Chapter 14 #3
“Good. Come on.” Deuce walked sideways, never loosening his grasp on Mary’s arm, keeping Truck in his line of sight.
He hauled her to the vault that held all the safety-deposit boxes.
Once inside, he grabbed the key ring out of her hand then flung her to the side of the space.
“Sit over there and don’t fucking move or say a word,” he ordered.
Without hesitation, Mary lowered herself to the floor in front of a set of the boxes in the vault and hugged her knees to her chest. Her arm was throbbing, but she silently massaged it, trying not to bring any more attention to herself than she’d already received.
“You, go over there,” Deuce ordered Truck, pointing to the other side of the room. “Snake, let the others in when they get here. Should be two more minutes.”
Mary bit her lip even as the pit in her stomach got bigger. The others? Shit, how many more? This was getting worse and worse by the minute.
“Bet you’re wondering what we’ve got planned,” Deuce said to Mary.
“Yeah, I am.”
“The Ladbrook Boys don’t take kindly to not gettin’ what they want. And last time two of my boys were here, they most certainly didn’t get what they wanted. So we’re here to make sure everyone knows not to fuck with us and that we always get what’s comin’ to us.”
Mary blinked. Did this guy know how stupid he sounded?
They were going to get what was coming to them for sure.
Didn’t they realize that lunchtime was one of the busiest times for a bank?
That there were going to be plenty of people who knew the bank wasn’t supposed to be closed at lunch and would call the cops? They’d never get out of the bank alive.
“And in case you’re wonderin’, we put a sign on the door saying there was a training meetin’ going on right now and the bank is closed.
And we’ve got some of our boys keepin’ the cops busy with calls about holdups all over town.
There’s even gonna be a fire or two and some traffic accidents.
No one’s gonna come here until we’re done and gone.
The Ladbrook Boys are gonna make sure this town knows we mean business. ”
Mary could only stare at him. Shit, they’d actually thought things out pretty well after all. But why would they spend so much time worrying about the safety-deposit boxes when they could hit the other vault and be in and out in a matter of minutes with stacks of cash?
“I can’t open the boxes,” Mary told him softly. “I told you that when you toured this place. We really do only have those three master keys, and the owners of the boxes have the other keys to open them. I wasn’t lying about that.”
“I know. Doesn’t matter,” Deuce said as he threw the keys to the side.
Mary was confused. Why did he have her get them in the first place if he knew they wouldn’t work? “It doesn’t?”
“Nope. My girlfriend says the money in the vault is rigged with ink bombs. The second we get too far from the bank, they’ll go off and the cash will be useless. But Jen told me about the jewels and cash people store in here.”
Mary shook her head in confusion. “When customers open a box, we don’t stay in the room while they put their belongings inside. Jennifer can’t know what’s in here and what’s not.”
Deuce had the pistol pointed at her face before she could blink. “You sayin’ my bitch is lying?”
Mary immediately shook her head. “No.”
“Right, didn’t think so. She said there’s a camera in here—and she’s been watching it. Says there’s been a bunch of customers lately who have stored away diamonds and cash. Clean cash. Not like that shit in the other vault.”
Deuce glanced at Truck, making sure he hadn’t moved closer, then back at Mary.
“The other reason this is happening is because of you, bitch. Jen told me all about how it was you who called the cops on my friends the last time they were here. She’d convinced the other bitches to hand over the cash in their drawers, but then the cops fucking showed up.
Because of you, my friends are locked away.
You called the pigs from inside this very vault!
Fitting then, that this is where you’ll learn the error of your ways.
You should’ve just huddled back here and let my homies do their thing. ”
With that, Deuce stood up and pointed his pistol at the phone in the corner. He fired a shot and the phone exploded, plastic pieces flying everywhere.
Mary shrieked and cowered down, covering her head and praying that Deuce wasn’t about to turn the weapon on her or Truck.
Just then, five more men came into the safety-deposit vault. All five were carrying boxes with them. “Fucking awesome!” one of them exclaimed when he saw what Deuce had done. “Good shot! Guess no one is calling the cops this time.” Then he laughed.
“Watch this,” Deuce said with a smirk. And he turned the weapon toward the door to the vault. He shot several times, and two of the other men pulled out their own guns and joined him.
