing like a pro because now is not the time to lose it.
I return everything else to the filing cabinet and go to the door, pulling back the blinds covering the narrow window. The guard comes out of the bathroom, wiping his hands on his pants. I wait till he’s disappeared around the corner then slip out of the office, locking it behind me once more.
I turn the radio back on and pace down the hall. “Heading out now. Going to need a distraction because the guard’s back outside.”
“No, he’s not.” Lachlan’s sharp voice cuts down the line seconds before I hear footsteps coming back this way. Adrenaline spikes and I dive to the right, ducking inside the nearest room and pressing the door closed as quietly as possible.
“Fucking phone,” the guard grumbles on his way past, back to the bathroom.
My heart patters against my ribs.
“Are you out?” Lachlan asks.
I look around the room, taking in the large MRI machine in the center.
“Not exactly.” I have a feeling I’ve just chosen the only room in this entire clinic without a window.
I push off the door in frustration only to send a trolley crashing to the floor.
I stare at the medical trolley. “Well, that’s not good. ”
“Hello?” The guard’s voice is just outside the door. “Anybody there?”
My gaze skates over the room, landing on the MRI machine, which would be a great idea if I wasn’t claustrophobic as fuck because Lachlan decided to lock me in a closet one day when we were kids.
The door handle jiggles and I tear myself away, gritting my teeth and slipping inside the tiny ass tunnel of the MRI machine just as the door opens.
Sweat pricks above my lip, the white surface of the tunnel inches from my nose. Fear is usually a muted emotion for me. I know it’s there, but it doesn’t bother me. Unless I’m in a confined space. Someone tell me why these machines have to be so damn small.
I can’t see anything from this angle, but heavy footsteps track around the room.
I close my eyes and try to focus on breathing. I picture Hazel scowling up at me, her anger far too adorable to be threatening. I try to remember how it feels when she laughs, how I get this feeling in my chest like maybe I could smile forever. God, I want that feeling back.
The guard stops. I know without looking that he’s close and I’m relying on shadows and luck to keep me hidden right now.
I hold my breath. Tell myself I’m not being buried alive.
I have killed people with my bare hands, I will not die in an MRI machine.
That is, as long as it doesn’t turn on and rip the metal watch straight through my wrist.
A radio crackles and my eyes flick open. I think for one second it’s mine but then a voice with a heavy accent comes through. “You back out front Mac?”
The guard moves away. “Be there in a second, thought I heard something. Damn creepy half-built building.” His voice fades and finally the fucking door closes behind him.
I shuffle out of the tunnel and decide I’m going to spend the rest of the night watching Hazel sleep because I deserve an award for that shit. Stupid small spaces.
Hiding inside the MRI makes the rest of my escape feel like child’s play.
I go into the next room with a window and climb out into the parking lot.
The guard hasn’t made it back outside yet so all I have to do is stroll across the street, dropping the keys to the clinic where the van was parked.
The builder will probably find them tomorrow and assume they fell out of his pocket.
I slip into Lachlan’s Mercedes and take off my cap.
“You look like shit.”
I flip him the bird.
“You find anything?”
I take the papers I swiped from the file out of my pocket and hand them to him. “B&E brothers for life.”
He rolls his eyes, but his jaw tightens when he unfolds the paper with Hope’s medical records. “Why do they have this? How do they have this?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve got some names for you to look into as well. Hope wasn’t the only woman in that file.” I don’t know what the fuck Project Zeus is, but no one names anything good after a god who rapes people.