2. JAX
JAX
“Incoming,” Ryle coughed beside me. The idiot was as subtle as a sledgehammer.
I waited two beats, watching the ice melting in my whiskey. The good shit. When long enough passed that I didn’t look like an overeager asshole, I dragged my eyes up and found her.
Olivia.
Fuck.
I knew the uniform would be a problem. It instantly scrambled my brain, blurring the line between want and blistering fucking rage. With that high perky blonde ponytail and those killer legs, those bright red lips, that tight, tight skirt—
My fingers tightened on my glass.
“She looks hot,” Ryle said, not even bothering to mask his glee. “This must be torture for you.”
I ripped my eyes away and pinned him with a glare. “Will you shut the fuck up?”
Ryle’s eyes widened, his grin stretching. “My mistake. You’re clearly fine.”
I took a drink, refusing to look at her again. After she was gone, I sat back in my chair and scrubbed a rough hand over my face.
Olivia was a problem. The little priss had always been a fucking problem. From the moment our paths had crossed on the last job, everything had turned to shit. She was the reason my crew was indebted to Preacher. She was the reason we’d been cornered into an impossible deal.
Work for me or die.
It had gone downhill from there.
My crew and I were once the best thieves in North America.
We’d stolen everything, from hundred-million-dollar paintings to high-profile blackmail material.
I’d been the first one recruited by Dr. Z, our former boss.
Then the others had joined me, each of them with their own unique skill and unhinged brand of chaos.
Together, we’d formed a crew that carved out a reputation among the sordid underworld.
We were the Crows. No job was impossible.
Then the island had happened, and Olivia happened, and that former boss, Dr. Z, decided to cut us loose. Except in our world, there were no second chances. You didn’t just walk away from this life.
Dr. Z had put a bounty on my crew, a collective three hundred million dollars. That meant we were hunted by every other crew in Dr. Z’s syndicate, from the Vipers to the Rangers.
Being Wanted criminals was one thing. Being wanted by other criminals was a whole other hemorrhoid.
“Are you going to talk to her?” Ryle pried, wiggling his eyebrows like a dork. “Or are you just going to glare at her the whole time?”
“The second one.”
I finished my drink and shoved it to his chest. “Get me another.”
That made him scowl. “I don’t see why I got stuck being your assistant. Nate said he could do it.”
Nate would do anything to get back in my good graces. But I was pissed at him, too.
“Just go,” I snapped.
With an exaggerated groan befitting his age, Ryle walked over to the bar on the other side of the lounge. I watched him order a drink, then immediately lean over the bar and swipe a handful of limes while the bartender’s back was turned. I shook my head. Once a petty thief, always a petty thief.
Then I felt eyes on me and my hackles rose. The premium lounge was full of suits. A whole sea of stiff pricks with stiff drinks. Zurich was hosting its annual trial lawyer summit, what Preacher dubbed as a “perfect cover”.
Yeah fucking right.
I had reservations, many of them. Not that Preacher gave a shit. We were just his dutiful soldiers, his cannon fodder. We were useful until we weren’t. Then we were expendable.
He needed us to work with Olivia and steal the prototype before it reached Zurich. We’d never pulled off a mid-air heist before. The old me would’ve relished the challenge. We’d gone underground, scaled buildings, once even infiltrated a top-secret military base. We’d never taken the sky.
But unlike those jobs, we weren’t getting a whiff of the score.
Preacher kept it all, hoarding it under the guise of “the greater good”.
I didn’t buy it for a second. He was a bad dude with bad intentions, just like every other fucking crime boss.
Quoting scripture while pointing a loaded gun should be sacrilegious.
Someone dropped in the chair beside me. I tensed, right before I recognized the stupid haircut.
“No,” I said without looking at him.
Nate said nothing, which spoke volumes about his guilt. He always had a wisecrack or a dumb joke at hand. Gritting my teeth, I shot him a dry look.
He was pale again, his face pinched up like he’d swallowed something rotten. Even though he was sober now, fresh off a four-month rehab program, he looked like he’d just come off a two-week bender. His stupid, frat-boy haircut only made it worse.