When the dust settled, Mary saw that the bullets had disabled the lock mechanism on the thick door.
The metal of the door itself was hardly dented, but there was no way it would properly lock anymore.
During the last robbery, Mary had been able to shut herself and the other women inside, but Deuce had effectively taken away that option.
“Where do you want us to put these boxes?” one of the men asked once Deuce had reloaded his pistol.
Mary turned to him—and saw what they were carrying for the first time.
Truck obviously noticed as well, because he said, “Fuck,” in a low, disbelieving voice.
Deuce smiled. “That’s right, Scarface. We’re gonna blow this fuckin’ place up. We don’t need fucking keys to get into these boxes. We’ll just blow them open.”
Mary stared at all the men in horror. They put the boxes down and began to unpack them. She wasn’t sure what she was looking at, but Truck obviously knew. His hands had curled into fists and it was clear he was pissed off. He wasn’t trying to hide his emotions now.
“You’re gonna get everyone in here killed,” Truck told Deuce.
“Nah. Maybe you two, but it’s all good as long as we get into the boxes and get the loot.”
He smirked as he kept his pistol aimed at Mary. The other men began to pile what looked to Mary like little green boxes against the wall of safety-deposit boxes.
They jammed a wire into each one and started to go back for more of what she could only assume were explosives when Truck said, “Look, I’m in the Army.
Demolitions. Let me help. I don’t give a shit if you steal the crown jewels, I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.
And if your plan is to blow open the boxes to steal what’s inside, you aren’t going to achieve that with what you have going on there.
” He used his head to indicate the two gangbangers setting up the explosives.
“Yeah?” Deuce asked. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because I want to get out of this alive. And if you set that off,” he gestured to the explosives once more, “like that, none of us will make it out of here in one piece. You’ve got enough TNT to take down this entire block of buildings. There’ll be nothing left of anyone but tiny little pieces.”
Deuce studied Truck for a long moment, then turned to the others. “Whaddaya say, Shoebaloo? Think we should let him help?”
Shoebaloo? Mary would’ve laughed if there was anything remotely funny about this situation.
“Fuck yeah, might as well use ’im. We want to get out of here with the fucking jewels and the money.”
“Come here,” Deuce said to Mary.
She blinked. “Me?”
“What’d I say, bitch? Come. Here.”
Mary scrambled to her feet and tried to ignore the twinges of pain in her arm where he’d so cruelly gripped her earlier. She walked over to where Deuce was standing and the second she got close enough, he reached out and wrapped a hand around her throat.
Mary immediately reached up to grab his wrist, but he put his pistol to her forehead. She froze as her life flashed before her.
Deuce turned to look at Truck. “You make one move I don’t like, and your girlfriend’s brains will be splattered all over the inside of this vault. Hear me?”
“Yes,” Truck said between clenched teeth.
“You better not be lying to me,” he said. “The only chance you have of getting out of this alive is if you help us. Got it?”
“Got it,” Truck said. “I’m not lying. I know what I’m doing when it comes to explosives.”
Deuce nodded but didn’t take the gun away from Mary’s forehead. His hand was still wrapped around her neck as well, making it difficult, but not impossible, to suck in air.
Mary’s eyes sought out Truck’s and they met for a split second, before he looked away and bent to look into the boxes the other gang members had brought in.
What she’d seen in his gaze made her close her eyes and hardened her resolve.
She didn’t see regret. Or even worry. She saw unadulterated rage.
She saw one pissed-off, deadly Delta Force soldier.
She had no idea if he’d be able to get them out of this.
She didn’t doubt his skills when it came to the explosives, but it was still at least ten against one.
But she’d take those odds any day of the week…as long as the one was Truck.
For the first time in her life, Mary put her full trust in a man. She didn’t worry about what she should do to get out of the situation. She wasn’t concocting a Plan B in her mind. Truck would either get them out of this, or they’d die together. It was that simple…and that complicated.
Truck racked his brain to come up with a way to alert his team that he needed them, but nothing came to mind. Deuce had taken both his and Mary’s cell phones, and since he’d disabled the phone inside the vault, that option was out.
He was on his own. He normally wouldn’t care, he could handle himself just fine, but Mary was there. If he screwed up, she was the one who would pay the price, and that was unacceptable.