“Here,” he said quietly, and slipped a burner phone into my pocket. “Zola said it’s fixed now. And to not smash this one into a wall.”
No fucking promises.
At my silence, he sighed and stood. Then he hovered, as if to say something, but I wouldn’t hear it.
He was part of my crew, but he was all but dead to me.
I heard him walk away, disappearing into the busy airport rush.
Ryle returned and handed me the whiskey, his mouth stuffed with limes. I took another drink, toeing the line of sobriety.
“You look weird,” Ryle mouthed, juices dripping down his chin. “I’ve never seen you in a suit before.”
I glanced down at myself with a grimace.
As part of our cover, I was dressed the part of lawyer.
I was even wearing cufflinks, like a megadouche.
The last time I wore a suit had been during my own trial.
That suit had been borrowed from my old man, too big on my skinny eighteen-year-old frame.
Not that it had won me any points. I’d been found guilty.
My lawyer at the time, a prick named Bart, had barely spared me a second look as I got dragged away for two years.
Those two years made me the miserable asshole that I was today.
“At least you’re not wearing eggplant,” Ryle went on, never one to be deterred by silence. He tugged at his tie irritably. “I look like a giant dick. I know the Godfucker did this on purpose because I swiped his Amex.”
My mouth twitched. That had been a fun bender. We took our victories where we could these days.
Ryle turned toward me, frowning. “I look like a twink, don’t I?”
“You are a twink.”
“Rude,” he whined. “And not the point. Do you think Callum thinks I look like a twink? Do you think he’s into that?”
“How the hell would I know?”
“You guys talk,” Ryle said, making it sound like an accusation. “I know you talk about me.”
We didn’t, actually. Callum was a gruff, stoic ex-marine who could break a man apart with his bare hands.
Ryle had been completely infatuated with him from the moment he joined the crew.
Not that he’d been subtle about it. The kid practically pawed at the ex-marine like a cat in heat.
Callum treated him like a bemused older brother.
Whether he had reciprocal feelings for Ryle was a mystery to me.
I wasn’t exactly an expert in relationships. I’d been told—repeatedly—that I had the emotional tolerance of a tadpole. My walls had fucking walls.
Ryle sulked at my silence until his burner phone buzzed between us. He perked up. “That’s Zola. Our mark has checked in.”
Instantly, I was on high alert. Our mark, former CIA agent Peter Vincilli, was a big hitter. He’d stolen directly from the CIA, which put him on every watchlist in the world. Then he’d sold the prototype for a ball-tingling half-billion dollars. Our biggest score yet.
Not that Preacher would throw us a bone. We’d still be eating expired noodles and drinking stale beer by the end of the job.
“Zola is hacking the flight manifest,” Ryle muttered, squinting at his screen.
As we waited for the specs to be transmitted to our burner phones, I scanned the lounge and the sea of suits again. The ex-con in me hated lawyers. They were as bad as cops. Worse, maybe. I thought about Bart again, the way I’d fucking debased myself begging him to push for a lighter sentence.
He hadn’t. To him, I was just another hopeless, teenage delinquent. Better for everyone if I just died in prison.
“She got it,” Ryle said, ripping me out of my thoughts. I wasn’t surprised. Zola was our resident hacker. She was ballsy, intelligent, and stubborn as hell. She always got the job done. “Whoa,” Ryle said.
“What?”
“Big plane.”
“We knew that.”
“No, I know. I just can’t believe a plane like this actually exists and doesn’t just fall out of the sky.”
I reached over and flicked his ear. He winced, scowling. “Hey!”
“No jinxes.”
Ryle rubbed his ear indignantly. “Since when are you superstitious?”
Since islands were never just islands. Since basements were never just basements.
Ryle handed the phone to me so I could read the specs. Woah was right. It wasn’t just a big plane.
It was a big motherfucking plane.
Five hundred and sixty-three passengers were booked on flight SN482. Seventeen flight attendants. A half-billion-dollar score.
It was our biggest job yet. And, if I got away with it, our last chance to earn our freedom.
There was just one problem.
One irritating, rage-inducing, perfect problem.
And she was already on the plane.